Are these boycotts anti-Semitic? Maybe not, but, as I noted the other day, they are hypocritical, sanctimonious, and deeply wrong. No one is demanding a boycott of Russian academics over Russia's occupation of Chechnya and the atrocities committed there (which dwarf, to put it mildly, Israel's human rights abuses in the occupied territories). Or, as Ari Paul points out in an article at Reason.com, a boycott of Chinese academics because of the occupation of Tibet and other assorted abuses by the Chinese regime. Or ... sadly, the list could go on and on.
Partly, this double standard is rooted in the all-too-familiar leftist mentality which strenuously condemns bad behavior by Western or pro-Western governments while turning a blind eye to the far worse misdeeds of communist and/or Third World regimes. (It's not quite clear into which category Putin's Russia falls.)
The Republic of Namibia - the impoverished country of 1.8 million known for its wild remoteness - not only welcomed the movie stars, it handed over control of its international land borders and airspace to them.
As the world awaited the birth of the child at a luxury villa complex on the coast, Namibian authorities said they had bowed to pressure from Jolie and Pitt and granted them the right to ban foreign journalists from entering the country - a remarkable move for the Government of any sovereign state.
The stars told ministers they would quit the country unless allegedly intrusive journalists and paparazzi were brought to heel.
The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects.
Late terminations have been performed in recent years because the babies had club feet, official figures show.
Babies are being aborted with only minor defects.Other babies were destroyed because they had webbed fingers or extra digits. Such defects can often be corrected with a simple operation or physiotherapy.
The revelation sparked fears that abortion is increasingly being used to satisfy couples' desire for the 'perfect' baby.
A leading doctor said people were right to be 'totally shocked' that abortions were being carried out for such conditions.
The ex-gay movement considers same-sex attraction to be a gender-identity disorder, brought on by inadequate parenting, unmet emotional needs and, often, childhood sexual abuse.
Mainstream associations of psychiatrists and psychologists resoundingly reject that model, but the ex-gay movement promotes it through groups such as the National Assn. for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. That group's president, psychologist Joseph Nicolosi, opened a recent conference for men and women seeking to overcome homosexuality with a ringing statement:
"There is no such thing as a homosexual. We are all heterosexual. Our body was designed for the opposite sex."
The audience of more than 700 sat rapt in the pews of a Fort Lauderdale church. Some held Bibles. Others took notes. Nicolosi went on to tell them that fathers could help their sons stay straight by bonding through rough-and-tumble games, such as tossing them in the air.
"Even if [the dad] drops the kid and he cracks his head, at least he'll be heterosexual," Nicolosi said, chuckling. "A small price to pay."
Riot police broke up an attempt by gays and lesbians to stage Moscow's first gay pride parade Saturday. Gay activists who attempted to lay flowers near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin wall and then assemble across from city hall were heckled and assaulted by skinheads, Orthodox Christians and radical nationalists.
Police said they had arrested about 120 people, both supporters and opponents of the parade. Gay activists were dragged away by riot police when they began speaking to reporters, but opponents of the parade, including a nationalist member of parliament, were allowed to speak and chant, "Moscow is not Sodom." ...
The city had banned the parade on the grounds that it was anathema to the values of most residents and therefore presented a threat of violence. A city court upheld the ban Friday.
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said in a radio interview Friday that a gay parade "may be acceptable for some kind of progressive, in some sense, countries in the West, but it is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow, for Russia."
He added: "As long as I am mayor, we will not permit these parades to be conducted."
Another photograph provides evidence for Mr. Kerry's version of how he won the Bronze Star. And original reports pulled from the naval archives contradict the charge that he drafted his own accounts of various incidents — which left room, the Swift boat group had argued, to embellish them.
Mr. Kerry's defenders have received help from unlikely sources, including some who were originally aligned with the Swift boat group but later objected to its accusations against Mr. Kerry. One of them, Steve Hayes, was an early member of the group. A former sailor, he was a longtime friend and employee of William Franke, one of the group's founders, and he supported the push to have Mr. Kerry release his military files. But Mr. Hayes came to believe that the group was twisting Mr. Kerry's record.
"The mantra was just 'We want to set the record straight,' " Mr. Hayes said this month. "It became clear to me that it was morphing from an organization to set the record straight into a highly political vendetta. They knew it was not the truth." ...
Mr. Kerry, accused even by Democrats of failing to respond to the charges during the campaign, is now fighting back hard.
"They lied and lied and lied about everything," Mr. Kerry says in an interview in his Senate office. "How many lies do you get to tell before someone calls you a liar? How many times can you be exposed in America today?"
"X Men 3: The Last Stand" took in almost $45 million on Friday and landed in the history books. It is now the second highest opener of all time, right behind "Star Wars: Attack of the Sith."
Insiders are predicting that the Brett Ratner directed third episode in the X Men trilogy could do as much as $150 million over the four day Memorial Day weekend. Word of mouth and "tracking" are so strong that "X Men 3," with no real rivals, should shatter all kinds of records by time the numbers are in officially on Tuesday.
Without warning, a confederacy of geeks has taken over the popular culture.
"The Matrix." "X-Men." The latest chapter in the trolls and elves trilogy. This is cinema for the "Dungeons and Dragons" set. Who put the Society for Creative Anachronism (that group you may recall from college, jousting on the lawn in medieval garb shouting "zounds" at each other as they drank from faux goblets) in charge of programming?
Once we mocked nerds. It was tradition. Now we (filmgoers, the flock mentality media) follow their lead.
Doctors said sexually transmitted diseases among senior citizens are running rampant at a popular Central Florida retirement community, according to a Local 6 News report.
A gynecologist at The Villages community near Orlando, Fla., said she treats more cases of herpes and the human papilloma virus in the retirement community than she did in the city of Miami.
"Yeah, they are very shocked (to hear the diagnosis)," gynecologist Dr. Colleen McQuade said. "I had a patient in her 80s."
"More and more senior citizens are ending up in the gynecologist office, and their diagnosis is a sexually transmitted disease," Local 6 reporter Vanessa Medina said.
This photo provided by the Christian Broadcasting Network shows religious broadcaster Pat Robertson leg pressing what is claimed to be 2,000 pounds at the fitness center at the Founders Inn on Regent University campus in Virginia Beach, Va., Feb. 1, 2003. A CBN spokesman claims the photo is from 2003 even though the date stamp on the photo says 8/1/1994.
We've made it easy for you to compose a letter advocating for the Marriage Protection Amendment -- by pulling together some talking points you can assemble into a completed whole. Just use the tool below to select one paragraph from each of four sections -- be sure to select the one that reflects your own views.
Paragraph 1:
Option 1: For centuries now, in every civilized culture, marriage as the union of one man and one woman has been the building block of society. But it may not be true in America for long -- unless Congress approves the Marriage Protection Amendment.
Option 2: The U.S. Senate is poised to vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment, and the stakes couldn't be higher for our country and its future generations.
Option 3: Liberals argue that the Marriage Protection Amendment, which would define marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman, would write discrimination into the U.S. Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Option 4: Marriage has been under attack ever since no-fault divorce laws made it easier for us to discard our husbands and wives. Now, the attack is coming from those who want to open up marriage to same-sex couples -- and only the Marriage Protection Amendment can stop them.
Option 5: Never mind that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose gay marriage. It's perilously close to becoming the law of the land -- unless citizens like us step up and demand our federal lawmakers pass the Marriage Protection Amendment.
Marriage has been under attack ever since no-fault divorce laws made it easier for us to discard our husbands and wives.
Now, the attack is coming from those who want to open up marriage to same-sex couples, and only the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) can stop them.
Opponents of the MPA have asked, "How does one couple's gay marriage threaten anyone's heterosexual marriage?" This question misses the point. The goal of gay activists isn't the individual relationship of any two people; it is the revision of national policy to say that gender, especially in child-rearing, is inconsequential.
Think of the MPA as a shield between our traditional values and radical judges who are intent on forcing their politically correct agenda on our nation. Without that shield, it's only a matter of time until marriage loses all meaning, and social science data indicate children will suffer the most when that happens.
So don't delay, contact Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith today and urge them to support the Marriage Protection Amendment when they vote the first week in June.
David LaLande
Roseburg
(TCM) has hired Rob Zombie to serve as host of a showcase of cult films, starting in October. And it has ordered pilots for two possible new shows. One, called "Idols" (hmmmm), would send a young working actor to shadow and interview an older screen legend. The other, "Take Two," will feature young stars re-enacting a scene from a classic film. The "star" in the pilot? Wilmer Valderrama, redoing part of "The Lost Weekend."
Recently, as a study in sociology and pathos, this reporter began immersing himself in the life of the benighted American South, what former president and New Dealer Franklin Delano Roosevelt described as our nation’s No. 1 economic problem.
But wait! If you consider garish strip malls and bland residential subdivisions and office parks progress, then progress is washing all over that region. Indeed, the same lifeless uniformity has sadly seized control of the broadcasts of the region’s oldest big-league sports franchise, the Atlanta Braves. Fox has taken over the colorful if insane maverick Ted Turner’s once spirited television operation and peopled the broadcast booth with non entities who would make the milquetoast Frank Gifford seem positively scintillating. ...
I read that the head of this particular appendage of Murdoch’s media leviathan, one Jeff Genthner, says that "Our talent is going to have a much greater presence. We're going to keep a completely open mind about who's available, who fits with us and, most important, who fits with the fans."
If the fans are a horde of unthinking, incurious drones happy with whatever their media masters spoonfeed them, then the Fox corporate myrmidon Mr. Genthner is indeed delivering a perfect fit.
