Reader Tips

Reader Tips 48 Comments

I’m not sure if tonight’s musical selection is a actually a gospel song, as some claim, or if it’s an earthbound invitation, almost an admonition, to live, and to get off one’s high horse and face the proverbial music down here on the ground. It doesn’t really matter; any way you slice it, it’s a heartfelt invitation to communion, and an affecting and very human master stroke of a song. From his 1999 album Mule Variations, here’s Tom Waits singing Come On Up to the House.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.

48 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Eugene Robinson whines in the Washington Post:
    “According to polls, Americans are in a mood to hold their breath until they turn blue. Voters appear to be so fed up with the Democrats that they’re ready to toss them out in favor of the Republicans — for whom, according to those same polls, the nation has even greater contempt. This isn’t an ‘electoral wave,’ it’s a temper tantrum.
    “It’s bad enough that the Democratic Party’s ‘favorable’ rating has fallen to an abysmal 33 percent…”
    It’s apparent that Robinson is angry that the American people won’t take their O-medicine:
    “In the punditry business, it’s considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it’s impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.
    “This is not, I repeat not, a partisan argument. My own political leanings are well-known, but the refusal of Americans to look seriously at the nation’s situation…”
    etc.

  2. Thanks for that post & link, EDB.
    So, according to Eugene the Whinger, there’s only one mature, legitimate point of view, that of the Democrat, the “progressive”. Other viewpoints are inherently intellectually and emotionally deficient.
    And I thought it was only the Pope who could speak ex Cathedra! 🙂

  6. Partners in peace:
    “Israel is bracing itself for a new wave of attacks after Hamas warned preparations for fresh violence had reached ‘highest levels’ in response to the announcement of continued Middle East peace talks….A spokesman for the group’s military wing said no options had been ruled out and that suicide bombings could be used to target Israel in an attempt to torpedo the new drive for peace.”
    (…)
    “Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday called for renewed violence to end the peace talks. During a pro-Palestinian rally in Tehran Mr Ahmadinejad said: ‘The nations of the region are able to eliminate the Zionist regime from the face of the earth.'”

  9. With apologies for its length, here’s the best comment I saw on the Eugene Robinson piece:
    MYSTICMOUSE44 wrote:
    Wikipedia describes a spoiled brat as characterized by excessive, self-centered, and immature behavior. Spoiled brats lack consideration for other people, have recurrent temper tantrums, and an inability to handle the delay of gratification. They demand having one’s own way in every situation, or they become obstructive and manipulative.
    This description pretty much nails you and all other check-the-box, I’m black, I’m entitled, affirmative action race baiters like you, Mr. Robinson.
    How many associations and groups are you a member of that have the word, ‘black’ or ‘African American’ in the title. Is not the goal these clubs to demand your way with government, employers, and colleges because of your race, not your qualifications?
    Have you ever considered a white kid’s hard work trying to get into the college that accepts a black kid with half his qualifications instead because the college is concerned that you and your fellow race baiters will manipulate the press?
    Every column you write excessively rants on and on about the entitlements blacks deserve because of rampant discrimination 50 years ago in this country. But the only discrimination you have ever dealt with are the incidents you and your fellow race baiters perpetrate on anyone who tells you ‘No.’
    You have been over-indulged by the decency of your fellow Americans in their futile effort to address wrongs they never committed, and you never encounter, but that you and Jessie and Sharpton have built into a career. Because, you, Mr. Robinson, have an inability to handle delayed gratification; you always demand that blacks get first, best and every time, or someone will be the victim of your obstructiveness and manipulation.
    There is no college spot or job or award that you don’t think any blacks should get over any white person. There is no scenario in your mind that maybe blacks should work harder and try again next year. No, way! The white kid is out; the black kid gets in. Period. Right now.
    And if you don’t get everything immediate gratification on all areas when you call the race card, you throw a tantrum and start calling people racist.
    You are a race baiter, Robinson, and you pretty fit the classic description of a spoiled brat.
    9/3/2010 10:25:30 PM

  10. That WaPo comment is bang-on, Robert. When people – and a race-baiter like Robinson fits the bill – gets their way for too long, they lose the ability to see how hollow and self-entitled their positions are.
    RT: Excerpt from a piece by Mark Silverberg at HudsonNewYork.org:
    “One is…entitled to be suspicious about (NY Mosque-man Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf’s) motives, given his refusal to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization, his claim that U.S. foreign policy was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and his support for ‘progressive’ Muslim intellectuals like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide and a favorite of the Saudi royal family. Qaradawi’s fatwas, for example, call for the execution of Muslim reformers as apostates, the killing of American troops in Iraq, suicide bombings in Israel, and the rejection of secularism in Islamic societies
    “Noteworthy is Rauf’s intention to raise funds for the $100M 13-story Islamic Center from the most authoritarian, least religiously tolerant Arab regimes in the Middle East. Does anyone actually believe that fostering ‘religious tolerance and pluralism’ is a major selling-point in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar and especially with the Saudis who have spent an estimated $100 billion in petro-dollars over the past thirty-five years to spread radical Islamic dawa (proselytizing) through mosques and madrasses worldwide?
    “If the Saudis and the other Gulf Emirates are really prepared to put millions towards this project in the interests of promoting religious tolerance, wouldn’t a better way be to allow a church, synagogue or multicultural center to be built in Mecca? But do no wait for that to happen any time soon: there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia, nor are visits by non-believers to the sacred sites of Mecca and Medina allowed; so the argument that the Saudis and the others might consider funding the Center as symbolic support for religious tolerance and pluralism in Islam defies credibility. It is more likely that any financial support emanating from these countries will be geared to promoting jihadi Salafist Islam and the acceptance of Sharia Law in America.. Consequently any financial support from these regimes for this project should be suspect.”
    Silverberg points out that Mosques have historically been constructed on conquered ground – over the site of the Christian Church of St. Vincent, on the site of the destroyed Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem, over the Christian Hagia Sophia basilica in Istanbul, the Church of St. John the Baptist, etc., and points out that “There are thousands of sites in New York City where another mosque could be built without the Ground Zero resonance, but that, it seems, would defeat the purpose of building it near that location.”
    The whole thing here.

  11. “Tom Waits is an aquired taste.”
    Yeah! So is heroine!
    Send my regards to Vίt and thank him for the Alaska Highway video!

  15. Please support Pamela Geller and Atlasshrugs web site. She has received many more threats since she has campaigned against the Ground Zero mosque and has to pay for increased security for her family. Also for the rally on Sept. 11. Canadians can paypal the funds to writeatlas@aol.com.

  16. Socialism.
    “Between 1959 and 1962, 3 million Chinese died of hunger or were executed. Parents sold their children, people dug up the dead and ate them… more»”
    http://www.aldaily.com/
    “Jonathan Mirsky
    ‘Livelihood Issues’
    Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62”
    “It is a mark of the historical darkness that still envelops China that many Chinese blame the famine on the Soviet Union, which, they maintain, snatched food from the mouths of starving Chinese by insisting that Beijing export grain to repay Moscow’s loans.”
    “Society completely unravelled. In the newly established communes, peasants following Mao’s lunatic advice ploughed their paddies uselessly deep. They dismantled their houses to use as fertiliser, and melted down their tools to make the steel Mao had decreed was the mark of an advanced socialist country (after all wasn’t Stalin ‘the man of steel’?). Other peasants abandoned their fields and marched miles to work all night constructing mammoth water schemes that often came to nothing, while their families died without grain at home. The only reason millions more didn’t starve, as Dikötter describes in detail, is because of their desperate ploys to steal food.”
    http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/mirsky_09_10.html

  18. NWT Gets a New Mosque and Community Centre. Intersting. It should be ready to welcome worshippers — largely Sunni Muslim immigrants from Sudan, Lebanon and Egypt who moved to Canada’s far north in search of jobs and economic opportunities — in early November, he said.
    I have no proof of this but I would bet that this is some sort of colonization effort funded by the Saudi’s or something. This just doesn’t add up. There is little to no economic growth in the north other than in certain select areas and I really cant see “Sunni Muslim immigrants from the Sudan being mining or petrochemical engineers or the skilled tradesmen required in those fields. There are plenty of underemployed Canadians who can’t get that type of work – I know some of them personally. I don’t think that illiterate goat herders are needed in Hay River. This whole thing stinks of fifth column to me.

  19. Last night in Regina Beach the Arts Council held a fund raiser. Jack Semple provided the entertainment and was excellent as usual. The second half of his concert was a special treat. Jack and his family have a rock/blues band similar to the movie “The Commitments”. They were the best I’ve listened to for quite some time. The sound was tight and a real pleasure to listen to. The vocals from both girls was top notch and the son can really play the drums (Led Zepplin solo).
    If you get the chance to listen to this band, go out of your way to do so. You will be pleased and will share a special moment with the Semples. I think they really enjoyed playing for the people of Regina Beach.
    Von Trapv2.0.

  21. Canucklehead, When I was going to school years ago I watched Jack Semple a few times in one of Saskatoon’s bars. I prefer country music but blues kind of grows on you after awhile. Nice to know he is still playing and has now included his family.

  22. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/castros-return-to-full-uniform-sparks-rumours-2070116.html
    I know this will make Kate’s day! After a four year absence,Fidel Castro has decided to don the uniform of the Revolution once again and speak his wisdom to the world.
    His reason? He figures the U.S. and Israel are going to attack Iran and a nuclear war will ensue.
    On behalf of the NDP and Trudeau families, Welcome back Fidel!
    I’m sure NOW there’ll be peace in our time.

  23. If you like Tom Waits you will like a similar voice but without the blood and guts on it.
    Check it out HERE
    And turn up the volume .. its a tad subtle.

  24. Oops …
    If you like Tom Waits you will like a similar voice but without the blood and guts on it.
    Check it out HERE
    And turn up the volume .. its a tad subtle.

  25. Of the Newfoundland Cod fishery and the Pacific Salmon fishery.
    The Newfoundland Cod fishery:
    “Fish Twisted”
    “Natural ecosystems and animal populations go through boom or bust patterns in response to climate cycles
    >>> Tipping Points Are Natural; Environmentalists Exploit Them
    By Dr. Tim Ball Monday, July 5, 2010”
    “Roger Pocklington, a Canadian oceanographer and climatologist studied water temperatures from Newfoundland to Bermuda. A hero in the 1970s when cooling was the consensus because he showed water temperatures falling. He was amused when the climate consensus shifted to warming and he was an outsider because the water temperatures continued to decline. With the decline cod began to disappear. We discussed the climatic reasons for the decline, which were very cold decades in northeastern North America and changes in wind patterns pushing cold dense waters of the Labrador Current much further south into the cod fishing grounds of the Grand Banks. We were concerned about decline in the number of cod as water temperatures fell, but the standard now was to blame humans.
    Government only considered over-fishing as the cause and closed the fishery. It is fourteen years on and the fish stay away despite going through three cycles because water temperatures remain low. If it was over-fishing recovery would be in progress; their absence is proof of temperature being the major factor. Closing the cod fisheries in Newfoundland was akin to banning corn production in Iowa. The economy was disrupted and would have been devastated except ironically, it was those evil oil companies that saved the day. Discovery of massive deepwater oil deposits at Hibernia boosted the economy and papered over the impact. Thousands of Newfoundlanders also migrated to the newly expanding Athabasca Tar Sands. Meanwhile a traditional economy and lifestyle are gone, but without the oil they are devastated.”
    http://guineequatoriale.info/newfoundland-cod-fishery
    …-
    The Pacific Salmon Fishery:
    “Huge run of salmon confounds commission
    The fish came back, making the probe into missing fish look a little silly”
    “Who can blame them? They haven’t seen anything like this since 1913. Yet the inquiry goes on.”
    http://www.montrealgazette.com/Huge+salmon+confounds+commission/3481170/story.html

  27. Robert W., thanks for the Ricochet link. My favorite line from the podcast was Steyn’s take on Obama’s speech this week: “it’s like someone was under his desk twisting a pineapple up his ….”

  30. Norm, I liked that too. You have no idea how ecstatic I am that Steyn is back in plenty of time for the November midterm elections! As to what he did this summer & where he visited, he’s being very tight-lipped about it right now but I sense another important book will be coming out next year.

  31. 1) Thanks, Robert W., for the article about media bias. What hypocrites!
    Another very telling example of the appalling arrogance and hypocrisy of the left is what the Mall in Washington looked like after Obama’s inauguration—a total MESS—and after the Beck “Restoring Honor” rally—just about spotless. (Videos at Michelle Malkin)
    2) When erasing emails, I discovered the mealy-mouthed response I received on July 17 from Mayor Bloomberg re the Ground Zero Mosque. Here it is:
    Dear Friend [sic]:
    Thank you for writing to share your thoughts and concerns about the proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center to be built at Park Place and Broadway in Lower Manhattan, several blocks north of the World Trade Center site.
    Our Administration strongly supports the right of faith groups to open houses of worship, or community centers, in whatever location they choose, provided it complies with all applicable laws. New York has long been America’s most tolerant and diverse City, welcoming the best, brightest, and hardest-working individuals from around the world – no matter their identity or beliefs. As a City, we win by choosing to uphold the principles of freedom and respect that lie at the foundation of this tradition – and that the terrorists attacked on September 11, 2001. Winning the war on terrorism requires us not only to defeat our enemies, at home and abroad, but also to continue upholding the values that make America great.
    Last month, the local community board voted by an overwhelming margin (29-1) to endorse the project. Of course, the approval process has many steps yet before it is finalized, and many questions remain unanswered. [You can say that again!] I understand that this is a particularly sensitive issue, and I am hopeful that more dialogue about the center will increase the understanding and cooperation [dream on!] that is so integral to the vitality of New York City.
    Thank you again for writing to share your opinions on this matter.
    Sincerely,
    Michael R. Bloomberg
    Mayor
    [GAG]

  33. Even though I’m a confirmed agnostic, Tom Waits’ “Come on up to the House” was an exhilarating listen
    Thanks for the link!

  36. You know how the left goes: Hitler started a war, Bush started a war, ergo, Bush=Hitler OR Gitmo has prisoners, the Soviet Gulag had prisoners, ergo: Gitmo=Gulag.
    WELL, many people are highly suspicious of Imam Rauf, many French people were highly suspicious of late 19th century Jewish soldier Dreyfuss, ergo Rauf=Dreyfuss.
    Enjoy. Very rich in irony.
    Is American unease with building the Ground Zero mosque the moral equivalent of anti-Semitism in
    France’s notorious Dreyfuss Affair     over a century ago? Evangelical Left theorist David Gushee, writing for Huffington Post, thinks so.
    “As a scholar whose first book was on the Holocaust, I hear echoes of the Dreyfus Affair,” Gushee ominously observed of the mosque controversy.

  39. It was very thoughtful of you, Robert W., to post the Malkin videos: I’d have done it but, as you probably figured out, I don’t know how to! Many thanks.

  40. Last night on Power & Politics the viewer “question” for the day was whether or not people planned to sign the Avaaz.org petition against Sun media’s proposed TV station. I thought this was a very sneaky way to let people know this petition was out there. CBC is clearly making an effort to sabotage the potential competition. Well, they should indeed be worried. A right-leaning station might force them to clean up their act.

  41. ‘lookout’, you’re most welcome. Just part of my little crusade to inform the public of the hypocrisies of the Left and those of the mainstream media; the latter being a subset of the former these days.
    I firmly believe that if we can change the “input” going into the minds of the average person then we can change the “output” of their thinking.

  42. Just saw this letter to the editor in the Vancouver Sun. Typical Leftist regurgitation of talking points:
    Nothing insensitive about proposed community centre
    By Pam Shaw, Vancouver Sun September 4, 2010
    Re: Ground Zero mosque issue not quite that cut-and-dried, Letters, Aug. 31
    David Waterman writes, “To build a mosque at that location would be insensitive to everyone who lost friends and family there.” First, the proposed building is not only a mosque; it’s also a community centre, Cordoba House (or Park 51). Second, the centre’s mission is one of peace and interfaith understanding. That is the kind of leadership and healing every community needs.
    Third, 59 Muslims died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Terrorism transcends religious boundaries and attacks all of us at the basic level of human being.
    A community centre founded on broad religious principles can likewise transcend boundaries and appeal to the humanness in all of us. It can encourage us to draw on our shared strengths to solve important problems.
    Pam Shaw
    Delta

  43. Minuteman – NWT Gets a New Mosque and Community Centre. I also thought it very interesting. My first thought was the recently announced plan to increase the Canadian Military presence in the North.

  44. I firmly believe that if we can change the “input” going into the minds of the average person then we can change the “output” of their thinking.
    Posted by: Robert W. (Vancouver) at September 4, 2010 4:45 PM
    I salute your indefatiguable efforts Robert W. However, indoctrinated leftists are evidence-immune in my experience.
    Took a long long time for me to get this. My epiphany occurred a few years back when I sent a liberal friend 35 quotes from A-List Dems (including Clinton, Kerry, etc) warning about Saddam’s WMD. Sending them, I thought, “well, that’ll cinch that part of the debate, anyway”. Nope.
    Conservative blogs are comfort food for conservatives, I’ve come to feel. They’re not accessed by liberal minds (hearts!) and when they are they don’t seem to have any effect except perhaps to encourage wagon-circling.

  45. Another cut to the arts for socialists ZiffyMcGuinty, et al.
    More cuts, please.
    Down with socialism.
    Say No! to the Separatist Coalition.
    …-
    “So long, nanny state
    Britain working through tough economic issues; Canada must as well
    By Michael Coren, QMI Agency
    England has survived the Norman Conquest, the Black Death, a civil war or two and Hitler’s bombs. So it can certainly survive an economic crisis.
    But oh how this is hurting and how it’s transforming the social democratic nature of the United Kingdom and proving that the nanny state doesn’t work even in the land of Mary Poppins!
    The idea of welfare and social services began here at the beginning of the 20th century, partly as a result of the evidence of German success following Otto von Bismarck’s introduction of government help for working people. He was hardly a left-winger and the British politicians who followed him, notably Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, were then old-style Liberals rather than socialists.
    It was mild, moderate and sensible. A little aid for those who really needed it.
    After 1945, the Labour Party government, owing more to Methodism than to Marx, introduced whole-scale public medicine and economic nationalization, but this was consensus politics in that the Tories and Liberals all supported the move.
    So it wasn’t just the left that made Britain so dependent on the state, and it’s important to appreciate this if we’re to realize what is going on in this nation. The culture is interventionist and has been for 70 years. The only person who seriously challenged this was Margaret Thatcher, and she has become a despised figure — an unhappy icon of apparent right-wing extremism.
    She was correct, of course. The public debt and deficit are now so large that public services are being cut by up to 40% and sales taxes are rising, sometimes to 20%.
    The money has run out, and, in fact, did so some time ago. Even though the British economy was booming for 20 years, public expenditure was so obscenely high that what was once an economically dominant empire is now an island not too far from bankruptcy.
    You wouldn’t know it from the crowded stores and busy high streets, but spend time in medium-sized and small towns in the north and midlands, and the pain is tangible.
    It’s not that people are lazy or indifferent, but that they were told from birth that there would always be someone there to find them a job, make them feel better, pick them up if they fell, even tell them what to think.
    Now we have a Tory/Liberal coalition government led by patricians with assumptions of wealth and power gradually dismantling the entire system.”
    http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/michael_coren/2010/09/03/15241281.html
    http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2010/09/04/should-police-chiefs-stay-neutral-in-long-gun-debate/#comment-88791

  46. ‘Me No Dhimmi’ – I actually agree with you re the unreachable ones. Mark Levin refers to them as “drones”. But I’m convinced there is good news on two fronts:
    1. If you take the time to politely & calmly discuss individual issues with people – very deliberately NOT bringing any mention of politics or politicians or political parties into it – then I’ve found that most who lean left in their voting actually have very similar views as I do.
    2. In terms of the hard core Left, which I simply call “Radical Leftists”, the percentage of them in our society is less than 10%. I believe this number remains true whether we’re talking Canada or America. I don’t know about Europe. It is pointless to argue with this tiny minority.
    Which goes back to my earlier point about changing the “input” going into the minds of the general public. Yes, it is a software analogy, but I think it’s pretty much as valid … even though humans are clearly more illogical than computers!

  48. As Kate says, this is why the media is meeting an extinction event.
    Basically where told Muslims are no problem. Surprise, surprise! Its us over reacting to 9/11. Al-Quad a is powerless. All is brightness in the Emerald city.
    A good lie is one laced with truths. A little poison in the bread, taints the whole loaf.
    This is good Taqiyya.
    He even sounds like he means it. Forget India, Israel, bombs all over the world, with whats happening in France. Yeah just concentrate on tax fraud at home.
    Pretend we have created all the security apparatus because again we have misunderstood the “Religion of Death”.
    I mean Iran is a pussycat right?
    What America Has Lost
    It’s clear we overreacted to 9/11.
    Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat?
    http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/04/zakaria-why-america-overreacted-to-9-11.html?from=rss
    He must think where all unconscious.
    JMO

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