If a picture is worth a thousand words, then perhaps a screen shot is worth a few dozen? The original poster (Taylor Olson) had asked the group "Escondido Friends" to vote on Mike's BBQ (green box at the bottom of the list). I guess the response was a bit less enthusiastic than Taylor was expecting. Just saying...
lol or is LOL? Facebook is so annoying. Why do I keep going back?
Dennis Prager's five-minute video sums up the conflict succinctly by saying, "it may be the hardest to solve, but it is the easiest to explain."
What's interesting, listening to this brief presentation, is the news reports yesterday about the Supreme Court's ruling siding with the Obama administration about a Jerusalem passport dispute (see article linked at end of this post), as well as the disturbing kindergarten graduation ceremony at a school in the West Bank where little boys performed on stage wearing military uniforms and carrying weapons and singing a song about Palestine destroying Israel. Here's the video, with the transcript following: Preschoolers with Toy Guns Parade in West Bank Kindergarten Ceremony
Transcript:
On the mountains, behind the hills, within the valleys – you
will be defeated, you will be defeated. Whether you come by sea, or by air –
you will be crushed, you will be crushed. If you stretch your hand, it will be
chopped off. If you just look with your eye, it will be gouged out. The
defeated army will be too terrified to come back. We come for you before, and
woe betide you if we come back again. You come to this land alive, but you will
leave it as body parts. On the mountains, behind the hills, within the valleys
– you will be defeated, you will be defeated. Whether you come by land, by sea,
or by air – you will be crushed, you will be crushed.
On the mountains, behind the hills, within the valleys – you will be defeated,
you will be defeated. Whether you come by land, by sea, or by air – you will be
crushed, you will be crushed. If you stretch your hand, it will be chopped off.
If you just look with your eye, it will be gouged out. The defeated army will
be too terrified to come back. We come for you before, and woe betide you if we
come back again. You come to this land alive, but you will leave it as body
parts.
According to the Middle East Media Research Center who reported on this story, "At a kindergarten graduation ceremony held at Anabta, in the West Bank, pre-schoolers wearing uniforms and carrying toy guns performed a song routine. A picture of Arafat is visible on stage. The kindergarten belongs to the Anabta women's charity association. The performance was broadcast on June 1 on Al-Sheraa TV, a local TV channel in the Tulkarm area.
I find it helps to visualize, so here's a map of the general region, as well as a closer look at Israel with the West Bank.
Add Kirsten Powers to the growing list of people alarmed by the increasingly hostile intolerance of the left. Last year it was Ben Shapiro in his book Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans. Up next this month is a new book co-authored by Guy Benson and Mary Katharine Ham called End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun).
Shapiro, Benson, and Ham are all on the right, so no surprise to be hearing criticism from conservatives about left-wing tactics. But you know it's gotten bad when liberals themselves take on their own. Jonathan Chait, former editor of The New Republic who currently writes for New York Magazine recently criticized the left in a column called, "Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say." Arguing that political correctness has devolved from its original meaning of "evasion of hard truths" to its current iteration of regulating political discourse by "defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate," Chait writes:
Political correctness is not a rigorous commitment to social equality so much as a system of left-wing ideological repression. Not only is it not a form of liberalism; it is antithetical to liberalism. Indeed, its most frequent victims turn out to be liberals themselves.
And now there's Powers' new book, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech (Regnery Publishing), in which she cites example after example of the "illiberal left" (her term) literally silencing not just their ideological opponents but sometimes even those in their own tribe. It's a brave book, mainly because Powers will likely become the hard left's new demon, despite her liberal bona fides. The fact that she's both a Fox News contributor and a recent convert (from atheism) to Christianity, makes her an easy target for the tyrannical left. I'm sure she's armed and ready for the assault (there are over 70 pages of endnotes), and I, for one, hope she's able to withstand it because this country needs reasonable, thoughtful liberals to expose the tactics of the intolerant left.
As for the book itself, I think chapter six ("The War on Fox News") could be a stand-alone essay, and as such, should be required reading for college freshmen. That chapter, as well as chapter seven ("Muddy Media Waters") should be studied in journalism programs, while chapters eight ("Illiberal Feminist Thought Police") and nine ("Feminists Against Facts, Fairness, and the Rule of Law") should be mandatory in gender studies programs. But we all know that will never happen.
God bless you, Ms. Powers. It takes courage to stand up to those you know will turn on you. I pray you don't go silent.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
This second exchange is not just funny, it's also rather insightful, particularly Buckley's response to the question about the Israeli-Arab conflict. I wonder what Buckley would say today, if he were alive? Back to that Bananas courtroom scene, who is the woman whose face Fielding Melish covers at the .07 mark, I wonder?
