Protective Order as Salvation

The media seems constantly to be reporting increasing numbers of cases involving protective orders, assaults, sexual-abuse, even murder vis-a-vis women caught up in abusive relationships with men. It’s rarely the other way around. In the Kentucky legislature, there is yet another effort to address this situation, the protection, of course, being directed toward the women. The latest high-profile case in Kentucky involved a protective order and the alleged murder of a woman by a former legislator and candidate for the governor’s seat, who was the recipient of the order.

The social engineers – current edition – are appalled by this state of affairs, notwithstanding that they have adopted “political correctness” as their credo, which, translated, simply means “if it feels good, do it as long as nobody gets hurt.” Thus, everything from the weirdest perverted and/or homosexual behavior to most any form of devil-worship to any sort of shack-up arrangement to men-marrying-men and women-marrying-women, with the appropriate reeducation in the public schools concerning these things, of course, is perfectly okay.

But those things are not perfectly okay. Leaving religion out of it altogether, those things are completely contradictory to the natural order of things – biologically, emotionally, intellectually and from a plain-common-sense standpoint. Even though one man’s concept of orgy is the same as another man’s concept of morality, common sense dictates that some things are just plain wrong. There are black-and-white issues, meaning that not everything comes in a shade of gray.

So...how does this relate to the abuse/protective-order mess that clogs up law enforcement, often leads to policepersons getting hurt or killed when caught in domestic cross-fires, requires countless hours of wasted money and other resources, and often amounts to absolutely nothing of consequence?

On September 23, 2008, the Census Bureau released a report explaining how Americans lived in 2007. The report indicated that for the third consecutive year, the majority of the nation's households were headed by unmarried Americans. The report listed 23 states falling into the unmarried-majority category in terms of households and living arrangements – more states than in any previous year. Michigan was added to this list for the first time. In terms of raw numbers, more than 101 million American adults were unmarried – 50.3%. In other words, a huge number of the arrangements were what are commonly called “shack-ups,” and a huge number involved children.

This at one time was the arrangement used by the murdered woman and the alleged killer alluded to above. She was about half his age when they moved in together and they seemed to have been friendly with the bubbly. In other words, they had made no documented commitment to each other, such as a marriage certificate. They co-habited. Then, their arrangement fell apart and the lady, feeling threatened, perhaps justifiably, got a protective order against the guy, something he claimed cost him his job. She was subsequently shot dead one morning on her way to work. Then, all the hand-wringing began.

The hand-wringing began because it was just naturally assumed that society/government/law-enforcement/whatever had failed this woman. This is the case nowadays when a social disruption occurs. The public – the citizens – have somehow caused it all by not being enhanced enough as “Big Brother” looking out for people who might just cause their own problems. The Fort Hood massacre is another example. The toady-headed progressives are wondering how the system failed the murderer of 13 unarmed people on a government installation, of all things. The fact that he was a cold-blooded killer contemptuous of the system doesn’t register with them. They consider him a victim.

It’s politically incorrect to bring up the possibility that an awful lot of the abuse/protective-order business is caused by both men and women who haven’t the depth to make commitments to each other and are mostly interested in the mutual exploitation accruing to just shacking-up. Or...they may be married and lack the will – even when children are involved – to put forth the effort to make their commitment succeed. Either way, mostly out of self-interest, they bicker, fight, do drugs (including alcohol), and, often, abuse occurs. They are contemptuous of the natural order of things. The result: yet another protective order...and maybe much worse.

Included often in the “much worse” is the intolerable torture and killing of children, sometimes by a “significant other” with the mother’s complicity, or a stepfather. To people only interested in lust rather than love, a child can be an inconvenience too bothersome to tolerate. The hardest thing to understand, even in these circumstances, is the torture inflicted upon a child when it would be far more merciful to just slit his/her throat and be done with it.

The person most responsible for this problem is the woman who chooses to let her hormones instead of her brain run her life and hooks up with a stud having the same approach. Women scream for equality, but when they do something this dumb and incur the wrath of the co-habiting scumbags, they run whining to the judge for a protective order. It shouldn’t be this way, political correctness be damned.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

A Terrorist By Any Other Name

As is the case with everything that happens with regard to any governmental entity, the spin-doctors are at work satisfying their political agendas by using the Fort Hood massacre to make their points. The substantive facts are quite clear, to wit, that an army major of Arabic descent and a devout Muslim went on a rampage, killing 13 and wounding nearly 40 others, all unarmed and in the midst of completing paperwork or undergoing examinations and/or receiving the appropriate pre-deployment vaccinations.

The mainstream media, both print and electronic, will not handle the situation in the same way that the hard-nosed conservative media-types will. TIME has already called attention to Fort Hood as one of the army’s most stressed posts, using this terminology – “kindling was hiding in plain sight” – apparently to describe a psychological fire leading to some sort of rage. How something hides in plain sight is problematic, but the point was clear enough, namely, that the shooter simply was not responsible for what he did. He was simply driven to rage and, without saying it, TIME probably feels that George Bush caused it all

Newsweek claimed that Major Nidal Hasan was a symptom of a “military on the brink” and wondered if the massacre presented signals that the worst is yet to come. It added that the U.S. military could be reaching the breaking point if the president decides to send more troops to Afghanistan. The magazine’s point, of course, is perfectly obvious. The New York Times delivered itself of the opinion that Hasan was mortified about being deployed. Both far-left entities probably feel as they do about anything that disrupts what they consider normalcy, i.e., that nasty conservatives are responsible for it. They probably blame George Bush for what Hasan did.

On the basis of the facts that have been delivered to the media thus far, Hasan expected to die as the climax of his rampage, though not by his own hand; rather he meant to be martyred by an enemy, in this case anyone not Muslim. He was foiled in this and unless he is mortally wounded, which seems not to be the case, will stand trial. The reports indicate that he started his day by preparing to die, not to be deployed in even the week of his rampage, perhaps not for more weeks or months. He divested himself of perhaps most of his possessions, even copies of the Koran, his holy book, which, of course, requires the killing of infidels – in this case American non-Muslims – at every opportunity.

Political correctness or diversity-divinity rules the liberal press these days, and so it’s not surprising that the blame for Hasan’s actions will be placed on the body politic in much the same way that the public is faulted when one gang-member wastes another, the whole business being caused by societal neglect of some sort, usually by nasty conservatives who are insensitive to the “needs” of the products of single mothers, poverty, bad schools, etc. After all, Hasan is said to have complained of being harassed in the army after 9/11 because of who he is, Arab and Muslim.

The bullying may have been real or imagined. There are thousands of Muslims in the military, however, and no such other slaughters of innocent people have taken place, though a converted Muslim did kill a recruiter and wound another in Arkansas on 01 June. He was not Arabic, just an American Muslim doing his Islamic duty. Born in Tennessee, he had changed his name from Carlos Bledsoe to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad and had studied jihad with an Islamic scholar in Yemen, according to Jihadwatch.org.

One could say that none of the above applies to drawing conclusions and that such must wait for the investigations(s) by the proper agencies. Fair enough! A defining factor, however, is the testimony of those involved that Hasan mounted a table or something similar and shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) as he began his assassinations, thus remarking his exercise as a religious effort. Suicide was his obvious goal and he could have achieved that without any harm to others. That probably would have negated his theologically certified trip to the virgins in Paradise, however, while being shot in the line of jihad-duty would have made him eligible, though it’s hard to believe a well-educated 39-year-old-man would believe such a thing.

It’s noteworthy that the Muslims creating havoc and planning more havoc in France and Britain currently are mostly young Muslims born in those countries. Hasan’s parents immigrated from the Middle East but Hasan was born in Virginia. He fired at least 100 rounds of ammunition and reportedly has claimed that he was a Muslim first and an American second. He could have done more damage if he had secured an “explosives belt” and simply set himself off in a restaurant, but such a procurement was most likely not possible in Texas. He did the next best thing and murdered as many as he could before finally starting his trip to the virgins, which he will probably not be making as soon as expected.

None of this is to be construed as a blanket condemnation of Muslims. Such would be untrue and unfair. It is to remark that the minute minority who practice jihad in the name of Allah are in American neighborhoods and/or are becoming converts to a belief system that adversely impacts non-Muslims...to the point of murder. They are terrorists, whether individually or sponsored by governments such as those in Afghanistan and Iran. They must be defeated.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

How the Guv-Grinch Stole/Restored Christmas

Apparently it’s not enough that the mainstream media, TV media, local media, national media, and all other possible media spend interminable amounts of resources calling attention to the fact that Kentucky is southbound off the charts as far as everything from obesity to smoking to pill-popping to low graduation rates to a bad football season is concerned. Oh no...without any known provocation Governor Beshear had to add to that list his recent directive that the official state Christmas tree was no longer to be called a Christmas tree; rather, it must be referenced as a HOLIDAY TREE.

It’s bad...bad...bad when Kentucky makes the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News but that’s just what happened on Thursday evening when the garrulous Irishman poked fun at the Kentucky guv, who has actually had the good sense to reverse himself...or at least enough gumption to realize that a few hundred thousand people in his state take Christmas seriously, even if only as a time to celebrate whether for the right reasons or not. He might even have thought about 2011 and the fact that Kentuckians might not appreciate a governor who disses Christmas, and might even dis him right out of the catbird seat, if not for religious reasons, perhaps for not having enough common sense to run the state.

After all, why pick a totally unnecessary fight with the whole state? Right in the middle of a battle with the State Senate over slots, casinos, and state bankruptcy, the guv – obviously on a very slow day at the capital – decides to do away with probably the highest profile and most religiously significant symbol of the whole year. It’s perfectly obvious, since there was no indication that the guv had an extremely high fever accruing to perhaps the swine flu and driving him to distraction, that Beshear fell under an attack of the (gasp) Diversity Syndrome, which has as its most defining and deadly virus/bacterium/protoplasm/whatever the infectious cell called by its Latin term MINORITUM RULIUM.

Face it! If as much as .000005% of the Kentucky population (about 20 folks) doesn’t like the term Christmas, the term just has to go, lest those 20 folks feel like a rhinoceros has been driven up their respective noses. Trauma like that can be very serious...enough to make a democrat suffer rigor mortis if anyone even suggests that the Big O doesn’t jog on the Potomac on the rare occasions he isn’t on Air Force One.

One wonders if the guv might be considering taking the cross out of Holy Week since it recognizes the death of Christ just as the Christmas tree remarks his birth. After all, other people (thieves and murderers) were put to death on the cross, negating any religious significance, just as the Christmas tree might have a slightly secular flavor to it.

Or, why put American flags on the graves of former military folks on Memorial Day since that’s plainly discriminatory vis-a-vis all the other residents of the cemetery who were not veterans ere their demises? Indeed, the act of placing those flags even discriminates against the living, just as the tombstones do. Fairness is fairness and diversity demands lockstep in recognizing the value of MINORITUM RULIUM. It’s a cinch that through the millennia of history a lot more people have died than are alive today, so why should that majority exert any sort of recognition over today’s living minority? One can only be thankful that the deceased do not have access to M-16s to make a point about those flags and stones.

Maybe the guv didn’t catch it last year when Washington’s governor, Christine Gregoire, allowed a small rabid group of atheists to place a display next to the nativity scene in the capital. It read in part: "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." The atheists have their Solstice Parties in December (in the summer, too) and Christians haven’t been in the news for constructing nativity scenes next to their Solstice Trees, currently for sale by American Atheists as advertised on the Internet for $20.00. Nobody cares if they greet each other with a “Merry God-Is-Dead,” so what’s the big deal?

Or...perhaps the guv didn’t notice what happened when WalMart dissed Christmas a few years ago, favoring the “Happy Holidays” approach. That little mistake was redressed in 2006 and now Christmas is a big deal. Boycotts can be very convincing.

This is not to say that groups not favoring or appreciating symbols of Christmas should not make their point. They have their own observances and are welcome to them by Christians who, for the most part at least (nutcases in every group, of course), make no objections. Jews have Hanukkah, with their Menorah as symbol, Muslims have Ramadan, possibly with a sword as symbol, and atheists can go climb their Solstice Trees (or telephone poles if they like) and scream that Abraham was a bullfrog and Jesus an itinerant, money-grabbing TV evangelist.

So...a word to Governor Beshear might be in order, namely, “Thanks for recognizing a significant error in judgment and please – on a slow day in the capital – try video games or a round of golf or watch a program of commercials interspersed by a football game, but don’t – REPEAT – don’t mess with Christmas again!”

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Political Spin & Backlash

The spin-doctors are already hard at work concerning the off-year elections just completed, especially those in Virginia and New Jersey, in which the republicans were successful in gubernatorial races – by a landslide in Virginia. Both states were in the Obama camp in 2008 and helped put him in office.

The bizarre situation in New York’s 23rd district pointed unmistakably to the fact that democrats disguised as republicans will no longer be tolerated in the party, except maybe in New York, especially since the conservative candidate came so close to winning the seat. The official republican candidate (spending at least $900,000) was so far behind that she actually dropped out before the election and threw her support to the democrat. Republican leaders – the ones holding the purse strings – will think twice before doling out money again to sure-fire losers.

The democrat spin is that the races mean little as far as the elections next year are concerned, in which all House and a third of the Senate seats will be up for grabs. Republicans spin the results straight into the White House, claiming that these very important elections are a referendum on what is happening (more aptly, perhaps, what is NOT happening) in the Obama administration. The republicans seem to have a better spin, especially since the democrat leaders in both the administration and the Congress are constantly galloping off in different directions and seem clueless as to how to marshal their forces into a cohesive unit to bring about Obama’s promised CHANGE. The nation is better off for this.

Obama campaigned vigorously in both states but especially in New Jersey, even resorting to the insulting use of “robo-calls,” those bothersome recorded phone messages received when one is eating dinner or trying to have a conversation with a friend. Through 23 October, loser Corzine had spent $23.6 million, all but a million of it his own money, while winner Chris Christie had spent $8.8 million. Both had plenty of funds left.

This brings up the question of just who gets to run the country. Corzine, using his vast wealth, spent $63 million and $40 million, respectively, to gain the Senate and later the governorship in 2005. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has just spent $85.2 million to succeed himself, after convincing the New York governing body to do away with the two-term limit. This stinks. More and more, government seems to be becoming the playground for rich folks who have the time and money to use it as a toy or perhaps some sort of power-grab, either real or imagined. They’re so out of touch that it’s scary.

Besides surrounding himself with “czars” and other apparatchiks (or just plain nutcases) with questionable, even shady, backgrounds – think Van Jones or Cass Sunstein or John Holdren or Anita Dunn (follower of Mao?), for instance – Obama has exerted little in the way of leadership. He signed a $767 billion stimulus bill with the prediction that the unemployment rate (7.6% in January) would not go beyond 8%. It is now at 9.8%, an increase of 29%, and rising. The democrats voted it out, the republicans had none of it, and nobody had read the bill before voting.

The House – without republican support – approved a cap-and-trade bill designed to virtually take the U.S. out of the world market while at the same time raising taxes exorbitantly on U.S. citizens. Again, nobody had read the bill before voting. Presumably, Obama has read neither bill since he has been in campaign mode all year, thus having little time for the actual business of running the government. To add insult to injury, Vice President Biden reckoned the other day that the stimulus had saved/created one million jobs at the same time people are signing up by the tens of thousands for unemployment compensation. This is ludicrous, just as ludicrous as his remark a while back that spending was necessary in order to avoid bankruptcy, or something like that.

Add the current health-care imbroglio/confusion in both the administration and the Congress to the mix and it’s not hard to see why people are voting their disaffection for what they undeniably see as the downhill trend of governance. It’s a lead-pipe cinch that no one – even if he/she has read it, a virtual impossibility – understands the House or Senate version of the health-care bill under consideration, some 2,000 pages long. The number of new bureaucracies it requires is mind-boggling, some 35 at least and each designed to generate as much red tape as possible. By contrast, someone has said the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 was made up of 26 pages.

It isn’t unusual for elected officials to default on their campaign promises, but the Obama default is gargantuan. Virtually nothing he’s promised, at least of any consequence, has happened or even come close. People are beginning to understand just how at sea the government is, realizing on the merits that government giveaways – think clunkers and bank bailouts – lead to bankruptcy and that lack of experience is devastating. The onset of the Carter administration in 1977 and its eventual and total failure is remembered by a huge number of voters, who can see the same thing happening again, though for different reasons. It’s no wonder that voters in these key states reacted as they did, and the wannabes to either attain or keep office next year are watching...with fear and trembling.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

A Bad Year for Kentucky Corruption

In the past year, Kentucky citizens, largely through the good work of reporters at the Lexington Herald-Leader, have been treated to a unique inside-look at the perfidy engendered by politicians and bureaucrats who are charged with honest discharge of duties in carrying on the business of government. However, a number – large number – of them have just been “carrying on,” as it were, even to the point of paying for prostitute services on the taxpayers’ dime. The outright theft involved, whether disguised in perks or actual thievery, is overwhelming.

Though the perpetrators of these colossal messes are to be thoroughly condemned and institutionalized in the Big House when so judged, an even more colossal dysfunction/dishonesty has been exposed regarding the various boards that are supposed to set policy, salaries, perks, establish oversight, and generally keep everything straight. In every instance, the boards, if not actually complicit in the raids on the treasury, have been so derelict in discharging their responsibilities that they might as well not have existed. They could be collectively charged with malfeasance.

The Airport Board, as a group, apparently had no idea that four officials were robbing the airport blind. Ditto regarding officials supposedly governed by the boards of the Lexington Library, the Kentucky League of Cities, and the Kentucky Association of Counties, all either wholly or partly supported by taxpayer dollars! Part of the reason for this sad circumstance lies in the fact that board members are appointed on the basis of cronyism, not on the basis of merit. They “meet and eat” and do little else, placing complete control in the hands of the staff, a mistake that even a third-grader simply watching playground activity would recognize.

The airport officials, all already fired, have been indicted and pled non-guilty, although they’ve already hanged themselves in a way since they’ve assayed to pay back some – not nearly enough – of what they stole. The head honcho in the Library dustup has been fired but happily escaped worse, as has been the head of the KAco. He and a board member have also informally pleaded guilty by “paying back” for some services provided by the ladies of the night, but those amounts are miniscule by comparison to the $3 million cited by the paper and State Auditor Crit Luallen as excessive, extravagant, outrageous and distasteful.

Sylvia Lovely, head honcho of the KLC finally saw the handwriting on the wall in August and called it quits but not until the end of the year, during which time she will continue to draw her salary of nearly $27,600 per month, more than a lot of family breadwinners make in a year. If asked a while back of some of the members of the KLC board what her salary was, they would have answered, “well, duh.” The mayor of Lexington didn’t even know, and he was on the executive board...but he SHOULD have known.

Coincidentally, Lovely’s husband, Bernard Lovely, was the chairman of the airport board when all the peccadilloes took place there so the obvious question has to do with whether or not he was in on the skullduggery. He also was part owner of a restaurant in which the KLC ran up more than $20,000 in dining tabs, compliments of wife Sylvia, one supposes. This husband-wife team represents the quintessential gaming of the system – greed personified, and the devil take the hindmost.

Luallen indicated that no matter the stink mounted in the KAco, there was nothing illegal about what happened, but deciding that is not her job. Bonuses totalling $140,000 to two employees apparently were not approved by the board, and that in itself would seem to be enough to furnish an incentive for looking into the whole smelly operation. In any case, mostly with the outrageous and un-policed use of credit cards, the crooks took over the operations in all four entities. Actually, the University of Kentucky was forced to fire some folks, too, for the same reasons – corruption. It’s been a bad year in Kentucky for officials who have operated either in incompetence, ignorance, or outright corruption. Some of them will pay. Most will not.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Foreign Relations -- Hopeless?

State Secretary Clinton has finally made it to Pakistan to parley with the people whom she should have visited first in her journeys around the world, flying with all the trappings of royalty courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. That didn’t happen, of course, since President Obama made it plain from the start that Richard Holbooke would be the guy to see with regard to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, effectively cutting off his main opponent in the last campaign and leaving her to cool her heels elsewhere...just about everywhere.

Of course, Holbrooke hasn’t done anything worth mentioning so the latest American citizen to represent the president in Afghanistan has been Senator John Kerry, whose profound statement a few years back concerning his belief that the soldiers in Iraq just couldn’t hack it educationally for anything but the military naturally qualified him for important negotiating or whatever else he might get into. He’s now the expert on the Middle East and Hillary will just have to play catch-up. Of course, no American official trusts Afghan president Karzai...and vice versa. There’s no love lost anywhere.

One has to laugh when thinking about Clinton arriving in Pakistan (or anywhere else) in light of her totally fabricated story repeated during the campaign about dodging sniper fire in her 1996 visit to Bosnia as she made her way from the plane to the fifth-grade girl and the Bosnian president waiting to greet her on the very tarmac that was under such fire. That lie was so huge that it automatically qualified her for an important post in government. Entirely predictably, some Pakistanis did celebrate her arrival, however, by bombing the bejesus out of Peshawar, about three hours drive away, and wasting at least 100 people while injuring another 200, with two-thirds of the dead being women and children.

This points up the difference between the “quagmires” of Vietnam 40 years ago and Afghanistan today. Militarily, the U.S. could have prevailed in Vietnam but the Johnson administration decided against prevailing...for whatever reason. In any case, the Vietnamese did not kill women and children. Fellow democrat Obama has declared that the U.S. must prevail in Afghanistan (although a NATO coalition is the actual entity for prevailing), but has little chance of doing so. The reason: When people (okay...men) are willing to indiscriminately kill women and children (of their own race, at that), they can’t lose to a civilized opponent. Sooner or later, the civilized folks will pronounce a plague on all their houses, declare victory and melt away.

This is what’s happening in Iraq. Bush was right when he said the mission was accomplished in May 2003, the mission being the uprooting and eventual hanging of Saddam and destruction of his army. Since then, the people (mostly Iraqis) have made a great thing of killing each other not in battles but in deadly bombings in stores, restaurants, schools and anywhere else people gather, with thousands of Americans as well as thousands of women and children included in the death-deal. One only has to remember the beheadings carried out by al-Qaeda’s assassin-extraordinaire al-Zarqawi in Iraq or the throat-slashing of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan by Guantanamo’s most infamous prisoner, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to get the picture. Khalid also engineered 9/11, indicating how tender-hearted a Muslim can be when it comes to women and children.

When people justifiably choose to engage monsters, the monsters can be killed but the ancillary murders perpetrated by the monsters (to make their point) on those who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time ultimately decide the issue. In Iraq, the wholesale bloodletting is already beginning, notwithstanding years of training of both Iraqi policemen and soldiers in behalf of providing protection for whom Christ would label as the “least of these,” the most vulnerable. Vengeance as motivator reaches deep within the police forces and military, making protection virtually impossible.

Add to the mix the abominable sermons/doctrines/theologies of the imams, ayatollahs and mullahs, using the Koran, the Islamic holy book, to justify their perfidious teachings regarding the killing of the infidel and the paradise awaiting the martyr, and the recipe for uncivilized behavior is in place. People in this country don’t understand that, so they can’t cope for long with being a large part of the reason for all the killing. Without question, there will be a humongous religio-civil war in Iraq among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds when the Americans are gone no matter when they leave, so there’s little reason to put off the exit.

In Afghanistan, things could get much better once the coalition troops are gone...at least fewer roadside- and suicide/homicide-bombings, thus sparing both civilians and Americans. The notion that a democracy or even a well-trained law enforcement agency is possible is simply out of the question...not in 50 years. The most plaintive scene seen in this corner lately was in a TV newscast the other evening, when an Afghan officer said that only one man in ten in his outfit could read. Imagine trying to form an army or police force when ignorance on that level is pervasive. In other words, these poor people depend on the murderous imams to tell them what their religion teaches and therefore how to live, i.e., kill the infidel and make women and girls into slaves, no matter how unbelievable and uncivilized that is.

Perhaps there’s some hope for a democracy in Iraq. At least three-fourths of the people are supposed to be literate. For Afghanistan, no way...at least not any time soon, and losing American soldiers in that lost cause is not worth the effort. Al Qaeda is no longer the issue, and the Taliban and its ignorant adherents withstood the Russians for some ten years. They can fight – and love it – for a long time. The Russians suffered 11,608 dead and some 454,464 sick, injured and wounded during 1979-89. And...all for nothing! Reprising their mistake is senseless. Dealing with the uncivilized in either place is a waste.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Rampant Basketball Sexism!

In the midst of all the current turmoil regarding the recession, Afghanistan, Iraq, nukes in Iran and North Korea, health-care, unemployment, cap-and-trade, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and whether or not the president smokes or the vice president knows the current meaning of “fluffernutter,” an even greater issue has reared its ugly head, namely, the insensitivity of the president with regard to the blatant discrimination/sexism exhibited in his all-male White House basketball games.

The dear leader made matters even worse in an interview with a lady reporter by labeling the resulting and entirely predictable outcry from the women’s groups as BUNK. Oh, dear Gertrude! That sexist remark was the straw that absolutely broke the camel’s back, an actual metaphorical camel, not the cigarette variety, and, of course, a metaphorical MALE camel.

One wonders if the nation can trust a president who is so shallow and gender-indifferent that he doesn’t recognize that no basketball game can be considered politically correct with regard to DIVERSITY without women participants. And to think...it was largely the women’s vote that put the rascal in the catbird’s seat, in the first place! The ingrate! The majority of men went for McCain, who, in referencing Lady Hillary’s million-dollar earmark for a “Woodstock Museum,” reckoned that he was otherwise occupied in 1969. It’s a sure bet that there were no women in the Hanoi Hilton.

So...what was a president on the run from the lady voters to do about this matter, earth-shaking in its political – yea, even its governmental – implications? He responded immediately (the very next day?) by doing a round of golf with a female employed in his administration...yeah, a dame...er...lady. One can only wonder at the thrill of it all, although making golf-course whoopee (defined as any hole played in less than five over par) might not look too good...that family thing, doncha know? But Ms. Obama will just have to understand.

The president erred, of course, by not inviting the lady to a basketball game. That would have been the only way to actually set matters right. The ladies didn’t complain because of a golf goof...they were “mad as hell and we won’t take it anymore” over a basketball game. After all, that’s “where the boys are,” not a mere twosome or foursome, as in golf. The gals have made it plain, especially since the game was between a gaggle of congressmen and the president’s men, that sexist shady deals were the real reason for the supposed sport, not just one-on-one grandstanding, like in the NBA.

One wonders what the outcry would have led to if the boys of October had decided on football instead of basketball and actually invited the ladies to an event in which Rahm Emanuel, known for his bloodthirsty spirit, might have bitten off a lady-finger. Or...what would the ladies have complained about if the guys had decided on a wrestling match? Hey...that would have been a show, better than the one put on by Senator Harry Reid the other day during a press conference, when he put his arm around Speaker Pelosi. Whew...just thinking about it!!!!

One thinks back to 2002, when the ladies rose up in arms because the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia – known internationally for the premier Masters Golf Tournament – didn’t have any female members and, what’s more, didn’t intend to have any and still doesn’t have any. The gals screamed bloody murder (and sexism, of course) and contrived to drive Augusta out of the international circuit. Indeed, the tournaments of 2003 and 2004 had no TV sponsors, but the Augusta guys thumbed their collective noses and bankrolled the thing anyway. The golfers (even those with wives, daughters and sisters) paid the whole thing no mind. Nobody who was eligible was about to miss the most honored golf event in this country.

If the president had a clue, he would have paid this thing no mind, just as he would pay no mind to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, instead of singling them out for his disdain. He should have taken a page from Augusta, where wimps need not apply. Okay, so Augusta is private while the White House is public. Not necessarily! When the president uses it as his residence for a basketball game, for example, it is not public, but private, notwithstanding the venue for “shady deals.” If that were not the case, all the White House bathrooms would be open to the public.

Tempest in a teapot? Well, of course! The president trivialized his office by paying attention to something belonging only to those who scream “sexism” about nearly everything. There are nearly 100 women in the Congress. They can have a basketball game any old day in the congressional gymnasium and it’s a lead-pipe cinch that neither the prez nor any of the legislators would be caught dead near it, that is, with their bodies joining their brains these days.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark