Just as a little change of pace, here are my 40 favorite hard rock/rap songs. When I head to the beach, I love to put these songs in my CD player, crank it up, and chew up the highway....
AC/DC -- Back in Black
AC/DC -- Big Gun
AC/DC -- Highway to Hell
AC/DC -- You Shook Me All Night Long
Beastie Boys -- Sabotage
Beastie Boys -- No Sleep Til Brooklyn
Creed -- My Sacrifice
Cypress Hill -- Cock the Hammer
Cypress Hill -- Insane in the Membrane
Disturbed -- Down with the Sickness
Dope -- Die MF Die
Drowning Pool -- Let the Bodies Hit the Floor
Eminem -- Without Me
Filter -- Hey Man Nice Shot
Fun Lovin Criminals -- Scooby Snacks
Godsmack -- I Stand Alone
House of Pain -- Jump Around
Insane Clown Posse -- Hokus Pocus
Kid Rock -- American Bad@ss
Kid Rock -- Cowboy
Kid Rock -- I am the Bullgod
Loverboy -- Lovin' Every Minute of It
Manowar -- Warriors of the World United
Marilyn Manson -- Disposable Teens
Metallica -- Enter the Sandman
Motley Crue -- Shout at the Devil
Motorhead -- It's All About the Game
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult -- After the Flesh
Nine Inch Nails -- Head Like a Hole
Nirvana -- Smells Like Teen Spirit
OKGo -- Get Over It
P.O.D. Satellite -- Boom
Prong -- Snap Your Finger Snap Your Neck
Rage Against the Machine -- Bulls on Parade
Rage Against the Machine -- No Shelter
Soul Coughing -- Super Bon Bon
Uncle Kracker -- What You Lookin' At
White Zombie -- More Human than Human
Wu Tang Clan -- Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nothin' to F' With
Rob Zombie -- Never Gonna Stop
If The Democrats Are So Enlightened, Where Are The Black Democrats Representing White Districts?
One thing I didn't touch on in the editorial I wrote this morning about how The Gop Needs To Reach Out To Conservative Black Voters, was the fact that the Democratic Party is guilty of the very same racism that it accuses the GOP of engaging in.
Of course, many people have pointed out that the Democratic Party has a history steeped in racism. Think back to Bull Connor and George Wallace in the sixties & then look to former KKK member Robert Byrd who is adored by much of left today.
But you also have to look at perhaps the most telling issue of all; how the left votes. Before I explain what I mean by that, I'm sure that you have heard people point out that there are no black Republicans in Congress and that's a fair point to make. But it's also fair to point out that there have been so few black Republicans out there that it has been difficult to recruit quality candidates. While the numbers have begun to climb, only 4% of blacks identified themselves as Republicans in 2000 (it's now at 10% in 2002 -- thanks GWB).
On the other hand, the Democrats have gotten overwhelming support from the black community for decades. Recently for example, Bob Dole only received 12% of the black vote and George Bush did even worse in 2000, with 8% of all black voters pulling the lever for him. But have the Democrats repaid that loyalty?
"Sure" you say, "there are lots of black Democrats in Congress." Ah, but there's something you're missing. Almost all of the black Democrats in Congress are from majority black districts. I suspected that was the case, but even I didn't realize how few blacks are being elected in districts where they can't count on support from other blacks to put them over the top. Just look at the numbers I found in an article in the left-leaning American Prospect....
"There is little support for the optimistic view that blacks will win many House seats in white majority districts. The numbers are stark: In the 6,667 House elections in white-majority districts between 1966 (the first election after the passage of the Voting Rights Act), and 1996 (including special elections), only 35 (0.52 percent) were won by blacks."
So why is it that white Democrats just won't pull the lever for black candidates? Could it be that some of the same people who call an ex-Klansman the "conscience of the Senate" don't want a black man representing them? Draw your own conclusions, but if the situation were reversed, the Democrats would be crying racism over those number until they were hoarse.
So if you're Conservative and black, why stick with the Democrats? They're going to keep black kids trapped in lousy schools to please the teacher's unions, they're going to keep coddling criminals who victimize the black community, and they're going to keep pushing welfare that's helping to destroy black families. Why help them do that to the black community & to America, by giving them your support, your campaign contributions, and your vote, when almost no white majority Democratic districts will even vote a black man into higher office?
The GOP Needs To Reach Out To Conservative Black Voters
As a party, the GOP does a lousy job of reaching out to black voters. Maybe we run a few commercials here & there or the President gives a speech at the National Urban League and we go, "See? We made the effort. 90% of the black vote is going to go to the Democrats no matter what we do, so why bother doing more?" Folks, that is the wrong attitude to take and it's the biggest reason why the GOP only pulls about 10% of the black vote every four years.
Contrary to what popular opinion seems to be, I believe there are a significant number of black conservatives out there. I say that because about 30-40% (more on some issues) of blacks tend to come down on the conservative side of almost every issue you can name -- even on things like reparations & affirmative action. Given that most people tend to vote in clusters (i.e.: If you are against gun control & affirmative action, want less welfare, & are anti-abortion, I can guess that you're also going to support tax cuts and I'll be right most of the time), that means that roughly 1/3rd of all blacks should probably be voting Republican. (Cont)
-- I was pleased when Bush said, "I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other." It looks like W. is going to pursue a Constitutional Amendment forbidding gay marriage and I think that's good policy.
Furthermore, this will give Bush another excellent issue to hammer the Democrats on during the campaign -- especially if Dean (who's strong associate with the issue) is the candidate. Protecting the "sanctity of marriage" is an issue that is a winner at the polls and that will strongly resonate in the South and with members of the religious right in Bush's base.
-- Speaking of Dean, he has a lot of momentum right now and I'm really hoping that he'll win. In a Bush vs. Dean election, Dean would be beaten into the ground over the war on terrorism & he'd be hurt in a battle over gay marriage. Furthermore, Dean isn't terribly charismatic, has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth, and if the economy comes back as expected, he will have no significant issue he'll be able to hurt Bush significantly with. His best shot would be on the budget deficit, but he's going to lack credibility unless he can be specific about what he is going to do and Bush can claim (quite correctly I might add) that Dean will cut the military budget & revoke the tax cuts -- neither of which would be popular with the American people. Out of the big 4 Dem candidates who still seem to be in the hunt (Lieberman, Gephardt, Kerry, & Dean), Dean is the GOP dream candidate.
-- I found this to be just bizarre, but very Californian somehow...
"Opponents of an AIDS memorial designed in the form of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl thought they had scored a victory when California Assembly members removed a line from the state budget that reappropriated $400,000 for the project.
But through last-minute maneuvers, backers of the controversial plan managed to set aside the taxpayer money by shifting the project from the budget bill, passed Tuesday, to a trailer bill where it was buried at the bottom of a collection of unrelated items."
Gee, nothing like setting aside 400k for an AIDS memorial when you're running a 38 billion dollars in deficit. And Quetzalcoatl? What's next, a Korean War monument featuring Zeus or maybe a statue of Thor slamming his hammer down on "illiteracy"? It's just ridiculous.
-- While many people, myself included, have hammered Bush for not being tough enough on the Saudis, there's more to the situation than most people realize. Not only can we be sure that there is a lot going on behind the scenes, but as Arnaud de Borchgrave writes, the Saudis are hardly of one mind when it comes to Osama & Saddam...
"The royal family is not a monolith. There are 7,000 princes (all on generous stipends from birth) plus their wives (many still have three or four) and sisters and daughters, for a total of 24,000 members of the House of Saud. Male princes get $500,000 a year for expenses. The Saud family budget is about $3 billion a year, though the kingdom is now in hock to foreign banks to the tune of $225 billion.
Many of these princes still think of bin Laden as a larger-than-life hero who defeated the mighty Soviet Union and gave the world's only superpower its biggest blow since Pearl Harbor. Even Prince Naef, one of the Sudeiri Seven (sons of King Abdul Aziz, also known as Ibn Saud, the founder of the dynasty, and the same mother), has said publicly that bin Laden was not involved in 9/11. Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, did it, he said, regurgitating an old chestnut first peddled by a former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Hamid Gul, who is also a fundamentalist extremist.
...Crown Prince Abdullah, who is de facto ruler due to the king's long illness, and most of his royal and non-royal Cabinet colleagues are firmly opposed to bin Laden and his evil terrorist enterprise. They know they are first on al-Qaeda's hit list.
But Abdullah doesn't speak for 24,000 royals. He doesn't even speak for Prince Naef bin Abdul Aziz, the interior minister who gives bin Laden a pass on 9/11. And who, as one of the seven Sudeiri brothers, is in line to inherit the throne. After Abdullah, Defense Minister Prince Sultan is next in line. Prince Salman, the popular governor of Riyadh, has made clear he will jump Naef when the time comes."
-- Paul Wellstone's replacement, Norm Coleman, is challenging the RIAA...
"The recording industry's wave of subpoenas that target individual computer users has drawn the critical attention of at least one influential lawmaker on Capitol Hill. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a letter to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Thursday that criticized its recent spate of subpoenas and asked for detailed information on how the process is working. Coleman said the RIAA may be going too far.
"The industry has legitimate concerns about copyright infringement," Coleman said in a statement. "Yet, the industry seems to have adopted a 'shotgun' approach that could potentially cause injury and harm to innocent people who may have simply been victims of circumstance, or possessing a lack of knowledge of the rules related to digital sharing of files."
There are a lot of people in the United States who share files. In fact, estimates I've seen put the number of file traders in the United States at between 40-70 million people, most of whom don't think they're doing anything wrong. In my opinion, no politician with brains should want to get their names associated with any sort of heavy handed RIAA lawsuits or felony charges against these people. Furthermore, I believe this could actually be a valuable campaign issue for any politician who wants to grab it, especially on the national level. All they'd have to do is just what Coleman is doing, fight against the RIAA's heavy-handed methods and boom, 40+ million potential voters are now appreciative of their efforts. Besides, the idea that a company should be able to file subpoenas or that someone should be charged with a felony for downloading a MP3 is pure insanity to begin with. Why shouldn't politicians, especially Republican politicians who want to win elections (hint, hint guys) say so?
Saddam Hussein Reportedly Less Optimistic About War By Dan Killian
TIKRIT, Iraq - With his sons dead and his bodyguard captured, former Iraqi President at large Saddam Hussein is showing less of a brave face about the Iraqi resistance, sources close to him say. Sources close to Saddam also wonder how many Dinars 25 million dollars go into, if it's really as much as they think it is. Sources close to Saddam are licking their lips and looking over weirdly at Saddam, hallucinating that he is a giant bag of money.
"When his sons got blown up and their mangled corpses were shown on TV throughout the Middle East, and people cheered, that was a less than stellar day for our organization," said one source, typing numbers rapidly into a calculator, "Saddam was all like 'They were lousy kids anyway, plenty more where that came from ha ha ha.' But we could tell he was bumming."
Said one loyal supporter "As we were crouching in a pig stall the other day, I told him, 'Don't worry Great Leader, the revolution will outlive us!' and he said '@#%* THAT! I'm going to #@%*-ing DIE!' I guess I could see his point."
With his primary bodyguard captured, Saddam is reportedly scrambling to find a whole new system of sewers and outhouses to use as presidential palaces. "It's really embarrassing to go from tyrannically ruling a country to crapping your pants while you're living in an outhouse," admitted one Saddam aid, "I guess that's what you get for being such an evil, vicious, 25 million dollar b*stard."
If you liked this satire by Dan Killian, you can see more of his work at Broken Newz.
Now if only they could replace some of the worthless comics on the funny pages with Day by Day. I mean come on, is anyone really reading the comics to see if Sarge yells at Beetle Bailey today? Oh boy, we've never seen that before. And Lil Abner -- how can that still be on the comics page? When did that comic start up -- the 18th century? Was Ben Franklin the original artist -- is that why Lil Abner hasn't been mercifully sent to the comic graveyard? And some of these other cartoons like Pogo & Arlo and Jannis are so bad that we should force the terrorists at Gitmo to read them over and over until they spill their guts. Even the really popular comics like Garfield and Peanuts aren't very entertaining or witty. Personally, I think Charley Brown's crooked shirt and Garfield's teeth have subliminal messages in them that force people to look at them in the paper. How else can you explain it? I read lots of Peanuts books when I was kid and I look back now and it's like, "Charley Brown was Jimmy Carter, Lucy was Hillary Clinton jr., & Peppermint Patty was little Janet Reno. Not even Snoopy could carry that trainwreck of a comic on his back!"
I'm sure I've now irritated the legions of loyal "Pogo" fans and people who have based their lives around the "clever quips" of Peppermint Patty, but I'm not pulling any punches -- Dilbert, Foxtrot, & Tank McNamara rule & Ziggy, Kathy, & the wretchedly boring Family Circus drool! Up with Day By Day & down with Ted Rall! And most importantly, the guys who created Bloom County & The Far Side have to come out of retirement. Come back guys, do it for the children!
-- The new ads for July will be going up tonight at midnight. RWN currently has one slot open for button ads & 3 slots open for banner ads. Here are details about those types of ads...
"You can now purchase an 88x31 button in the "support section" of RWN for an entire month. The button ads appear on every page of RWN. If you're interested, send $15 to my Paypal account (which is also located in the support section -- please mention what the money is for in the comments section) and email me your 3kb or smaller button. If you'd like to have a button bigger than that, then contact me and we can negotiate a rate.
You can purchase a 468x60 banner ad on RWN for $20 a month. The banners appear on every page of RWN. If you're interested, send $15 to my Paypal account (which is also located in the support section -- please mention what the money is for in the comments section) and email me your 20kb or smaller banner ad."
Contact me if you're interested.
-- I want to thank Nicole for all the hard work she has done (& is continuing to do on RWN). If you'd like to thank her as well, feel free to buy her something from her wish list.
Also, if you need a consultant to work on your web page or create a script for you, I'd give Nicole my highest recommendation. I've worked with a lot of very talented web designers in one capacity or another over the years, but Nicole is the best I have ever dealt with. If you need help redesigning your page or would just like to add some of the nifty new features on RWN to your blog (like user/pass for comments or users online), it wouldn't hurt to talk to Nicole to see what she can do for you.
-- I wanted to give a quick plug out to Freakinback's Whole. It's run by a friend of mine and the whole point of it is to bring weirdness from around the web to one source. He hasn't been around too long yet, but he's off to a decent start. Give his blog a look.
-- Last but not least, RWN is looking for some more slogans. We have rotating slogans near the top right hand side of the page, but RWN only has 7 slogans to go on the list. If you'd like to make a suggestion, I'd certainly love to hear it.
If you come up with a slogan I use, I'd be happy to give you a main page ad for your website. If you don't have a website, then heck, come up with a slogan just for the sheer satisfaction of seeing it on RWN or perhaps even one day on an RWN T-shirt. Of course, if you suggest a slogan in the comments section, you're giving up all rights to monetary compensation for coming up with said slogan, but hey -- what's a slogan worth anyway?
Bloggers Select The 15 Greatest Movies Of All-Time
There are a lot of great movies that have been made over the years -- but which ones really stand out of the crowd as the best of all-time? Well, we here at RWN decided to find out. So we emailed more than a hundred bloggers to get their opinions.
All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-25 selections. Rank was determined simply by the number of votes received. Without further adieu, here are their selections. (Cont)
***Update***: I just want to chime in with a few quick comments. To begin with, despite watching a huge number of movies, I haven't seen several of the movies that made the list. I've never watched the Godfather, Godfather 2, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, North by Northwest, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Schindler's List & This is Spinal Tap. Believe it or not, the first time I had even heard of North by Northwest was when someone selected it on one of the ballots.
Furthermore, I know I'm about to be branded a heretic, but I'm not a huge fan of the Star Wars "prequels" -- in fact, I liked Star Wars 1 (the 4th movie) better than any of the 3 previous installments.
Because of that, my list (which you can see by clicking here) , is riddled with modern movies. The only really "old" movie on there (let's say 1970 & back) is Patton. Moreover, only 3 of my top 20 movies made the list. Of course, the fact Conan, The One, & Kull the Conqueror didn't get any votes other than mine conclusively proves...conclusively proves...well, it probably conclusively proves I have horrible taste in movies...
President Carter To Travel To N. Korea, Bush Administration Negotiating For Them To Keep Him
President Carter has announced a desire to travel to North Korea in an effort to aid in peace talks with the troubled nation. The Bush Administration announced strong support for the move, saying, "Based on his efforts in the past, we doubt he will have any positive impact on the disarmament negotiations, but we are willing to allow North Korea's nuclear program if they agree to keep him."
Added Bush, "Those two ought to get along great. Both of them led their nations to economic ruin while enacting disastrous foreign policy. Plus, they both suffer from delusions of mediocrity and seem to have this confused look all the time. Also, they are both socialites. In fact, I'm glad Kim [Il-Jong] wears the glasses, or else I couldn't tell these two apart."
The administration has revealed privately that they believe that with the aid of Carter's advice, North Korea will be out of business by early next week.
If you enjoyed this satire by Shamus Young, you can read more of his work at The Lemon
Whether it's because they're engaging in wishful thinking, trying to please our European & Arab "allies", or just because they're trying to come across as impartial, most politicians, the Bush administration included, usually sound like they have no idea what's really going on in Israel.
Anyone who's paying attention knows that Israel is going to make a lot of concessions, the Pals will stop the violence for a little while, and then the terrorists will say "Truce over -- we blame the Israelis" and everything will start back-up. Until the terrorists are dead or disarmed (preferably dead), nothing is going to be accomplished. Since that's not happening and Abbas (Mazen) shows no signs of doing it, we're just killing time until the Palestinians start blowing themselves up on buses and in pizzarias again.
Well, Tom Delay understands all of this. Just listen to what he had to say in Israel on Wednesday...
"DeLay, on a tour of the Middle East, repeated calls for Palestinians to disarm militant groups as required by the U.S.-backed "road map" plan for Middle East peace.
....Dismissing the truce called by main Palestinian groups a month ago, he said: "And it's a liberation we are determined to secure, not merely a paper-thin cease-fire."
..."Murderers who take 90-day vacations are still murderers," DeLay said.
...DeLay said victory in a global war against terrorism hinges partly on the disarming and dismantling of Palestinian militant groups.
"Israel's fight is our fight. And so shall it be until the last terrorist on Earth is in a cell or a cemetery," DeLay said, drawing loud applause from the crowd of lawmakers and Cabinet ministers.
...Speaking at the Knesset, DeLay said ordinary Palestinians were pawns of a corrupt, brutal leadership.
"Their enemy is Yasser Arafat," he said. "Their enemy is Hamas, Hezbollah and the vast network of violent men who threaten this region like so many desert scorpions."
...While he belittled Arafat, DeLay praised his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas - also known as Abu Mazen - who became the first Palestinian prime minister in April after pressure from America and others.
"The onus now shifts to the rest of the world to take the ascension of Abu Mazen to its logical conclusion: Arafat must be isolated," DeLay said."
I agree with every word except the part about isolating Arafat. Arafat deserves to isolated the same way Uday & Qusay were -- in the ground. What's one more martyr at this point? Especially since the Israelis could surely make it look like a "work accident" and claim that they had nothing to do with it.
Until Arafat & the terrorists are dead, in prison, or at least disarmed and out the terrorism business, the war on terrorism isn't over for the Israelis or America. If the terrorists win in Israel, you can bet they'll just start using the same tactics here. Like Delay said, 'Israel's fight is our fight' -- we better make sure they win it.
Democrats Who Want To Win Vs. Democrats Who Want To Vent
It's entertaining to watch the Democrats who're actually interested in winning elections duke it out with the rabid lefties want the candidate to be a mirror image of them -- even it causes the party to go down the tubes. In any case, there's a lot of good news for Republicans in this article...
"Dramatic erosion in support among white men has left the Democrats in a highly vulnerable position and unless the party strongly repositions itself, President Bush will be virtually impossible to beat in 2004, according to a new poll commissioned for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).
...Penn said his polling indicates that since Clinton left office in 2001, more Americans believe Democrats are the party of big government and higher taxes and he said Bush's handling of the war on terrorism has opened up a huge gap with Democrats on who is more trusted on issues of national security.
"If Democrats can't close the security gap, then they can't be competitive in the next election," said Penn, who polled for Clinton in his second term and who is the pollster for the presidential campaign of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.).
But Penn said Democrats must make a concerted effort to appeal to white voters, particularly men and married women, to make the 2004 race competitive. He said just 22 percent of white men identified with the Democratic Party in his poll, and he said younger men are even more strongly Republican in their leanings.
Penn's poll was used by DLC leaders to press their argument that Democrats must embrace the kind of centrist policies espoused by Clinton to avoid a humiliating defeat in 2004, and they used the two-day conference to continue a debate over the direction of the party that has intensified in recent months.
DLC leaders have criticized former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whose antiwar rhetoric fueled his rise to prominence in the Democratic presidential race, and today, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), the DLC chairman, warned that the party is "at risk of being taken over by the far left." The choice for Democrats, Bayh said, is, "Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?"
But not all of those in attendance agreed with the Dean bashing. Washington state Rep. Laura Ruderman decried the battles between party centrists and liberals, and told the audience, "I don't think we can be successful if we go down that rat hole."
"Do we want to vent or do we want to govern" -- does that not sum it up perfectly? The honest answer, one that a lot of people on the left won't even admit to themselves, is that yes, they would rather vent than govern.
That's because they know in their heart of hearts, they're losing the war of ideas badly and they've given up on trying to win it. Now in the past, they've gotten around that by...
1) Talking about what a lousy country this is
2) Saying we have a lousy country because the GOP is full of racist NAZIs who want to take grandma's Social Security just so the GOP contributors at Kibbles 'N' Bits can make more money selling her dog food to eat
3) Then the Democrats ran as "not Republicans" -- "Vote for us because we're not stupid or evil!!!"
4) Then when they won, they appointed a lot of liberal judges who imposed the left's agenda via judicial fiat.
That was the strategy in nutshell, but the Dems are no longer winning enough elections with it to stay in power -- so they're "venting" at Bush, at the GOP, at the war, at America -- you name it, they're furious about it -- and Dean represents the people who feel that way. He's the feeling behind the "No War For Oil" sign personified and I'm rooting for him to make it through the primaries and go head to head with Bush. I say that because unlike liberals, Conservatives aren't "venting", they're looking to govern and having a guy like Dean running on the Democratic ticket will help us get & keep the majorities to do it with.
It seemed like such a simple idea -- I'd just switch RWN over to a new host -- one with a fully functional MySQL database that doesn't continually crash like my old host's database did. The next thing ya know, it turns into the worst disaster since Ted Kennedy got drunk and decided to go for a joyride to Chappaquiddick with Mary Jo Kopechne.
I'm not going to bore you with all the technical details, but let's just say Murphy's law was in full effect. The DNS repointed much earlier than I thought it would, we couldn't get to the MySQL database at my old host, then when we did a data dump, it was full of errors that took forever for my designer (Nicole) to correct. Poor Nicole is still getting everything sorted out which is why the comments aren't working yet.
Oh and don't get me started on the tech support at my old host -- Addr. Every time I ever called there I got the feeling I was talking to someone who just got hired 5 minutes ago. Last night, I spent 47 minutes with one of their reps in an online chat and it was just unbelievable. 20 minutes in, the guy was claiming that according to their records, I didn't have a MySQL database. O....K. 30 minutes in they agreed that I did have a database and finally gave me the information I contacted them to get: where to log into the database at. After that didn't work, their customer service rep finally figured out their MySQL database was down and informed me that was why we couldn't do a data dump right now. Oh if only I had one of those machines that could control people's thoughts from space -- you know the ones Dennis Kucinich is freaked out about -- I would have made the guy's head explode like the people in that movie "Scanners".
Anyway, we're finally at our new host and judging by the traffic at the old and new sites, about 80% of the net is seeing us in the right spot. By Friday at noon -- at the latest -- we should have 99.9% of the internet looking at the right location for RWN. I'm glad we got back up so quickly because without us here at RWN to tell you what to do, you mind-numbed robots might have just sat there drooling while staring vacantly at your computers -- puzzled as to what to do without instructions -- well, at least that's what the "scientists" at Berkeley probably think.
PS: For those of you waiting to read the highly anticipated, "Bloggers select the greatest movies of all-time" article, that has been pushed back until tomorrow because of the technical issues, so look for it then.
PS #2: If you'd like to buy a banner ad, they're $20 for a month. I will run a maximum of 4 per month, 20 KB max size each. Currently I have one sold. Email me if you're interested in getting a banner ad that'll start August 1st.
Hussein Supporters Asked To Understand "Root Causes" Of American Attacks By Shamus Young
In the wake of the attack earlier this week that left Uday and Qusay Hussein dead, many in America's academic community came forward to encourage the remaining supporters of Saddam Hussein to "look past their anger" and try to discover the "root causes" of the American attack. Said Middle East correspondent and professional idiotarian Robert Fisk, "While it might be tempting for Saddam's supporters to lash out at the west, they would be better served by trying to understand why they are so hated throughout the world, including in their own country."
Fisk went on to suggest that invading Kuwait and supporting terrorists around the world had done much to draw the ire of the west, and that the best course of action would be to try to understand American culture. A leading Berkley professor suggested that Ba'ath party members should "spend time learning about Americans, Western Culture, and maybe every try a cheeseburger or maybe listening to some pop music."
Said Fisk, "The temptation will be for the Ba'athists to strike back, but violence only begets more violence. You can't judge an American until you've walked a mile in his Nikes."
If you enjoyed this satire by Shamus Young, you can read more of his work at The Lemon.
Why Does Anyone Need To Take An African American Studies Course?
While the controversy that this article discusses is infuriating, it obscures the deeper issue...
"A group of Oberlin parents is adamant that one type of person should never teach their children about African-American history.
A white person.
These parents are furious that a scheduling conflict might cause administrators to reassign the black teacher who has taught the subject in the high school for seven years.
The parents, in protesting to the school board, have hit on a touchy racial issue that has bedeviled educators for years.
Some experts say the best qualified teacher, white or black, should teach African-American history - or any class, for that matter. But others, like the Oberlin parents, say a black teacher brings more credibility and compassion to the subject. A white teacher may know the dates and events, but can a white person ever truly understand the culture?"
While the article is addressing whether a white person should teach African-American studies, a better question would be why should a high school be teaching African American studies in the first place? Seriously -- do they teach white-American studies? What about Jewish-American studies? Chinese-American, Irish-American, & Arab American studies? So Why do they feel the need have a separate course to talk about black history?
When the kids are taught American history they should be taught about all the important black figures throughout the history of our nation. So what is the point of the class? Judging by some of the responses, it sounds like the real point of the class is to encourage separatism...
"It would be a problem for A.G. Miller, an associate professor of American and African religious history at Oberlin College. In Oberlin's case, he said, placing a white teacher in the African-American history course would send the wrong message to black high school students.
"The message is that we are not concerned about the importance of your historical background . . . that that is less important than a schedule conflict," said Miller, whose three children graduated from Oberlin High School.
Jaqui Willis, a black Oberlin parent, sees Kurt Russell as more than a teacher - he's a role model, she said. She, too, worries what message children will get if they see the class taken from Russell.
...Oberlin School Board President Tony Marshall, who is black, agrees. The phrase "color-struck" might mean nothing to a white person, he said, but a black teacher would know that it suggests a black person who prefers lighter-skinned blacks to darker-skinned blacks.
"A black teacher brings an experience and understanding of being black that no else can bring," Marshall said.
Phyllis Yarber Hogan, a member of the Oberlin Black Alliance for Progress, makes the point even more strongly.
"When you talk about slavery, students need to understand it is not our fault," she said. "Our ancestors did nothing wrong to be enslaved.
"How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?"
When the color of a teacher of a course is designed to send some kind of "message" to the kids, is that message really worth hearing? Furthermore, what does having an "understanding of being black" have to do with teaching a kid history? I bet that School Board President would go out of his mind (& rightfully so) if someone suggested that a black teacher wasn't qualified to teach white kids because he didn't have an "understanding of being white." Then there's Phyllis Yarber Hogan there at the end who sounds like she's still consumed with anger over the Civil War.
Maybe this may sound like a crazy suggestion to some people, but why don't we just teach these kids American history? Not black history, not white history, but American history. The race of the professor teaching the class doesn't matter, the racial make-up of the class doesn't matter, let's just be color blind and treat all the kids like what they are, Americans. Wouldn't our country be a better place to live if we did that?
RWN has been redesigned and I think you'll find there are quite a few improvements like...
-- A search feature that will allow you to look for particular news posts.
-- Archives by category.
-- User/pass required to post in the comments section.
-- A "retro" section where I'll link older RWN articles that are still worth taking a look at it.
-- The number of people who are currently viewing RWN is now displayed.
-- We now have banner ads.
-- Near the top of the page on the right, you'll see rotating slogans.
-- There is an RSS News feed now for people who want to syndicate RWN's daily news.
-- Furthermore, there are a lot of behind the scenes changes that were made that makes it much easier for me to input info into the page and check statistics on outgoing links.
All of that is in addition to the cleaner, more professional look of the page.
I'd like to thank Nicole Baker for putting all of this together. She is the most, professional, talented, & hard working web designer I've ever run across. I cannot tell you how fantastic it was to work with someone who is so good that she was literally able to write EVERY single script I asked her about. All I had to do was show her another page that had something I wanted or describe it for her and usually it was complete anywhere from 15 minutes to 24 hours later. If this post went 1000 words long, I could not say enough nice things about Nicole and the job she did in helping to put together RWN. Thank you sooooooooo much Nicole for the great work that you did.
***Update***: Because my current host doesn't handle MySQL as well as I'd like, I'm going to be changing hosts tonight. The root server should reflect the DNS change tonight at midnight, then it should propagate out to everyone's ISP shortly afterwards. It's always possible that could cause unforseen difficulties, but so far, so good.
An Interview With Congressman Tom Tancredo (R - CO): I did an interview via phone on Friday night with congressman Tom Tancredo while he was at the airport. I'm a big fan of Tom Tancredo, because I believe he's one of the very few Congressmen who's actually serious about dealing with illegal immigration. Furthermore, Tom Tancredo is on the "Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights" which means terrorism is right down his alley as well. Given Mr. Tancredo's background, it's not terribly surpising that we talked almost exclusively about terrorism and illegal immigration. If you care about those subjects you are really going to enjoy this interview because Tancredo didn't pull any punches.
TIKRIT, Iraq - With his sons dead and his bodyguard captured, former Iraqi President at large Saddam Hussein is showing less of a brave face about the Iraqi resistance, sources close to him say. Sources close to Saddam also wonder how many Dinars 25 million dollars go into, if it's really as much as they think it is. Sources close to Saddam are licking their lips and looking over weirdly at Saddam, hallucinating that he is a giant bag of money. 
