Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
G.B. Shaw Was a Horse's Patootie
Although I loved what Lerner and Loewe made of it, it's a shame that George Bernard Shaw wrote "Pygmalion." That's because all his other plays, including "Candida," "Man and Superman" and "Major Barbara," were snoozearamas and it would make it so much easier to dismiss him as an over-rated creep. This way, a fair-minded person has no option but to admit that the over-rated creep wasn't entirely without talent. When I was a kid, I recall seeing Shaw in newsreels. As he aged -- eventually making it to 94 -- reporters would make an annual pilgrimage to his cottage to find out how the aging Irish dramatist felt at 80 or 85 or 90. He would inevitably emerge into his garden dressed in tweeds and plus fours, looking as if he was on his way to the local golf course. By that time, it was as if he were playing a role in one of his own productions -- the querulous, but loveable old vegetarian.
From The Comedy Store
Donald Trump says he may run for president as a Republican in two years. He's very much a man of his times. There are seventy million Baby Boomers and Donald Trump is the only one who still wears a Davy Crockett coonskin cap on his head every day.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Holiday Hot Spots
EL PASO, Texas -- Nobody wants bad news during the holidays. But here, along the U.S.-Mexico border, and along the 38th parallel on the Korean Peninsula, there is very little good news this Thanksgiving. Fresh bloodshed along both "borders" (the boundary between North Korea and South Korea is a "military demarcation line" with a 2-kilometer demilitarized zone on each side of the line) reflects the ineptness of the Obama administration's national security "team" and poses significant risks to American citizens.
The Irrelevance of START
WASHINGTON -- It's a lame-duck session. Time is running out. Unemployment is high, the economy is dangerously weak and, with five weeks to go, no one knows what tax they'll be paying on everything from income to dividends to death when the current rates expire Jan. 1. And what is the president demanding that Congress pass as "a top priority"? To what did he devote his latest weekly radio address? Ratification of his New START treaty.
Gender Benders Wage War On Sports
Columnists who prize equality of the sexes in college athletics often scowl at how men's athletic programs get more money and media attention. But a new frontier on the battleground of men's and women's athletics is upon us: When is a female jock really female, and a male really a guy?
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Helicopter Ben Whirls On
You'd think any country that had gone through hyperinflation would be aware of the dangers thereof. And you'd be right. No one has been more critical of this administration's inflationary policies than the Germans. They remember the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic -- much better, apparently, than we Americans remember the stagflation of the Carter Years.
I Was Wrong
WASHINGTON -- "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" So said John Maynard Keynes when a dearly held belief of his was confronted by new facts. He changed his mind and was not ashamed. I am an extreme empiricist. Show me the facts, and I shall make up my mind. Show me the new facts, and I shall change my mind.
Is Illegal Immigration Moral?
We know illegal immigration is no longer really unlawful, but is it moral? Usually Americans debate the fiscal costs of illegal immigration. Supporters of open borders rightly remind us that illegal immigrants pay sales taxes. Often their payroll-tax contributions are not later tapped by Social Security payouts.
Hands Off
Four years ago I had hip replacement surgery -- which involves having an implant containing metal -- and that means that every time I fly, which is often, a Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) employee passes a wand over my body to be sure I'm not concealing some explosive device on my person. I'm used to it and I don't complain. It's the price we pay for airline safety.
Confessions of a Non-Foodie
I am the opposite of a foodie. My favorite green vegetable is the pea -- fresh or frozen. My second favorite is celery. I like iceberg lettuce. At restaurants, I have been known to look longingly at the children's menu. When President George H. W. Bush admitted he did not like broccoli, I felt as one with him. When the Reagan administration declared ketchup to be a vegetable, I knew it was true. I don't eat ketchup.
Strange Men Grope Nancy Pelosi or the Terrorists Have Won
As long as the head of the TSA, Long Dong Silver, refuses to get rid of the intrusive, possibly dangerous airport searches, how about requiring members of Congress to go through the same security screening in order to enter hallowed congressional office buildings? Not just Barney Frank -- I mean all members of Congress. "We've patted you down twice, Congressman Frank. Why don't you just go to your office now?"
Surviving Quakes and Political Correctness
There are still Americans around who could have stood their ground, shoulder-to-shoulder, with this nation's founders at Concord and Valley Forge. You find them fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you'll see them showing up at Tea Party events. But, too many of us have become timid, terrified of offending, more fearful than school children of being called names by liberals. Somewhere along the way, we have become the land of the not so free and the home of the not so brave.
Counting Our Mixed Blessings
The Thanksgiving holiday offers mixed blessings that run from anxiety to celebration. When the different generations gather together to mix memory with desire (as the poet sayeth), we recognize differences as well as affinities, angry feelings along with the affectionate. We hasten and chasten our will to make known.
This Thanksgiving, Serve Gratitude: The Antidote to Materialism and Envy
Our culture offers so much, materially, that it's easy for our children -- and for us, too -- to take for granted how much we really have. We stop noticing all that we do have in our endless quest for what we don't have. We forget to consider what our lives would be like without the gifts -- people, talents, possessions, opportunities -- that already have been given to us. The antidote? Gratitude. Researchers have found that people who cultivate the habit of gratitude reap all sorts of benefits, from better health, to greater happiness, to stronger relationships.
Travel, the TSA and Teutonic Terminology
When it comes to understatements, "the Germans have made some mistakes" is in a class by itself. But one thing they're great at is words. They've got the best words, particularly for feelings of angst or woe. Most everyone knows schadenfreude, the feeling of joy one has at another's misfortune. A more useful term in the melancholy group would be weltschmerz: the sadness one feels when contemplating how far the real world is from an ideal world.
Coming Soon: World War IV
Many commentators have compared the current war on Islamism to World War II. "Like the Second World War," President Bush said in 2004, "our present conflict began with a ruthless, surprise attack on the United States. We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy."
No Subsidy for NPR
A bill pulling the plug on federal funding for National Public Radio was thwarted last week when the lame-duck Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives voted down a Republican effort to bring the measure to the floor. Introduced last summer by Colorado Republican Doug Lamborn, the legislation would bar NPR and its local affiliates from spending federal dollars on NPR programming. Of course there was never any chance that a bill targeting one of the nation's most prominent left-of-center institutions would pass while Democrats still controlled the House. But a GOP majority is taking over in January, and ending NPR's taxpayer subsidies ought to be high on its to-do list.
A Cicero With a Future
WASHINGTON -- Winning California's state lottery with the first ticket he bought put Kevin McCarthy, then 20, on a path to becoming, in January, the third-ranking Republican leader of a House majority pledged to make government less bountiful. With the $5,000 he won in 1985, McCarthy opened a sandwich shop in a nook in a small mall in Bakersfield, and hung a sign calling attention to it. When a government vehicle arrived, he thought city hall might have come "to give me the key to the city" as thanks for generating some jobs and sales tax revenues. But Bakersfield's bureaucracy wanted to complain about his sign, which somehow fell short of sign orthodoxy.
The World's Crazy Aunt Is at It Again
Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, our North Korean friends have given us something to be decidedly less than thankful for. The world's crazy aunt has started playing with guns again. This time she wasn't just screaming and banging her broomstick on the floor. That's nothing new. The world's used to it. This time she was lobbing artillery shells at her neighbor to the south. With deadly results.
In 2010 Sweep, Even the Finns Voted Republican
Some reflections on the revolution of 2010, based on extended examination of the election returns. Gentry liberals. The tsunami swept from the George Washington Bridge to the Donner Pass, but didn't wash away affluent liberals to the east and west of these geographic markers. Also surviving were the cannibals -- the public employee unions that are threatening to bankrupt states like California and New York, a prospect that doesn't faze the left-leaning gentry.