17 Comments

1. heather:

Off topic, but relevant to Wal Mart and the Entertainment Industry.

Among the presents I bought for my grandchildren is the latest “Looney Tunes Golden Collection”, in this case, volume 3. The previous collection was great, and this seemed perfect for my little 4 year old grandson. I found it in the childrens’ DVD section of my local Walmart.

Then, I heard from Mark Steyn that each of the DVDs is introduced by Whoopi Goldberg, and further, you can’t jump forward and miss her, you have to listen to her PC rant. Now, Whoopi is a great actress, but she also makes a lot of money being obscene, and this was to be given to my little grandchild, and therefore I am very sensitive to such nuances.

So, I unwrapped the thing (it was all ready to go into the mail), and found, on the box, in SMALL PRINT, the following notice:”Is intended for the Adult Collector and May not be Suitable for Children.” Where is Warner Brothers getting off, anyway, marketing this at Christmas, to children (or at least they implied as such to even the giant Walmart)?????

Anyway, I have passed on my complaint to both the Bentonville office and the Toronto office (I live in Canada) with very polite responses, by the way. My next job is to go downtown to the local WalMart and repeat all of the above.

And find another DVD collection that the little guy doesn’t have, which is almost impossible….

Nov 29, 2005 - 12:58 pm 2. In Vino Veritas:

Mr. Simon, do you agree with these sentiments from your “idol”:

“Don’t believe in a dialog with Islam. That’s a naivete. It can only be a monologue. They do not believe in pluralism. There is no such thing as a “moderate Islam” and a Radical Islam. There is only one Islam.”

and if so, what do you propose is the final solution to deal with the one-fifth of humanity that is Mohamedean? According to your idol, after all, the religion itself is malignant; the adherents of a malignant religion must be considered the same.

Had she lived a few more years, she would have written “Protocols of the Elders of Arabia.” Good bloody riddance.

Nov 29, 2005 - 2:05 pm 3. heather:

Oriana Fallaci has been one of the best political essayists of the 20th century.

She is correct about Islam: anyone not within the house of Islam is outside, and in dhimmitude.

Fallaci’s death may make In Vino Veritas feel better, but it won’t change the facts.

I saw a panel discussion on CSpan, with Fukayama, Kristol and someone else… what struck me was all of these smart peoples’ (unspoken, unexamined) premise: that the GWOT is optional for the West. It isn’t.

Nov 29, 2005 - 3:39 pm 4. Cap'n Billy:

Re: heather at November 29, 2005 03:39 PM:

If I may make a suggestion–never engage with a member of that species. All you get is dirty, muddy and sweaty and he likes it!

Nov 29, 2005 - 4:05 pm 5. Bruce Wechsler:

I view those kind of comments from Orianna as a challenge to the moderate muslims that may exist to make themselves known. If they don’t take a stand, then it’s as if they don’t exist.

Nov 29, 2005 - 4:09 pm 6. monkyboy:

The Atlas story reads like a parody of early meetings of the National Socialist party. A small, hate-filled leader reading passages from her very own Mein Kampf…

It’s scary to think people like that live here in America.

Nov 29, 2005 - 7:43 pm 7. Vexorg:

Heather:

Re: Looney Tunes cartoons: One fact that has been lost these days is that the cartoon shorts of that era were never really intended as children’s entertainment in the first place. Over the years, they seem to have taken on that purpose through syndication, and along the way various bits and pieces had been censored out of the cartoons, and to be honest, most of the censorship was justifiable(blackface gags were common, as were other unflattering portrayals of ethnic stereotypes, especially during the war years.) The Volume 3 collection (as well as the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Volume 2, which I also own) bring back the complete, uncensored versions of these cartoons. These DVDs are intended as much for preservation of the source material as they are for entertainment, and the fact that the previous collections contained the censored versions of the cartoons was widely criticised by animation fans. If you want to see what material may have been censored in the cartoons on the collection, this site is a good reference on the subject:

http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/

That said, I fortunately figured out that I could at least fast-forward through the Whoopi Goldberg intro, and have since ripped the files from the DVDs onto my hard drive so I can get straight to the cartoons. I haven’t even seen the whole intro, and quite frankly I have a low tolerance for preachy limousine liberals…

Nov 30, 2005 - 1:31 am 8. Bostonian:

“A small, hate-filled leader reading passages from her very own Mein Kampf…”

I must have missed the part where Fallaci describes her own plans for global domination.

But speaking of global domination, I have heard a lot of extremist Muslims talk about how democracy is the vilest apostasy that must be stopped, and about not resting until the entire world is Muslim, because Allah wills it.

And come to think of it, those guys chop heads off schoolgirls; blow up train stations, buses, dance clubs, embassies, and pizzarias; and issue fatwas against people who “defame” their religion.

***

Are you sure you’re on the right side?

Nov 30, 2005 - 6:51 am 9. Bruce Wechsler:

Nicely said Bostonian.

I await monkyboy’s response with less-than-bated breath.

Nov 30, 2005 - 2:09 pm 10. monkyboy:

I await an explaination as to why labeling people violent sub-humans bent on taking over the world just because they belong to a particular religion is acceptable.

It’s no wonder such a small crowd turned out to see that fading harpy of hate. She may have been great once, but what a religious bigot she’s turned into in her final days.

Even an atheist like Fallaci might want to hedge her bet this close to the final curtain….

Nov 30, 2005 - 3:10 pm 11. Bostonian:

I await an explanation of how these two things are one and the same:

*Drawing attention to a murderous ideology that happens to be a religion and noting that its adherants are not, by and large, disavowing the violence

and

*Calling all adherants of that religion “violent subhumans”

***

But let me put it another way. Is Osama Bin Laden an apostate?

Nov 30, 2005 - 4:24 pm 12. monkyboy:

I would guess your understanding of Islam is about the same level as your understanding of anger management techniques, Bostonian. Mindless hate is not confined to just one religion.

I’d like to think the mindless hate Fallaci spews won’t find supporters in America, but slavery and “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” come to mind.

The low turnout at that odious gathering is a good sign. Maybe America is beyond mindless bigotry and we can avoid getting dragged into other countries’ primitive squabbles once we withdraw from Iraq.

Nov 30, 2005 - 7:44 pm 13. Bostonian:

Monkyboy,

I am going to try again to make a distinction (if possible) to a member of the nuance-understanding community.

The distinction is between 1) a belief system and 2) the adherants of the belief system. Do you have that fixed in your head? Good. Now, let’s go over it again.

A very small minority of the believers tell us that it goes against Allah for people to write their own laws. It puts the writers of the law on the level with Allah himself. Secular law of any kind is the vilest apostasy, or so these people say.

In the name of their religion, to please Allah, these people commit bombings, beheadings, kidnappings, more beheadings, etc. etc.

The majority of the believers, on the other hand, commit no violent acts and are quite innocent. (No, they should not be rounded up into detention centers; that is crazy talk. If you read Fallaci more closely, I doubt that you will find any such talk.)

Disturbingly, however, this majority does not particularly condemn the violent acts of the minority. In particular, this majority does not say unequivocally that these violent acts go against the belief system itself. This majority does not say to us, the kaffirs, that in fact these radicals are apostates.

So the question remains unanswered: does this belief system (Islam) logically call for a war against the non-Islamic world or not? Can this belief system co-exist peacefully with others or not?

Dec 1, 2005 - 12:07 am 14. monkyboy:

So you’re saying that any attempt to bring democracy to a Muslim country, like Iraq, is doomed to fail?

I agree, Bostonian.

Dec 1, 2005 - 12:57 am 15. In Vino Veritas:

I’m curious Bostonian, were so adamant that Catholics worldwide condemn the IRA? Did you believe their silence on IRA terrorism was a tacit endorsement of it?

Dec 1, 2005 - 7:18 am 16. Bostonian:

Monkyboy, no, I do not think democracy is doomed to fail in Muslim countries. There is more to a person than his or her religion, after all. I already noted that people adhere to their religions in varying degrees; did you miss that part?

In Vino Veritas,

I don’t remember the IRA ever claiming that what they were doing was God’s will. If they had done so, of course I would have wanted to hear Catholics worldwide denouncing them. (It takes little imagination to realize that Catholics would have in fact done just that.)

Dec 1, 2005 - 2:36 pm 17. Italiano:

I live in the north-east of Italy. During the last 15 years a great number of muslims come to work and fill un-qualified jobs.

So, i send a message ofr the Americans: never, never permits in the future a mass-immigration of muslims.The muslism rise drammatically the level of criminality by raping italian girls, sells drugs to our boys at the shadow of Church, they conquer entire palace or city-zone and expelling all the native population.

before their coming, you can go out in the street even at the 3 am and never happened to you; now the people are scary about street-violence, and our politicans nevr do anything to stop this.

And now mosques are blooming from sicily to norway, and you can’t know what they do into this refugees.

In France, germany, holland, UK this situation happened since 70’s.

So, the europeans now knows the hate of Islam that will be destroy our culture.If europe was more strong and determinate to defend our culture, now we never see this.

Dec 5, 2005 - 3:45 pm

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