As I’m busy organizing a first-night Seder, I will alas not have much time to blog as I had hoped. Instead, let me offer the results of the latest Watcher of Weasels Council considerations. Taking home the Council laurels this week is Joshuapundit for his piece, Silent Scream;The Sudan Ethnically Cleanses Its Christians Meanwhile the non-Council winner is Victor Davis Hanson with The New Anti-Semitism.

Rounding out the Council balloting we have:

• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – The Right Planet Revenge of the ‘Birthers’
• Third place *t* with 1 vote – Bookworm Room-Barack Obama to supporters: Give me the money, dammit!
• Third place *t* with 1 vote – The Razor-The Insidious Nature of Student Loan Debt
• Third place *t* with 1 vote – Gay Patriot-Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, Jury Duty And The Press
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi-The Cunning Muslim Bro’s Candidate
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room-American Bolsheviks – The Second Act
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – The Epitome of the “Limousine Liberal”
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right! – Upholding Obamacare Would Be the Ultimate and Final Act of Judicial Activism and Render the Constitution Moot
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Rhymes With Right –Some Observations On Michael Kinsley’s Column On ObamaCare’s Constitutionality
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – How Did They Get It So Wrong?
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – “Anti-Zionism” and naivety

The remainder of the Non-Council competition are as follows: (more…)

I apologize for the slow blogging of late, but my mind has drifted away from politics these past few days.  Do have something to say about Huntsman’s withdrawal basically revolving around the notion that he offered a conservative platform, yet campaigned as a moderate.  That, in the end, I believe did him in.

As today is Martin Luther King, Jr. today, let us remember that great man with his greatest speech, indeed, one of the greatest expressions of the American ideal:

. . . to all our readers!

In our first year blogging, I wrote a piece on why I, as Jew, wish people a Merry Christmas.  Then, as now, I felt it absurd that people try to strip this season of his sacred significance to Christians who celebrate today the birth of their Savior.  Knowing how holy this day is to those of that faith, I’ve keeping up my tradition, wishing people a Merry Christmas, wanting to share their joy with them.

Tomorrow, I’ll be doing just that with my brother-in-law, celebrating Christmas with him and my sister in their home as per their tradition.

Below, in slightly revised form, I include (as I did in 2009) my original “Merry Christmas” post.

In 2004, when then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger lit what most of us (including Jews) know as a Christmas tree. Some reporters sensed a controversy because his Democratic predecessor had called the decorated evergreen a “holiday tree.”

You see, that Democrat, like too many in our society, strove to eliminate all references to religion in public ceremonies and holiday displays. They seem to think that the Constitution has created some sort of wall of separation between church and state. Unfortunately, that expression (“wall of separation“) comes not from the U.S. Constitution, but from a letter of Thomas Jefferson. The actual text of the First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (quoting only the first part of the amendment referencing religion).

And frankly, this Jewish writer just doesn’t see how calling a decorated evergreen tree a “Christmas Tree” represents the establishment of religion. Or why it is so offensive.  Indeed, a few of my friends worry that they might be offending me if they wish me a “Merry Christmas.”

Those very individuals, however, some of them devout Christians, are touched when I wish them “Happy New Year” at Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). When I lit the Chanuka candles with gentile friends on this holiday’s fourth night, they were touched that I would share the festive tradition with them.

Why should non-Christians be offended by a Christian’s sharing his or her joy in celebrating a religious holiday of his faith when delight in sharing our joy in celebrating ours?

If someone wishes us a “Merry Christmas,” they speak from their heart, wanting to share the spirit of this festival (sacred to them) with us. So, let’s welcome their good Christmas wishes, even when expressed to their non-Christian fellows. (more…)

Just a reminder about the brunch for our readers at High Noon in the Mile-High City this coming Friday, November 25, 2011.  Drop me an e-mail if you can join us as you take a break from your Black Friday shopping.

At a time when one might think the federal government had better things to do than further meddle is a sour economy, we’ve got bureaucrats imposing a new tax to promote Christmas trees:

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees — the Christmas Tree Tax — to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)).

Although not a Christian, I welcome those, including the Governor of Wisconsin who wish to dub a festive pine tree decorated during the days preceding and immediately followed the Winter Solstice as a Christmas Tree. The First Amendment protects those individuals’ free exercise of religion.

It is, however, none of the federal government’s business to promote this holiday symbol.  To be sure, it should protect the rights of those individuals who wish to display it. (And the ACLU who should be opposing this silly measure has yet to get injunctions against private homeowners who proudly decorate their trees.)  It’s not just the tax that’s the issue. It’s the waste of federal resources.

And it does seem that whenever governments starts “promoting” an industry, federal officials soon start meddling.  Ed Driscoll wonders if “the administration be raiding Christmas tree dealers, a la their raids on an other famous wood-based merchant?” (more…)

Just got this in the e-mail from my brother and thought it quite clever.  Methinks the author chose the name Winston to honor the protagonist from another story of a dystopian future.  I have done a few google searches to try to identify that individual, but seems that the others who posted this piece, like me, received it in their e-mail:

Wednesday, November 24, 2022

“Winston, come into the dining room, it’s time to eat,” Julia yelled to her husband. “In a minute, honey, it’s a tie score,” he answered. Actually Winston wasn’t very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington.

Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its “unseemly violence” and the “bad example it sets for the rest of the world,” Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn’t nearly as exciting.

Yet it wasn’t the game that Winston was uninterested in. It was more the thought of eating another TofuTurkey. Even though it was the best type of VeggieMeat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce and mince-meat pie), it wasn’t anything like real turkey. And ever since the government officially changed the name of “Thanksgiving Day” to “A National Day of Atonement” in 2020 to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims’ historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the TofuTurkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold. Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats-which were monitored and controlled by the electric company-be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter. (more…)

Just wanted to wish our loyal reader and GayPatriot-get-together organizer Leah a Happy Birthday today.  Apparently, she’ll be celebrating the way some of our male readers like to celebrate, by spending the evening with a studly guy!

Leah, thanks for all the support you’ve provided to this blog and for the friendship you’ve shown to me.  You certainly have earned the right to spend not just evening with a stud, but also to share your life with such a guy.

I always thought the term “significant other” was a bit clunky, so I’ve adopted the term schweetie to describe the individual who is the long-term object of our affection, spouse to some, boyfriend or girlfriend to others, husband or wife to the more traditionally inclined or just plain partner to the practical.

So, on this Valentine’s Day, let  me ask those of you who are attached to provided anecdotal advice to those of us who long to be and to tell us in the comments how you met your schweetie.

To remember the Gipper on the hundredth anniversary of his birth, I headed up earlier today to the Hollywood Walk of Fame where a blog reader joined me as we placed four red roses together with some American flags on his star.  Red is Nancy’s favorite color.

As we stood there and people passed, taking note of the flowers, they recalled that today was Ronald Wilson Reagan’s centennial.   Apparently, the news media, the heirs of those who disparaged this great man when he served as the nation’s chief executive, did their due diligence as this great day approached.

To many of us Reagan-lovers, today like a holiday.   And indeed it was, giving us another chance to commemorate the vision and accomplishments of this graceful and gallant great man.

An Iron Lady recalls a Great Communicator:

As we celebrate the greatest domestic policy president of the last century, we know that our words cannot improve on his own, so let’s give a listen to his defining speech, “A Time for Choosing,” where, in making the case for Barry Goldwater’s quixotic bid of the White House, he outlined a series of principles which would define his subsequent political career:

It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

Like many fans of the greatest domestic policy president of the last century, I’ve been trying to find an appropriate way to remember/honor this great man on the centennial of his birth.

Many have written eloquently about his nature, his background, his political philosophy and his accomplishments.  Others are planning magnificent celebrations.  We here at GayPatriot are putting together a small event in Los Angeles.  E-mail me for details.

Yet, as I remember this marvelous man, two things stand one, first, his love for Nancy.  He was born good, but she made him great.  And the second thing perhaps stands out because of the times we’re in and the solutions his successor (in the White House) has proposed.  In contrast to the incumbent chief executive, Ronald Reagan knew in his heart that Americans didn’t need the heavy hand of the state to get them out of an economic mess.  Indeed, he believed that it was the heavy hand of the state which got them into that mess — and which was preventing them from finding a means of egress.

“Government,” he reminded us in his first inaugural address, ” is not the solution to the problem.  Government is the problem”:

Seems that the ideals which define the Tea Party parallel nearly perfectly those put forward so eloquently by the Great Communicator.

Ronald Reagan had great faith in his fellow Americans.  He didn’t believe in seeking solutions in Washington, D.C., but in the ingenuity of the American people, in factories in Ohio, farms in Iowa, labs in North Carolina and yes, even in garages in California.

The Gipper had confidence in the American ideal, belief in American exceptionalism and was convinced that America’s best days were ahead.  Oh, and, he had a deep and enduring love for Loyal Davis‘s little girl.

Serendipitously, while reading a book by a leader today of the American conservative movement, I came to her discussion of the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr. whose day it is:

Famously, Dr. King called not for a rejection of America’s founding principles, but for American to “rise up to live out the true meaning of its creed.”

. . . .

It’s a shame not everyone wants to quote Dr. King these days. What made Martin Luther King, Jr., a great and effective leader is that he appealed to our better angels. (more…)

Perhaps the best way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his day is simply to quote from his greatest speech, one of the greatest speeches in American history:

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

. . . .

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

. . . .

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

. . . .

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

. . . .

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

(H/t: Jim Geraghty)

Last week (on the advice of a legendary Hollywood producer of kids’ television), I watched the latest (and, despite reports, not last) Disney princess movie, Tangled. It was wonderfully Disney, very sweet, very touching and often very funny (e.g., the scene in the “Snuggly Duckling”).

Perhaps, I enjoyed it more because I imagined how my soon-to-be three-year-old niece would love it, recalling how her face lit up when each of the Disney princesses came up to our table at Ariel’s Grotto in Disney’s California Adventure this past July.  I wondered that she, like her sister and each of her cousins once did, is going through this princess phase, getting all goofy over such Disney movies and dressing up in regal regalia.

It’s not just my nieces.  On Saturday, Glenn Reynolds, linking an insightful piece by Virginia Postrel wrote that his “4-year-old niece is getting a princess costume for Christmas, because that’s what she’s into these days.”  “Why,” Postrel asks, “in a society without princesses, does this archetype remain so intensely glamorous to girls with all sorts of backgrounds and personalities?”  Great question.  I’m not quite sure the answer, but I will note that it has been fun watching my nieces go through the princess phase while their brothers and male cousins invariably pass through the superhero phase.

Who better to offer a Thanksgiving message than the man to whose inspiration patriotic Americans are forever thankful:

Today marks a certain special anniversary of Bruce’s 29th!

Last night, I again watched a clip of Joy Behar telling us that gay men don’t take monogamy as seriously as straights.  This time, however, I noted that Whoopi Goldberg rose to our defense, saying “not with the gay folks I know.”  (When I watched this last month, I saw a shorter clip* than the one I discovered last night on Towleroad–full clip below the jump.)

Yea, Miss Behar has a point that monogamy is harder for men than it is for women, but she could at least have allowed that if straight can learn not to stray, so too can gay men.  Indeed, the Oscar-winning actress countered the left-wing talker, saying her gay friends are “not happy” if their partners fool around.  They have learned to tie their sexual drive to emotional connection.

Kudos to Whoopi for standing up for gay men.

With Whoopi’s words in mind, this single man wishes all his coupled friends a Happy Valentine’s Day and invites you to use our comments section to share your stories with us–how did you meet your “schweetie”? (more…)