Lou Dobbs nails it. Politics, it is said, makes strange bedfellows. There are two groups who support open borders, and they are usually at loggerheads: progressives (many of whom are cosmopolitans rather than nationalists) and entrepreneurs (who want cheap labor). Misplaced compassion and money. Whatever happened to obeying the law?
Michelle Malkin made a video about Harry Reid and his fellow Democrat defeatists. How could you not like this woman?
Has anyone seen this movie? I happened upon it by accident many years ago during a job visit on the East Coast. (Was it Princeton?) The movie has haunted me for years. I would pay a lot of money to have it on DVD, but every time I check, it’s unavailable. I might add that the music (by Fred Myrow) is awesome. Don’t be thrown off by the title. The movie is not X-rated. The “XXX” signifies love and kisses. It’s about a family feud. The movie (1973) is based on Sue Grafton’s 1969 novel The Lolly-Madonna War.
I just made a momentous decision. I switched from The Dallas Morning News, which I have had delivered to my door since August 1989, to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (affectionately/derisively known as The Startlegram). There are many reasons for this. First, I have never been happy with the DMN’s editorial opinions. It’s not that I disagree with them (although I often do); it’s that they’re so poorly reasoned. Most of the time, there’s no reasoning or analysis at all, just an expression of opinion. I grew up reading The Detroit News, which had a fabulous editorial page. This gave me high standards. The DMN falls woefully short of those standards. Second, I dislike the DMN’s sports columnists. It’s clear that they don’t like baseball, although they write about it from time to time (probably out of a sense of duty). They like football, basketball, hockey, and auto racing. Yuck. Third, the editorial board recently came out against the death penalty. This is just the latest abandonment of conservative principles. Earlier, the board came out in favor of “comprehensive immigration reform,” which is code for doing nothing about the millions of people who are in this country illegally. The DMN is beholden to the business community. Maybe the Star-Telegram is no better in this regard, but it can’t be any worse. Fourth, the DMN has come to focus more and more on celebrities, which is revolting. I’m not talking about the entertainment section, either; I’m talking about all the sections. It reads like the National Enquirer.
What’s odd about my subscribing to the DMN for so long is that I’ve lived in Fort Worth for nearly 15 years. I’m 30 miles from Dallas and almost never go there. When I moved to the Metroplex in August 1989, I subscribed to the newspaper with the largest circulation, which was the DMN. The DMN’s circulation is about twice as large as that of the Star-Telegram (see here). Truth be told, I don’t read much of the newspaper each day. I glance at the front page, occasionally reading an entire story; I read a couple of the comics; I devour the sports section; I skim the letters to the editor and the op-ed columns (the DMN’s columnists, both syndicated and local, are awful); and I check the weather page. I think I’d go crazy if I didn’t have a newspaper delivered each day. I’d feel cut off from the world.
Which newspaper (if any) do you read? Do you have a choice? What do you like and dislike about your newspaper? What do you like and dislike about newspapers in general? Are newspapers as good now as they were when you were younger? Will there be print newspapers 50 years from now?
If you like my blog, you’ll like Stephen Parise’s blog Contra-Mundum. Parise, like me, is a philosopher. See here for his post about atheism.
Longtime reader Frank Borger has become a blogger. See here. As a native Midwesterner, I am pleased to add the blog to the blogroll.
Dave Parker. (For an explanation of this feature, see here.)
[I]t is always wrong to kill, intentionally and directly, an innocent human being at any point of development, dependency, or decline.
(Richard John Neuhaus, “The Public Square,” First Things [February 2007]: 55-72, at 69)
To the Editor:
Re “Obama, in Foreign Policy Speech, Urges U.S. Leadership” (news article, April 24):
In his foreign policy speech in Chicago on Monday, Senator Barack Obama clearly outlined his strategy for dealing with nuclear terrorism, which included a bold commitment to completely secure vulnerable nuclear material in the former Soviet Union within four years and a verifiable global ban on new fissile material.
Those of us committed to arms control and disarmament must applaud Senator Obama for highlighting the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.
Gov. Bill Richardson demonstrated a similar familiarity with and commitment to the issue in a recent speech at Johns Hopkins University.
The Bush administration has paid lip service to the danger of terrorists smuggling fissile material out of dilapidated Russian facilities; our current trajectory will not solve the loose-nukes problem until 2030, giving Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups a 23-year window to steal the materials they need to assemble a crude nuclear device.
I encourage all the candidates in both parties to make dealing with this most imminent threat one of their highest priorities.
Gary Hart
Kittredge, Colo., April 24, 2007
The writer, the former senator and presidential candidate, is chairman of Council for a Livable World, an arms control group.
Note from KBJ: Who would have guessed that President Bush is soft on terrorists?