“You might think”, reports Oliver Knox  on Yahoo! News

. . .  that Barack Obama’s crazy presidential schedule makes it difficult for him to stay on top of popular culture. You’d be half-right. Quizzed on ABC’s “The View” on Monday, Obama slam-dunked a question about Kim Kardashian . . . .

“Which Kardashian was married for only 72 days?” co-host Joy Behar asked the president.

“That would be Kim,” Obama replied.

Via Jim Geraghty.  Meanwhile, at PJMedia, Tom Blumer reports:

An indicator of just how seriously the federal government’s financial situation has deteriorated (combined of course with the establishment press’s clear desire to emphasize “news” which might assist Dear Leader’s reelection effort) is that the dismal 2012 report released by the Social Security system’s trustees on April 23 received little attention. Viewed through that perverse prism, cash deficits which “will average about $66 billion between 2012 and 2018 before rising steeply,” even before considering the $110 billion or so taken from “general (non-existent) revenues” during 2011 and 2012 to make up for the payroll tax cut, pale in comparison to the importance of higher priorities — like working up a 5,400-word report riddled with errors and distortions on what Mitt Romney was doing when he was a teenager.

The sad, under-reported truth is that three years into an alleged “recovery,” the long-term outlook for Social Security continues to crumble at an accelerating rate.

Via Glenn Reynolds.  Could find online any reports about the president’s plan to fix Social Security.  Or address the coming insolvency of Medicare.  Or a plan to put a dent in the national debt.

Picked up Andrew Breitbart’s Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World! while browsing in the Barnes and Noble at the Grove on Saturday and have found it hard to put the book down.  The book provides much food for thought and perhaps some fodder for future blog posts. In defining the “Coulter Threshold,” the author provides some sound advice for conservatives, a recommendation which rings particularly true for gay conservatives:

I had passed what I call the Coulter Threshold: the point where you understand that Ann Coulter and those like her are standing up for what they believe in, feeling the righteousness of living without fear of missing a dinner invite from Tina Brown or fundraisers with Steve Capus or Ben Sherwood or Steven Spielberg or Jeffrey Katzenberg–or worse, the agony of being excoriated by those conservatives who fret that their liberal overlords will start admonishing them for keeping company with you. Feeling the thrill of sending a message to these people that we reject their worldview for the way they reject ours.

More on this anon. In the meanwhile, buy Breitbart’s book. It’s a great read, a great read.

Look, I’m not the first to say it, so I’ll just put this observation out there for your consideration and commentary.  People in LA want to be noticed; they want to be the center of attention.  And many don’t care how they get your attention just as long as they have it.

Charlie Sheen has ours now.  He’s all over the tabloids, in print, pixel and video.  When I got to the gym, I hear people talking to him.  When I go out to eat, even in restaurants outside LA, I hear people talking about him.  Certainly, he seems like he’s off his rocker.  But, is he?  Right now, everyone is paying attention to him.  He’s being noticed.  He has become the number one celebrity this week.

(A google search for “Charlie Sheen” (in quotation marks) results in over 500 million hits.)

To Hollywood celebrities, it used to matter what people thought of them.  Now it only seems to matter that people think about then.  And people are sure thinking about Charlie.

NB:  Moments after posting this, I decided to modify (albeit slightly) the title.

Several years ago, I defined a condition known as Huffingtonistis, in honor of that ubiquitous political celebrity Arianna Huffington:

Huffingtonitis, when one defines his political views and makes public statements in order to win social approval and/or acceptance.

Blogger Roger Simon, whom I cited in that post, offers a different spin on Ms. Huffington’s motivations to sell her eponymous Post to AOL:

Arianna Huffington is a brilliant businesswoman with an extraordinary sense of timing — first riding the feminist wave to write a best seller accusing Picasso of womanizing, then going conservative to marry a multi-millionaire Republican, and then switching to the liberal/progressive side and founding the most successful new media news and opinion site extant. . . .

Arianna has read the tea leaves. Progressivism, which was riding the crest of popularity on the election of Obama, is over. It is no longer good for business. And just as the stock market is said to be a leading indicator on business cycles, I submit Arianna’s track record has shown her to be a leading indicator on the zeitgeist. She knows when to get out. Obama, and by extension progressivism, is fini.

Read the whole thing.  Is Ms. Huffington then more interested in following the zeitgeist (as is the pop star Madonna in following the latest musical fads) than in currying favor with the liberal social and cultural élite who dominant her current hometown?

In such case, she defines her views not in order to win social acceptance, but to head whichever way the wind blows.

Howard Towt seems to think so. In a thoughtful post on the “What I’ve Learned” interviews in the January, 2011 issue of Esquire magazine, entitled “Establishing Credentials,” he notes that one theme that seems to unite the reflections of the various celebrities interviewed:

Each of these individuals establishes his anti-Republican credentials as a way of validating his remarks with the reader and letting us know that he is a part of our popular culture. It is a reflexive action and is endorsed by Esquire.

On Monday, in the Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary (available by subscription), Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote about how Oliver Stone’s film South of the Border, “which lauds Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez as the nation’s messiah, has flopped spectacularly in, of all places, Venezuela”

To be fair, the film is about more than Mr. Chávez. It also praises the region’s latest crop of left-wing authoritarians, from Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, Brazil’s Lula da Silva and Mr. Stone’s favorite Latin bad boy, Fidel Castro. In Mr. Stone’s mind, however, none is more unjustly maligned than Mr. Chávez. The director pulls no punches in his admiration for the Bolivarian bully. “I think he is an extremely dynamic and charismatic figure,” he told the press last year. “He is open and good-hearted, as well as a fascinating personality.”

And this got me wondering why so many liberals in America’s cultural élite, particularly self-described intellectuals. have become so fascinated with despotic rulers like Chávez and Castro.  (I doubt their views would change if they talked to some of the refugees from those tyrannical paradises, including a number of gay people of my acquaintance.)

For such cultural élitists, a critique of Western society has become admiration for, if not adoration of, its enemies, no matter how diabolical their ideas or record (in office).  These tyrants may preside over systems far worse than those the élite criticize, but so long as they oppose such systems, they are (to the élite at least) by definition, worthy of adulation.

——–

*and other demagogues.

Sonicfrog reports that some of my fellow conservative bloggers are upset that Rima Fakih “Michigan Muslim hottie has won the Miss USA Pageant“.

Now, having seen her pictures, I’m trying figure out what all the fuss is all about.  She’s wearing a bikini not a burkha.  And don’t Islamic radicals want women to cover it all up?

My sense (from what little I know of her) is that she is as far from the ideology of the Islamic extremists as are most Muslims in American society.  This could actually be a very good thing to have her as Miss USA.  Let’s wait and see.  Or it could (as is most likely) just be a big ol’ nothing burger, just another pretty face with a title which gives her headlines and allows her to make public appearances.

Maybe she is dumb as a box of rocks (I have no idea I haven’t heard her speak), but if so, it just shows she has a lot in common with other winners of the title.  From what little I’ve seen of her (on the web), she does carry herself very well–and has a great smile.

She defies the Islamicists who seek to oppress women like her merely by looking beautiful in a bikini and other attire which help bring out her natural beauty.

So, what did y’all think?  I missed it.  Had made enough progress in my dissertation that I treated myself to a fun movie about training your dragon or something.  A lot of fun.  Good score.  Fun animation.

Missed Betty White on Saturday Night Live.  So, a reader suggested a do an open thread.  As per his suggestion, here it is.

Molly Norris, the cartoonist whose poster promoting “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day” on May 20th caused such a stir, has called it quits.

Her home page today shows the following statement:

I make cartoons about current, cultural events. I made a cartoon of a fictional ’poster’ entitled “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” with a nonexistent group’s name — Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor — drawn on the cartoon. It was in specific response to the recent censoring of a South Park episode, a desire to bring home the importance of the first amendment. I did not intend for my cartoon to go viral. I did not intend to be the focus of any ’group’. This particular cartoon has struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for.

Personally I can feel afraid of Muslims because I really have no idea if in their hearts they hate non-Muslims. There are so many interpretations of the religion that I hear told — sometimes it is a very extreme translation (that’s the scary part, the radicals that believe that Westerners should die), then at other times it sounds more peaceful.

I hope for the sake of this country that moderate Muslims will speak out with everyone else against any violent members of that or any other religion. That way I would know that there is a difference. Maybe this cartoon I made, this fictional poster of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” had such a wildfire effect because it is finally time for Muslims and non-Muslims to understand one another more.

I am going back to the drawing table now!

Thanks,
Molly

I feel for Molly. She clearly wasn’t ready for all the fame and noteriety that her seemingly (to her) innocuous move made for herself. But there’s something disturbing about her tone here. Unlike many people, including my fellow bloggers and many commenters, sensitivity to cultural differences doesn’t seem to be Molly’s reason for pulling back.

There is clearly a tone of fear in what she’s done. Perhaps she’s simply an introvert and publicity gives her the creeps. Many artists are like that. But my instincts tell me that she’s actually caved because she fears genuinely for her safety.

It’s ironic, and a shame, for this to be the case. Those of us who have taken up this cause did so to mitigate such threats. As Mark Steyn so aptly put it:

If you want to put bounties on all our heads, you better have a great credit line at the Bank of Jihad. If you want to kill us, you’ll have to kill us all.

Fortunately for the First Amendment and other American values, the cause presses on, even without Molly: Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor.

Sometimes you choose to be an icon for unapologietic defense of Free Speech. Sometimes you have it thurst upon you.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

After having dilligently scrubbed through all the posts here in the past three days so as to not run afoul of our intrepid readers , I submit likely one of the most useful things to come from Dan Savage in about a decade. (Not that I don’t like his stuff, but rarely is he this good.)

Over at The Stranger, Dan asks his readers (and I ask ours) to join him for “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” on May 20th in support of my fellow Centennial StatesmenTrey Parker and Matt Stone: (more…)

All at the same time, in fact.

Can we officially declare Kanye West as “Douchebag of the Century”?

And Beyonce as “Goddess of the Century”?  She is talented, smart and classy.

The Leftists that embraced him when he said “President Bush hates black people” should be ashamed of themselves now.  *crickets chirping*

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Back in the late 1970s, just after Howard Hughes passed, people would regularly come forward saying with fantastic stories detailing how they  met the reclusive billionaire, with him promising them part–or all–of his fortune.

Most, if not all of those stories turned out to be fabrications.  As I read the various (and often conflicting) stories on Michael Jackson’s final days (with one report say he was too feeble to rehearse for his upcoming London concerts, while others saying that he was performing in practice at the same level as he had danced in his heyday), I suspect we’ll be subject to the same sort of storytelling about the late King of Pop.

It seems the eccentricity of certain celebrity icons inspires stories even more outlandish than the actual facts of their lives.

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE:  This idea came to me the other day when reading Jim Geraghty’s, Michael Jackson and the Birth of Celebrity Culture.

One day I’ll have to sort out why I always felt for Michael Jackson, but not for his contemporary (born just two weeks before him), the pop star who calls herself Madonna, whose popularity, like his, derives, in large part from her ability to put on a great show. Both have enjoyed tremendous success in their professional lives (yet her stardom doesn’t even come close to rivaling his), yet never seemed to have found happiness off stage.

A friend told me yesterday that he once heard King of Pop had say he only felt comfortable on stage. No wonder.  Groomed from his earliest childhood to be a public performer, he likely wasn’t equipped to do much else. He just didn’t know how to interact with his fellows in private.

All that said, he and he alone is responsible for the mess that his life became, just as Miss Ciccone is for hers. My sympathy for him would be more complete if he did not have any children, taking responsibility for their upbringing by bringing them into this world (or into his care, as with his youngest).

Many have called his life a tragedy.  And in some sense it was, even if we rely on the original context.  Like a Greek tragic hero, he fell from grace due in large part to a flaw in his character.  For the pop star, it was to seek his solace on stage and to ignore the imperative of making changes in his private life.  A true tragic hero must recognize his flaw, understanding how his own failure to correct it brought about his downfall.

And the recognition lay in the lyrics of one of his best songs:

I’m Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I’m Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change

But, he, alas, sought the wrong kind of change.  He worked on changing his appearance and not, to borrow the lyrics of another song, “the mess that’s inside.“  (more…)

When Anna Nicole Smith died, a friend of mine, not himself a fan of the professional celebrity, said he burst out crying.  He “couldn’t help” feeling sad.  And so I felt earlier today, upoing learning of the passing of Michael Jackson.  I did not cry, but felt a certain unfathomable sadness.

He was, quite simply, one of the (if not the) most gifted musical peformers of our time.  He was born with a talent that individuals spend a fortune in money and countless hours of their own time to acquire, only never to distinguish themselves in any memorable manner.  This is not say that Jackson did not work hard; there is abundant that he did.

Indeed, the strenuous rehearsals for his upcoming London comeback shows may have caused the cardiac arrest which took his life.  We know from stories of his childhood that he spent so much time rehearsing, recording and performing with the Jackson 5 that he could not do what most children did, hang out with their friends and play with their toys, living in a world of their imaginations.

He didn’t have time to dream, performing as he did in a successful band and dealing with the fame brought about by its success.

That ban was successful large part due to his own talents which his father recognized early on–and pushed him to develop.  Joe Jackson dominated young Michael’s life until, in his early adulthood, he set out on his own.  In a matter of months, Michael experienced a transformation that takes years, if not decades, for most of us, from being in thrall to his parents to being in control of a vast entertainment empire.  And just as he was achieving success on his own, music videos, the perefect medium for communicating his talent to mass audiences, were coming to the fore. (more…)

As many of you know, Carrie Prejean was dethroned earlier this week as Miss California and replaced by someone whose name will be forgotten as soon as the publicity over her recent crowning subsides.  If it is true that Miss Prejean breached her contractual obligations, as pageant executives contend, then this action was entirely justified.

Given, however, that the pageant executive quoted in most news reports, Keith Lewis, has not concealed his animus against Miss Prejean, I was initially skeptical of his claim that, “This was a decision based solely on contract violations.” Methinks he may have been a bit overeager to find such violations.  That said, Donald Trump who has shown himself to be incredibly even-handed in this hullabaloo, did sign off on the dethronement, saying that Prejean did not honor her contract.

If she wasn’t doing her job, she deserved the boot.

Lewis seemed determined to dethrone Prejean.  And if Trump is right, then she gave her adversary the proverbial robe he used to hang her.  He did seem to have a vendetta against her.  When I saw him on Larry King Live with the new Miss California, he was practically gloating.  He had to wreak vengeance because she hurt his feelings when offering a different point of view on gay marriage at odds with his own.

Well, it looks like he won’t be too happy with Prejean’s replacement, Tami Farrell, as she also believes marriage is between a man and a woman.  But, to Miss Prejean’s advesaries, they probably won’t matter too much.  They had made it all about her.  And she just had to be defeated.

So, they got their pound of flesh.  And the former Miss California may well have made it easier for them to take.

When it comes to Carrie Prejean, sometimes I feel like Al Pacino in the Godfather Part III, “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” I had thought I was done blogging about her, but then, someone on the left will just try to extend this woman’s fifteen minutes of fame. And I’ll feel I’ve just got to chime in, even if to repeat a point I’ve already made.

They’re just not taking my advice to ignore her.

Now, we’ve got the some web-site snooping around in her parents’ divorce record to uncover the origins of her homophobia. While I’ve read more than I care to about this controversy, I have yet to find one statement she has made showing a fear (“phobia”) of homosexuals or showing any animosity whatsoever against gay people. All I’ve heard her is express the viewpoint of a majority of Americans, including the Democratic President of the United States about the meaning of marriage.

Sorry, fellas, that’s just not homophobia.

So, now this website’s staff has rooted around in her parents’ divorce records, learned of some strange accusations lobbed between the parties to ask whether “Carrie believe gays broke up her parents’ marriage.” They’ve truly become obsessed with this woman.

Yet, the more they investigate her, the more they malign her, the stronger will grow her support among social conservatives. She will become their poster child to showcase the left’s intolerance of people favoring the traditional definition of marriage.

Should Miss Prejean lose her title over her “nudie” pictures (as appears possible), she won’t lose her fame. Few will know the name of her replacement as Miss California. Indeed, few will know the name of the woman who bested her for the Miss USA crown. But, they will know who Carrie Prejean is.

The uproar of her adversaries has secured her fame.

(more…)

Back during the fall campaign, I was impressed with Joe the Plumber for better criticizing then-candidate Barack Obama’s tax plan than did the Republican Presidential nominee.  He explained in simple terms how higher taxes on the “wealthy” discouraged others from working hard as they aspired one day to be so rich.

But, just because you can understand the perils of high taxation doesn’t equip you to discuss all issues.  In a strange response to a question by a reporter from Christianity Today on same-sex marriage, the erstwhile campaign celebrity rambled from favoring a state-by-state approach to same-sex marriage to calling gay marriage wrong, or was he calling homosexuality wrong or was he calling expression of one’s sexuality wrong?

[QUESTION]:  In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?

[JOE] At a state level, it’s up to them. I don’t want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do–what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.

I mean, it’s just not clear what he believes to be wrong, just that it’s something involving homosexuality.  And that he doesn’t want those homosexuals near his kids (without explaining what harm they could do).  Let me know if you can decipher it.  Maybe he was just trying to say something original and regain the favor he once had on the right.

I don’t think it’ll work.

Seems like someone is trying to prolong his fifteen minutes.

UPDATE (JohnAGJ):  Yes, he did.

When Pajamas asked me to write on the Perez Hilton-Carrie Prejean kerfuffle, I thought to put his name-calling in a larger context.  After all, that blogger was not the first to slime someone who supported the traditional definition of marriage.

To whet your appetite, here are the first three paragraphs:

Had I known gay marriage advocates would react with vitriol and venom to the passage of California’s Proposition 8 (amending the state constitution to limit the definition of marriage to its traditional meaning, one man and one woman), I might have left my ballot blank on that issue and not voted, “No,” as I had.  No sooner did it become clear the a majority of voters in the Golden State approved the initiative than angry activists, mostly in Los Angeles, took to the streets to protest the popular result.

More than just blowing off the steam, their understandable frustration at the loss, the protesters vilified those on the winning side of the issue.  They demonized Mormons, marching from West Hollywood to their Temple in Westwood, carrying placards slandering the Church and hurling slogans demeaning its members, labeling them “scum” and calling them “vile.”  All because Mormons were among the most generous supporters of the campaign to pass Prop 8.

Bill Rosendall, an openly gay LA City Councilman, called the faith a “perversion of Christianity.”  The name-calling didn’t stop there.  The disappointed opponents of Proposition 8 referred to the successful initiatives as “Prop H8″ or Prop Hate.

To read the rest of the piece, just head on over Pajamas.

In the court of public opinion, advocates of traditional marriage scored a huge victory over advocates of gay marriage last week, perhaps their biggest public relations victory since the adolescent temper tantrums following the passage last fall of California’s Proposition 8.

While many of our readers (and most of our critics) surely disagree with Carrie Prejean’s belief that “marriage should be between a man and a woman,” few will accuse her of engaging in ad hominem attacks on those putting forward a different point of view.  At that same time she was making her case with poise, the man who had asked the question which prompted her to state that belief before a national audience, was making his with rancor.

Immediately, after the pageant, Perez Hilton chose to slur her as a “bitch” in a video for his blog.  He continued this line of attack in various television appearances.  While she remained unapologetic in hers appearances, showing no bitterness than her answer had cost her the Miss USA crown, not attacking the judge whose vote cost her that crown.

She made her case calmly and with a smile.  He preferred innuendo to argument.  She came across better than he did.

In the future, those who promote gay marriage in the various visual media should take a page from Miss Prejean’s book and make their case clearly, calmly and without criticizing their adversaries.  In our current culture, looking good and sounding good matters as much as what you say.

If you don’t believe me, just ask President McCain about how his Administration plans to tackle the economic downturn and international crises.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!!

We here at GayPatriot never tire of showing how many leading of the national gay organizations show greater loyalty to the Democratic Party and its candidates than they do to gay people and our issues.  This goes back at least to 1996, when the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) refused to rescind its endorsement for then-President Clinton when he, in the dead of night, signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Look at how Charles Kaiser (just after the 2:30 mark) tries to excuse Clinton for signing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT), the ban on gays serving openly in the military.  He blames a Republican instead.  Nor does this activist and author have a problem with the Democratic candidates’ position on gay marriage (this was during the run-up to the 2008 Democratic primaries).  And see how Endora-winning blogress Tammy Bruce takes him to task:

This gay activist, like the heads of the gay organizations, give Democratic leaders a pass for taking the same stands for which they would excoriate Republicans.

It seems celebrity blogger Perez Hilton has learned a thing or two from them.  Everyone who owns a computer or television set knows by now how he insulted Carrie Prejean, Miss California, calling her response “awful,” “the worst in pageant history” when, during the final round of this year’s Miss USA pageant, she said she believed “marriage should be between a man and a woman.”  Incidentally, she holds the same position on marriage as does the President of the United States.

Shouldn’t he then call the Democrat’s stand an “awful” position?

Of course not.  That (D) after Obama’s name renders him immune from criticism for taking the same stands which might earn a tongue-slapping for a Republican (or Republican-appearing pageant contestant).

From Jehuda on the Rhetorican, we learn that “Perez Hilton is giving Obama a pass for his anti-gay marriage stance.” (more…)