The movie theater was packed. But no one was eating popcorn. No one was expecting to be entertained.

No one expected a good time.

However, expectations were exceeded. We were watching a movie about pain and death.

A movie about abortion.

There are over 500 serious botched abortions, re: Live Births, each year.

The movie 22 Weeks tells the true story of one of them.

Charmaine and Your Business Blogger(R) attended a screening of 22 Weeks in Washington, DC.

We talked with director Angel Manuel Soto after his movie. Charmaine commented that the film was well done. Hollywood quality. (This was, in this case, a compliment.)

Charmaine asked about the funding. Soto said 22 Weeks was "low budget."

What does that mean? "How low?" Charmaine asked.

"$25,000 from two donors," said director.

$25K? For a film that might change the world.

Soto feels that the story is compelling and could be a game changer. (Let's not call it a killer app...)

He feels the movie can change the culture on abortion, like the book Uncle Tom's Cabin changed the nation's emotions on slavery.

When Harriet Beecher Stowe visited the White House during the War Between The States, Lincoln greeted her, "So this is the Little Lady Who Started this Great War."

Perhaps 22 Weeks will start a different kind of war.

Join Fight FOCA

Alert Readers know that Charmaine will be speaking at the Blogs 4 Life just before the annual March for Life.

She will be speaking to alternative media outlets. She will lead with the news that the Americans United for Life Action web site FightFOCA.com petition crossed over to 500,000 signatures tonight on the eve of the March.

As Charmaine and I walked thru Union Station to catch 22 Weeks, we noticed that it was a bit more crowded than usual.

"Maybe all these people came for the Obama inauguration -- and are staying over for the 22 Weeks movie...?" I asked.

Charmaine just looked at me, "Not likely."

###

Thank you (foot)notes:

Fight FOCA with Catching Butterflies

Royalty expounds on FOCA.

Posted at 9:24 PM | Permalink
Comments (9)

Charmaine and Jonah at National Review both had speaking gigs at major schools.

Q: Who Knew?
A: No one.

Charmaine lecturing on campus

I drove the wife and The Dreamer, The Dude, The Diva, The Dancer, and Baby Boo* down to Mr. Jefferson's University so Charmaine could speak on women in leadership at Darden, UVa's business school. The first thing we see are well-armed police.

Uniformed dark blue. Unsmiling.

I ask the sergeant about his job and the small gaggle of 150 women, "Crowd control?"

He looks me over. I'm holding a four-year old's hand: I am not a threat.

I am the conservative.

The cop's face moves a millimeter into what passes for a smile. His head shakes a millimeter into what passes for no.

His eyes return to the assembly. He's looking for trouble.

I speak to one of the organizers about the number of attendees, the marketing of the event...the security. (Your Business Blogger(R) cares about such things; teaching Business at the Northern Virginia Community College. Where James Carville also taught.)

The event planner whispers, "We didn't publicize the event...we weren't sure who would come..."

Even though Charmaine spent ten years at UVA, earned her Ph.D. and taught (Politics and the Family) the organizers were fearful. Charmaine, a woman and a conservative who worked for Huckabee, Pro-Life, now a president and CEO of a law firm, might cause two horrors on the Campus Grounds:

1) A violent campus protest, or, worse,

2) A good conservative turn out.

The police were out in force to keep pie throwing liberals away from the conservative speaker.

Or keep a woman from making a citizen's arrest.

Or having a Democrat scratch KKK on our monster SUV, the Huck-a-Truck.

Jonah Goldberg
and wife Jessica Gavora

The police were there to protect us from the Brown Shirts with the party of death.

The police are on the side of law and order...so far.

We have been lucky with Charmaine's public speaking in academia.

In a fashion, conservative Jonah has been lucky too. His speaking event at Emory was not publicized on the school website. He was not assaulted. He was ignored.


When he would rather have had a riot, I guess. (We guys like to think like this...)


A riot of ideas, please. But conservatives cannot get real "balance" in the academic setting. Goldberg writes,

It's particularly odd because the majority of the time I speak on a college campus -- even when debating a liberal -- I'm told that I'm the first conservative they've had there for a while and that I was brought in for "balance."
You'd think if that were the case, the various administrations would at least want some credit for providing equal time.
Even though, even a brief perusal of almost any college or university's events calendar will quickly show that they could have the entire masthead of National Review speak month after month and it still wouldn't equal balance...but the idea that simply inviting one or two objectively conservative speakers every couple years provides ideological balance is just absurd.

The joke is even bigger when you discover as I have at numerous schools that many professors tell their students they shouldn't go hear conservative speakers.

Jonah Goldberg gets this right: students should get both sides of any debate.

That would be, well, Fair and Balanced...

* Alert Readers know our five children are also known as the Penta-Posse.

Posted at 7:48 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Note to all supervisors: Hell hath no fury like someone whose mileage reimbursement is rejected.

Shaffer's lawyer, Mark Zaid, said Wednesday that Shaffer does not have documentation related to Able Danger because his security clearance was suspended in March 2004 because of "petty and frivolous" reasons. They include a dispute over mileage reimbursement and a charges for personal calls on a work cell phone, Zaid said.

So let me get this straight. The head dudes at Able Danger had time to quibble with Shaffer over his mileage claims . . . and to mess with him over personal calls on his cell phone . . .

. . .but meanwhile, they had identified Mohammed Atta and they still let him run up his mileage and phone charges all over the country.

Talk about misplaced priorities.

Posted at 11:46 AM | Permalink
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