Has it really come to this? Have the forces of political correctness so taken over that we can’t even discuss the topic of race in this country without being labeled racist?

You may have heard of the controversy created when Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman, in a moment of breathtaking stupidity, said that the only way to beat Tiger Woods would be to “lynch him in a back alley”, a comment which practically had co-host Nick Faldo scrambling for a crowbar to help her get her foot out of her mouth.

Nice going, Kelly. Given the number of black men who really have been lynched in back alleys, the remark was profoundly stupid, insensitive, and unfunny.

Not surprisingly, this caused a major uproar. Al Sharpton, the man who has never met a television camera he didn’t like, predictably called for her firing. Interestingly, Tiger Woods himself, acting with characteristic maturity, downplayed the whole incident, and accepted Tilghman’s apology. Tilghman was suspended for two weeks.

Enter Golfweek Magazine. Not surprisingly, they ran an article on the whole sorry affair, and the cover of that issue (pictured above) featured a startling image of a noose.

This caused even more of an outcry than the story it was covering. Faced with (what else?) the threat of advertisers walking out the door, Golfweek fired editor David Seanor.

Am I the only one who sees a certain irony in all of this? Kelly Tilghman makes a stupid, racially insensitive remark, and gets off with a slap on the wrist. David Seanor attempts to examine not only this incident but also the larger issue of race as it relates to this overwhelmingly white sport, and he loses his job.

Seanor explained to the Associated Press, “Most people who are objecting to it—within the golf industry—are saying this episode was just about over,” Seanor said. “I think it’s indicative of how, when you bring race and golf into the same sentence, everyone recoils…I wish we could have come up with something that made the same statement but didn’t create as much negative reaction…but as this has unfolded, I’m glad there’s dialogue. Let’s talk about this, and the lack of diversity in golf.”

Now before you start sending me the hate mail, let me make something perfectly clear. Blacks have gotten screwed in this country for hundreds of years. The way blacks have been treated in this country is an evil blot on our history. Whites, at least some of them, have much to answer for.

But what is so very troubling about this is how when the subject of race rears its ugly head, rationality seems to be the first victim. Seanor’s heart was, from all accounts, in the right place. Golf is just about the most lily white sport there is–to this day there are country clubs which don‘t allow blacks–and this incident provided an admirable place to examine this issue. What we have here is a classic case of shooting the messenger.

Was David Seanor being provocative? Sure he was, but last time I checked, that’s what editors are supposed to be. Even if he did cross the line, what was warranted, at most, was an apology, and frankly, I don’t think he has anything to apologize for. As editor, his job is to intrigue the reader, make you want to read the article, and hopefully, make you think.

This has not happened here. Indeed, people seem to have stopped thinking. Sadly, it seems as though everyone is too busy focusing on the cover to actually read the article. Had they done so, they would have read a thoughtful exposition of not only the controversy in question, but of the issue of race in golf in general.

But even more troubling is how the notion of freedom of speech is being subverted by political correctness, which is in reality censorship masquerading as benevolence. If the concept of freedom speech is to have any validity, then it must apply to everyone, not just to those who are saying what you want to hear. Not everything that is said is going to be intelligent, or kind. But the price you pay for being able to say or write what you want, is that you have to put up with everyone else saying and writing what they want.

What is happening in this country is that this most cherished of our freedoms is being eroded by the twin forces of political correctness and advertising dollars. What Kelly Tilghman said was stupid, but she did not deserve to lose her job. In fact, it seems as though the Golf Channel wasn’t going to punish her at all until it was pressured by advertisers, resulting in her two week suspension.

Should David Seanor, whose only crime was a desire to report the incident and create dialogue, suffer a worse fate than Kelly Tilghman? I think not. It bodes ill for us all if we cannot even discuss the issue of race in this country without being labeled racist.

-Smith

please visit my blog at http://murderofravens.wordpress.com/

I love smoking. There, I said it. It takes a certain amount of testicular fortitude to say this nowadays, but it’s just so liberating to say it out loud! I think I’ll say it again: I adore smoking!

To me, smoking a pipe or a cigar is one of life’s great pleasures, akin to a fine whiskey or wine, or a nice cup of coffee or tea. My fascination with the pipe goes back to my childhood, when “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” and “The Lord of the Rings” were among my favorite reading.

Whenever I fill my pipe–perhaps a Sasieni made back in the 1920’s out of briar that was 100 years old back then–with a fine matured Virginia, sit back, light up, see the ember glowing in the bowl, and taste the exquisite flavor, my mind and soul find peace. There really is nothing to compare to the taste of the Virginia, the feel of the warm briar in my hand, and the visual beauty of the finely grained wood. They all combine into one of the most satisfying sensory experiences known to man.

And yet, because I indulge in this pleasurable and completely legal activity, I am basically one step above a child molester in the eyes of the politically correct. In fact, I’m not sure that the child molesters are not held in higher esteem in those quarters.

The ridiculous extremes that the anti-smoking movement has come to is best illustrated by the case of Scott Rodrigues, an employee of the Scots company who was fired, not for smoking on company time, but simply for being a smoker. This sad story can be read here.

Of course, this should come as no surprise, as the Scotts company is run by a martinet named Jim Hagedorn. Scotts employees are urged to take exhaustive health-risk assessments. Those who refuse pay $40 a month more in premiums for their group health insurance.

Using data-mining software, company analysts scour the physical, mental, and family health histories of nearly every employee and cross-reference that information with insurance-claims data. Health coaches identify which employees are at moderate to high risk. All of them are assigned a health coach who draws up an action plan. Those who don’t comply get whacked for another $67 a month.

This is an unconscionable invasion of privacy.

Some argue that smoking drives up health care costs, and that is no doubt true. So do a lot of things. But the only ones who get fired are the smokers. Not the drinkers, not the overweight, not the reckless drivers. Just the smokers. If one is going to argue that health care costs should be the sole yardstick for social policy, then one could logically argue in favor of prohibiting any woman over the age of 40 from conceiving a child, since beyond that age the chances of having a high risk (and therefore, very costly) pregnancy increase exponentially. Clearly, no one is advocating such an odious policy, at least not yet. 28 States have passed laws prohibiting the firing of smokers just for being smokers, but sadly Massachusetts is not one of them.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find this article in the normally liberal Boston Globe. Of course the author, Alex Beam, has a history of being a little out of step with his liberal employers, which is, of course, why I like him. I’m just amazed he’s managed to keep his job this long.

I was so impressed with this article that I have added a link to Dr. Siegal’s blog over on my blog. I encourage everyone to read how one brave physician is putting his career on the line by standing up to the politically correct anti-smoking radicals.

Now, without further ado, I am going to shut off this blasted computer, fill my Sasieni Four Dot (that’s a pipe, for the uninitiated) with Peretti’s Park Square (a nice Virginia/Perique blend), fill a glass with Old Bushmill’s, and continue reading my Conan Doyle.

–Smith

“taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather than a meditative mood”–Dr. John H. Watson

Please visit my blog at murderofravens.wordpress.com

This Sunday, November 11th, is Veterans Day. This poem is dedicated to all those who have served in time of war, and to their families who have suffered the pain of their loss.

Two by two and four by four
The brave young men all marched to war
Some wore green and some wore blue
And each one had a job to do.
All she could do was stand and wave.
She told herself she must be brave,
That surely he’d return to her
And married they would be for sure.

Her true love brave in battle died.
With his last breath her name he cried.
Buried under foreign sand,
Never to see his native land.
She swore that with her dying breath,
If not in life, then fast in death
She would be joined forever more
To her true love who died in war.

She journey’d half a world away
To find the place her love did lay
With spirit steeled and visage grim
For that was all she’d left of him.
This thought alone consumed her mind
And yet his grave she could not find.
Until one day, so near despair
She met a man with long gray hair.
Bent and lame, a soldier old
Whose eyes still glittered, blue and bold.

“No more to weep, no more to cry
I know the place your love does lie.
I say to you by heaven above:
None fought so brave as your true love.
He was gallant, loyal, brave and true;
With his last breath he cried for you.
Just beyond that rocky hill
Lies your love buried, cold and still.”

She slowly climbed the hard terrain
Beyond which her true love was lain.
And when she finally reached the top
She felt her quickened heartbeat stop.
For there as far as she could see
Were gravestones to infinity.
All bore these words upon a plate:
“This one was sacrificed to hate.”

Past countless headstones carved the same
She ran and wept and called his name.
Long she searched, and long she tried,
Not finding him whose name she cried.
Too many deaths, too many tombs,
Too many graves that held the doomed.
The silent stones forevermore
Will keep her love who went to war.

Stephen P. Smith

Sorry I haven’t been around much; personal issues have kept me away from blogging.

I got this from a liberal friend of mine (yes, I do have some liberal friends). He calls me a “neocon”, and compared to him I suppose I am, even though I have always considered myself a moderate. I’m sure some of you have seen this, but under the whimsical humor there is a rather pointed message.

TRADITIONAL VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper
thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or
shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN, POLITICALLY CORRECT VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while
others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to
provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of
the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in
a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to
suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper,
and everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house
where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall
overcome.” Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for
the grasshopper’s sake. Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry & Harry Reid
exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten
rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an
immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper
Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer! The ant is fined
for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and,
having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is
confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to
represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and
the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill
Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant, naturally, loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits
of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just
happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he
doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the
house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who
terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Smith

“taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious rather than a meditative mood”–Dr. John H. Watson

Please visit my blog at murderofravens.wordpress.com

Updated and Bumped
Momentum is building. Google hits 1,680,000 entries for the phrase “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history.” Hillary Rodham Clinton is now at the top of the heap. Keep it going folks!
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“the+greatest+campaign+finance+scandal+in+American+history”

“the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history”

Now that this phrase has been published by a respected member of the MSM, and, as such, is now in the LexusNexis search database, it seems appropriate to associate that phrase with the person to whom it refers: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I received a ping from FReeper “Spirit of Allegiance” this morning which pointed to an article which featured our pal, “Dougfromupland.”

The article was in the San Francisco Chronicle’s on line edition. Here is the introductory paragraph of the article about “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history.”

In his other life, Douglas Cogan, 59, is a San Bernardino County commercial real estate broker. But for years, the conservative Republican has spent thousands of hours painstakingly researching what he calls “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history” by a woman he calls one of the most dangerous political figures the country has ever seen - Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Since it appears that Google has enabled “google-bombing” again, I thought it might be interesting to get the phrase, “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history,” permanently associated with Hillary Rodham Clinton. That is the purpose of this post. And, if any of you bloggers out there want to join in, just copy+paste this post at your blog, or pass it along in the comments section of your favorite blogs. The more the merrier. I’m going to track-post it to Linkfests, and post it at FR and Hannity. I’ll also activate every tag I have ever used to associate it with this post. Heh.
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