Cross post from Jack Yoest. He's got the uncensored, unedited version.

May not be safe for work. Following pictures are from institutions of higher learning. Your boss may be a knave who wouldn't understand.

Professor Diana York Blaine Ms. Mentor has a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Where she recently asked,

All right, Ms. Mentor will admit it: Many professors do behave weirdly.

I suppose. But let's not step on on Dr. Diana York Blaine's first amendment freedoms. Professor Blaine "teaches" women's studies at the University of Southern California. She knows oppression when she sees it. And free expression.

She burns her bras, too. Part of her syllabus, I think.

"Art" in The Chronicle
courtesy of Edouard Duval Carrie And here is the latest from The Chronicle. Nekked women everywhere!

Ah, yes, you say, but this is art. My 12 year-old Dreamer could do better. But she's not from the third world.

Anyway, I think the "art" is included to titillate the professors. Like the ones a-seducing Naomi Wolf wanna-bes.

And there's more. Not just the nudie pictures. The academy is misbehaving.

On May 12, 2006, The Chronicle reports in The 7 Deadly Sins of Professors,

Lust: Affairs and adultery happen ...Apparently, there are some professors who pursue students in a sexual way...

And this is bad. Not because it is wrong. Not because women are violated.

Nope. The Chronicle says that Lust is a sin because,

...the hostilities linger longer.

Professors are such a pragmatic bunch.

Ms. Mentor continues, "But who shows academics how to behave properly?"

It sounds like the professors needed parents who would do some paddling.

Or a lawsuit would do. Professor R. Igor Gamow was actually fired by the University of Colorado for "moral turpitude." For raping a Dana Ruehlman. She got a huge cash award.

But the court case is confusing. To normal non-academics, at least. She was raped some 80 times between 1995 and 1998.

Sex 80 times.

Every other week for three years Dana and Igor made whoopi. It was not reported what locations they favored.

Or if Dana may had driven by a police station for a tryst with the monsterous rapist Igor. The horror! The trauma! The academy.

So they had sex 80 times. She gets $285,000. And here we are. The University is merely a pimp supported by taxpayers.

That fired the john.

Your tuition dollars at work.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Outside The Beltway was Your Business Blogger's first exposure.

Basil's Blog has a picnic.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen
Very Good Actors

Money. Looks. Fame. Love. They really had it all.

When this picture was taken, their marriage was falling apart.

Sadly, now Denise Richards is lifting the veil of celebrity and lays out the details of her marriage to Charlie Sheen in 17 agonizing pages of divorce petition.

So what does this have to do with normal political fare at Reasoned Audacity?

Pornography. Not so harmless. Gambling. Not just fun and games. Drugs. Not so recreational.

(Via Drudge.)

Posted by Charmaine at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

I thought the US was supposed to be "hung up" about sex. Turns out we're doing pretty well compared to the rest of the world, if you want to lend any credence to a new study. And I'm not saying I do, but here you go anyway.

A survey of nearly 30,000 middle aged and older people in nearly 30 countries, says that men are “more satisfied with their sex lives than women in the same age group” and that age has little to do with sexual well-being.

The survey also revealed that sex is better in Europe, North America and Australia than it is in the Far East.

Even better news: in the US "about three-quarters of men and two-thirds of women" reported they were very satisfied with their sexual relationships.

Still, a big caveat. I'm skeptical about some of the details -- with these kind of surveys you get an awfully high "selection bias" that skews the results. You have to ask how the people who were willing to participate in the project differ from society at large. And I also wonder about the variables they were looking at to differentiate between the factors that contribute to a good sex life. The news report attributes having "more or less equal relationships" to positive findings. But that begs the question: what does "more or less equal" mean?

Well, it's not rocket science, and you don't need high-priced studies to tell you the answer. It's just basic common-sense -- a good sex life is rooted in a committed, married relationship founded on deep, enduring respect and consideration for each other. We have to be careful about the political freight "equality" brings -- if equality degenerates into keeping score, you've lost the essence of caring for each other that keeps a love relationship alive.

Hat tip: My Way News.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Cross Post from Jack Yoest at Str*ppers with the uncensored version.

Everybody's Toy, Nobody's Fool

The text and photographs by Jackie Brenner, a photographer, are from the book Friday Night Grind: Bourbon Street, New Orleans, Distributed by the University of New Mexico Press for Fresco Fine Arts Publications and Shine Media Group.

The market segment for the average reader of The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Voted for John Kerry
Doesn't go to church
Loves Darwinism; hates Intelligent Design
Hates George Bush
Hates business/commerce/filthy lucre
Loves pictures of Nekked Women...

...I made up the last point.

However, this is what the professors in the academy are reading. Are you sure you want your daughters near these guys?

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Other favorite pictures articles from The Chronicle of Higher Education include

Painted Ladies, and

Butt of Jokes.

This week's pictures are from the April 21, 2006 edition, page B3.

Whenever Your Business Blogger thinks of Bill Clinton, I think of

Posted by Charmaine at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross Post with modifications from Jack Yoest.

The Chronicle of Higher Education arrived in my mail box. In plastic wrap. But it should be covered in brown paper. Remember, Your Business Blogger subscribes for the articles. But I can always count on The Chronicle to titillate.

Here's this edition's nudie pics.

[sorry, may not be ...prudent for Charmaine. But not me. See Jack Yoest, Higher Ed.]

The liberals in academe cannot understand why us parental prudes might not want their daughters dancing naked on campus and posing in paint for publication.

This is bad for the education business. Looks bad on a resume.

But I could be wrong.

Rachel E. Beaulieu (above in tiger stripes), a senior...is treasurer of the Liquid Latex Club,...wanted to improve [her] outlook on the way [she] looked...

[and]

...the nudity may attract first-time audience members...

[but]

...Ms. Beaulieu says it is not what the show is about...

And boys read Playboy for the articles.

The co-ed concludes, "It's a very unique experience...the liquid latex allows you to do things you could never do," with conventional cloth and clothes and virtue.

This is a subtle hint to human resource managers: The more a girl has appeared nude in print, the greater the possibility that men would have seen her. And perhaps have stared. Some will oogle.

This is a longitudinal sexual harassment case study in the making.

Ms. Beaulieu, please let us know how the job search progresses.

We'll be watching.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2006. At least the picture was buried on A6.

Full Disclosure: The wife of Your Business Blogger has been published in The Chronicle. In conventional fashion.

Basil's Blog has a Picnic.

Posted by Charmaine at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just returned from the Media Research Center's annual dinner where they give out DisHonor Awards. Tonight's big winner: Ted Turner.

Crowd "favorite" Ted said, in a clip replayed several times on the big screens around the room, that North Korea is a ding-how kind of place to be.

Starvation in North Korea? Nah, said Ted. "I saw lots of thin people, riding around on bicycles."

You just can't make this stuff up.

Other winners included Rosie O'Donnell -- "I'm not a political genius, but I play one on TV" -- and Chris Matthews -- nominated twice with "Send Bush to Abu Ghraib" and "the Cindy Sheehan Media Hero" awards.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross Post from Jack Yoest. Who lifted shamelessly from the Jollyblogger.

This is a cat.

Aslan's on the move

For all of you who live in the Baltimore and Washington DC area I want to invite you to an event at our church this Thursday night featuring author and C. S. Lewis Scholar Art Lindsley. Here's the announcement from the church:

C. S. Lewis has found a new generation of fans with the overwhelming success of the movie adaptation of his book "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

You are invited to a lecture and a dessert discussing C. S. Lewis and the importance of the imagination in his life and writings.

Date: Thursday, March 30, 2006

Time: 7:00 -- 9:00pm

Location: Glen Burnie Evangelical Presbyterian Church

710 Aquahart Rd, Glen Burnie, MD

For more info: 410-766-5363 or office@gbepc.org

Arthur Lindsley, Ph.DOur Speaker

Arthur W. Lindsley, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow -- C. S. Lewis Institute

Art Lindsley has served at the C.S. Lewis Institute since 1987. Formerly, he was Director of Educational Ministries at the Ligonier Valley Study Center, and Staff Specialist with the Coalition for Christian Outreach. He is the author of the books True Truth and C. S. Lewis's Case for Christ and is the co-author of the book Classical Apologetics along with R.C. Sproul and John Gerstner. He has written numerous articles on theology, apologetics, C.S. Lewis, and the lives and works of many other authors and teachers. Art earned his M.Div. from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Pittsburgh.

I hope you can come!

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Free Stuff at the C S Lewis Institute.

Visit the Jollyblogger.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross Post from Jack Yoest

Helena Yoest, [center, The Dreamer to right, Charmaine on right] bows her head in prayer before taking part in demonstration, to call for a stop to the prosecution of Abdul Rahman. Difficult to have a business conversation when heads are being sawed off as a matter of personal conviction. Uncertainty is bad for commerce.

So. In my dual goals of 1) World Peace and 2) Keeping the little woman out of Nordstrom's, I dispatch Charmaine on a bit of civil(ized) disobedience. She takes two of my little women to attempt to cause havoc in Your Nation's Capital. Protesting at the Afghan Embassy last Friday.

From the Agence France-Presse:

Helena Yoest, 9, bows her head in prayer before taking part in demonstration, in front of the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC, to call for a stop to the prosecution of Abdul Rahman.

Prayer in public. The Horror.

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Thank you (foot)notes:
From AFP:

The AFP brand: A guarantee of excellence.

The AFP team: More than 2000 employees worldwide.

AFP products: Agence France-Presse produces each day 400,000 - 600,000 words in text, 1000 photos and 50 news graphics.

AFP around the world: Journalists in 165 countries, 5 regional headquarters.

Hugh Hewitt has more pictures.

Michelle Malkin has the story and an excellent round-up. She was there at the Embassy.

Posted by Charmaine at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Why do they have an upside-down street-light in Syracuse, New York?

Posted by Charmaine at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross Post from Jack Yoest.

Yesterday, Your Business Blogger was on a major university campus in East Asia watching students play basketball outdoors. Acres of concrete courts. A football-sized outside arena with dozens and dozens of hoops.

The play is not quite like the intramural competition in USA. On this side of the world the students don't play defense. Just shooting.

So I ask my host about this -- offense only, no defense.

I'm expecting a deep relevelation of cultural differences. A difference in innovation or strategies or team play or ego or losing face. Maybe something about DNA differences?

Nope.

The answer?

American TV.

These students watch ESPN. They learned to play basketball watching America's NBA.

Where you will never see any defensive play.

The basketball style of play will probably change when college ball is broadcast into East Asia.

So. The world is watching the USA. And picking up some bad habits, in addition to watching Spong Bob Square Pants.

Posted by Charmaine at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yeah. We already know I'll hate it. Still, could be fun. Drop by. Join in. Sunday night at 10P on HBO.

Bill Paxton portraying a man with three wives. One big happy family.

The Dreamer says: I thought that [polygamy] was illegal. So why have a television show about it?

Good question.

10:04 So we begin with him leaving a $100 bill under a glass on the bedside table of one of the wives. Subtle. Talk about handing it to us on a silver platter.

10:12 We have the soft-focus scenes of them all eating dinner together, one big happy family, and him greeting everyone, one wife at a time, in the kitchen -- one big happy family. But then we come to his night together with Margene -- she is all excited to see him after their three days apart and wants to know how much he has missed her: "Officially I miss you all the same." Exactly why this kind of arrangement never works. Officially, and reality, of course, are two different things.

Then, things don't go so well when they go to bed -- he ends up sitting by the pool, and one of the other wives sees him, they exchange a meaningful glance, but they don't speak. . . while Margene looks on out the window.

10:20 One of the wives spends more money than the others -- her son shows up at breakfast with a new shirt from Lands' End. And one of the other wives works while the others don't -- so she gets to redecorate while the others don't. I never thought about the money angle, but seriously, that would be a mess.

10:22 Now he's googing "male impotence" -- turns out it's not just the one wife.

And now he's in bed with the first wife and she's making a move on him -- everyone assumes that would be the male fantasy to rotate through all the wives, but it's kind of sad-funny to see that in real life, that would get tiresome.

10:28 They are headed out on the road to check on his father who is ill: first wife in the front seat, second one in the back seat. Yeah, that's what women want, to be the Backseat Wife.

10:46 I read one reviewer who said that the show didn't make Mormons look bad, but I don't see how you could say that. They show them traveling back to a "compound" of sorts and the people are portrayed as backward hicks, fearful of modern medicine -- and a young girl turns up who is 14 or 15, now married to "the Prophet." A really skin-crawling scene shows her talking with the first wife about having children.

10:50 Now a scene with all three wives where the youngest one is in tears because she feels she doesn't "measure up" and doesn't contribute enough to the group. The first wife is trying to comfort her and it becomes clear that the other two wives are, in many ways, more children for her to care for -- and, if nothing else, represent a major managerial challenge.

Posted by Charmaine at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross Post from Jack Yoest:

ABC World News Tonight And will be debating the recent news from Missouri about school prayer.

In the public schools.

Usually on at 6 or 6:30 pm EST.

Tune in and let us know what you think.

ABC World News Tonight
website is sponsored by Wal*Mart

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Charmaine blogs at Reasoned Audacity.

Posted by Charmaine at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

A thoughtful reader, Annie, wrote to respond to my remarks on the Neil Cavuto show about the increasing percentages of single women buying homes. Just to recap: I was arguing in counterpoint to the "girl power" perspective which sees this as an unmitigated positive expansion of "the American Dream" (Cavuto's comment). I wanted to argue that it is no criticism of the individual woman, like Annie, who buys a home as a single woman, but that we should be paying attention to the underlying social forces at work here: delayed marriage for more women (which leads to postponing childbearing into the thirties), and larger percentages of women who never marry.

But Annie thought this sounded a bit like the "smug marrieds" of Bridget Jones. Ouch. Not exactly what I was aiming for! Here's Annie's remarks:

Charmaine, I enjoy reading your blog and think you are a great advocate for life and the family, but I must disagree wholeheartedly with your comments on the Cavuto show

I say this as a staunchly prolife, profamily single woman who proudly owns her own home (and is glad for the tax benefits alone). It is unsound to rent for years on end while waiting for a Mr. Right who may never come along. Such women may find themselves far worse off than if they had bought sooner, and having some financial wisdom makes a woman a better marriage partner, not worse. . .

. . .Perhaps this is not what you meant, Charmaine, but I think your comments were reminiscent of the smug marrieds despised by Bridget Jones. Do women generally want to be 30, single, and a homeowner? Probably not (and that includes yours truly), but it beats being 35 or 40 and single and having wasted thousands of dollars on rent that could have been building a nest egg for her future family, retirement, or whatever. Home ownership and being profamily are not mutually exclusive, even for never-married singles. I would even argue that having good money management skills (e.g. investing in a home as appropriate) is a profamily atribuute, not antifamily.

If you want a better angle for your comments, you could comment on today's Post piece on the 11 single women who have the same sperm donor for their children. Now that, in my view, is a legitimate target for antifamily behavior on the part of single people - that is, those who set out to bring fatherless or motherless children into the world without regard to the child's best interests (having two parents).

Hope you don't mind my providing a different point of view. Thanks. Annie

No, don't mind the different viewpoint at all. In fact, I'm not sure it's really a different view at all. I agree with your argument, Annie. If I were single, and could afford it, I might buy a home. And I have quite a few friends who have done so and I'm happy for them.

The really central point of my argument is that the home-buying isn't the real issue -- it hides the larger point. And I do still think that my broader argument is a valid one: we need to look at the societal forces at work that are making it more difficult for larger percentages of women to find suitable mates to settle down with in their twenties.

As to the sperm donor story. . . you're right there, too. That's worth it's own entry. Next up. In Part Two.

* * *

Comments anyone?

Posted by Charmaine at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross Post from Jack Yoest

Three Dog NightYou are invited to Washington DC's hottest rock and roll party.

The Best Friends Foundation presents
"Do You Remember When
Rock Was Young?"
6:30 p.m. Saturday, March 4, 2006
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
2660 Woodley Road, NW, Washington, DC 20008

Sister Sledge with lead
singer Kathy SledgeSecretary of State Colin Powell says:

I always present the Best Friends program as one of the answers to the problems we have in our society...it is a winner, and I know that many more communities will be embracing it.

Posted by Charmaine at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Getting ready for church this morning I'm listening to "I Know My Redeemer Liveth" -- over and over -- sung by the incomparable Nicole C. Mullen.

She sang yesterday at the NRB Women's Luncheon. She is an amazing performer.

Watch a video of her singing the song here.

The very same God that spins things in orbit

runs to the weary, the worn and the weak

And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken

They conquered death to bring me victory

Now I know my Redeemer lives

I know my Redeemer lives

Let all creation testify

Let this life within me cry

I know my Redeemer, He lives"

Posted by Charmaine at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross Post from Jack Yoest

Neil Cavuto
Your Money or Your Life
HarperCollins Publishers,
New York, New YorkCharmaine will be appearing on Your World with Cavuto, this afternoon at 4 pm EST. On Fox News.

Fox News

She'll be analyzing the latest data showing that single women now buy over 20% of new homes.

What does this mean for women? Culture? The future?

She'll be debating a feminist real estate agent.

Tune in and let us know what you think.

No. Really. Our (real) friends are brutally honest. And tell us when a debate point was missed. What she should have said. Or not said.

Or the really important stuff: her clothes wrong, lighting awful, jewelry? A bad hair day.

Please give us your thoughts. Thanks for being a real friend.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com. Unpaid endorsement.

See Neil Cavuto's bio at the jump.

See Charmaine's bio.

Basil's Blog has a picnic.

And Don Suber has another kick-*** girl video.

Posted by Charmaine at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the things that most annoys me about liberals is that they think they discovered sex. And they persistently insist that if you aren't talking about your sex life all the time, you're a "prude." And, to prove you aren't a prude, you have to go for quantity over quality -- quantity defined as numbers of partners, natch. Never mind that the research shows that those of us sleeping with only one person have more quantity and . . . okay, enough about that.

So, I was thrilled when Kathryn Lopez over at NRO asked me to weigh in on the question: "What is the best conservative love story?"

My answer, along with those of Danielle Crittenden, Richard Brookhiser, and others is up over at NRO.

Posted by Charmaine at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

. . . even when he's writing about something with as little substance as the Great Hunting Accident of 2006. To wit, picking up in the middle of a disagreement over on the Corner:

I'm reluctant to disparage John Podhoretz as some effete metrosexual Ethel Merman impersonator, being one myself. . .

From an anecdotal survey of my part of the North Country, most guys see the Cheney business as an excuse to tell their own hunting stories, mostly of the been-there-done-(or-nearly-done)-that variety. I'm not saying I'm entirely on board with the line that real men shoot each other all the time without whining like a bunch of ninnies about what's no more than a healthy American male bonding experience. But on balance this is one of those no-scandal scandals where Democrat/media hysteria only underlines their estrangement from the average red-state male. If John disagrees, I'd be happy to argue it out with him on a hunting trip deep in the woods - or, if he doesn't trust me that far off the grid, we can shoot each other's Broadway cast albums off the back of the pick-up one weekend.

Too funny: the mental image of Steyn and Podhoretz out hunting together slays me.

Posted by Charmaine at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Should gambling be legalized?

Nope.

Video here.

Posted by Charmaine at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In defending the Vanity Fair cover, Todd Myers said that it was "art."

Of course.

But then he added that it was "just like Manet."

Alright, so here it is: Edouard Manet's Le dejeuner sur l'herbe, the painting I assume he was referencing.

So we've got the clothed men and the nude female . . . but I hardly think VF pulls off Manet.

And even if they had, does that rationalize the nudity? This painting was scandalous in its time, and perhaps rightly so. I don't really see the justification for the nudity of the woman in the company of the fully-clothed (with ties even!) men.

But regardless, to bring it back full-circle to VF -- and the question of art vs. pornography -- the woman may be nude, but the man is not biting her ear . . .

I'd like to hear from you on this: what do you think?

Posted by Charmaine at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Tom Ford and Keira Knightly
on the cover of Vanity Fair

I'll admit that Vanity Fair is not exactly a high defender of morality in our culture, even on a good day. The ads they accept in their pages have been problematic for quite some time. But for the most part, their cover art, even though edgy, has stayed on the right side of discretion.

But this month, they leapt over the line, with a cover photograph of Tom Ford -- fully clothed -- biting Keira Knightly's ear. Knightly is completely naked. Reclining in front of them is Scarlett Johanssen, also completely nude.

CNBC Video Clip Here

So much for progress toward female empowerment. That's the argument I made on CNBC Wednesday night when they asked me to discuss the cover with an editor from Forbes and Todd Myers, Lead Consultant for Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve.

I've included the clip up above if you'd like to see it. But WARNING! Almost the entire segment is the three of us talking over b-roll of the Vanity Fair cover. They just replay lingering shots of the nudity over and over and over again.

There are two issues that particularly trouble me about the cover. The first is the juxtaposition of Ford, the man, being fully clothed . . . while the women are nude. Feminists ought to be outraged. I am. What's the message being sent there? There are several -- pick one. None of them are ones you want sent to your daughter.

And that brings me to my second concern. What does this cover say to young women about success in Hollywood? Anywhere? Both Knightley and Johanssen are well-respected young actresses. Keira Knightly, in particular, is one that my own girls have admired.

I wish these two had had the moral courage to take a stand for virtue.

Or, if that couldn't clear that high bar, at least make a stand for talent over crass commodification.

Rachel McAdams
Let me be sure, then, to send praises along to one who did: Rachel McAdams, another young Hollywood actress ("Wedding Crashers"). Defamer reports that she was supposed to be on the cover with Keira and Scarlett, but when she found out the plan for the shoot involved nudity, she left. . . and fired her publicist. Good going, Rachel.

Posted by Charmaine at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

News flash! Men and women are different.

I just got invited to the "First World Congress on Gender-Specific Medicine." I started to roll my eyes, thinking this was more feminist malarkey. . .

But I took a second look.

The important implication from this conference is right there in the subhead: they are exploring "a new view of the biology of sex/gender differences. . "

Turns out it is a news flash that men and women are different. And after a generation of trying to ignore that fundamental fact, perhpas the medical community is coming back to the undeniable truth.

Posted by Charmaine at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Do you watch the Superbowl just for the ads? You're in luck. MSN.com has them all -- and is polling for your favorites.

"Magic Fridge" was one of the funniest -- although the streaking sheep in "The Game" was up there, too; "A Little Help" the most heart-warming.

Posted by Charmaine at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Stones at Ford Field last night
photo credit: Reuters

I just don't get it. Really.

Watching the Stones perform to legions of screaming teenage fans, I felt like I was watching some sort of mass hypnosis.

Jack says he saw them in concert back in '72, and says last night was all about nostalgia.

But for what? Somebody 'splain it to me.

Posted by Charmaine at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Kanye WestThis is an outrage. Kanye West needs to stop self-medicating because he's gone over the edge with this one.

However, West is really a distraction from the central issue. Kanye West is just a flash-in-the-pan, flavor-of-the-month rapper enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame. And desperately doing whatever his room-temperature IQ handlers tell him will extend that window of notoriety.

No, the real issue is Rolling Stone. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to mock Mohammed or Buddha on their cover. They think they can get away with mocking Jesus.

But maybe, on second thought, that is the Good News. . . it's all about Jesus, always.

Cross-posted at FRCblog.com.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (1)

Cross Posted From Jack Yoest.

at www.FRCBlog.org. FRC launched the blog on January 6th to promote public education on important policy issues.

The non-profit is on the cutting edge of conversation on the Sam Alito Senate hearings.

I think they are off to a great start as a new group blog. Do visit the FRCBlog and let me know what you think.

Soon, all major corporations and not-for-profits will be hosting blogs. FRC is proving to be an early adopter of this communication channel.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

The Managing Editor of the FRC Blog is Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., who also blogs at Reasoned Audacity. The wife of Your Business Blogger.

Posted by Charmaine at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I tuned in to NBC's new television series, "The Book of Daniel" last night. This is the one where Jesus pops up periodically in the life of Reverend Daniel Webster that has generated such controversy.

According to NBC, Jesus is Daniel's "best friend and confidante" and "serves as a sounding board and encourages Webster to find the answers to his questions within himself . . ." Right. Where else might the answers be?

Here's the good news: The show is really tedious.

The female bishop. The gay son. The angst-ridden, drug-dealing teen daughter. There isn't a liberal canard or stereotype that the producers didn't include.

My favorite moment of silliness was when Jesus and Daniel are sitting around chatting and exchanging jokes and Jesus says: "You need to laugh more."

Such profundity. Now where was that clicker?

(Cross-posted at FRCBlog.com.)

Posted by Charmaine at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Paula Abdul and Richard Branson
Celebrating Chrismahanukwanzakah
. . . and Cheap Cell Phones
Before we say a final goodbye to the Holiday-Formerly-Known-as-"Christmas"-- as it is known in some quarters -- let's just revisit for a moment how we arrived in this more Enlightened Age of Tolerance and Harmony.

How we arrived, as it were, in the Age of Chrismahanukwanzakah.

I have argued elsewhere that humor is a weapon. And in the culture wars it may be one of the most effective. This broadside on Christmas is one of the most jaw-dropping I've seen:

In some ways we're all monkeys;
well maybe just a smidgeon.
I'm a scientologist;
that's kind of a religion.
Whose faith is the right one?
It's anybody's guess.
What matters most is camera phones for $20 less.

It's Richard Branson's brilliant holiday sales campaign. Funny. Funny. Funny.

And completely subversive.

C'mon, get a grip! It's just a joke! We're only trying to sell cell phones here!

My kids wanted to see the video clip several times. Laughing uproariously.

None of the super-serious lawsuits waged by the ACLU to ban nativity scenes have the potency of this kind of subtle campaign.

* * *

The link above, and the text, comes from last year's campaign. This year's is here.

Thanks to Lanier Swann for this story!

Posted by Charmaine at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

. . . read the Merry Christmas blog!

We ordered our Christmas cards tonight. In the past, we have had cards that said "Happy Holidays" on it, and I have to admit that we did that deliberately so that we could send it to our friends of other faiths.

This year, the card says "Christmas Blessings."

Weird world we live in when your Christmas card becomes a political issue.

But hey. Do you want one of our Christmas Blessings cards?? Just sign up for the email subscription to Reasoned Audacity (on the left-hand sidebar), then send me an email with your home address, and the card will soon be on its way.

The Penta-Posse is already busy stamping envelopes!

Posted by Charmaine at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As seen on a road near my home. . .

UPDATE: Jack has more on this Toyota campaign. Pretty funny stuff.

Posted by Charmaine at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Over the Hill?

John Derbyshire thinks Jennifer Anniston is just so over:

Did I buy, or browse, a copy of the November 17 GQ, in order to get a look at Jennifer Aniston's bristols? No, I didn't. While I have no doubt that Ms. Aniston is a paragon of charm, wit, and intelligence, she is also 36 years old. Even with the strenuous body-hardening exercise routines now compulsory for movie stars, at age 36 the forces of nature have won out over the view-worthiness of the unsupported female bust.

It is, in fact, a sad truth about human life that beyond our salad days, very few of us are interesting to look at in the buff. Added to that sadness is the very unfair truth that a woman's salad days are shorter than a man's -- really, in this precise context, only from about 15 to 20. The Nautilus and the treadmill can add a half decade or so, but by 36 the bloom is definitely off the rose.

It's all over after . . . age twenty, John??!!

Well, courtesy of Egotastic, you don't have to buy or browse GQ, you can judge for yourself, at least as it relates to Jennifer. Since I'm not a guy, I can't really say definitively of course, but hey, I'm just guessing John is in the minority here on the Anniston issue.

But that's not really as interesting as John's larger, more sweeping, point: five years, gals. Five years . . . that's all we've got.

It's all downhill (literally) after that.

* * *

Hat tip: Wonkette.

Posted by Charmaine at 06:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Tom McMahon. A fresh, and challenging, way to look at a perennial challenge. Wow.

Posted by Charmaine at 01:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Benjamin Franklin

"There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz'd people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos'd, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos'd to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc'd them to abandon.

"At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark'd that the inconveniences they suffer'd, and concerning which they had so often weary'd heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen'd; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious.

"He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow'd to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ'd circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed."

Of course, today, one wonders if we might ought to go back to the fasting idea. . .

Excerpted from The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin, edited by Mark Skousen, a professor at Columbia University and a descendant of Franklin's, at Human Events Online. Hat tip: Drudge.

Posted by Charmaine at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

World's Ugliest Dog

My friend Steve, on the bestiality beat. . .

* * *
Cross-posted at Zeitgeist.

Posted by Charmaine at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mrs. Jesse Malkin

Michelle Malkin hits back at left-wing bloggers who claim she is just a tool of her husband, Jesse Malkin, and that he is her ghost-blogger.

After a long paragraph where she details their life-work partnership, she comes to my favorite line:

Message to crackpots and haters: This is not a right-wing conspiracy. This is marriage.

Good going, Mrs. Malkin.

Posted by Charmaine at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Do you live near a sex offender? This database is amazing: just type in your zip code and you get a MAP of where the registered sex offenders live near you.

Plus their names and pictures.

And the crime for which they were convicted.

Big thanks to Jay Tea at Wizbang.

Some of Jay's commenters object to the listings. Not me.

Though I will give it to one commenter, Synova, who wrote:

I *do* have children and quite frankly, I don't trust *anyone*. The people I've known who have been abused have been abused strictly by people in positions of trust. Not strangers.

Good point.

Nevertheless, I like the fact that moving in this direction -- publically identifying sex offenders -- takes seriously the problem of high levels of recidivism for these kinds of crimes.

Posted by Charmaine at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (1)

CREDIT: TABLOID CITY
at People Magazine

The picture gives away the punchline, but let's do review the outlines of this story. Work with me here, and pretend for a moment you don't know who they are:

A middle-aged man who is handsome (I guess), wealthy (in the extreme) and powerful begins dating a fresh-faced, virginal young woman, 17 years his junior. She hero-worships him.

This man has as part of his personal history two failed marriages. The end of both previous marriages is universally acknowledged to have been at his instigation.

CREDIT: LIMELIGHT
via People

Barely six months after the man and the young woman begin dating, she turns up in public, visibly pregnant.

A spokesperson says that "no wedding date has been set." Oh, and yes, the couple "is very excited."

In another era, this couple would have gotten married quietly. And the community would have raised their collective eyebrows and studiously avoided publicly noting how robust the baby appeared when it arrived "prematurely" six, or seven months later.

My critics will race forward to say that in that bygone era the "community" would have made our erstwhile couple feel downright uncomfortable in public. They will point out that "shotgun weddings" might not always have been best for everyone involved.

They will say I'm being judgmental.

Well, so be it.

Let me be clear: I'm not necessarily arguing for a return to shame and stigma full stop. But there is a Shame Continuum.

We may not want to visit Stigma on their heads . . . but must we celebrate them on the cover of People Magazine?

Posted by Charmaine at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (7)

First, let me just state, that an extremely high percentage of the lingerie that I own has a Victoria's Secret label in it. I hesitate to reveal something so personal, but it's not exactly a news flash: Victoria's Secret is the lingerie colossus. They cornered the market on nice, but sexy underwear for American women.

So why go slutty? This picture (courtesy Andrea Lafferty) is from the window of a new Victoria's Secret in Tyson's Corner mall in Virginia. According to the Washington Post, this is part of a new national marketing campaign.

I'm very, very disappointed to see VS caving in to crudity. It's just too easy to go sleazy.

But it's a bad move for them. Competitors are easy to find.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Predictably, our culture has drifted from Get It On, to Get-It-Over-With. . .

One more thing about the mom who pimped out her daughter and a friend to two men they met at a mall on a shopping trip.

My Brilliant Brother mentioned that post to me and said: "You know, Charmaine, that woman didn't exactly pimp out her daughter."

It's putting a fine point on it, but he's right. There is another layer of this story that I passed over.

What the mother actually said was that it was time for her daughter to "have sex and get it over with."

That's a statement worth pausing over.

While we are all justly horrified at this woman's terrible lack of normal, human maternal protectiveness, this mother came by her attitude naturally just by breathing the noxious fumes of our modern MTV sex culture. How many degrees of separation are there, really, from this mother who charged into criminal neglect, and the mothers who communicate the same "get it over with" attitude to their daughters more subtly, but perform a similar role as enabler with their permissiveness?

We've spent the last several decades letting a sniggering, crude, crass, adolescent, Get It On approach to sexuality overtake our sexual mores.

Yeah, I'm talking about you, Wonkette. And you, Amanda Marcotte.

Virginity, once respected and valued as a mark of self-discipline and self-respect, is now often viewed skeptically as a burden and an embarrassment.

We've morphed into the Get-It-Over-With culture. And women are the poorer for it.

# # #

Take a break for Lunch Specials at Basil's Blog.

Posted by Charmaine at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (41) | TrackBacks (5)

A mother took her 13-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old friend on an overnight shopping trip. While at a mall in White Plains, New York, they "ran into" Gilberto Gonzalez, who is 19, and Michael Berger, who is 18.

I can't quite imagine what happened in that interaction at the mall because the next part of the story is inconceivable: the two men met the mother and the two girls at a room in the Crowne Plaza Hotel. For sex. With the girls. With the mother's collusion. She provided the beer.

The two men had sex with the 13 and 14-year-old girls while the mother was in the room!

That's an outrage. But it gets worse.

The men are now being prosecuted for rape. That's good.

The mother is being prosecuted for second-degree rape. Maybe good.

But the judge says he is going to sentence the woman to six months in jail and 10 years probation, if she convinces him "that she understands the seriousness of the crime."

Six months in jail? Six months in jail? For pimping out your daughter? And a friend?

The judge is the one who doesn't understand the seriousness of this crime.

His name is Judge Rory Bellantoni, 9th Judicial District, Westchester County, New York.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (5)

Alert reader, Carl at Gelf Magazine has outstanding reporting and an astute observation.

Dr. Yoest, I saw your post about yesterday's NYT article ...And noticed your comment about the methodology: "The article is heavy on anecdote and fails to ever explain its methodology -- the source of its "data" is email responses from some young women at the Ivy's. So, even though I think the conclusion is interesting and one that I agree with, in all honesty the researcher in me has to point out to you that this is not terribly reliable reporting."

Carl continues:

It seems you had reason to be suspicious. Over at Gelf, to which I contribute, we've run a copy of the survey the NYT reporter emailed to Yale students, as sent to us by one of the recipients. The survey seems to have leading questions, basically implying that all Yale women must be straight and want kids: story here David Goldenberg byline .

Well done. Carl nails it down:

Among the leading questions, many from right at the top of the survey:

When you have children, do you plan to stay at home with them or do you plan to continue working? Why?

If you plan to continue working, do you plan to work full-time in an office, or full-time from your house, or part-time in an office, or part-time from your house? Why?

If you plan to stay at home with your kids, do you plan to return to work? If so, how old will you wait for your kids to be when you return?

Was your mom a stay-at-home mom? Explain whether she worked, and how much she worked! Were you glad with her choice (to either work or stay-at-home or whatever combination she did)?

How do you think college-age men at Yale feel about whether wives should stay at home with their kids?/

In polling we call this "priming the pump." It is used to direct answers with subtle questions with subtle assumptions. Good polls are designed to uncover the truth (of opinion) across a broad sample. Bad polls have an agenda. This is, as Carl suggests, a bad survey.

I will have more in coming posts on The NYT's political and cultural agenda.

No matter what our differences in the blogosphere, the work by Gelf Magazine shows us why the NYT chopped 500 jobs and is bleeding red ink. The NYT has lost the public trust -- because of such questionable reporting.

Outside The Beltway has more on the NYT's firings.

Posted by Charmaine at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sex is everywhere we turn -- openly, brazenly commodified: magazines, television, billboards . . . Self-consciously attempting to craft New Rules, and proudly post-modern, our public efforts at creating a 21st century, non-judgmental morality have become somewhat schizophrenic.

Do we need Viagra or are we plagued by Violence Against Women? Cosmopolitan sells magazines promising to dish on "Six sex slipups that keep you from reaching peak potential," while college orientation focuses on Date Rape.

Same market space; same audience. Timeless tales; epic themes. Actually, is this century all that much different than the first one?

* * *

We watched HBO's new series Rome on Sunday night and two scenes are etched on my memory.

Lucius and Titus
The first is a scene between two of Caeser's soldiers, Centurion Lucius Vorenus and his subordinate, Legionnaire Titus Pullo. Preparing to sleep out on the cold ground one night, their conversation turns to women. Titus discovers that Lucius has not slept with a woman other than his wife during the seven years that they have been away from Rome, and mocks his virility. . .asking the Centurion why he doesn't just take and "enjoy" the women of the regions they've conquered, like the other men.

Lucius responds: "When was the last time you had a woman who wasn't crying?" And he turns his back on Titus.

Atia
The next scene centers on the political manipulations of Atia, Caeser's niece. Caeser has given her the task of finding a wife for the widowed Pompey. Atia, seeing an opportunity for political gain, forces her daughter Octavia to divorce the husband she loves to marry Pompey.

Octavia
Atia waits in a litter while Octavia embraces her husband and says goodbye. Clearly devastated, Octavia tears herself away and joins her mother.

Atia brusquely says: "Why I think I saw tears in his eyes, Octavia! Such a fuss."

Octavia replies: "He loves me."

The scene that soon follows, where the servants remove Octavia's clothes to present her to Pompey is almost too painful to watch.

* * *

In my mind I juxtapose two powerful images of tears:

* * *

In our culture of commodified sex, it is good to remember this history of sex as power and promise. It's a force of Nature unequaled in its power for both good and evil.

Sex without boundaries causes real loss.

A history of using women as sexual playthings or political pawns is partly what has given us the anger behind feminism.

Even so, it's equally important to remember that throughout history, keeping themselves "only unto each other" has been an imperative of "one-ness" . . .in the giving and receiving of sexually exclusive love, men and women have discovered joy.

In God's design, sex provides a powerful pair-bond. It is meant to cleave two into one in a profound mystery beyond our understanding.

"What God hath joined together, let no man tear asunder."

Without that boundary, we're left with tears.

***

Thanks to Mudville Gazette, Open Post.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (2)

It's worth taking a moment to reflect on how profoundly technology has changed our world. Amidst the frequent criticism of cell-phone technology -- detractors argue that it has grossly impinged on our public spaces -- we often fail to remember when lack of communication caused real pain.

Most of us know the World War II story of the Sullivan brothers -- five young men from one family killed in action. . . but did you know that although they died in November of 1942, in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the family had still not received official word in January, and their mother wrote to the Navy asking about a rumour that they had all died?

Here's the letter that Florida Cracker found and posted this last week:

Every time I read this, I can't get beyond the line, "If it is so, please let me know the truth," without choking up. What an unimaginable loss.

History marches remorselessly on. And we fight another war.

Tammy Pruett sends five sons off to Iraq. But because of Alletta Sullivan's loss, the Pruett boys would not be allowed to serve together in the same unit.

And another soldier's mom, a blogger, Some Soldier's Mom, got a phone call on Tuesday: her son, Noah Pincusoff, had been seriously injured in Iraq. She put up a post asking for prayer for him at 6:37pm.

By 4:30am, she had talked with him by phone in Iraq.

By Friday, Mrs. Greyhawk had seen Noah in person in Landstuhl.

By this morning, Mrs. G was able to talk with Noah's mom by phone to tell her how well her son is doing. . .

Sure. There are some downsides to the new insta-always-on-communication.

But the upsides are worth it.

* * *

See also -- From Michael Yon's amazing reporting on site in Mosul: Picture of Commander Erik Kurilla calling wounded soldier, Daniel Lama's, family to reassure them that he is going to be okay.

And more cool technology: open trackbacks at the ever-generous Beth's Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. . .

And Mrs. Greyhawk, as well as visiting hospitals and giving us the great Dawn Patrol, also gives us Open Post!

Posted by Charmaine at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

UPDATING AND BUMPING TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE -- Please scroll down.

This is appalling. No, not because it's about the posterior view. I'm one who cheered when JLO brought back "curves."

Because it's crude.

Here's the text:

My butt is big

and round like the letter C

and ten thousand lunges

have made it rounder

but not smaller

that's just fine.

It's a space heater

for my side of the bed.

It's my ambassador

to those who walk behind me.

It's a border collie

that herds skinny women

away from the best deals

at clothing sales.

My butt is big

and that's just fine

and those who might scorn it

are invited to kiss it.

Just do it.

This isn't about "accepting women as they are." Don't be fooled. This is about being crass and cheap.

And selling shoes.

Via Sarah at Intellectuelle; thanks to Joe.

***

UPDATE: Genevieve Kineke at Feminine-Genius (a great blog) headed over to the Nike site and discovered Nike's Global Women’s Leadership Council, which they established "to promote and support the career advancement of women within the company." And this year they convened a Global Women's Symposium "bringing together more than 130 senior women from Nike offices around the world to discuss how to advance women at Nike and make Nike a premiere workplace for women."

Genevieve argues that these kind of ads subvert rather than advance women. I agree.

Posted by Charmaine at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (5)

Still on the road home. . .stopped last night hoping to watch a movie, but here in the mountains of North Carolina, found only basic cable. New discovery: movielink.com. This is a fantastic site! Download movies right onto your laptop and you have 24 hours to view. We loved it.

So we watched Merchant of Venice. Even the Penta-Posse was mesmerized. Al Pacino as Shylock is amazing. That role has such moral complexity that it would be so easy to make him a cartoon character. But Pacino humanzies Shylock and draws you into his hatred so that it is compelling and believable.

Well worth watching. Of course, it is Shakespeare!

Posted by Charmaine at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

See the latest Faith Mouse cartoon:

The long tentacles of Plaidgate!

Go straight to Mudville Gazette at Open Post. And while there see Toe in the Water and a review of the excitement of risk.

The American Constitution Society covered the Spongegate controversy some time ago in Ideology.

Also linked with Outside the Beltway at Traffic Jam. And do visit Joust the Facts who asks, Why is it always about abortion?

Free Content; no calories at Basil's Blog at Junk Food Snacks.

Posted by Charmaine at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Click4Cathy - (American Cancer Ablation Center)

Tocqueville would smile. That's America. Click away.

Thank you to SmallDeadAnimals at Not Just Another Link.

Posted by Charmaine at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Short video clip: The Bomber and the Cafe

Tip of the mortar board to my brother the rocket scientist.

See DANGerus at Fraudwa.

Ace of Spades writes Bush: Yes, Virginia there is a war on terror.

Open Post by Mudville Gazette and has more video thru My View.

Grant McCracken has more on branding and touch points.

Thanks to Outside the Beltway for Traffic Jam. And while there, be sure to visit Jack Army with tidbits from basic training.

Posted by Charmaine at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

We hated it so much last week that I hate to do it. But somebody has to: Stop by tonight at 10 -- I'll be liveblogging the second installment of "Over There," FX's new show about the Iraq war. If for no other reason, I have to tune in to see what they are going to do with the women in combat story-line. . .

Come join us.

UPDATE: Instapundit links today to Opinionated Bastard who says that "The Soldiers Are Wrong:"

I think that Over There is going to turn out to be great TV. It may be oversimplifying the war, but that's OK. If the New York Times coverage of the war was as good as this show, I wouldn't have to blog.

Great TV??! Okay, let's see. . .

***
Prologue: Time Magazine reports that, "FX's daring new Iraq war drama is violent and provocative -- but filled with cliched characters." But you knew that from last week.

2200hrs. Review from last week: Remember gentlemen, sex begins in the kitchen.

2202 An American soldier hanging from a rafter, being beaten by a man in a ski mask. Man, I hate this. God bless the American soldier.

2202 It was a dream sequence. Now we're at Landstuhl in Germany, with the soldier who lost his leg last week.

His father comes to visit. Father-leaving cliche: "he left when I was six years old for cigarettes and never came back."

2211 I don't know if I can watch a whole hour of this. Now we have a scene between a black soldier and a white soldier that defies description. The white guy asks for an apology from the black guy -- he's the one who wanted to make the run for the booze that resulted in the truck hitting an IED and the soldier losing his leg. Then they start fighting after the black guy calls the white guy a "honky." No way. Not buyin' it.

2215 In the commercial break. They did segue into an intense scene where they recreate a car trying to run the roadblock. We see the car coming straight at them; they shoot warning shots and the car just keeps coming. In real life this caused an international incident when the soldiers killed an Italian journalist as I recall. (Though not their fault.)

2218 Just let a car go through -- some women saying "America good." That's a nice scene. But they didn't check the trunk.

2223 They call the wife on a Saturday when he was injured on Tuesday? Is that true? Does that really happen?

2224 Soldiers standing around looking at the dead guys in the car that tried to run the roadblock and one soldier starts wondering if the two Iraqis were actually innocent. A lot like last week where they had the same kind of self-questioning scene after combat. Doesn't ring true to me.

2238 Of course they have to make the chaplain come off like a goofball. At least they don't make him pushy too.

2240 Now that was cool. The Sergeant said not to touch the car cause he thought it was probably booby-trapped. So they rigged it up so they could open the trunk from a distance. And, boom. The Sarge was right.

2247 "And then there's my husband, who makes mules look cooperative." I'll have to remember that one.

2248 They're out of water? Paging Coca-Cola!! I told you you needed to role out Cami-Coke on the water buffalo!!

2259 On the plus side -- the last check point scene was pretty intense. They show the soldiers killing a car with a man and his little daughter -- the soldier who discovers the little girl completely freaks out. But the next car turns out to have a guy stashed in the trunk. So it was a set-up. It leaves you with a deep respect for the intense pressure of having to make on the spot, quick assessments of dangerous situations with lives on the line.

On the other hand. . . .I recently saw a video clip coming out of Iraq of a real surveillance operation where our guys ended up having to shoot some insurgents who were trying to set up some roadside bombs. . . wow, the cool professionalism was just so impressive. None of the overwrought emotionalism being portrayed here. What say you milbloggers?

* * *
Thanks to Mudville, Open Post!

Posted by Charmaine at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (1)

Want to learn more about brands and branding? Bloggers may be in the business of writing; but a blog is a brand. . . Visit BrandShift recently recommended by FastCompany:

BrandShift's authors stick to their knitting [with] a healthy debate on the concept of branding [and case studies]. . ..

Posted by Charmaine at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

***updated and bumped***

When I heard that there was going to be a new television show called "Commander-in-Chief" starring Geena Davis as the first female President, I knew I was going to hate it. But I just didn't know how bad it was going to be.

And this reaction before I've even seen the show.

The Washington Post reports today on a press conference with Rod Lurie, the show's creator. Lisa de Moraes reports that "Lurie thinks it a shame there are no 'iconic' women in history because women do have greatness in them."

Well, gee, thanks Rod. Nice to know we do have it in us. . .

Lurie next reeled off examples of "iconic men:" George Washington, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln.

At least he didn't say Bill Clinton.

But here's the kicker. Obviously forgetting the wisdom of "stop digging," Lurie added:

Try to find an iconic woman. There aren't any. The most iconic woman is Oprah Winfrey, and she deserves it.

Oprah Winfrey??!! There aren't any other "iconic women?" Please, Lisa, check your notes and tell me he didn't really say that!

Hey Rod! Recognize any of these women?

Mother Teresa

Margaret Thatcher

Amelia Earhart

Send me your nominations for my photo gallery of iconic women. . .

UPDATE: Such great names!! Be sure to read the wonderful lists of names in the comments. But first: how much do I love the fact that the very first person to get back to me with a gallery of women, complete with pictures, was. . . a guy?! Waco, you're terrific! That really speaks to Kathy's point in the comments that being a hero or a heroine shouldn't be necessarily about gender. These women inspire us all.

After the jump -- the expanded gallery of iconic women. . .

Linked to Shakespeare's Sister at BlogWhoring.

Forbes has 100 most powerful women. Feministing is the vector. Common Sense Runs Wild also featured the article.

Continue reading "America's "Iconic" Woman: Oprah Winfrey??!!" »

Posted by Charmaine at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (11)

"Over There" tonight at 10 EST. The new television series about the Iraq war. I'm skeptical. So I've decided to live-blog it. If you're watching, too, send comments.

***
2201 Sex in the kitchen for starters? Oooh. That's subtle.

2209 Women in combat already and we're not 10 minutes in!

2210 Squad is digging in (Ranger grave). She says: "Jesus I can't do this."
Two male soldiers rush over to help the damsel in distress. "Hey Dan, let's give her a hand."
"I can do it myself. . ." she whines.
Scene interrupted by combat action. (Badge to follow.)

Very interesting. And surprising. I can't imagine that Steven Bochco wrote this to underscore the problems with women in combat. But hey, there you have it. Of course, PREDICTION: I'm sure by the end we'll have Amazon Woman enter the scene. Wait. I bet this very same woman will turn out to be mega-warrior. Bet on it.

2217 "Praise in public; reprimand in private." Captain in charge berates the lieutenant in front of sergeant and men, undermining chain of command. Hollywood always get military leadership wrong.

2220 Closeup of the chick. Nice eyebrow pencil.

2227 Okay. Where are they going with the women in combat issue? This I was not expecting. Synopsis: girl wanders off in search of privacy to answer the call of nature (whatever). After finding just the right spot and dropping her drawers and flack jacket, an Iraqi sneaks up, pears over the berm and spies her. He is momentarily flummoxed, then regains his senses, and tries to shoot her. (Just like all the bad guys in the movies, he has terrible aim in close quarters with an automatic weapon. . . ) Again, combat action ensues. . .

2236 "She's alive!" Of course she is. Note: he carries her off the field.

2238 Commercial break. Question: could she have carried him off? With all his gear? Shoot, even without his gear?

2246 So now one of the women is doing a video for her kid at home . . . woah, the women in combat issue is a huge theme in this show.

We just had a scene where a bunch of Iraquis were dragged away and thrown into a truck while hollering about Abu Ghraib. . . were we supposed to sympathise with them?

2249 UnderArmour (product placement - cool though)! Milblogs, is this standard issue now? The Dude would love that! He's mad that I wouldn't let him watch this with me. . .

2255 Is that the football player who just lost his leg in the roadside bombing? Man I hate when they set you up like that. Oh is this the end? More reax in a minute. . .

2301 It was the football player. Previews tell us that they'll be following him through coping with his loss and rehab. I felt emotionally manipulated when he was the one who got hurt. (I wish I'd written down my prediction that he would be the one who died -- it was so obvious that they were setting us up to care about him.) But, having said that, if this story line resulted in people appreciating the sacrifices and suffering of our military, then it would be a good thing. . .More on another angle in a minute.

2327 The intellectual character from Cornell said in his video home: "We are savages; war turns us into monsters. . ." Victor Davis Hanson would like this part. He says democracies are the most vicious/brutal fighters and that when we go against other cultures it's a slaughter. Hanson views that as good though. Hard to say completely from this single episode, but I'm guessing this show will go the other way -- it seems like all Hollywood renditions of war turn into anti-war screeds. They're going to focus on the angst of the individuals in order to tell the story. They won't take the time to portray grateful Iraqi's, or mention Saddam's brutalities. . . and the character who says he "loves the Army" will be portrayed as a doofus.

I hope I'm wrong. But it's not really worth watching. . . and our soldiers deserve better.

UPDATE: Swanky Conservative live-blogged, too. He had much the same reaction I did. Here's one observation he makes: "After a firefight, do troops loll around staring at the dead enemy?" Well, exactly! What was that about? Went on forever. Check it out; he picked up on a couple of funny things that I missed.

* * *
To the guys who really are Over There . . . Mudville! Open Post!

The indirect fire Argghhh! has the cliches.

See more outstanding analysis at Target Centermass on Over There. And the best thermal image in the blogosphere.

The Milbloggers are fighting back! Check out Blackfive's report -- great comment thread.

And Eric's Grumbles Before the Grave gives us his negative reax, but also a list of good war movies. It's short!

1 August, Ballon Juice has an update.

Posted by Charmaine at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (14)

Congratulations Bill Rice at The Fourth Rail!

Last Monday, my world changed. After some complications with the end of my wife's pregnancy it was decided it was best to encourage the labor early. At 8:48 pm, my dear sweet Catherine Elizabeth was born!

While I have been looking forward to being a father for a long time, words cannot explain the joy I felt with God's precious gift to my wife and me.

While she was in the womb, I would tell her that "Daddy loves you!" When she was first born and screaming while the nurses were cleaning her by my wife's bed with her eyes closed, I repeated the often said line. She stopped crying, turned towards me and opened her eyes. She grabbed on to my finger will all of her hand and I was in heaven.

I love the story about Catherine quieting down at the sound of her father's voice in the delivery room. We've had that happen with our kids too. They do recognize us! It's just amazing.

This welcome for Catherine, this new little one we know through the blogosphere, is Part Two in the Thank Heaven for Little Girls series here at Reasoned Audacity. Making the world a better place one posting at a time; one baby at a time.

Thank heaven for little girls for little girls get bigger every day! Thank heaven for little girls they grow up in the most delightful way! Those little eyes so helpless and appealing one day will flash and send you crashin' thru the ceilin'. . .

So Congratulations Bill and family! She's beautiful. While I get sentimental about new babies, my husband, Jack always insists I send along to new fathers -- of girls -- his battle-plan -- W. Bruce Cameron's 8 Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter, a must-read for every dad with a daughter.

He thinks you might want to keep it handy. . .Check it out, after the jump. I'm going to have to come up with something for the boy arrivals. Any suggestions??

Continue reading "Thank Heaven for Little Girls, Part Two" »

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Wow. Going to prison sure is a good career move these days.

This month's Vanity Fair profile of Martha Stewart focuses on her post-prison come-back -- she has a new television show, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, in development -- and the trials and tribulations of the "home confinement" she has to endure. She wears an ankle bracelet that tracks her whereabouts at all times.

The limitations of home confinement and "lockdown" are very trying . . . according to Martha's friend, Memrie Lewis, "Martha can't easily go down to the stables or the greenhouse. At least in prison she was free to go wherever she wanted to go."

As it turns out, not only was she "free" in prison, she was getting rich. Her stock price more than doubled while she was in prison, and she became a billionaire.

Poor Martha.

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Welcome Ace of Spades HQ readers. Today I have the honor of being the guest of Ace's radio program at Hoist the Black FLag at Right Talk 1600 hrs EST.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

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The ABC Network cancelled the "Welcome To The Neighborhood" series, the latest entrant in Reality TV. Good thing. The pogrom program should have been titled, "Meet the Caricatures."

Your Audacious (yet so Reasonable) blogger had a conversation with the AP reporter, David Bauder, about controversy surrounding this program last week.

Caricatures on Parade

Now they've cancelled the show!

The show featured seven families competing for a rather nice house in a cul-de-sac of $350K shacks in Austin. The Texas capital motto is "Keep Austin Weird," but even this city had limits. To win the candidate family had to be accepted by the current families living in the neigborhood. Losers would be brutally voted off the premises each week.

Will the violence never cease?

The show had something to offend everyone . . . featuring a homosexual couple; a black couple; a Hispanic couple (with lots of kids); an Asian couple (who owned a restaurant); a white couple (country-comes-to-town); a devil-worshiping witch (kid you not); and a couple with tattoos. ABC already has all their pictures scrubbed off their website.

Conveniently, the Bible-thumping Jesus freaks were there to pass judgement on everyone. Can anyone say "set up for failure?" I suggested to the AP that this was a lose-lose for everyone.

###

Comments on Reality TV Magazine -- yes, there's a blog for this genre -- were surprisingly perceptive and generally supportive for the series.

Shakespeare's Sister didn't care for the Neighborhood either.

Our friends at Pam's House Blend illustrate how the show's premise managed to offend everyone. Pam (tagline: "American. Female. Lesbian. Opinionated.") thought that "watching the bigotry [would be] almost too painful to take" and predicted the Korean's or the Tattoo's would "win."

See more analysis at Daily Pepper contrasting ABC with PBS

And a thank you to Open Post at Mudville Gazette for preserving, protecting and defending our way of life(!).

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Bush has a hard sell on his hands: War without Angst. The President is on the difficult ground of FUD politics.

Speech at Ft. Bragg

In his speech last night from Fort Bragg, the President was the confident cowboy leading us as The War Time President. As it should be; as it must be.

Nevertheless, Bush is using a sales tactic that works with products . . . but is much more difficult with politics. IBM trained a generation of sales reps to eliminate FUD's: "fear, uncertainty and doubt." In the private sector, in business, this communication works.

Less so in the public sector. Selling war in America requires Angst, Worry, Concern, Reluctance, Victimhood.

As Victor Davis Hanson reminds us in his outstanding article The Politics of American War, there's a huge gulf between the politics of war for liberal and conservative presidents:

To end the dictatorial and genocidal plans of Slobodan Milosevic, liberal Bill Clinton was willing to bomb downtown Belgrade, commit American forces to a major campaign without U.S. Senate approval and bypass the United Nations altogether. Few accused him of fighting an illegal war, contravening U.N. protocols, or cowardly dropping bombs on civilians. In all these cases, public opposition was pretty much muted, despite the horrendous casualties involved in some of these past conflicts.

George W. Bush, as a conservative President, however, will never be given such leeway. Why not? Because he doesn't bite his lip:

. . .it is very difficult in general for a conservative to wage war, because the natural suspicion arises that his tragic view of human nature and his belief in the occasional utility of force, makes him seem to enjoy the enterprise far more than a lip-biting progressive, who may in fact order far more destruction.

So that's what the President was up against last night. He is a President, who is, apparently, uniquely suited by temperament for eliminating FUD and waging a War Without Angst. Many of us think resolute words like these from his speech last night are his great strength:

. . .we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we'll fight them there, we'll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won. (Applause.)

America has done difficult work before. From our desperate fight for independence to the darkest days of a Civil War, to the hard-fought battles against tyranny in the 20th century, there were many chances to lose our heart, our nerve, or our way. But Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity, and returns to strike us again. We know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat, it is courage. And we know that this great ideal of human freedom entrusted to us in a special way, and that the ideal of liberty is worth defending.

Audacity. Emphasis mine.

The proper response when confronting an enemy's audacity is not retreat. And I, for one, am glad he didn't bite his lip as he stated that human freedom is entrusted to us in a special way.

We must meet audacity with audacity. But ours is a Reasoned Audacity.
###

Read fearless patriots on Open Post at Mudville Gazette.

Outside The Beltway always knows what's up in Your Nation's Capital at Traffic Jam

Thank you to the lovely ladies BlogWhoring over Shakespeare's Sister

e-Claire has a terrific overview of The Speech.

Posted by Charmaine at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today at 5 pm EST your Audacious (yet so Reasonable), blogger is schedule to appear on CNN to discuss a new campaign from the cable television industry called "Control Your TV."

Please tune in and let me know what you think.

UPDATE 7 PM:

Had a lot of fun at the taping: the Dude went with me -- my entourage. Beefy security always handy to have around!

Me and my entourage

But, if you tuned in at 5 this afternoon, then you know all about the explosion in St. Louis today. . .definitely trumps a discussion of the cable industry's improved ratings system. Since the interview was taped instead of live, I'm guessing they'll run it later. I'll let you know if they tell me. But if you do see it, send comments!

The Dude in
the Green Room

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Be careful whom you marry: they might get to pick your gravestone.

As Janette at Common Sense Runs Wild and Jody at Steal the Bandwagon have noted, Terri Schiavo's grave marker, is All About Michael.

And an inscription lesson for us all. Sadly, Terri was not the first to be slighted by a surviving spouse. Remember Fred Astaire? Oh, yeah, him, the husband of What's-Her-Name:

The Wall Street Journal reminded us of selfish spouses in Having a Say in Your Epitaph:

He was the world's best-known dancer and a legendary film star. But if you visit Fred Astaire's gravesite in Chatsworth, Calif., you're reminded only of this: He had a widow.

He married his second wife, Robyn, in 1980, when he was 81 years old and she was 35. After he died in 1987, she wrote the 11 words on his grave marker: "Fred Astaire. I will always love you my darling. Thank you."

There's a lesson here. If you want your tombstone to be about you, you'd better speak up. Otherwise, whoever is in charge of picking out your marker might decide to chisel something along the lines of: "Enough about him. Let me tell you about me."

And so we see the same nonsense from Michael "I Kept my Promise" Schiavo (Which promise was that? The one about being faithful Till Death Do Us Part?):

With apologies to Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar:

I come to bury Terri,

Not to praise her.

The evil that I do lives after her;

The good is interred with her bones...

When love begins to sicken and decay,


It useth an enforcèd ceremony.

By heaven, I had rather have coins,


And drop her blood for drachmas...

Pick your mate with care. They just might get the last word.

See also Tammy at A Mom and Her Blog.

A salute to Mudville Gazette who understand duty and honor at Open Post.

Thank you to Outside The Beltway giving voice to others on Beltway Traffic Jam.

ProLifeBlogs gets it right in the debate in Bobby Schindler Responds

More Shakespeare's Sister speaking out on BlogWhoring.

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When should entertainment have claim on the public purse?

Congress will reduce the NPR and PBS budget from $200,000,000 to a mere $100 million. Our friends on the left are Outraged! Outraged!

Cartoon credit: Blue Girl's "better half"

Our lefty friends (no friends of the free market) have different takes. Over at Blue Girl in a Red State there seems to be some confusion between work and charity.

Meanwhile, the Feminist Minority fears for a free press:

Take Action for Independent Media

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider an appropriations bill Wednesday which will make drastic cuts in the budgets of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) from $200 million to $100 million.

In their ongoing efforts to control the media, the right wing is using the Congressional appropriations process to decimate public radio and television. We could lose this critical independent voice and quality programming.

Take action today! Click here to urge your Representative to stand up for the independent media free from partisan and ideological control by voting for full funding for PBS and NPR.

Big Bird can fly on its own. When The Dreamer was 18 months old we comforted her on camera when interviewed -- by a stuffed animal we had paid for with real money. Plus tax. (Or more likely, a grandmother paid for with real money. . .) The Yellow Bird to the rescue!

A cool 100 million dollars. We could get one very nice, brand new F-22 Raptor. And the world would be a better place.

Peggy Noonan says, news flash: PBS is liberal. . . and that Democrats may even admit as much. . . (though, obviously, not the Fem Minority who seems to think PBS/NPR is an "independent critical voice").

A civil hat tip to the liberal GrubbyKid.

See Mudville Gazette with the unsubsidized Open Post.

Right Wing Sparkle has more at PBS Funding: Is It Worth It?

Trey Jackson sick of taxes for Lefty Liberal Bile Hat tip to Trey for pointing us to Atlas Shrugs...

Atlas Shrugs can lift and move any debate especially on PBS

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Thank you for clicking through to the Independent Women's Forum and to Reasoned Audacity. It is an honor to have you visit.

Posted by Charmaine at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Diva and The Dude
with The Nephews

"Mom, c'mon, make some noise!"

One of life's great joys: a major league baseball game with a ten-year-old boy. Bright lights. A summer breeze. The Sosa Swing.

"Woah. Mom. Check it out. 96 mph!"

Finally, I felt so guilty that I was having all the fun sitting next to the Dude that I offered to switch seats with Jack so he could enjoy the play-by-play commentary.

And the Orioles won.

Leaving the stadium, we paused for a moment in front of a beautiful memorial, honoring our veterans who made the supreme sacrifice. We are indeed eternally grateful. . . both to them, and to you who are serving today.

Right Thinking Girl asks all the right questions on LiveBlogging Baseball.

Attaboy talks about the fellowship and the Great American Pasttime at Attending Services.

Posted by Charmaine at 12:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

At Dusty Brand shirts

How great is this??

From Seeker at two or three.net.

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Drunken sailors don't cuss this much. No, you have to be an academic to really sling the slang.

In I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe writes about elite college life. He outlines the popularity of the f-word in its usage as any part of speech. F**K patois. I felt embarrassed for academia when George Bush read the book.

The recent issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education included the tale of blogging gone bad in the Academy.

In "Academic Flame Wars," the author recounts a pitched battle in his department played out online. (Aside: lest anyone doubt the climate of fear on today's campuses, just watch how often The Chronicle prints articles using pseudonyms. "Alan Mendelsohn is the pseudonym of a doctoral student at a major research university on the West Coast.")

It's meant to be an oh-so-serious examination of the perils of posting. But you just have to laugh. In the midst of quoting posts laced with "f**king" and the a-word, we come to this:

Dave had attacked the way in which Marsha's rhetoric had been "interpellated" by racist discursive formations, not Marsha herself.

It was during the follow-up responses that the term "postmodern wanker" was first used . . .

Now, if Truth be known, or Laid Bear, I have never seen a drunken sailor or heard a co-ed cussing. It might be that my military friends and my students know that such a salty modern language association would make Your Gentle Blogger blush.

But postmodern wanker?? That one might be a keeper.

* * *

UPDATE 11:48 PM: So my Brilliant Brother emails me (at the end of the day!) to ask if I know, exactly, what the term I've called a "keeper" really means. . . "Just wanted to make sure ..." he says. (Yeah, he knows me.) As it turns out, my understanding of the phrase in question was, a little, shall we say, imprecise. oops.

Thanks to muddy boots and clean language at Mudville Gazette Open Post

Required reading at Daniel Drezner where his wit and research deserve multiple citations.

More good jammin' at Traffic Jam on Outside The Beltway

See more more colorful language in class and the professor's blog at Bull by the Horns

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Go see Cinderella Man. Quickly. It's a great movie, so says the Chairman in the movie review below. You may beat me there, so please enjoy it doubly.

But it's not just about enjoyment . . . this is, after all "Politics in Real Life" here at Reasoned Audacity, so you knew I was going to sneak in the political subtext. Oh, yes.

The Chairman reports that this is a wonderful movie that celebrates family, doesn't mock people of faith, and is for grown-ups, as well as the coveted teenage boys market. Nice for a change. But according to Box Office Mojo, the movie had a "disappointing" opening:

Director Ron Howard's $88 million Depression-era drama starring Russell Crowe as boxer James J. Braddock got off to a wobbly start, delivering an estimated $18.6 million at 2,812 venues in fourth place.

So those of us who would like Hollywood to make movies that are inspiring and uplifting need to support this one -- we need to send the message that positive, wholesome movies sell theatre tickets.

The following from the Chairman . . .

“You want to go see what?” I said.
“Cinderella Man,” she said.
“But that’s a boxing movie,” I said.
“I know. What time shall I reserve the tickets for?” she said.

Hey, if the birthday girl says she wants to go see a Depression-era boxing movie, I’m gonna take her to see it even if it does star bad boy Russell Crowe who doesn’t do much for me. Well, okay, Gladiator wasn’t bad but . . .

I can’t pinpoint the moment when my reservations about the flick began to fade away. It didn’t have a lot to do with the chemistry between Crowe and Zellweger; she isn’t my cup of tea either. Mostly it had to do with the fact that Crowe played Jim Braddock not as some swaggeringly tough fighter, but as the quintessentially good family man . . . from start to finish . . . without a blemish. This fact alone is probably what allowed me to care about him and his wife and his children.

He made me care because he was just so decent. It left me wondering how a man could be so decent and yet be such a slugger in the ring. He was a ferocious fighter, but I never got the sense that he had any malicious feelings toward his opponents . . . well, maybe Max Baer was the exception.

Boxing was just Braddock’s talent, his profession. Most importantly, it was a means of providing for his family. It never became his life. Braddock’s family was his life.

I understand how his comeback after a year out of the ring earned him the moniker “Cinderella Man,” but given the story told by this movie, it might more aptly have been titled, The Passion of the Family Man. At the outset we are shown how injury and the Depression stripped Braddock of nearly everything: his career, his home, everything but his character and values. We see the family’s desperate fight to survive and stay together during the depression . . . and their decency remains intact when everything else lies in ruin. And we care about them.

I became so gripped by the story that I lost sight of what the actors were doing. The cast was totally believable so they never got in the way of the story — some of the credit for this goes to the director, Ron Howard. I would never have believed that Russell Crowe could have acted the role of Braddock with such a low-keyed, self-effacing dignity.

There are several great scenes in this movie that will always stick with me. But one scene is particularly powerful. On the comeback trail, Braddock is asked by a reporter: “What are you fighting for?”

Continue reading "Guest Blogger: Go see Cinderella Man. . ." »

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Every time we've made the left turn onto Eisenhower Drive, and passed through the imposing brick gates of Arlington National Cemetery, I've been overwhelmed with emotion. Family members of those buried at Arlington National Cemetery are given a special pass and may drive onto the Hallowed Grounds to visit the grave of their loved one. It's an enormous honor which makes me feel humbled.

The Penta-Posse
at Arlington National Cemetery

My husband's father served thirty years in the United States Navy, and died the year I married into the family, so I didn't know him well. And the fact is, after a lifetime of nine-month Mediterranean tours, wars, and rumors of war, there is a lot my husband doesn't know as well.

However, over the 15 years that we've been married, I have gotten to know my mother-in-law well. She doesn't talk either about the sacrifices she made, but there is one story that she has told me several times.

Once, when my father-in-law was out on tour, and she was home with three small children, the car broke down and, of course, she had to take care of it. My husband marched up and said, "Don't worry, Mom, I'll fix it." He was about five years old at the time.

My mother-in-law laughs. . . the little man, takin' care of things. But it makes me cry.

We owe a lot to our military families.

When we visited Arlington this past week, we passed at least three funeral ceremonies on the way to Section 64. I lost track of the fresh graves and the still-standing tents, either just vacated by other grieving families, or awaiting the afternoon's fresh, raw sorrow.

As we pulled up on Bradley Avenue, an Air Force honor guard was marching precisely back to their bus after a ceremony for an airman who had been a POW in Korea. While we searched for my father-in-law's headstone, an empty horse-drawn caisson lumbered past, and settled briefly in the shade nearby, awaiting their next assignment. . .

We found my father-in-law's headstone: The front has the Christian Cross with the old Chief's Curriculum Vita. Chief Yoest cut high school to catch World War II. He retired with rows of ribbons and a "v" device, and pinned butterbars on his boy. He now has a grandson, The Dude, who bears his name and wants to be a Navy pilot.

The reverse of the stone is blank, awaiting the inscripton for Chief Yoest's high school sweetheart, his wife, Jack's mom, "Babcia" (Polish for Grandmother), who is still with us. In the end, they will be buried together, an honor she earned.

As we turned to go, the Diva took her jingle-bell necklace from around her neck, and left it on the headstone. A fitting tribute for a warrior.



Sailors, rest your oars.

We drove back down Bradley Avenue -- past a fresh grave covered by a tarp. In front of us, sparkling in the bright sunlight of a gorgeous day, stretched row after row of white marble markers, orderly, peaceful, some weathered, others new and crisply chiseled . . .

I turned to the Penta-Posse. "I want you to look," I said. "I want you to understand, that each one of these headstones represents someone who gave their life so that you could be free."

They were quiet and solemn. The weight of it is beyond measure.

The Dreamer said, "Don't cry, Mom."

We made the right turn onto Eisenhower. We drove slowly toward the exit, passing the drive to the Tomb of the Unknowns to our left, until we came to a crosswalk thronged with tourists. The guard on duty motioned to the crowd to stop, and we drove through, passing through the gates, back to a busy day, leaving behind -- the curious crowds, the chattering school children. . . and the silent stones.

Other Memorial Day Links:
Blackfive with "Opening the Gates of Heaven."
Intel Dump

Marine Corps Moms

LaShawn Barber's Corner

See Traffic Jam

Posted by Charmaine at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (4)

Indra Nooyi
President and CFO, PepsiCo

I've been on the phone this morning (and again this afternoon) with PepsiCo, and, once they finish their prepared script, their Public Relations staff sounds hesitant, puzzled. . . and scared.

They should be.

Let me see if I can help with the puzzled part. I've just finished reading a speech that business school students will be reading for years to come as a case study in how to keep your job, or not to, as the case may be. I'd bet money that Indra Nooyi won't be keeping hers.

Here's the background. Indra Nooyi, who is, for now, the President and CFO of PepsiCo, gave an address to the graduating class of Columbia Business School on Sunday. In the speech, she talked about America's role in the world, using the hand as an analogy. Each finger of the hand was assigned a country: little finger, Africa; thumb, Asia; pointer finger, Europe (oh pu-leaze!); ring finger, South America; and middle finger -- oh yes, that would be us: the United States.

Wes Martin, one of the graduates listening to this speech, was appalled, and wrote to Scott Johnson at Powerline about Nooyi's "diatribe about how the US is seen as the middle finger to the rest of the world."

Another Powerline reader, Rayne Steinberg, wrote in to verify Martin's account: "Wes Martin's report is 100% accurate. . . .It was rather shocking."

Ms. Nooyi responded this morning in a "Message from Indra" on the PepsiCo website:

I refer to North America and particularly the U.S. as the middle finger because it is the longest and anchors every function the hand performs. The middle finger also is key to all the fingers working together effectively. That is how I view America’s place of importance in the world. . .The point of my analogy was to emphasize America’s leadership position. . . Unfortunately, my remarks at Columbia University were misconstrued and depicted in a different context as unpatriotic. Although nothing could be further from the truth, I regret any confusion or concern that I may have inadvertently created.

PepsiCo is trying valiantly to emphasize the "misconstrued" line. That word come up several times when I talked with them this morning. Terri Maini, a Consumer Relations Supervisor, told me, "I really think it was misconstrued." In response to my follow-up questions, Donna Leskowski, Manager for Public Affairs, said much the same thing.

One question I asked was: What is their speech clearance process? Did anyone in PepsiCo sign off on this speech? Did they really let Nooyi sally forth talking about America giving the world "the finger" and no one said, "Uh, boss, I think that's a bad idea?"

Apparently not.

That's the question that got me kicked upstairs. Elaine Palmer, Director of External Affairs for PepsiCo, called a little while ago to answer my question. Turns out, "We were aware of the speech," she said. Nooyi has given the speech, using the analogy many other times, says Palmer, and has gotten a good reception. "We believe it's a positive message," Palmer tried to emphasize, "her point was that there are people that don't put out the best face. . . "

Really? Now that's a charming Commencement message: "Don't be an Ugly American."

Then Palmer conceded that "perhaps" there might have been parts of the speech "in hindsight" that were . . . her voice trailed off and she shifted into positive mode about Nooyi's "unique perspective" as a naturalized American citizen.

Speaking to Palmer's thread about Nooyi's ability to challenge us all to rise to greater cultural sensitivity, I asked her if she thought there was any irony in Nooyi addressing the problems related to cross-cultural communication by talking about . . . the finger.

Well, she admitted tentatively, "the analogy might have been unfortunate."

What's unfortunate is owning Pepsi stock right now.

So is Nooyi being "misconstrued?" Do read the whole speech. There are several examples of "unfortunate" phraseology. I think the worst is when she launched into the Ugly American example of several US businessmen in a bar who were mocking Chinese toilets. Here's Nooyi:

This incident should make it abundantly clear. These men were not giving China a hand. They were giving China the finger. This finger was red, white and blue and had "the United States" stamped all over it.

Unfortunate, indeed.

It's too bad that Pepsi makes Gatorade, too, because we live at the ballfield, and the Dude likes it. And training for a marathon this summer, we would have been buying Gatorade by the gallon.

But, you know, I like Powerade just fine.

(Thanks to Donald Sensing.)

LINK UPDATE:

Roger Kimball observes that in giving a speech delivery counts as much as words. . .

Thanks Mudville, Open Post. And Traffic Jam at OTB

Posted by Charmaine at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (3)

Sex and virtue . . . Men across cultures: Are good-girls back still in style? Maybe there are some customs so enduring they sell in both Hollywood . . . and Iraq.

Army Colonel John R. Martin writes from Iraq:

One of the servicemen here married an Iraqi woman working for us. Even in the twenty-first century, American soldiers are supposed to ask permission before doing such things. He didn’t, but we’re still trying to help him get his war bride home.

I took the issue to the consular officer at the embassy today, so I got to look at the application. The marriage certificate included certification that a dowry had been requested ($25,000) and excused by the bride’s family.

Also had a statement of the bride’s chastity. Wonder if those things would sell in the U.S.

Well, yes, Col. Martin, they just might.

The tabloids are all agog with word that Katie Holmes has stated to the world that she will remain a virgin until she marries.

Katie Holmes
with her parents

And now she's dating Tom Cruise (not really a Top Gun, but played one in the movies).

Tom and Katie together in Rome

The tabloids have reported breathlessly that Cruise filled Katie's room with dozens of red roses.

I wish I could tell Lynndie England she could have done so much better than having sex with a dud.

Of course, we've seen this scenario before with other starlets. But my vote is with Katie. Why? Look at that picture of her with her parents. Both of them. While other reporters are fixated on the wolf with red roses, I'm interested in what she has to say about the other man in her life -- her father: She consults him on every major decision, and "He always tried to intimidate boys who wanted to date me," she says (according to Sky Showbiz, link above.)

It's a dad thing. In every culture.

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

Would he offer me his mouth?

Yes

Would he offer me his teeth?

Yes

Would he offer me his jaws?

Yes

Would he offer me his hunger?

Yes

Again, would he offer me his hunger?

Yes

And would he starve without me?

Yes

And does he love me?

Yes

Yes

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

Yes

You took the words right out of my mouth. . .

© by MeatLoaf

Thanks to alert readers, Stan H., and the Brilliant Brother.

Link to Mudville's Open Post

Attaboy to Attaboy

See Jackson's Junction

Outside the Beltway has news and pic

Update: Blogger 11D also thinks the couple is odd.

Update: Common Sense Runs Wild is making sense

Update: See what the Professor thinks at Daniel W. Drezner about Katie Holmes/Cruise

Update: Steal The Bandwagon presents another question at Katie Holmes...

Update: Michelle Malkin has pic of the Death Grip

update 22 June 2005: The Owner's Manual has more wisdom/wit at Tom Cruise: The Movie

The Anchoress has an excellent opinion as always

Update July 14: The Movie Star Blog says Cruise Gets Results.

Posted by Charmaine at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Linda Ellerbee strikes again.

Linda Ellerbee,
Nickelodeon's new historian

She's now hosting a "news bump" for Nickelodeon, the kids' television channel. The segment recently ran a piece on the Alamo. The short clip feautured a young girl who said that the real story behind the Alamo was that the battle was about slavery.

Thanks to the Wide Awakes for the heads-up. Here's a link to the Nick site where they were running a clip of the piece -- I just checked and they've now replaced it with another one. When you search for "Alamo" on the site, nothing at all comes up. Still, you can see the format and Ellerbee in action.

My prediction: with Ellerbee's involvement this won't be the last time this Nickelodeon segment causes heartburn. . .

So here's text of what the piece said (thanks to WorldNetDaily):

What you may not know is that at the time, Texas was part of Mexico.

By the early 1800s, a lot of people living in San Antonio were farmers who brought their slaves with them. In 1829, Mexico abolished slavery and what followed was years of conflict between farmers who wanted to keep their slaves and Mexican authorities. This conflict led up to the battle for the Alamo.

In the end, Gen. Santa Ana and 5,000 Mexican soldiers surrounded the Alamo and all the defenders of the mission were killed.

So, when you remember the Alamo, think about the soldiers, the battle and the true story behind it.

This particularly offended me because, you may remember, we just took the Penta-Posse to the Alamo on our grand western tour, and were inspired by the bravery of the Texians in confronting General Santa Anna. So when I was watching the clip yesterday, I called them in to see it.

Immediately, the Dude says: "Hey, I saw that on Nickelodeon."

Great.

Continue reading "The Alamo and Linda Ellerbee, Nickelodeon's New Historian" »

Posted by Charmaine at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Arthur Chrenkoff posts a picture of Lyndie England. Very funny.

Posted by Charmaine at 10:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For the files of "amazingly stupid things the MSM says" . . . The AP is reporting that Britney Spears has announced that she is pregnant. And here's what they conclude:

Spears' impending motherhood may be the ultimate indicator that the former teen princess is all grown up.

Sorry, but that's just not the way it works. I do wish Britney and her husband good luck -- but unfortunatley, "growing up" is a different process entirely than getting pregnant. . .

Posted by Charmaine at 01:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)