Freedom of Speech, Liberal Style

 

Michelle Malkin continues her blogging of those activist/vandalism peacemakers who would protect the world from the scourge of American military might.  In Minnesota, these tolerant individuals vandalized a recruiting station.  The Star Trib reports:

Several protesters who were part of a larger group of antiwar demonstrators at the University of Minnesota splased red paint on a military recruiting station this afternoon. Three people involved in the act were apprehended by campus police.

The incident at SE. Oak Street and Washington Avenue came about an hour after a rally at Northrop Plaza, where 250 to 300 gathered and then headed to the Army and Navy recruiting station.

Some of the protesters, wearing all black and with their faces covered, threw red paint onto the station’s windows, pounded the glass and scribbled messages including a peace sign over a U.S. flag sticker.

Police took at least three people into custody, said Army Capt. Val Bernat.

“They’re exercising their rights. We knew they were coming,” Bernat said, adding that campus police had alerted them days earlier. “However, we don’t appreciate the vandalism.”

As Army workers began cleaning up, a group of University of Minnesota students pitched in.

“They disgraced our country and our military,” Ole Hovde, 19, a freshman, said while wiping down the windows.

I’m sure the vandals are quite proud of themselves.  They likely feel real good that they were able to defile the face of evil.  After all, it’s all about “feeling” to these types, isn’t it?

Problem of the MSM

I’m amazed that two of the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism were awarded to reporters who published classified information which compromised the efforts in the war on terrorism. One has to ask if it is right to publish sensitive information that may be  received from an unelected intelligence bureaucrat. Would it be right (forget legalities) to publish, say, information which the reporter knew could result in the deaths of Americans fighting in Iraq? Or would it be ok to publish some launch sequence numbers of nuclear weapons? If not, then who should determine which materials are classified and which are not? It seems to me that the president has the duty and right to classify information. If that information is leaked and published, both the leaker and those who publish what they know to be classified information should come to justice under the law. But not only will the papers (Washington Post and NYT) and their editors and staff not be punished, but now they complain that the Bush Administration is oppressing them. Here’s what Bill Keller, one of the NYT editors recently said when interviewed about the leaks:

Times Editor Bill Keller said in an e-mail that he believed the Bush White House is on a campaign to intimidate the press. “I’m not sure journalists fully appreciate the threat confronting us,” Keller wrote. “The Times in the eavesdropping case, the Post for its CIA prison stories, and everyone else who has tried to look behind the war on terror.” Keller asserted that “there’s sometimes a vindictive tone in the way [administration officials] talk about dragging reporters before grand juries and in the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public’s business risk being branded traitors.” He warned that journalists possibly are “suffering a bit of subpoena fatigue. (Emphasis mine)

Mr. Keller, they are traitors. To deliberately publish classified materials that the enemy can use against us is treachery. You should be labeled and you should be prosecuted under the law. In the MSM’s zeal to portray Bush in a bad light, they are willing to publish anything regardless of the law and regardless of how this country may be damaged. They have such disdain for Bush that they abdicate reason, common sense and duty to country.

Blow Hard Ted Opposes Wind Turbines

 

It is curious that a liberal like Ted Kennedy would oppose efforts aimed at saving the environment from global warming.  After all, we’re ruining the globe with all our oil usage and any renewable fuel which reduces oil consumption should be welcome, right?  Sure, as long as we don’t disturb the view from the Kennedy summer compound.  Here’s a link to a article in the Boston Globe concerning the long struggle the Kennedy’s have waged against wind turbines in Nantucket Sound. 

Environmental groups have launched an aggressive advertising and lobbying campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon Kennedy and back a promising source of renewable energy. If the wind farm becomes a reality, advocates say, it could provide three-fourths of the Cape and Islands’ energy needs and could set an example for the nation.

The maneuver to stop the wind farm ”is clearly a backroom deal, and they’re going to get called publicly on it,” said John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA. ”The Democrats are going to kill the first big offshore wind farm in the United States because of their relationship with Ted Kennedy.”

The 130-turbine, 24-square-mile cluster of windmills would be about 8 miles from Kennedy’s home in Hyannis Port, and he has long opposed it. The Coast Guard bill would give Governor Mitt Romney, another wind farm opponent, the power to veto it, even if the project clears all other hurdles.

Kennedy rejected suggestions that he doesn’t like the wind farm because it would be near his Cape home, and said the project probably wouldn’t be visible from the Kennedy compound. He said he’s against the project because it would create a range of environmental and navigational problems and would hurt tourism, one of the area’s key industries.

I’ve always been impressed that the liberal elites, who motor around in large vehicles and fly private jets get away with their sham concern for the environment.  As long as others “pay” to help the environment with smaller cars and less consumption, they are in favor of conservation, but when asked to burden some inconvenience themselves, they opt out.  Here Kennedy is worried that his view of the sound will be disturbed.  Typical, very typical.  Š

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PROGRAM OF PAPAL TRIP TO POLAND

Per the Vatican Information Service

VATICAN CITY, APR 26, 2006 (VIS) – The program of Benedict XVI’s forthcoming apostolic trip to Poland was made public today. Between May 25 and 28 he is due to visit Warsaw, Czestochowa, Krakow, Wadowice, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, and Auschwitz.

The Holy Father will depart from Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 8.40 a.m. on Thursday, May 25, arriving in Warsaw at 11 a.m. Following the welcome ceremony, he will hold a meeting with clergy in the cathedral of St. John. At 5.45 p.m. the Pope will pay a courtesy visit to the president of Poland in the presidential palace, before going on to participate in an ecumenical gathering at the Lutheran church of the Most Holy Trinity.

On Friday, May 26, Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass in Warsaw’s Pilsudski Square. In the afternoon, he will travel by helicopter to Czestochowa where he will visit the Shrine of the Virgin of Jasna Gora and meet with religious, seminarians and representatives from Catholic movements and institutes of consecrated life. He will then travel to Krakow where he will spend the night in the archbishop’s place.

The following day, the Pope will celebrate a private Mass in the archbishop’s palace in Krakow before travelling by car to Wadowice. There he will visit the basilica of the Immaculate Conception and the house in which John Paul II was born, later meeting local inhabitants in the town’s Rynek Square. At midday, he is due to visit the shrine of the Virgin of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. On his return to Krakow, he will visit the shrine of Divine Mercy and Wawel Cathedral and, at 7 p.m., meet with young people in the city’s Blonie Park.

At 9.45 a.m. on Sunday, May 28, Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass in Blonie Park, and pray the Regina Coeli. After lunch, he will travel by car from the archbishop’s palace in Krakow to Auschwitz. After visiting the former concentration camp and the center for dialogue and prayer, he will participate in a prayer meeting in memory of victims in the former concentration camp of Birkenau.

At 6.30 p.m., the Pope will travel directly from Birkenau to the Krakow’s Balice airport. Following the departure ceremony, his plane will take off at 8 p.m. and is due to arrive in Rome at 9.15 p.m.

Baseball!

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DSC_0072, originally uploaded by eyehackerblog.

This game was played on a great sunny and warm spring day. We got a win!

For Aunt Hedy

 

God our Father, Your power brings us to birth, Your providence guides our lives, and by Your command we return to dust. Lord, those who die still live in your presence, their lives change but do not end. We pray in hope for Hedy, relatives and friends, and for all the dead known to You alone.

In company with Christ, Who died and now lives, may they rejoice in Your kingdom, where all our tears are wiped away. Unite us again in one family, to sing Your praise forever and ever. Amen.

Wow! Those were the days.

 

Here’s an article about an incident that occurred in baseball back in 1976.  The Chicago Cubs were visiting Dodger Stadium.  Rick Monday was in the outfield at the time.  In many ways, this was the kind of matter-of-fact patriotism that was present in the average American.

In between the top and bottom of the fourth inning, I was just getting loose in the outfield, throwing the ball back and forth. Jose Cardenal was in left field and I was in center. I don’t know if I heard the crowd first or saw the guys first, but two people ran on the field.

When these two guys ran on the field, something wasn’t right. And it wasn’t right from the standpoint that one of them had something cradled under his arm. It turned out to be an American flag. They came from the left-field corner, went past Cardenal to shallow left-center field.

That’s when I saw the flag. They unfurled it as if it was a picnic blanket. They knelt beside it, not to pay homage but to harm it as one of the guys was pulling out of his pocket somewhere a big can of lighter fluid. He began to douse it.

What they were doing was wrong then, in 1976. In my mind, it’s wrong now, in 2006. It’s the way I was raised. My thoughts were reinforced with my six years in the Marine Corp Reserves. It was also reinforced by a lot of friends who lost their lives protecting the rights and freedoms that flag represented.

So I started to run after them. To this day, I couldn’t tell you what was running through my mind except I was mad, I was angry and it was wrong for a lot of reasons.

Read the rest of the story here.  I wonder how long it would take before the ACLU to sue MLB if this were to happen today?  Thanks for the tip, Joe.

Howard Dean and Religion

 

“The religious community has to decide whether they want to be tax exempt or involved in politics.”

Those were the words of Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic Party at a recent CSMonitor breakfast.  Imagine the chairman of the party in which every candidate shows up at some Baptist church around election time to sing a few gospel hymns, stand at the pulpit with the minister and ask for the congregation’s support. Imagine that.  And how about this:

Dean’s statement is the latest in a series of comments directed toward conservative Christians. Just last year, Dean told the San Francisco Chronicle, “they are not very friendly….they all behave the same, and they all look the same.”

Image Howard Dean looking into the eyes of all those Southern Baptist ministers and uttering those words around election time. “…you all look the same…and not very friendly…”

This is a far cry from the Howard Dean of just a few years ago.  For example:

In response to a question from CT, Dean said, “We are definitely going to do religious outreach. Even in my campaign I was interested in reaching out to evangelicals.” Later, Dean tactfully expanded his remarks, noting “our religious outreach will not solely be to evangelical Christians but to Americans of all faiths.”

This is a wonderful example of religious outreach.  Tell people of faith that that faith should not inform their world view or their politics.  Howard Dean has a problem (actually quite a few) and the problem is this.  He wants us to think that religion is a Sunday only thing and that if we cannot keep our religious views limited to the church grounds, well then he and the Democrats will have to take away any tax exempt status that we enjoy.  He would like to see people of faith punished for doing just what true faith is supposed to do–inform our thinking about ALL things, political or not.  But he wants us also to believe that the Dems are a party of believers.

Let’s see how may Dems cozy up to Uncle Howard on this issue. 

 

Oh, Those Jesuits

 

Here’s an item on Catholic World News:

Vatican, Apr. 24 (CWNews.com) – Pope Benedict XVI reminded Jesuits of their vow of loyalty to the Roman Pontiff, and urged them to meet “the Church’s most urgent current needs” in the intellectual world, during an address to leaders of the Society of Jesus on April 22.

Pope Benedict spoke after a Mass celebrated in St. Peter’s basilica by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, marking the 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Francis Xavier. About 4,000 Jesuits were in attendance, led by Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach, who has led the Society of Jesus since 1983.

I love the Jesuits.  My sons have (and will be) educated by one of the finest Jesuit high schools in the US.  Our entire family have been blessed, enriched and sanctified because of our “Jesuit connection.”  These are a remarkable group of men, who since their founding in the 16th century have served the Church and mankind richly.  They have been involved in science and medicine.  They have established countries (Paraguay) and have been active in the Orient. They have been involved in the conversion of millions.  We support them with our words and prayers and trust our sons to their mission. 

However, the history of the Jesuits and the papacy is long and at times, difficult.  They have been called back to obedience on multiple occasions.  In recent times, JP II had to intervene in the governance of the Society in October 1981.  And even more recently, Rev. Thomas Reese resigned his post at “America,” a leading Jesuit magazine.  Among other items, the magazine published works including:

An essay exploring moral arguments for the approval of condoms in the context of HIV/AIDS;

Several critical analyses of the doctrinal congregation’s September 2000 document Dominus Iesus, on religious pluralism;

An editorial criticizing what America called a lack of due process in the congregation’s procedures for the investigation of theologians;

An essay about homosexual priests;

A guest essay from U.S. Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, challenging suggestions that the church should refuse Communion to Catholic politicians who do not vote as a number of bishops believe they should vote.

 

I’ve had to once lovingly “remind” one of our Jesuits that certain prayers during the Mass are reserved to the priest and cannot be, on his authority, “shared” with the faithful.

In many ways, they remind me of a group of wonderful, although sometimes naughty boys who, in the depth of their collective souls, love Jesus and His Church, but need to have their ears boxed every now and again to bring them back to back to their senses.

May God continue to bless the Society of Jesus.

More on “Tolerance”

 

There’s more on Penn State’s stance against an art exhibit which the university considers inappropriate.  PSU disallowed the exhibit because it was “sponsored” by the campus Hillel.

So we have two possibilities here: (1) Penn State’s art faculty has a rule against displaying any student work that has any sponsorship, including sponsorship of a student organization such as Hillel [near as I can tell, Penn State Hillel is an official PSU club, though I'm not 100% sure]. However, this rule is only applied when the faculty doesn’t like the message the art is sending or (2) there is no such rule, or at least it wouldn’t apply to a noncommercial, student organization such as Hillel, but pretending there is such a rule is a convenient excuse for what would otherwise look like pure heavy-handed enforcement of political correctness.

It gets better. The professor leading the charge against the exhibit has written about censorship of art.

YET ONE MORE UPDATE: This is precious. Professor Charles Garoian, who is apparently responsible for refusing to allow Stulman’s exhibit to be displayed, published (with a co-author) a series of three articles in 1996 in a journal called School Arts entitled “Censorship in the art classroom,” with the final article in the trilogy called “Fighting censorship in the art classroom.” The good professor wrote, prophetically:

Read the details here.Š