The Flavor of Life

A Ladies’ Man Everyone Fights Over - New York Times:

THIS time six years ago, Flavor Flav, the flamboyant clock-wearing member of the groundbreaking rap group Public Enemy, was living in a low-rent apartment near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. He was scalping baseball tickets for extra cash, battling a long addiction to drugs and racking up arrests for driving without a license. These days life is looking a lot brighter. His reality series, “Flavor of Love,” a ghetto-fabulous spoof of the dating series “The Bachelor,” has been a colossal hit for VH1. The show’s first-season finale in March drew nearly six million viewers, making it the highest-rated show in the cable channel’s history. More than three million people tuned in to watch the second-season premiere early August.

You’re not going to see this kind of reaction on any other conservative site.

Some people are accusing Flavor Flav of being a Stepin’ Fetchit, or of perpetrating racial stereotypes. Then there is the other issue of risqué TV in general. You’ve got the whole Madonna on a crucifix issue, the old Christ in urine controversy, MTV as a medium for children, and recently the Paris Hilton video where she is seducing a young boy in one of her songs.

As far as Flavor Flav perpetuating racial stereotypes, who cares? There are enough positive African-American icons now in American pop culture that this noble race can withstand a bit of foolery. If Whites can endure its Archie Bunkers and Lucky Louie’s, then Blacks can live with personas like Amos and Andy, Stepin’ Fetchit, and Flavor Flav. They’re just personas. Adaptive characters that got or get people what they want or need. Humor. Satire. Exaggerations. They aren’t role models, just fun.

Nor am I offended by the Las Vegas, wild Roman, orgiastic, Playboy, Penthouse, risqué, Flavor Flav or Madonna sexy side of our culture. I love HBO and cable TV, including all the “adult” shows like Sex in the City, steamy MTV videos, and on up to Passion Cove and beyond.

I don’t want these things invading my family space, however. So I don’t like the sexualizing of little girls, which I see not only on MTV but also in our schools—with little girls baring their midriffs, in low-cut blouses and miniskirts, smearing “whore” or “thug” makeup on their innocent faces. So, though I can understand the appeal of the Paris Hilton video, I believe we need to be careful when we go in this direction. I do think it’s dumb to criminalize every young boy’s fantasy of making it with the hot young math teacher. On the other hand, it is true that young boys’ egos and personalities are not formed yet, and they are in a one-down power relationship in any affair with an older person. It can be dangerous for the young man, or young woman. They can lose themselves, be manipulated, and descend into criminal activity or drugs because of it. Witness Pamela Smart and other such cases.

So, some kind of a line needs to be drawn. I agree with the hubbub over the Janet Jackson breast-baring incident at the Superbowl. Families were watching and she shouldn’t have done it. MTV too needs to be careful. They should not sexualize young people, nor entice them into a too-early sexual existence.

Flavor Flav, however, is okay with me. I wish the purists would get off his back and let him do his thing. It’s not my cup of tea, but so what?

I’m an artist and writer. I am a firmly committed conservative, but this implies getting the government out of our lives. I want the government out of television, except to protect young people and families. Stop the breast baring during family hour, yes. Watch out for sexualizing youngsters. Don’t encourage child molestation. After all this, stop. Lay off HBO.

Overall, I want freedom. I want the public and critics to allow a wide range of entertainment to delight and inform us—from the risqué Rome to the controversial Crucifix in urine. No subject, from pimps to the Pope, should be off limit to artistic expression, satire, or ridicule. Flavor Flav is fine, as is bashing the Pope to bashing Mohammed to bashing Bush. That’s what art does. (This is one reason fundamentalist Islam hates the West.)

Which is why I continue to bash liberals. Plus, they deserve it.

Rock

(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)

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The Need to be Cool

It seems that there is an innate need in the human being to be fashionable, to be cool, to be on the cutting edge, to be “with it,” to be part of the “in crowd.” Even when I was a child in Munster, Indiana back in the 1950’s, the big thing was always to be “cool.” We had our Elvis pork-chop sideburns and wavy hair, our blue jeans, and our Mickey Mantle. I think it’s always been that way. I believe that the cavemen probably had the coolest clubs and axes. The barbarians had the coolest scars on their arms. Eighteenth-century men thought snuff was cool. In my Dad’s generation it was cool to be patriotic and to smoke. In the 60’s it was cool to wear long hair, smoke pot, and use lava lamps.

Watch any fashion show, with a know-it-all fashion commentator, and you get an idea of what an appeal to the coolness-need looks and sounds like. This year browns are in, and miniskirts are back, and high heels are more spiky, and on and on and on. It’s a bunch of cow dung.

I have a problem sometimes of misanthropy. I wonder at the flaws of human nature, and ask why did God make us this way? I shrink from our dark side, our pettiness, our greed, our viciousness, myself included, oh yes. Why? Why did God do this to us? We are such noble creatures on the one hand, and such cruel animals on the other. I have to catch myself when I get to thinking this way and submit to the Almighty. God is bigger and wiser than I. The universe has a plan, and all this is a part of it. Here I agree with Wayne Dyer and say that things are this way for a reason. It’s all good. So, I accept it.

One of the things I don’t like about us, we humans, is our need to be cool. I’ve never worried about being cool myself. I’ve always thought it was cool just to do the right thing. I never worried about being fashionable. This is probably a fault of mine to some extent, since fashion will affect how others perceive you. On the other hand, I’ve seen humans do some pretty silly things in order to be cool—like wear baggy pants, like “sagging,” like rings in their ears and “bling,” and body piercings and tattoos all over their bodies, and Leisure Suits.

I won’t analyze what’s cool now, except in politics. To a certain extent, it’s cool to be a liberal, and uncool to be conservative. Clinton was cool when he played the saxophone on David Letterman. Bush was cool when he flew an airplane onto an aircraft carrier. Al Gore is cool again because of global warming. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are cool in politics, as are all the late-night talk-show hosts, Letterman, Leno and O’Brien.

The Democrats have made a conscious effort to be cool. Bush bashing is cool. Appealing to the MTV crowd is cool. Hollywood, they think, is cool. The liberals have made it uncool to be Republican in a lot of places, especially in areas like California and Massachusetts. It’s uncool to be Republican in Hollywood.

So, does being cool give Democrats an advantage? Yes, and no.

Being cool might get the Democrats more votes. On the other hand, in my opinion, it takes their focus away from the issues, and from the things that are really important. Since Bush-bashing, for example, is cool, then the masses of liberals will reject anything and everything that Bush says or does. This will include all of Bush’s good ideas and projects too. Take Social Security reform. The Democrats reject S.S. reform even though it will mean more money in the pockets of their constituents. I can’t understand liberal logic on this issue, except that they imagine that the uncool Bush must have a sinister motive in mind when proposing anything. The greedy, uncool Republicans must be trying to screw us, right?

I can’t reform human nature. I wish we didn’t have the need-to-be-cool gene, but we do. I hope we fight it, though. I hope, for mankind’s sake, that we allow ourselves to be uncool in the name of truth and justice and all that is right. I’d like for us to one day think it’s cool again to stand up for liberty and justice for all; to fight our common enemies, like the terrorists; and to continue to elect uncool people who, despite being uncool, are good, honest, decent, courageous people, like George W. Bush, about the uncoolest dude in the universe.

I think truth and doing the right things are cool.

Rock


(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)

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Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

You on the left will not take the advice given for you from time to time in this blog, which is fine. Today you will get the most valuable lesson of all, how to win the November election and take over the House, if not the Senate.

The only ones who can lose for liberal the upcoming election are the liberals. That’s right, you guys have the power to win, or lose.

I am a bellwether on elections, believe it or not. How I behave in November will be typical for a large number of independents and wavering conservatives. Polls in the last few months have shown that the Democrats were likely to take over the House, and maybe even the Senate. As is reflected in the polls, for many months I was mostly feeling that I was going to sit this election out. Bush and Republicans have let us down on immigration, overspending, and the execution of the Iraq war, among other issues. Governor Schwarzenegger has proven to be mostly liberal. As opposed to what many people believe, I feel that staying at home is a vote. It is a vote for none-of-the-above. That has been my inclination, both on a state and on a national level.

As I say, I am representative of independents and wavering conservatives. This is how all of us have been feeling. But, have you noticed, the polls are starting to swing Bush’s and the Republicans’ way now. Now it is iffy whether the Democrats can take over control of the House, let alone the Senate. If the trend continues, the Democrats may accomplish the impossible, lose another election to an unpopular President fighting an unpopular war with an unpopular Congress. How is this possible?

Again, things as they were, I’d just as soon remain home, and not vote. But the more Bush-bashing I hear, the more hatred, the more irrationality spewing from the left, and their lack of any rational plans for anything—this is going to drive me to the polls. I simply will not, without a fight, let the country be put in the hands of lunatics who cannot engage in rational political discourse.

You want to win the November elections, Democrats? Then stop the Bush-bashing, stop the hatred, start speaking rationally, and tell me your realistic plans to handle Iraq, the war on terror, defense issues in general, the economy, health care, poverty, the environment, and so on. I know the accepted political wisdom is that negative campaigning works, but it’s not working now. I can’t think of a single thing the Democrats are for, besides raising taxes. They want a better Iraq strategy. What strategy? They want a more effective war on terror. What are they going to do differently? They want a better economy. Good luck on that one. The stock market is at an all time high; the unemployment rate is low; there are more homeowners than at any time in history; oil prices are down; and on and on.

Tell me your plan, your vision for the future. Otherwise, the more Bush-bashing I hear, the more motivated I will be to get out and vote. Notice that the rational Senator Joe Lieberman remains ahead in the polls in his run as an Independent in Connecticut, up against What’s His Name, the irrational, Bush-bashing far left guy who will lose that election. Another bellwether event. Thank you Democrats for your help in blowing the November elections for yourselves. Only you guys could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Rock


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Plus, I have added a special poll each week, where I craft the poll questions, Rock's Poll Question of the Week. This week's question is, "Who do you think is politicizing 9/11?"

John Rocker and Speaking English

John Rocker was a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves and had his best year in 1999. After becoming the Braves' full-time closer, he converted 38 saves and had an ERA of 2.49 in 74 games. He became controversial in the year 2000 when he made negative comments about minorities in a Sports Illustrated article, talking about New York City:

It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark, looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing.

He apologized but was harassed from them on in his baseball career.

Now he, along with his African-American girlfriend, are on a speaking tour promoting speaking English in America. I don’t want to defend John Rocker for the things he has said in the article, nor other remarks he made in his controversial career. I do think, though, that he is being demonized for advocating speaking English.

I continue to be amazed that this kind of thing is considered racism. Speaking English has nothing to do with race. Hispanics were at one time conquered by the Spanish, and forced to learn the language. Or, they acquired the language as a natural process over the years, because the Spanish were in power in their countries. It had nothing to do with their race. It has nothing to do with race now. “Hispanics” speak every language on earth, and a portion of them excel at these other languages. Many American “Hispanics” speak English, and some of them speak it better than the rest of us.

The term “Hispanic” of course does mean Spanish-speaking. It does not mean any race of people. Hispanics can be Blacks or Whites or Natives or any number of races. It is not connected with skin color, except by association. What I mean by this is that there are many Brown peoples who speak Spanish, so we often associate a race with the Spanish language, but this is not accurate. After all, Spaniards are “Hispanic” and they include many races, including Caucasians.

The same thing can be said for culture. There is no “Hispanic” culture. There are many “Hispanic” cultures. There are Mexicans and Spaniards and Puerto Ricans and Cubans and so on, all with different cultures.

“Hispanic” really, then, is connected with only one thing—speaking Spanish. It is not a race. The fact that Poles, Greeks, Russians, Germans etc. all came to America and learned English was not “racist” against the Poles, Greeks, et al. It was, rather, the melting pot of America, becoming one country.

Again, I don’t want to defend John Rocker’s early comments, nor his worldview. I’m not certain where he stands now anyway on all these issues. I do, though, think it is unfortunate to confuse advocating speaking English with racism. The alternative is two separate nations in America, each self-interested. We fought a civil war to unite the country and rid it of slavery. Now we are in danger of being divided by language, and you know it’s already happened.

The solutions? Slow down immigration to allow assimilation, and promote English as the language of the land. Plus, stop screaming “racist” when someone wants to preserve America as a nation. America is a good, inclusive nation, and should be kept that way, united.

Rock

(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)

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Plus, I have added a special poll each week, where I craft the poll questions, Rock's Poll Question of the Week. This week's question is, "Who do you think is politicizing 9/11?"

To Vote or Not to Vote, That is the Question

Speaking as a conservative, I think I am somewhat typical in a lot of my feelings about the upcoming election. While the majority of conservatives might not agree with me issue by issue, I think that overall I am representative.

I notice that the Republicans, led by George Bush, are now in campaign mode. Bush is at his best in this mode. He turns forceful and persuasive and even eloquent when he speaks. He hones in on issues. He knows how to whip up his base.

Be careful, though, Mr. President—I am part of that base.

I see and feel that you are in campaign mode. I don’t mind this. In fact in some ways it’s about time. I certainly don’t want Nancy Palosi as the next Speaker of the House, nor Hillary Clinton nor Al Gore as my next President. Plus, I continue to agree with you, Mr. President, on several issues—like the decision to invade Iraq, the war on terror, taxes, the economy, and America’s place in the world.

On the other hand, I, and many of my fellow conservatives, remain deeply disappointed in a couple of things. Your immigration policies have transformed America from the place I knew into a potential Third World Country. It’s not about race. Every race is beautiful in the eyes of God, and should be likewise in the eyes of man. Rather, it’s about culture and values. You have allowed, Mr. President, our country to be flooded with people who don’t speak our language, don’t have our values, don’t love America, and don’t love our system.

Past waves of immigration started out the same, yes, I know. The Italians, the Irish, the Germans, and so on, were all hated for a while. People are natural xenophobes I guess. These immigrants, though, wanted to become Americans. They learned our language and culture. Plus, they came in numbers small enough so that it naturally led to assimilation. It is possible to assimilate a finite number of people at a time.

The present immigration wave is the greatest in our history. Census 2000 results indicate that there were between 8 and 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States in 2000. The Center for Immigration Studies has reported stats which show that 700,000 to 800,000 new illegal aliens were settling in the U.S. during the late 1990s and that around 1 million settled in the most recent year of record.

Of the 11 million illegal aliens presently here, about 70% do not speak English in the home. A large percentage have loyalty to their country of origin and not America. In fact, many among them do not even like America. They are here for financial reasons. They have no intention of becoming American nor even of learning our language.

I don’t blame the Mexicans for this. They have a right to love their country, language, culture and customs. In many ways it is a beautiful culture. What I object to is that America is a beautiful culture too, and we are losing it. The natural process of assimilation is unable to continue working in the face of such an invasion. There is no social pressure to learn our language, adopt our values, and become American.

Instead, we are becoming another Canada, another Europe. While Canada and Europe are fine and charming and wonderful places on this earth, again, so was the America I knew, and that is being lost. We are being Balkanized. We are becoming multi-cultural. To the Democrats this sounds like a good thing. To me, this means a loose collection of various self-interested communities.

Iraq is this way. You’ve got your Sunnis and your Shiites and your Kurds. They live in the same country but might as well live on Mars, the moon, and Pluto. They speak different languages, have different cultures, have different religions, and see things differently. They even hate each other, as the present slaughter evidences. They don’t comprise, yet, and may never, a single country or nation.

We are becoming like this. We will have, if things continue the way they are going, your Caucasian nation, your African-American nation, your Hispanic nation, and your other nation, including Orientals and others. These nations will have their own language and culture. They will think of themselves as separate and distinct. They will have no loyalty to the larger nation as a whole. They will be self-interested. An Hispanic voter, for example, will vote with only one perspective, is this candidate good for the Hispanic community? Not, is this candidate good for the American people?

It is not a good thing. Mr. Bush, you have failed your country in the deepest possible way on this issue.

Another issue where you have disappointed me is your over-spending. You have wasted money like a Democrat. You haven’t vetoed a single appropriations bill, George. You’ve authored some of the most frivolous spending in our nation’s history. You have, therefore, burdened future generations with our debt, and our present economy with fiscal irresponsibility.

Then of course there is Iraq. I support your decision to invade Iraq. You’ve made strategic and tactical errors, though, in conducting the war. Yes, I know, Monday-morning quarterbacking is always easy to do. So, I don’t blame you for past mistakes. Things happen in war, unexpected things. What I blame you for, though, is your inflexibility. Instead of continuing, as in Vietnam, with a failed war policy, change, now, to an effective one.

One alternative, for example, is to stop trying to be politically correct. Bomb the villages that support terrorists and insurgents back to the Stone Age, like FDR and Truman did in World War II. You persist, though, on an opposite course. A “moderate” war, where you try not to offend. You want to be liked, your biggest weakness. Instead, you are hated anyway, and you are running an ineffective war.

So, whom will I vote for? Will I even vote?

If I vote, I of course will vote conservative. This does not always mean Republican, but it often does. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, is hardly a conservative anymore. I don’t think I’ll be voting for him. I won’t vote for Angelides either, so I guess I’ll be leaving that spot blank on the ballot. I will be voting Republican, however, for several other posts.

As far as the presidential race goes at this point, I don’t see any candidates I can get excited about yet. The only national politician who is tough on immigration is Tom Tancredo from Colorado, and he probably could never get the nomination. I’d love to see Condoleeza Rice run, but she will probably go the unbrave (I certainly won’t say cowardly) way of Colin Powell and not run. I could support Rudi Giuliani, and I might be able to hold my nose and get behind John McCain, but neither of these politicians are good on immigration.

On the Democratic side, the nightmares for the nation would be, of course, Hillary, John Kerry, Al Gore or John Edwards. The only national politician on the Democratic side who sounds reasonable to me is Barack Obama. Still, he is a liberal, and he will have to satisfy his increasingly leftist, anti-American, anti-capitalistic, anti-free enterprise, anti-democratic base.

In short, I’m not yet passionate about anyone who is running.

To my President, in conclusion, you are great in campaign mode, Mr. President, but you’ve lost your ability to inspire me due to your shameful immigration policies. You have been a great president with the war on terror overall, but you’ve fought an ineffective war in Iraq, and you’ve lost our country to multi-culturalism and this mass invasion.

I would hate Nancy Palosi to be the next Speaker of the House, but I don’t have a clear enough alternative to her. Get me a Tom Tancredo and I can get excited.


Rock

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Plus, I have added a special poll each week, where I craft the poll questions, Rock's Poll Question of the Week. This week's question is, "Who do you think is politicizing 9/11?"

Long Live Pope Benedict XVI!

I think that the Pope holding strong with his limited apology to Islam is so important that this is the only message of today’s post. The Pope has continued to repeat various versions of , and I am paraphrasing, “I’m am sorry for the reaction that has occurred in the Muslim world over my remarks concerning a dialogue between our faiths.” (See the interesting The Pope Blog)

We all know by now that the Pope was, in effect, saying that he condemns violence in the name of religion. There is only one faith that perpetrates violence in the name of their God at this time, and that is Islam. Yes, of course, the Pope is not talking to the innocent. He is not talking to those who speak out against Islamic violence. He is talking, however, to the perpetrators and supporters of Islamic terrorism.

The question continues to arise, are we in the West in a war with Islam? No, I don’t think so. We are, though, at war with a significant faction of Islam—the one that does use and perhaps twist the words of the Quran for violent purposes. Since we don’t want to offend 1.3 billion people, if possible, we are careful to say that most Muslims are peace loving. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. I do know that all of the world’s religious violence at this time is perpetrated by Islam. I do know that few Muslims speak out against this. Yes, the innocent Muslims do fear expulsion from their community, and even fear for their lives. Yet this is what courage is all about.

I call again for courage in the Muslim community. Condemn violence in the name of Allah.

Long live Pope Benedict XVI!

Rock

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Plus, I have added a special poll each week, where I craft the poll questions, Rock's Poll Question of the Week. This week's question is, "Who do you think is politicizing 9/11?"