Miss Kelly

Transgender/Transexuality - Why Are We "Celebrating" This Again?

Kathy Shaidle says it so succinctly: Transexuality is a disease to be treated, not a lifestyle to be celebrated.  This blogppost was prompted by the suicide of a LA sports writer who was in the process of changing his gender to become a woman. 

When a man feels that theres's a woman trapped in his body (or a woman feels that she's really a man), I don't doubt those feelings exist and there's something serious going on. But I can't believe that major surgery (cutting off breasts and penises, etc.) and a lifetime of taking hormones is any sort of answer.  That we even do this to children is an abomination. 

As Shaidle writes:

"We don't treat alcoholism and drug addiction by encouraging drunks and junkies to use more, let alone force everyone in their work environment to 'adjust' to their 'born that way' 'lifestyle' -- or get fired for raising objections."

"Transexuals are the only amputation fetishists whose sickness we enable. ... One hundred years from now, heads will shake in wonder at how cruel we were. "

Sooner than that, I bet. 

Stigmas Were Good, Bring Them Back!

From Mickey Kaus at Slate, a blogpost about removing the stigma about receiving food stamps: "Stop Sitgmatizing Stigma!").  As Kaus writes:

"But a stigma placed on cash-like welfare (which food stamps are) remains a positive sign of a healthy work ethic. If you came across two societies--Society A, in which food stamps were stigmatized, with families reluctant to go on the dole even if they were eligible, and Society B, in which they weren't, you would want to bet on (and live in) Society A."

Stigmas against high school gilrls getting pregnant was a good thing too, bring it back!  Stigmas against divorce and adultery - bring it back!  Shame is a powerful deterrent to those activities which weaken our society.  Shame and guilt - forces so well known by earlier generations of Catholics and Jews - they were forces for good!  Without these forces, exactly what maintains morals in a society? What keeps us civilized? 

Along these lines, Roger Scruton has a terrific essay, Bring back Stigma, from City Journal (August 2000  issue).  Good review of how stigma operated in the past, how it's "evaporated" in our era, and what the consequences have been.  Excellent treatment of this topic!

"Acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God"

Saw this at Gateway Pundit, so perfect for Thanksgivng Day, especially at a time when there are many forces working diligently to remove any trace of religion from the public square:

On October 3, 1789 President George Washington released this proclamation:

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor-- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Minority Opinion on AIG Bonuses, Mixing Politics and Business

The outrage against the AIG bonuses brings to mind Kabuki theatre.  More make-up and masks, please!  Power Line has the minority view, based on the testimony of Edward Liddy, which seems reasonable to me:

* All of these payments, as to AIG's troubled financial products division, are retention bonuses, not performance bonuses.
* The money is not going to anyone responsible for the implosion of AIG--those people, who were in the credit default swap area, are gone.
* These retention bonuses were promised to AIG employees who are responsible for winding down the company's financial products division. At the beginning, this division had a potential exposure of $2.7 trillion. Winding down AIG's book of business in this area was a dead-end job, and there was a great likelihood that the people responsible for the work, who knew the most about the products involved, would take jobs elsewhere.
* In late 2007 or early 2008, AIG made a deal with these employees: if they would stay at AIG until specified conditions were met, i.e., either certain business was wound down or a given period of time had elapsed, they would receive a specified retention bonus.
* As to all of the employees involved, they satisfied the terms of the bonus by wrapping up a portfolio for which they were responsible and/or staying on the job until now. As a result of the efforts of this group, AIG's financial products exposure is down from $2.7 trillion to $1.6 trillion.

I hope AIG takes legal action against Congress to stop the ridiculous 90% taxation of these bonuses.  Talk about scapegoats.  Washington Post has a good article about the situation, and Jonathan Goldberg wrote a good column about mixing politics and business too.

"We should have learned from the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac what dangers lie ahead: The rule of law and political manipulation of the economy don’t mix well...What signal does it send when the president and Congress make it clear that they will revisit legal contracts that run afoul of populist outrage?"

If the AIG staff are forced to return their contractual bonuses, then shouldn't President Obama return the $130,000 he received from AIG in 2008?  From ABC News:

"AIG employees kept doling out donations to politicians, including presidential candidate Barack Obama, after getting bailed out with federal funds last year, raising the question of whether those politicians will now return the money. AIG executives gave more than $630,000 during the 2008 political cycle even as the company was falling apart ."

More than $120,000 was donated after AIG received $85 billion in federal bailout funds in September 2008.  Give it back, President Obama, Senator Dodd and Senator McCain!

American Values - from Sully to Suley?

Peggy Noonan sees the question of whether American survives to be more about values than economics.  The contrast of heroic Chesley B. Sullenberger versus the subsidized, deluded Nadya Suleman:

"A major reason people are blue about the future is not the stores, not the Treasury secretary, not everyone digging in. It is those things, but it's more than that, and deeper.."

"It's Sully and Suleman, the pilot and 'Octomom,' the two great stories that are twinned with the era. Sully, the airline captain who saved 155 lives by landing that plane just right—level wings, nose up, tail down, plant that baby, get everyone out, get them counted, and then, at night, wonder what you could have done better. You know the reaction of the people of our country to Chesley B. Sullenberger III: They shake their heads, and tears come to their eyes. He is cool, modest, competent, tough in the good way. He's the only one who doesn't applaud Sully. He was just doing his job."

Reagan vs Obama - Spooky!

Great video, hat tip The Anchoress:

Reagan quoted Norman Thomas, Socialist, who said this:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."

Five Reasons Why the "Stimulus Bill" Deserves to Die

1) What do politicians know about "fixing" the economy?   We should trust Congress?!

2) How well was the last bailout bill money spent?  Quite a lot of the bank buyout money went to extravagent, unnneccesary things (corporate jets, spa retreats, luxurious office remodels).  Congress is unable to ensure that our money won't get wasted. The potential for graft and corruption is too high.

3) The House stimulus package was loaded with pork and special interest money.  The Senate version is no better.  Water slides, butterfly gardens, dog parks?! The majority of the expenditures have nothing to do with job or wealth creation.  I like Instapundit's term: "a massive looting operation." Congress, stop insulting us! 

4)  We're in a recession, which are cyclical and unavoidable.  Past recessions (11 since WWII) have lasted from several months to a year.Big deal. Tough it out, the market will come back, and home prices will return to reasonable values.   Attempts to soften a recession often makes matters worse.  

5)  Our Dear Leader says that "the recession will turn into a 'catastrophe' if the economic stimulus is not passed quickly."   People have been claiming this for months, and it's not happening (thank goodness).  Enough already with the scare tactics .  This feels like a bum's rush.  

Contact your congressmen today and tell them "NO" on the Stimulus Package!

Tommy Dorsey's Song of india

I've had this song written by Rimsky-Korsakov on my brain lately.  Here's the Tommy Dorsey version. Very WWII big band swing-y, it entirely lacks the yearning and melancholy of the original version though. 

These are the lyrics of Song of India:

And still the snowy Himalayas rise
In ancient majesty before our eyes,
Beyond the plains, above the pines,
While through the ever, never changing land
As silently as any native band
That moves at night, the Ganges Shines

Then I hear the song that only India can sing,
Softer than the plumage on a black raven's wing;

Review of "The 10 Big Lies About America"

A review of Michael Medved's new book, The 10 Big Lies About America: Combating Destructive Distortions about Our Nation.  What are the 10 Big Lies?

1. "America was founded on genocide against Native Americans."

2. "The United States is uniquely guilty for the crime of slavery and based its wealth on stolen African labor."

3. "The Founders intended a secular, not a Christian nation."

4. "America has always been a multicultural society, strengthened by diversity"

5. "The power of Big Business hurts the country and oppresses the people"

6. "Government programs offer the only remedy for economic downturns and poverty"

7. "America is an imperialist nation and a constant threat to world peace."

8. "The two-party system is broken, and we urgently need a viable third party."

9. "A war on the middle class means less comfort and opportunity for the average American."

10. "America is in the midst of an irreversible moral decline."

The review at Front Page Magazine briefly refutes the 10 Big Lies.  Looks like an excellent book, perhaps a good gift for your middle school and high school kids.  Young people need an antidote to the public school "education" that probably is teaching them the 10 Big Lies right now.

"An American will not lie, even for little things "

I enjoy reading about America and Americans from people who are from other cultures.  This interview with a Kuwaiti scientist who studied at Boston University has all sorts of strange tidbits, ranging from praise for the Mujahideen in Gaza to scorn for Arab leaders.  And there's this:

"Q: From your experience do you think there is greater scientific awareness among the general public in America than here?"

"A: Not all of them are scientists or economists in America. They are very ordinary people. Most of them don’t know about their own country. But you don’t need to be scientists. But I see Islamic values of honesty in them. We are honest too, but it’s a way of life there. An American will not lie, even for little things. There is no such as a white lie. A lie is a lie. This advancement of America does not come from a void. It is born out of the sheer dedication of people, who worked not just for money but for the sake of the nation’s prosperity."

I like that observation that we do not lie.  It may be an Islamic value, as the doctor says, but in this country, it clearly derives from our country's Judeo-Christian foundation. I t's the 8th Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.  I can only conclude from the declaration that honesty is a way of life in the U.S. that the opposite must be true in Kuwait, where dishonesty must be commonplace and unremarkable.

"Can We Afford Liberalism Now"

Historian Paul Johnson writes about the financial crisis at Forbes:

"The financial crisis, detonated by greed and recklessness on Wall Street and in the City of London, is for the West a deep, self-inflicted wound." 

"...If we seriously wish to repair the damage, we need to accept that this is fundamentally a moral crisis, not a financial one. It is the product of the self-indulgence and complacency born of our ultraliberal societies, which have substituted such pseudo-religions as political correctness and saving the planet for genuine distinctions between right and wrong and the cultivation of real virtues."

 "India and China are progress-loving yet morally old-fashioned societies. They cannot afford liberalism. Their vast populations have only recently begun to emerge from subsistence living. Their strength is in the close, hard-working family unit in which parents train their children to work diligently at school and go to university when possible so they can acquire real and useful qualifications to then go out into the world as professional men and women determined to reach the top."

"....We are traveling along the high road to incompetence and poverty, led by a farcical coalition of fashionably liberal academics on the make, assorted eco-crackpots and media wiseacres"

Hat tip to Jill at The Business of Life, who points to two other articles about the day of reckoning coming soon for Baby Boomers with their profligate ways.

Anecdotal evidence about the supposed recession we're in:  My husband and I were shopping this afternoon at two different malls in Nashua, New Hampshire.  Both malls were packed, driving lots were full, we were stuck in traffic trying to get back home.  I keep hearing on the news that consumer spending is way down, but it doesn't look that way to me.  It looks more like Christmas shopping has started already.

 

Happy Halloween! American Values and Obama

Things I like about Halloween:
Little kids in costumes; getting to wear a costume at work; chatting with the neighbors and the folks walking around the neighborhood at dusk; carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds; making pumpkin torches.

Things I dislike about Halloween:
Store-bought costumes instead of home-made costumes; oversized plastic crap in people's front yards; teenaged girls dressed all slutty; teenaged high school boys with no costumes looking for candy. 

This column, written by an English woman living in the U.S., was revealing on a few levels.  She is appalled by the celebration of Halloween in America (too much candy and tacky yard decorations).  But here's what she says about living in U.S.:

"Overall we are loving our time here. There is so much to embrace in America, a nation which just hugs you right back."

"Many of the people we have met truly possess that 'can-do' attitude to life. It has made us more positive people who have greeted every new experience with relish."

In a nutshell, that's why I believe that Senator Obama won't be elected president.  Obama is fundamentally negative about the U.S. and its citizenry, its economy (which is in far better shape than any other country) and its future.  To use Spiro Agnew's expression, Obama is a "nattering nabob of negativism."  Obama says that Pensylvanians cling to their religion and their guns, he says that people who don't want higher taxes are selfish.   (Never mind that the Obamas' record of charitable donations is quite selfish.)  Obama and his wife Michelle see our country and its constitution as basically flawed.  Their attitudes strike me as fundamentally un-American.  As the British lady observed, we Americans are positive-minded.  We fix things, we solve problems, we love to see people do well and be successful, we look at the bright side of life. Obama lacks basic American values, and I believe that most Americans simply won't vote for him.

Independence Day - What We Should Be Fighting For

Robert Spencer reminds us what is at stake today and what we should be fighting for:

• Freedom of Religion
• Freedom of Speech
• Equality of Rights Before the Law
• Governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

As Spencer concludes:

Never surrender. Never submit. Never be silenced. Freedom and independence forever.

"Americans Are Indeed Easy-Going and Good-Natured People"

I love to read about our country through other people's eyes.  Here, Siraj Wahab (no, not Siraj Wahaj), a Saudi Arabian journalist from Arab News, comes to the U.S. for the first time.  Some excerpts:

"In the Middle East, we have often been told that the media in the US never talks about American deaths in Baghdad and Afghanistan. That turns out to a complete lie. The center spreads of leading American newspapers were filled with pictures of those who had died in action in Iraq and Afghanistan. The media was not hiding anything from the public. Having said that the general impression I got from the Americans with whom I had an opportunity to talk was that they really think they are in Iraq and Afghanistan for the good of those countries. Why they think so is very difficult to comprehend. Americans are indeed easy-going and good-natured people."

On the flight over from Jedah to D.C., Wahab talks with Syed Sajid Rahmani, a 60-year-old American national of Indian origin.  In the early 70's, Rahmani's father in Hyderabad (India) decided that he would send his two sons abroad. Syed came to the U.S., got an MBA and settled in the D.C. area, his brother went to Saudi Arabia, got an engineering degree and settled in Jeddah.  The differences, some 35 years later?

"Now, more than three decades later, Rahmani says he is a full-fledged and completely integrated American citizen. 'My kids are grown. They have graduated from some of the best universities in the United States. They are on their own and are completely independent.' The same, however, cannot be said of his brother in Jeddah. 'Yes, he has the money but no citizenship. His kids, like all other children of expatriates, were not allowed in local universities. They had to go to Malaysia and Dubai for higher studies. Every two years, he still has to beg his employers to renew his residency permit or iqama. There is no difference between him and a newly hired foreign worker in Saudi Arabia. His kids have separate iqamas, but they have to keep coming to Saudi Arabia to renew them. Do you see the difference?' he asks."

Politically, I disagree with some of Wahab's opinions.  He writes that "it is important to talk to Hamas and how it should be seen as a national liberation movement just as the IRA is seen now."  As an American of Irish background, believe  me, the modern IRA - with their famous Christmas bombing campaigns, blowing up cars, murdering "informants" - was and is seen by many as being "thugs and murderers," not a "liberation movement."  Hamas quite openly doesn't just seek an independence from Israel, Hamas seeks the utter destruction of Israel.

Wahab is surprised by the open atmosphere in a college classroom:

"One of them (a student) asks me about Arab News' stand on Iraq, and I give him an honest opinion. Unbeknown to me was the fact that he was checking our online edition at arabnews.com on his laptop even as I was answering his question. I found that very interesting and alarming as well. It is not like in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East where whatever the professor or expert says is the last word. 'Here in America, students are taught to think critically. This is a questioning society. It keeps asking questions of itself,' says (Professor Akbar S.) Ahmed.

Next week, Wahab reports on his visit to San Francisco.  Will link to that when it's up.

Americans the Most Generous People

From A Nation of Givers, by Arthur C. Brooks:

Q. How much do Americans give? Is the amount we give going up?
A. In 2006, Americans gave about $295 billion to charity. This was up 4.2 percent over 2005 levels, and charitable giving has generally risen faster than the growth of the American economy for more than half a century....

Q. Are Americans more or less charitable than citizens of other countries?
A. No developed country approaches American giving. For example, in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans. These differences are not attributable to demographic characteristics such as education, income, age, sex, or marital status.

More in the original article about how much money Americans give, religious versus secular giving, liberals versus conservatives, and where the donations go.  On an anecdotal level, I found that I donated far more money after I returned to the Catholic Church.  While Catholics don't tithe, as many Protestants do, when you go to Church, you hear every week about the various hospitals, missions, homes for unwed mothers,  schools and soup kitchens that need your $$$.   You're simply reminded all the time that there are people in need and we are called to help those folks.  No surprise to me that religious people are more charitable than the non-religious.  Hat tip to Solomonia.

 

Funny Quote on Feministas...

....from Don Surber, in response to Steinem's criticism of John McCain, and her disrespect for the military:

"The good news is that the geezer feminists like Hanoi Jane Fonda and Steinem are dying out."

Spot on! Roger that. 

 

Apropos William Buckley Quote About Harvard

I confess to knowing almost nothing about William F. Buckley (I feel shame), but I heard a great Buckely quote (or one variant thereof) this morning on the Michael Graham show:

"I'd rather live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone directory than in one governed by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty."

Proper obit at National Review Online (which Buckley started in 1955).  May his soul rest in peace.

Peggy Noonan Assesses the Obamas

Peggy Noonan scores on her WSJ column today with her assessment of the Obamas. She taps into what makes us uncomfortable about the silver-tongued orator Barak (when he's got his teleprompter anyway) and his outspoken wife Michelle.  Noonan sees a pretty big disconnect with most Americans.  Some excerpts:

"Mr. Obama did not really have a good week, in spite of winning a primary and a caucus, and both resoundingly. I don't refer to charges that he'd plagiarized words from a Deval Patrick speech...."

"His problem was, is, his wife's words, not his, the speech in which she said that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of her country, because Obama is winning. She later repeated it, then tried to explain it, saying of course she loves her country. But damage was done. Why? Because her statement focused attention on what I suspect are some basic and elementary questions that were starting to bubble out there anyway."

Voting by Ovaries or Skin Color

I thought Dobbs was spot-on with this assessment of the identity politics in the Clinton and Obama campaigns:

"....Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are ensnared in petty racial and gender politics and that does neither of them credit."

"But at least the ugly spectacle that Clinton and Obama created should serve as a reminder to all of us that group and identity politics have outlived their effectiveness and that pandering to socio-ethnocentric interest groups and special interests, whether as large as corporate America or as small as the construction company in a congressman's district, has no rightful place in 21st century American politics."

How could voting for a woman because she's a woman or voting for a Black because he's Black be any less bigoted than some White racist who would only vote for another White man?  What the heck's the difference?   I'm appalled that some women think I'm supposed to vote for ovaries over issues, experience, character and track record.  Yeeks.

Michael Graham wrote in the Boston Herald earlier this week about the "price of identity politics."  Hillary and Obama were milking that, but it's backfired on them both.  What are Black and White Democrat  women to do? 

Christopher Hitchens says it best:

"People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it."

Definitely read - and enjoy - the whole thing!

Sales of Womens Clothes Bleak - Shocker!

I had a similar reaction as Rachel Lucas did when I read this article yesterday about the decline in sales of womens clothing at department stores this season. From the NY Times:

"Sales of women’s clothing, a traditional pillar of the holiday shopping season, are unusually bleak so far this year, according to a major credit card company, an ominous sign for the retail industry.  From high-end dresses to bargain coats, spending on women’s apparel dropped nearly 6 percent during the first half of the Christmas season, compared with the same period last year..."

"...Analysts blamed a rough economy, which has discouraged women — and mothers, in particular — from splurging on clothing for themselves and a lack of compelling fashions this winter. "

What rough economy?  The one with a 4.7% unemployment rate?  The latter explanation - lack of compelling fashions - begins to explain the decline in sales.

Women's clothing in malls and department stores is mostly hideous and apparently designed for 16-year old shameless hussies.  Why on earth would normal women buy them?  Everything is sized to be extremely form-fitting with necklines plunging down to one's xiphoid process.  The quality is poor.  Colors are either murky browns and mustards or psychedelic pinks and oranges.  Yuckkk!  As Rachel says, "Retarded monkeys are apparently in charge of designing women’s clothing."

Designers and manufacturers: Try designing clothes that are attractive, flattering and modest, and you'll sell a ton of clothes.

P.S. Yes, modest clothing is more flattering for most women's bodies.  Leaving something to the imagination has always been more alluring than letting it all hang out, and that's as true now as ever.