Seems our newest media celebrity, the Rev.  Jeremiah Wright, is on everybody’s mind these days.  Let me bring some clarity to the issue.

He Has Some Valid Points

He points out that we have bombed people all over the world and then act all shocked when people hate and attack us.  This is a valid point that Americans hate to face.  The only politically correct position to take on the 9/11 attacks is that they were unprovoked, completely out-of-the-blue acts directed by religious crazies.  The fact is, we DID do lots of things that provoked the attacks of 9/11.  We have long supported Israel and marginalized the people that were already living in Palestine when the United Nations “gave” the land to the Jews in 1948.  We support dictatorships all throughout the MIddle East and have military installations in areas that are holy to Islam.  Now, that’s not to say the 9/11/ attacks were right, or justified, but they didn’t happen in a vacuum.  It’s childish that we’re supposed to act like they did, or be branded unpatriotic.  Our government has been supporting dictators all over the world since the beginning of the cold war.  What do we expect to happen to our reputation when we blatantly demonstrate that while we value freedom and liberty at home, we find it expendable in other countries?

Wright also says, when asked about his ideas about HIV being a government conspiracy to eliminate black people, that after the Tuskegee Syphilis study incident, he believes the government capable of anything.  Well, considering the truth about the Tuskegee experiment — where black men with syphilis were studied for forty years, all of them being lied to, and many of them not receiving the life-saving penicillin which would have saved them, because the scientists wanted to see how the disease spread and killed — I have to be a bit sympathetic to the Rev. Wright.  As crazy as the HIV conspiracy theory sounds (and I don’t believe it, by the way), it sounds no more far-fetched than using black citizens as medical guinea pigs.

On the Other Hand, He’s a Dick

As much as I respect the Rev. Wright’s right to pontificate, he’s not doing his old friend Barak Obama any favors.  Alas, Wright has fallen prey to that most American of diseases, the Pathological Desire to Be Famous.  Now that he’s become a media darling, he just can’t seem to shut up.

He should shut up.  Or just start campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

Now, I’m no fan of bank robbers or people who attempt to bomb police cars.     But former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olsen pled guilty to her crimes and has been serving her sentence in Chowchilla, California as a model prisoner.

Last week she was released on parole, six years into her twelve year sentence.

However, LAPD re-arrested her five days later, dragged her back to prison, where it was explained that a “miscalculation on her release date” had occurred.

Really?  This couldn’t possibly be about pressure from the LAPD, could it?

And, even if it was a case of bad math (hard as it is to believe that an employee of the California Corrections System wouldn’t be a whiz at accounting), shouldn’t the benefit of the doubt go to the parolee who’s already been out of prison for five days?

Someone needs to get this chick a better lawyer, because this reeks to high heaven of cruel and unusual punishment.  The state shouldn’t be able to give someone her liberty for five days, make her feel her ordeal is over, then yank her back into the clink for a year.  I cry dirty pool!

I realize the bar keeps going down, and there’s not much we can do about it.  I realize that politicians, religionists, and network television executives will not stop until our mentality is back in the Stone Age.

But two-time Academy-Award-winner-before-she-was-30 Jodie Foster was someone I used to think of as a standard-bearer.  A beacon of class and integrity.

And then she decided to make the new film THE BRAVE ONE.

What was she thinking?  Why does she want to be Charles Bronson and remake DEATH WISH?  Since when is vigilantism a value worth celebrating and promoting in A-pictures.

Thanks, Jodie.  Thanks for joining the Great Unwashed.

It just gets better and better.  Reeling from their recent expensive litigation settlements to former victims of their employees, the San Diego Diocese is desperate to find a way to pay out without having to sell off any of its precious property.

Their ingenious solution?   Ask the faithful to pay the bill!  You heard right, sports fans, after years of protecting the monsters who molested their children, the San Diego Catholic Church is asking the parishioners to pay their bill!

Every time I think I can’t be more impressed by the shamelessness and arrogance of those who claim God’s authority, someone raises the bar!!

How can any literate American still patronize this morally (and, hopefully soon, financially) bankrupt organization?

I guess it’s always good to be reminded in these politically polarized times that politicos of any party can be venal, corrupt assholes.

Today’s reminder was the revelation of how California State Assembly Speaker Fabien Nunez has been abusing his political warchest.  A contribution-built fund that’s to be used for campaigning and state business, it has become, evidently, Nunez’ private wish-fulfillment account!

Let’s just look at a few of the expenditures, shall we?

$8, 745 at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, Spain;

$5, 149 for a “meeting” at Cave L’Avant Garde, a wine seller in France’s Bordeaux region;

$2, 562 for “office expenses” two years apart at Louis Vuitton, a Parisian store that specializes in leather goods, clothing, fashion accessories and jewelry; and

$1, 795 for another “meeting” at Le Grand Colbert, a Parisian restaurant.

$1, 715 at Asia de Cuba, a West Hollywood restaurant;

$2, 428 for a meeting at 58 Degrees and Holding, a Sacramento restaurant;

And on and on.  This fund is built largely from organizational giving (such as unions and professional organizations) and contributions from Democratic sucker citizens, like me.

You know who I’m mad at?  The California Democratic Party.  They’re not getting another red (okay, pink) cent from me until they tie strings to any future monies they give crooks like this, forcing them to use the money properly or not take it.

You may have heard my erudite comments of righteous indignation on “Air Talk” this morning on KCRW-FM.

This image pretty much sums up what should be happening in Washington.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-10/446384/perpwalk.gif