Among the quirky films that have found the way to the top of my list of favorite movies is a little known (save to film buffs) 1948 picture, Portrait of Jennie, about Eben Adams (Joseph Cotten), a struggling artist, finding his muse, a woman (or is she just an image?) who helps him turn his raw talent into real accomplishment. Jennifer Jones, that muse, the subject of that portrait, died yesterday at her home in Malibu.  She was 90.

Most obituaries mention the film only in passing (if at all).   To be sure, her body of work was most impressive.  She was nominated five times for an Academy Award, winning for her portrayal of Bernadette Soubirous in 1943′s The Song of Bernadette.  But, I’ll always remember her portrayal of Jennie:

She plays the character with the same innocence she played Bernadette, but with an entirely different energy.   There is something haunting about her appearance on screen, entirely appropriate because, if she is a real, she is a ghost, appearing only to the artist who will paint the portrait that will capture her beauty and secure his fame.

Those who warm to this movie find that her presence lingers long after the images have faded from the screen.  Her presence is this movie is like a face in a painting that remains with you even when it (or a reproduction) is no longer in front of your eyes.

This is not to diminish the rest of her work, but only to draw to your attention to a too often neglected film.  Hollywood has lost a legend this week.  A truly talented actress has passed on, leaving us a number of great films and one particularly unusual one which really resonates for those of us fortunate enough to have seen it at turning points in our lives.

While Ben Nelson may well have saved Christmas for most Americans, Harry Reid is bound and determined to take it away from his Senate colleagues, threatening around-the-clock votes through Christamas if the GOP continues to act in the spirit of Obama’s campaign promises.  You know, they don’t want to rush passage of legislation spending hundred and billions of taxpayer dollars and regulating a whole sector of the U.S. economy.  They want to read it first.

But, Mr. Reid would rather keep Senators in Washington than allow them to return home to celebrate with their families.

For the following song, remove the “G” from the name of the song’s subject.  Put a “E” between the “R” and the “I”, then replace the “NCH” with “D” and it works quite well.

It has been more than a week since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid together with a team of his fellow partisans cobbled together a deal to replace a controversial “government-run insurance option with a scaled-back non-profit plan“. In announcing the “broad agreement,” however, the Nevada Democrat refused “to provide details of the healthcare proposals to be sent to the Congressional Budget Office.”

More days have passed since he announced that deal than the number of days left before Christmas and as Michelle reports:

We still haven’t seen Harry Reid’s Demcare legislation or the CBO scoring of said vapor bill or the language on how illegal aliens would be handled or the text of the so-called “compromise” on abortion coverage/subsidies.

In short, Harry still hasn’t provided those details.  A google search for “harry reid health care bill text” (without quotation marks) gives no hits dated after November 23 (at least not on the first six pages of the search–and I couldn’t find any text in the posts (on subsequent pages) with more recent dates).

So, we’ve get the Senate Democrats in a mad rush to pass a bill which their own leaders have not yet seen, a bill which will remake one-sixth of our economy, creating numerous new government panels and regulating some of the most personal matters of our lives and they’re criticizing Republicans for their delaying tactics!

Doesn’t it bother any of the senior Democrats, indeed, any of their junior colleagues, many elected last fall on the ticket of a man promising greater transparency in government, that they’re rushing to pass a bill they haven’t even seen?  Shouldn’t they wait to debate a bill until they have the actual text before them — and have had time to consider its contents, perhaps in consultation with their constituents?

Where are the Democratic grownups, asking that their fellow partisans proceed with greater deliberation on a matter of this magnitude?

Mrs. Feinstein?  Mr. Lautenberg?  Miss Mikulski?  Mr. Wyden?  Mr. Feingold?  Mr. Warner?

Sometimes the best questions our readers ask are the most basic ones. In response to my post calling “abstinence only” sex education anachronistic, DRH asked, “Now for a real tough question. How should sex ed. handle gay & lesbian students?”

It is a great question.  And the answer is not as simple as partisans on either side of the debate would like.  It’s why I’m willing to cut Kevin Jennings a little slack on the Brewster incident.  If he had shown some remorse in the years since the incident (before his appointment to the Department of Education), we would know he appreciated the complexity of the situation.

That leads to the question, how should a teacher handle a gay student, particularly when said student is a minor who approaches him (the teacher) in confidence, fearful his parents will find out?

Should he teach him about safe sex?  Tell him that his feelings don’t render him a pariah or deviant, but instead are, while perhaps an aberration or anomaly, in the great scheme of things, natural?  Should he discourage that boy from having sex until he finds someone with whom he can share something more than just physical stimulation and release?  Or at least teach him about the emptiness and remorse that often follow casual sex and the potential that our sexuality offers for emotional intimacy?

As to the first two questions above, the answer is clearly, “yes.”  As to the second two, the answer is not so clear.  That education seems to better belong with the child’s family and place of worship.  But, what if that place of worship teaches them that homosexuality is not just an aberration, but an abomination?  Should it be the public school’s job to contradict that teaching? (more…)

The senior Senator from the great state of Nebraska, Ben Nelson, “won’t vote to advance the Senate healthcare bill unless it is changed“:

Nelson said more stringent restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion must be included in the billl if it is to win his vote.

“If it’s not at the point where I think it needs to be with the improvements that I’m pushing — and they’ve made a lot of them — then I will not vote for cloture on the motion to end debate,” Nelson said in an interview on KLIN radio in Nebraska.

Looks like Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid won’t get that vote on his bill before Christmas.  Ol’ Harry needs Ben’s vote for cloture.

Wonder if lefties will now organize a boycott of Nebraska.  Maybe it’s time to take that trip I always wanted to Omaha.

Oh, by the way, does anyone have a copy of the legislation ol’ Harry had scraped together a week or so ago, you know, the one whose contents remained unknown (as of this past weekend) to own Democratic deputy?

(H/t:  Dan Riehl.)

In honor of Ben Nelson:

While only one blogress can be the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva (also known as the Ethel in honor of the Republican woman most beloved by gay men), this year, as last, we will also be choosing a Conservative Blogress Diva Regent (also known as the Endora in honor that “staunch conservative” Agnes Moorehead).

With nominations now complete, Bruce and I are reviewing the submissions and their seconds to determine which lucky blogresses get to compete for the coveted crown.

One of the great things about this competition is that it helps us learn about all the talented conservative, libertarian as well as centrist and iconoclastic liberal women who are blogging.  And even each of the various conservatives on the list offers a unique point of view, from mainstream Reagan conservatives who warmly embrace their gay and lesbian peers to social conservatives who begrudgingly tolerate us.

Some women who didn’t make the list, but whose names came to mind in the course of the competition, include National Review’s Lisa Schiffren, Dr. Melissa Clouthier*, Cathy Young, Rachel Abrams at the Weekly Standard, and Lorie Byrd.  There are a lot of smart woman out there, expressing their opinions (nearly) every day and not subscribing to left-wing feminist claptrap.  As our reader Lori G wrote, “So many conservative lovelies“.  Indeed.

As we review the submissions, obviously we will not be able to acknowledge all this incredible talent (with a nomination).   If we did that, the list would be incredible unwieldy.  But, by speaking her mind and challenging the conventional wisdom of how a smart woman should think, each of these “lovelies” is truly a diva.  But, only one can become the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

—–

*Her latest, Passing Obamacare Will Hurt Democrats, Not Passing Obamacare Will Hurt Democrats, is particularly insightful, the title alone spot on.

It didn’t take the former Governor of the largest state (in terms of physical size) long to respond to the current Governor of the largest state (in terms of population) after he criticized her “stance on global warming“. Seems kind of strange when a politician whose popularity is waning takes on one who’s popularity is waxing.  Maybe Arnold is playing to the sentiments of the politically correct set in the Golden State.

Also seems Schwarzenegger, just like those in the media, got that good woman’s stance wrong.  In her response on Facebook, Sarah Palin pointed out:

While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can’t primarily blame man’s activities for those changes. And while I did look for practical responses to those changes, what I didn’t do was hamstring Alaska’s job creators with burdensome regulations so that I could act “greener than thou” when talking to reporters.

Emphasis added.  And there you have it.  In just nineteen words, she gets at the biggest problem in the Golden State.  Our elected elites want to regulate our way to perfection, to show how much better they are than the rest of the country.

And the unelected bureaucrats are helping out as well.  Just last month,

the California Energy Commission approved a groundbreaking series of efficiency standards for televisions, the first time government at any level in the United States has meddled in the details of how our boob tubes are made. The new rules set maximum power-consumption standards for TVs of up to 58 inches, starting in 2011 and becoming considerably tighter in 2013, and prohibit California retailers from selling sets that break the rules. Only a quarter of all televisions currently on the market would comply with the new regulations.

Emphasis added.  Greener than other state, California may be, but less free than others we increasingly are.  No wonder employers and individuals are fleeing the state, with one in eight of those who remain out of work.

Been trying to craft a post today on the Democrats mad rush to pass a bill, any bill, just so they can do what they (public opinion polls notwithstanding) believe Americans have long been wanting Congress to do, you know, complete the unfinished business of the New Deal and enact massive health care reform.  It seems their zeal to overhaul our nation’s health care system has superseded concern about the particular contents of said reform and their commitment to a transparent political process.

Rather than post the bill online and have our representatives return to their various jurisdictions to hear what their constituents have to say about the bill, they prefer to craft in behind closed doors (with only Democrats present), while making back room deals to secure the support of wavering Senators.  No televised negotiation on C-SPAM as per a certain Democrat’s campaign promise.

Two bloggers (actually one blogger and one blogress) have offered succinct explanations for the Democrats failure to rally popular support behind their efforts at overhaul.

Jim Geraghty faults proponents for refusing “to listen to the skeptics or engage those who think it’s a bad idea“:

Every step of the process, the leaders of the majority have engaged in the worst possible responses — avoiding meetings with skeptical voters, clinging to talking points in the face of counterarguments, attacking the motives of the critics, demonizing them as extremists, un-American, etc. If they had treated the concerns that the plan will only expand bureaucracy and increase costs with respect from the beginning, the debate would be quite different today.

Ann Althouse doesn’t believe Democrats made the case for the various reforms put forward:

People just don’t want this bill. I think the big mistake was skipping the step of winning public support for a particular plan. It wasn’t enough that people believed there was a problem. People needed to believe the solution wasn’t worse than the problem. We were supposed to look away and trust them. The trust was never won, never earned. It’s been a horrific mess, and it just looks messier and messier as time wears on.

Emphasis added.   Perhaps, they would have won that trust had they (as per Geraghty above) handled concerns with respect rather than labeling those articulating them as astroturf paid for by the demon insurance companies.

GOP delay tactics slow Dems on health care votes

At least one of those “delay tactics” sounds a lot like an Obama campaign promise:

GOP Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma had sought approval to require that any amendment considered by the Senate must be offered 72 hours in advance and with a full cost report.

When he was rebuffed by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, Coburn invoked his right to require that an amendment by another Democrat be read aloud. That sent the Senate into limbo, since the amendment by Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders was 767 pages long.

Sounds like reading lengthy legislation aloud is the only way to get legislation read at all in the transparent Washington of Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Kudos, Senator Coburn.  Now, just make sure to invoke your right to require that any legislation be read aloud before the Senate votes on it.  Wonder if he could require that all Senators be present for the reading lest their vote be tallied as “Nay.”

Whenever a mainstream conservative blogger addresses attempts by right-wing fringe groups to exclude gays from our movement, his commentary reflects the experiences Bruce and I have had with our fellow denizens of the rightosphere.   Our fellow bloggers may not support state recognition of same-sex marriage or oppose the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Policy, but they do welcome our presence and link our posts.

Ed Morrissey, who has long made gays welcome on the right, is the latest to take on those who would exclude a gay conservative outfit from a mainstream conservative event.  Responding to some social conservatives who have been “circulating” e-mails calling GOProud “a crypto-Leftist group seeking to infiltrate and weaken conservative policies” (and objecting to their co-sponsorship of CPAC), the blogger formerly known as Captain Ed gives us the facts:

However, that doesn’t match up with the group’s stated legislative priorities, which do not go any further than most of the conservative and libertarian groups that regularly attend and sponsor the conference.

While noting that social conservatives may quibble with two of those priorities, Ed finds

platform could be just as easily adopted at a Tea Party as at GOProud, and would receive rousing support from the floor at CPAC coming from any other entity. It’s not a far-Left or crypto-Left agenda at all, but a good, solid recitation of conservative principles and fiscal responsibility.

In other words, we have at least an 80% agreement on the major issues facing our country between mainstream conservatives and this sponsor of CPAC.

Reminds me of something attributed to the Gipper, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.”

Ed “asked Lisa DiPasquale, the director of CPAC, for a response to the controversy”:

CPAC is a coalition of nearly 100 conservative groups, some of which may disagree with one another on a handful of issues.  But, at the end of the day, we all agree on core conservative principles.  As you may know, GOProud was founded by a former member of the Log Cabin Republicans who left the group because he thought they were doing a disservice to their constituency by not adhering to conservative and Republican principles.

Emphasis added.  Sounds like a rousing endorsement of inclusion to me and a reiteration of Ronald Reagan’s vision for the right.

In a must-read piece at BigHollywood, my friend Charles Winecoff explores an aspect of the Kevin Jennings kerfuffle that we have only touched on here and which other conservative bloggers (save perhaps Ed Morrissey) have all but ignored.  Not only does Charles call out Media Matters for their name-calling and bias (they’v been the left-wing outfit taking the lead in taking on the conservative blogs which have brought Jennings’s unsavory literary recommendations to light), but he also takes GLSEN (and by extension Jennings) to task for presenting a politicized view of homosexuality:

But what’s equally disturbing is the deadening, inhuman language of race/gender politics that is being foisted on unsullied, impressionable minds.  Teenagers should be exposed to the colors, ideas, moral quandaries, literary innovations, and expansive worldviews of great authors - gay and straight, black and white, male and female - not the narrow, detached, theoretical manipulations of bitter Marxist hacks.

This omnipresence of PC rhetoric leads Charles to ask:

More importantly, where is the art?  Where are the profound, humanistic thoughts that would – and should – qualify this as literature fit for school kids?

It ain’t just the sexual references which make this stuff so inappropriate.  And Charles reiterates the point that other bloggers have made about how the material that has recently come to light is indeed most inappropriate for schoolchildren:

In 2007, Camenker [Brian Camenker, the outspoken leader of MassResistance, the pro-family group based in Massachusetts] complained that, ”A federal judge ruled that schools can show picture books to elementary school children about homosexual romance.”  If only the GLSEN-approved books stopped there.  Instead, these clunky tracts neglect love in favor of (far less universal) sexual practices that have nothing to do with the birds and the bees – and everything to do with (what is very often) compulsive adult behavior better suited to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders than to a seventh grade reader. . . .

“Tolerance” pushers have taken the intimacy out of sex and love, and turned the hardened, clinical dregs into a grim manifesto.

This is not the first time we’ve see gay activists promoting a version of sex without emotional connection.  But, it’s more than just about sex, it’s about politics as well.  ”Schools,” Winecoff asserts, “do not need to be ‘queered.’  Gay kids are still kids (who deserve the same respect and protection as their peers).”

Read the whole thing.

On the AIG thing, all these contracts were written well before I took office, but ultimately I’m now the guy who’s responsible to fix it. And one of the things that I’m trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame. . . .  And the key thing is for everybody just to stay focused on doing the job instead of trying to figure out who you can pass blame on to.

Barack Obama, Tonight Show, March 2009

Well, let’s see. You guys are drawing down $10, $20 million bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it’s gone through in decades, and you guys caused the problem. And we’ve got ten percent unemployment. Why do you think people might be a little frustrated.

Barack Obama, 60 Minutes, December 2009

Emphasis added.  With his poll numbers tumbling, looks like the president is trying to spread the blame around.

With yet another poll showing Obama’s approval rating plummeting (with the Democrat enjoying even worse numbers on health care), it’s clear that whatever coalition his campaign built in last fall’s campaign is crumbling.  As blogger JSF put it:

The coalition that President Obama built was on the backs of anti-war activists, Moderate Republicans (or in the words of RS McCain, “The Republicans Who matter”), Conservative Democrats, Liberal Democrats, Independents, Gay voters and Women activist voters.

Within one year, that is broken.

He offers an interesting theory the demise of that coalition which merits your consideration. And now let me offer my own, paraphrasing James Carville (and borrowing the title of one an earlier post), it’s the government spending, Stupid.  Obama constructed his fall coalition by pasting together two discordant groups, his left-wing base which wanted bigger government together with Independent voters and disgruntled Republicans, upset at Bush’s spending spree.

That was not a match made in heaven.

When Obama promised a “net spending cut” and to match a funding increase for one program with a cut in another, Americans tired of Republican rule believed him.  We here in the good ol’ USA tend to lend credence to the new guy.   And last fall, Barack Obama was the new guy, with a winning smile, a reassuring manner and a public unfamiliar with his (liberal) record.  No wonder he had to rush to run for the White House before people saw through his “new kind of politics” shtick he developed in the wake of his 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention.

Recall that he fought the election of 2008 not on the battlefield of ideas, but in the marketplace of images.  His calm demeanor stood in stark contrast to his Republican rival’s erratic behavior.  His promise of change offered hope to a public upset at stories about Republican corruption and cronyism. (more…)

. . .  a non-conservative media outlet features story on Al Gore’s global warming dishonesty.   Earlier in the day, AOL featured this story,
Al Gore Gets It Wrong at Copenhagen Talks.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Sonicfrog alerts us to something he wrote on his blog:

Someone in the press…. challenging Al Gore on facts???? WOW! Now THAT’S real Climate Change!

Sometimes, it’s a good thing that the junior Senator from the Golden State is such a legislative incompetent.  Given her far left ideology, were Barbara Boxer better able to master Senate procedure and the fine points of promoting legislation, she might have done more damage than she has done these past seventeen years.   The damage she has done has largely been ther votes for an ever-larger federal government and ever greater government spending.

As a result, roughly one in eight Californians are currently out of work, a rate 33% higher than when she was first elected to the United States Senate, or 25% higher than when she took office.

Now, instead of supporting legislation which would lower the regulatory burden on the small businesses which (as even the president has acknowledged) create the bulk of new jobs, Mrs. Boxer, claiming that “pressing Senate business” prevented her from traveling to Copenhagen ”delivered the speech she was planning to give in Denmark“, “America Is Acting on Global Warming,” in the hearing room of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (which she chairs).

And boy was it a doozy.

While evidence is being brought to light with each passing day (sometimes it seems each hour) questioning the data which have been used to define Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), Ma’am behaves as if nothing has changed.  Not just that, she’s trying to take credit for work she hasn’t done, as if her cap and trade is a done deal.  Hate to break it to you, Ma’am, but it ain’t close to being done, unless you count being done as being finished, doomed to fail.  And many Democrats grouse that Ma’am’s manner has helped prevent passage of this job-killing legislation she introduced: (more…)

As the folks at Hillbuzz are learning, so entrenched is the hatred some people feel for Sarah Palin that they simply can’t reason with anyone who has a kind word to say for that charismatic Republican and accomplished reformer.   They’re not content just to disagree with her policies, they must needs define her as a horrible, no good, very bad woman.  She’s not just wrong on the issues, she’s been a failure as a politician and is dishonest and unkind to boot.   Plus she wears army boots!

Why can’t some on the left just agree to disagree?  There are indeed many who do.  (I’m fortunate to count a good number of these fine fellows (and gals) as friends.)  But, yet whenever anyone raises his (or her) voice in dissent, some on the left are quick to pounce, demonizing that person, often in the most vicious terms.

Considering the treatment Joe Lieberman has received from the leftosphere, Darleen Click asks and observes

So what is the Left to do with people who are obviously unenlightened and have the audacity to disagree? They can’t be mistaken, so they must be evil or stupid.

Can’t they just be smart people who have reached different conclusions on certain issues?  Why must some define their ideological adversaries (and even their occasional allies) as evil and dumb?

Obama: Senate on precipice of passing health care:

President Barack Obama met privately with Senate Democrats on Tuesday and then declared they were “on the precipice” of enacting health care legislation that has eluded administrations and lawmakers for decades.

Yeah, they’re on a precipice all right, Mr. President.  And should they pass it, a lot of them will be falling off and into political oblivion.  If you don’t believe me, just look at the polls: only one poll has support for a health care overhaul over 40%.

Also take a gander the President’s approval on Health Care, not quite falling off a precipice, more like sliding down the banister:

Just wait until this monstrosity passes, should it pass.

The more Democrats promote the various incarnations of their plan(s), the more people oppose them.

*Apologies for changing the title when a better one came to mind.

A long time ago, when I was new to the incredible intolerance of the gay left, it used to bother me when gay lefties who, initially eager to go out with me, would find their attraction turn to aversion when they learned my political affiliation.   But, as time passed, I began to see the benefits to an early (political) coming out.  You see, it gives us gay Republicans a great way to measure the character of our potential partners.

If they reject us because we’re Republicans, then we know that when choosing a mate (or just a date), they prefer social conformism to individual merit.  Judge us by outside qualities they do.  If they believe partisan differences mean romantic incompatibility, what other qualities might cause them trouble in the relationship?  By learning of their intolerance early on, we’re spared trouble down the line.

Well, the good folks at HillBuzz are just now learning this about their left-wing peers, something long familiar to us gay righties.  By openly professing their admiration for the accomplished former Governor of Alaska, they’re finding out just how intolerant their more doctrinaire left-wing peers truly are.

This past weekend, Hillbuzz reports that a fetching Ozzie took an interest in one of their friends and fellow Palin supporter.  But, as soon as he made mention of that Alaska reformer, well that interest was off.  They quickly learned that,  ”If you talk smack about Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, there’s not relationship potential between you and any of us here, sorry“: (more…)

In two interviews in recent days, the President has passed up opportunities to show that he is truly a humble man and that new kind of politicians he once promised to be. When Oprah “Winfrey asked what grade he would give himself,” he replied, “A good solid B plus”.  A savvier politician would have said something like, “Well, I’d like to think I’m doing a good job, but believe it’s for American people to grade me,” perhaps adding with a smile, “How do you think I’m doing?”  It’s a question he should have punted.  And he would have looked good for the punt.

By a similar token, he should have toned down his rhetoric in an interview with Steve Kroft for 60 Minutes.  It’s just not presidential to call your own constituents “fat cat bankers“.  Seems he still styles himself a left-wing activist throwing stones at the establishment.  Isn’t such stone throwing part of that pattern in Washington that a certain ostensibly idealistic politician was once trying to break, you know, that pattern “where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame.”

Instead this Democrats faults those “fat cats” for not playing by his rules:

After stating that the financial crisis was “caused in part by completely irresponsible actions on Wall Street,” Mr. Obama suggested that some banks paid TARP bailout money back to the government specifically to free themselves from government-mandated constraints on executive compensation.

“I think in some cases that was a motivation,” said Mr. Obama. “Which I think tells me that the people on Wall Street still don’t get it. They don’t get it. They’re still puzzled, why is it that people are mad at the banks?”

So, according to Mr. Obama, it’s a problem when Wall Street firms put their fiscal house in order to can repay the federal government?  Doesn’t he realize their repayment helps bring down the deficit, something about which I thought he was so concerned?

But because of Mr. Obama keeps it up with his free-spending ways, people aren’t just mad at the banks, they’re also mad at the federal government.

The president could defuse a lot of that anger if he shwed a little humility and stopped slamming Wall Street execs who are trying to go it alone without federal bailout money.

Imagine, if you will, that just over eight year ago, then-President George W. Bush nominated a guy named Keith Jenkins to serve as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Curriculum at the Department of Education. (Yes, Tim and Tano, I realize there’s no such position.)  This fellow Jenkins, having taught in public schools, had become increasingly upset about that students were no longer being taught the values of Western Civilization.

So, with funding from some social conservative organizations, including churches and Orthodox synagogues, he sets up the Judeo-Christian Values Network (JCVN) to find ways of promoting these values in public school curricula without violating the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.  Soon after his appointment, left-wingers in a then-fledgling medium start uncovering information and posting about his past.  As a teacher, he had directed a confused Hindu student, the only Indian in his class, to an evangelical ministry.

At a 1992 JCVN conference on school curricula, a speaker had encouraged students to visit the church of that very ministry.  When word leaked out that JCVN was promoting religion, he fired that speaker and claimed he was unaware of the woman’s agenda.  Four years later, a local paper reported that facilitators at the conference were passing out a guide to Christian doctrine along with a list of churches that practiced a certain biblical form of Christianity.

You can bet that under that series of circumstances someone in the MSM would undertake an investigation.

When a reader e-mailed me the latest information about Kevin Jennings and GLSEN to come to light, I wondered why the MSM is so disinterested in a similar story.  Do they fear that if they even touched this topic, they’d be branded as anti-gay?  (As if it’s anti-gay to wonder why someone would teach about certain sexual fetishes at a conference for schoolchildren.)

Now, this latest information is a bit problematic.   A teacher has come forward claiming that “that there is ‘no way’ that [Jennings] did not know about the pornographic and sexually explicit material that was presented and discussed at the conference.“  (He has claimed he did not know such information was promoted at the conference.)  Problem is is that this woman remains anonymous, so we are unable to confirm her report. (more…)