Judge Jeanine Pirro Worried About America's Social Breakdown and Lawlessness

Yet again a must-watch segment from Judge Jeanine.

She concludes: "Now I'm a tough New Yorker, but even I'm worried. And if I'm worried, you should be worried."

Miley Cyrus on #SNL

I watched it.

She was pretty good.

And like I always say, she and her handlers are marketing geniuses. It's working out for her way past the obligatory 15 minutes.

At LAT, "Miley Cyrus can't stop on 'SNL'."

And at Twitchy, "SNL viewers agree: Miley Cyrus should keep the hot Michele Bachmann look."

The Boehner/Bachmann spoof is here, "SNL Miley Cyrus Parody - "We Did Stop (The Government)" ft. John Boehner and Michele Bachmann."

#SpiteHouse

OMG this is delectable!

At Twitchy, "#SpiteHouse: President Stompy Foot sparks new name for White House [Photoshops]."

'Welcome to Ted Cruz's Thunderdome'

Ben Shapiro takes down MoDo, at Big Journalism.

And here's the senator on CNN this morning:



More here, "Cruz: Obamacare is hurting millions."

Speaker John Boehner on 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos'

At ABC News, "‘This Week’ Transcript: House Speaker John Boehner." (Via Memeorandum.)



Also from the Speaker's Office, "Boehner on ABC This Week: Democrats’ Refusal to Negotiate Putting Our Country At Risk."

Pasadena's Cliff's Bookstore Closes: Was One of the Many That Once Lined East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena

These are changing times.

I'm always a little surprised to see independent book sellers these days. I'd never been to Cliff's, although I've made trips to Vroman's Books right there on Colorado Blvd.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Pasadena's Cliff's Books closes up shop":

Bookstores thrived in the Playhouse district in the late 1990s. Vroman's, Super Crown, Borders, Barnes & Noble and four used book stores all made their home along a few blocks of Colorado. Today, only Vroman's, Barnes & Noble and one used book store remain.

Not only is it a tough market for booksellers, the Playhouse district has gentrified in the last decade, making it harder for quirky stores like Cliff's to compete with increasing numbers of big box stores. "Mom and pop stores are going out; you got franchise businesses coming in," said Don Cotten, manager at Angels School Supply, just a couple of doors down from Cliff's.

To Fix Education, Look to the Past

From Joanne Lipman, at WSJ, "Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results":

I had a teacher once who called his students "idiots" when they screwed up. He was our orchestra conductor, a fierce Ukrainian immigrant named Jerry Kupchynsky, and when someone played out of tune, he would stop the entire group to yell, "Who eez deaf in first violins!?" He made us rehearse until our fingers almost bled. He corrected our wayward hands and arms by poking at us with a pencil.

Today, he'd be fired. But when he died a few years ago, he was celebrated: Forty years' worth of former students and colleagues flew back to my New Jersey hometown from every corner of the country, old instruments in tow, to play a concert in his memory. I was among them, toting my long-neglected viola. When the curtain rose on our concert that day, we had formed a symphony orchestra the size of the New York Philharmonic.

I was stunned by the outpouring for the gruff old teacher we knew as Mr. K. But I was equally struck by the success of his former students. Some were musicians, but most had distinguished themselves in other fields, like law, academia and medicine. Research tells us that there is a positive correlation between music education and academic achievement. But that alone didn't explain the belated surge of gratitude for a teacher who basically tortured us through adolescence.

We're in the midst of a national wave of self-recrimination over the U.S. education system. Every day there is hand-wringing over our students falling behind the rest of the world. Fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. trail students in 12 other nations in science and 17 in math, bested by their counterparts not just in Asia but in Finland, Estonia and the Netherlands, too. An entire industry of books and consultants has grown up that capitalizes on our collective fear that American education is inadequate and asks what American educators are doing wrong.

I would ask a different question. What did Mr. K do right? What can we learn from a teacher whose methods fly in the face of everything we think we know about education today, but who was undeniably effective?

Continue reading.

I was born too late.

And sadly, I won't be able to retire too soon. I'm cracking up at some of my colleagues at work who are just now noticing how horribly they've been affected by ever-encroaching leftism and political correctness.

Diana West: "The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' from the Book-Burners"

Diana's publishing her response to the attacks from the David Horowtiz/Ronald Radosh cabal, and I'm happy to announce that she's been gracious enough to include one of my essays in her compilation.

At Diana's blog, "FLASH: Now Available! The Rebuttal: Defending American Betrayal from the Book-Burners."

Click to RTWT at the link, although here's the list of patriots she's included:

I have published both my rebuttal, which originally appeared in three parts at Breitbart News, and a selection of these essays written in my behalf in a new book, The Rebuttal: Defending American Betrayal from the Book-Burners. Authors include Andrew Bostom, Vladimir Bukovsky, Donald Douglas, Edward Cline, M. Stanton Evans, Ruth King, Clare M. Lopez, Ned May, R.S. McCain, Takuan Seiyo, Cindy Simpson, David Solway, John L. Work and more.

And check Amazon, "The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' from the Book-Burners."

(In Kindle here.)

And ICYMI, see the astonishing essay right now, "BUKOVSKY & STROILOV ON AMERICAN BETRAYAL."

In Georgia, Urging Republicans to Stand Strong

At NYT, "Conservative Georgia District Urges G.O.P. to Keep Up the Fight":

FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga. — Just down the road from where Union troops suffered their worst defeat of the Civil War, Jeff Epperson sang the praises of his congressman, Representative Tom Graves, whose Defund Obamacare Act set the table for the partial government shutdown.

Even though business has been slow at Mr. Epperson’s sword and knife shop since tourists stopped visiting the historic Chickamauga battlefield, which closed on Tuesday because of the furlough of federal workers in the shutdown, he said the only thing that would weaken his support for Mr. Graves would be if the congressman caved in now. In that case, he might vote for a more conservative choice in the next Republican primary.

“If he backs off, then I would say absolutely I’d be inclined to look for someone else,” said Mr. Epperson, whose store flew a Don’t Tread on Me flag.

The Republican insistence in the House on tying financing of the federal government to dismantling the Affordable Care Act is being driven by a deeply conservative caucus from places like Mr. Graves’s 14th Congressional District, newly created by Georgia’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

Even as Republican elders warn that the party is risking a voter backlash that could cost it in future elections, interviews here indicate that hard-liners like Mr. Graves have more to fear, if they waver, from a potential challenger to their right.

Mr. Graves, 43, won 73 percent of the vote in November in a district that is 85 percent white and has a 16.6 percent college graduation rate. A journey through the district, which stretches from the exurbs of Atlanta to the northwest mountains on the Tennessee border, found many voters who, even if they were unfamiliar with Mr. Graves’s biography, strongly supported him.

“He represents the people,” said Tim Ferguson, a forklift operator who was waiting for a haircut at Paul’s Barber Shop in Calhoun. “He’s not going to commit political suicide by backing down.”

Voters here viewed the Washington stalemate just as Mr. Graves and many of his party members in Congress portray it: a tale of Republicans who have repeatedly shown a willingness to compromise, while Democrats petulantly refuse to meet halfway.

“Obama should not be so dogmatic,” said Julia Welch, 82, who runs an antiques store in Dallas, the seat of Paulding County. “He wants his way and no other.”

Jon Tripcony, a surveyor in Dallas, recalled a photograph of Republican leaders in shirt sleeves facing empty seats across a table. The photo, which Mr. Graves posted on Twitter, was staged to dramatize Republicans’ call for Democrats to discuss a budget passed by the House. It may have been dismissed as a publicity stunt by much of the news media, which noted that House Republicans repeatedly refused to join a conference on a budget the Senate passed earlier. But in northwest Georgia it was taken at face value.

“There was not one single Democrat,” Mr. Tripcony said. “They’re just spoiled little kids. I don’t get it.”

Mr. Ferguson, 48, said House conservatives should not shrink from the next fiscal deadline, raising the debt ceiling, even if it means defaulting on government bonds, a prospect that economists overwhelmingly say would bring down catastrophe.

“If it has to happen for the American people to get what’s best, defunding Obamacare, so be it,” Mr. Ferguson said. “Our credit rating’s going to go down, but it went down before. Did the apocalypse come?”

The number of hard-line House conservatives is estimated from two dozen to as many as the 80 who signed a letter to Speaker John A. Boehner demanding that he tie financing the government to defunding the Affordable Care Act, which he had initially ruled out. Their politics are shaped less by the national picture for Republicans, who have lost five of the last six popular votes for president, than by the demographics of districts like this one that were drawn by conservative legislatures after the 2010 census to ensure safe Republican seats.

That the president, who lost Mr. Graves’s district by 49 percentage points last November, is unpopular was no surprise. But the level of animosity from some was acute. He was compared to a tyrant preparing to end constitutional democracy, as in Germany in the 1930s. Peggy Newsome, 73, who was picking up bags of groceries at the Paulding County Helping Hands food bank, said, “Everything he’s put his hands on, he’s screwed up.”

Shoot, Ima move to Georgia. Damn, them thar's some conservative voters.

U.S. Navy SEALs Stage Raid on Shabab Militants in Somalia

Just in on Twitter:

#BREAKING: U.S. Navy SEALs raid al-Shabab leader's Somalia home in response to Nairobi attack: http://t.co/QCrUTAJaIl

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 5, 2013

Also at NYT, "U.S. Says Navy SEALs Stage Raid on Somali Militants." (Via Memeorandum.)

'Gravity' — Between Earth and Heaven

A.O. Scott reviews "Gravity," at the New York Times:

“Life in space is impossible.” That stark statement of scientific fact is one of the first things to appear on screen in “Gravity,” but before long, it is contradicted, or at least complicated. As our eyes (from behind 3-D glasses) adjust to the vast darkness, illuminated by streaks of sunlight refracted through the Earth’s atmosphere, we detect movement that is recognizably human and hear familiar voices. Those tiny figures bouncing around on that floating contraption — it looks like a mobile suspended from a child’s bedroom ceiling — are people. Scientists. Astronauts. Movie stars. (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in spacesuits, as Mission Specialist Ryan Stone and Mission Commander Matt Kowalski; Ed Harris, unseen and unnamed, as “Houston” down below).

The defiance of impossibility is this movie’s theme and its reason for being. But the main challenge facing the director, Alfonso Cuarón (who wrote the script with his son Jonás), is not visualizing the unimaginable so much as overcoming the audience’s assumption that we’ve seen it all before. After more than 50 years, space travel has lost some of its luster, and movies are partly to blame for our jadedness. It has been a long time since a filmmaker conjured the awe of “2001: A Space Odyssey” or the terror of “Alien” or captured afresh the spooky wonder of a trip outside our native atmosphere.

Continue reading.

Melissa Debling for Zoo Today

Here's the lovely lady on Twitter.

Also at Zoo Magazine.

Joseph Stalin's Comeback

Actually, I don't think he's "poised" for a comeback. Shoot, he's rehabilitated for all practical purposes. It's just a matter of the continued raising of the proletariat's "revolutionary consciousness." The Democrat Party class warfare agenda is doing that right here at home.

More on that later.

Meanwhile, at WSJ, "Statue of Limitations Runs Out for Keeping Stalin Off His Pedestal: Hometown to Resurrect Bronze of Dictator, Move It to Museum; Mugs, T-Shirts, Vodka":

GORI, Georgia—Under cover of darkness here three years ago, municipal workers tore down a giant statue of this ramshackle town's most famous son: Joseph Stalin.

The 20-foot-high bronze sculpture of the former Soviet dictator, which stood on a 30-foot pedestal in Gori's central square for six decades, was dumped face down in an abandoned airfield 13 miles away. Georgia's government said the statue would be "consigned to the dustbin of history" and permanently removed from public display.

Now, "Uncle Joe" is poised for a controversial comeback.

Local officials this summer won approval from a Tbilisi court to resurrect the bronze ode to the man of steel, after petitioning Georgia's new government, which favors healing ruptured ties with Russia. The decision will see the statue restored on the grounds of Gori's Stalin Museum in time for his birthday on Dec. 21. The move has rekindled a decadeslong debate about the legacy of a man whose name has become synonymous with institutionalized brutality and oppression.

Many people are horrified in Georgia, a former Soviet state turned U.S. ally that boasts one of the world's only avenues named after George W. Bush. President Mikhail Saakashvili said the decision was "an unimaginably barbaric anti-Georgian, anti-national, anti-state act," that would place Georgia "in international isolation." But the former dictator's resurrection has been welcomed by many other Georgians and cheered in his hometown, where the Stalinist cult of personality remains intact.

Continue reading.

"Uncle Joe's" cult of personality.

Kinda like "Uncle Barry's" cult of personality. Lots of people cheer this stuff, otherwise you'd never see a return to respectability of one of the 20th century's most brutal mass murderers.

Never say "it couldn't happen here." It's already happening with the Democrat Party's statist-totalitarian agenda.

Kenya Identifies Terrorists in #Westgate Massacre (VIDEO)

At BCF, "Nairobi terrorists named as police confirm 'White Widow' not among them."

And LAT, "Four gunmen named in attack on mall in Kenya."

Veterans Resist Closure of Memorials

At Maggie's Notebook, "Ongoing UPDATES – PHOTOS: Bikers Escort WW II Veterans – Moving Barricades: Facebook Shutdown State Biker Pages."

And Legal Insurrection, "Battle of the Barrycades – Vets storm Vietnam Memorial, U.S Park Police called in."

Heading to WWII Memorial. Word is the gate is wired shut. "We're going to tear that damn thing down!" H. Obland, vet pic.twitter.com/mIASWbrFA3

— Elias Johnson (@ejohnsonNEWS) October 5, 2013

Via Memeorandum.

Dee Gordon Was Safe at Second in #Dodgers' Game 2 Loss in #NLDS

I don't care, really. But I been yanking the chains of some Braves fans on Twitter. They insist Dee Gordon was out.

Actually, it could have gone either way.

See, "Dee Gordon stolen base attempt looms large in Dodgers' loss."

Got a lot of great GIFs out of it, in any case. See, "Dee Gordon called out on controversial stolen base attempt."

Plus, more Dodgers news at LAT, "Dodgers' Dee Gordon insists he was safe on stolen base attempt." And, "Splitting is a headache for the Dodgers."

We Want the Airwaves

Ramones.

Let's rock tonight, well alright...

Enjoy...

Is Baseball Still the National Pastime?

From the Letters to the Editor, at the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Jonathan Mahler, in “Is the Game Over?” (Sunday Review, Sept. 29), seems to confuse the status of Major League Baseball with the standing of the game of baseball in American society.

While he correctly observes that professional baseball is enjoying good times even as television ratings fall far behind professional and collegiate football and basketball, he doesn’t mention more important barometers of baseball’s continuing vitality and popularity among the American people.

These include the millions of boys and girls who join thousands of youth, scholastic, collegiate and American Legion baseball teams, along with the men and women who play baseball and softball in industrial and semiprofessional urban and rural leagues, and the continuing interest in the history and cultural meaning of baseball, as measured by the sale of baseball books, the popularity of baseball films like “The Natural” and “Field of Dreams,” and the public’s continuing fascination with the origins of the sport.

Major League Baseball may indeed rank a poor third to football and basketball in television ratings, but the game remains the national pastime because it resonates more deeply in the country’s soul than any other sport.

GEORGE B. KIRSCH
Hackensack, N.J., Sept. 29, 2013

The writer is the author of “Baseball and Cricket: The Creation of American Team Sports: 1838-72” and “Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War.”

More at the link.

Cal Worthington, 1920-2013

You know, I've been posting all these obituaries, but frankly I've felt guilty for not posting on Cal Worthington. I drive by his dealership nearly every day. And as kid I used to crack up at his "Go see Cal" television commercials. Who didn't?

At the Los Angeles Times, "Cal Worthington dies at 92; car dealer known for wacky 'dog Spot' ads'."

Strip Search After DUI Arrest?

Well, this is probably more shocking than NSA surveillance, although actually less invasive in the end.

At WJLA News 7 Washington D.C., "Dana Holmes sues Illinois police, alleges humiliating strip search."