Author: Jon Ponder

Young Conservatives Held “Immigrant Hunt”

Jon Ponder

Asian Week:

When a branch of the Young Conservatives of Texas held “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” at the University of North Texas, it predictably upset many students of color. The game involved “catching” other members posing as illegal immigrants and winning candy-bar prizes for their efforts.

Students at the University of Texas, Austin wanted to make sure that the same thing would not happen on their campus, said Stephen Torres, student director of the university’s Multicultural Information Center. “We wanted to be preventative,” he said. “We didn’t want the YCTs to get away with this again.”

Torres and company were successful. Learning of the massive protest against an “Immigrant Hunt,” the Young Conservatives at UT Austin called off an event planned for March 2. About 350 Latino, Asian American, black American and white American students went ahead with the protest at UT Austin’s main mall. Holding up signs reading “Hate is not Activism” in multiple languages, the protesters included 30 Latino groups, one South Asian American sorority, and many individual students and community members.

Wingnut Puts a Bounty on Michael Schiavo

Jon Ponder

CNN reports that a western “North Carolina man was arrested Friday by FBI agents on charges of soliciting the murder of a judge and the husband of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman at the center of a legal and moral tug of war.” Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, offered a $250,000 bounty for the killing of Michael Schiavo and a $50,000 for executing Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who ordered Schiavo’s feeding tube removed a week ago.

Notice that the librul media never refers to nutcases like this as “violent religious extremists” or similar. I guess you have to be Muslim to wear that label.

(Fairview is just a few miles from the old homeplace. Hope we’re not related to this guy!)

Death Threats for Inventor of “Fox Blocker”

Jon Ponder

Sam Kimery is the proud inventor of a device that rids your television of Fox News infestations. “Fox Blocker” is a small silver device that attaches to the back of the TV. Once installed – poof! – no more Hannity, O’Reilly, Shep or those three yokels in the morning who look like they’re doing a local news in Des Moines.

Sales have been slow, so far. Kimery, a former GOP precinct captain from Tulsa, has only sold about 100 units. This doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a lot of interest in Fox Blocker, however. Kimery says he has received “thousands of e-mails, both angry and complimentary — as well as a few death threats.

“‘Apparently the making of terroristic threats against those who don’t share your views is a high art form among a certain core audience,’ said Kimery, 45.”

The reaction of the Fox official who commented on the story is classic: “The channel’s [high] ratings speak for themselves.” Meaning: We’re popular. So that fact that we’re no better than Tass, the Kremlin’s propaganda channel back in the Soviet days, is irrelevant.

Order yours today – www.foxblocker.com

13% Approve of GOP Meddling in Schiavo Case

Jon Ponder

They have really stepped in it this time. Blow back could be huge.

[A new CBS poll found that] just 13 percent of those polled think Congress intervened in the case out of concern for Schiavo, while 74 percent think it was all about politics. Of those polled, 66 percent said the tube should not be inserted compared to 27 percent who want it restored. The issue has generated strong feelings, with 78 percent of those polled — whether for either side of the issue — saying they have strong feelings.

And there’s more:

More than two-thirds of people who describe themselves as evangelicals and conservatives disapprove of the intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of a national debate.

Other polls have shown huge majorities casting doubt on efforts to keep the severely brain damaged woman alive.

Bush’s overall approval was at 43 percent, down from 49 percent last month.

Culture of Lies

Jon Ponder

St. Petersburg Times:

Like other Republican lawmakers championing Schiavo’s bill, DeLay often suggests she is alert and potentially treatable.

“She talks and she laughs and she expresses likes and discomforts,” he said Sunday evening. “It won’t take a miracle to help Terri Schiavo. It will only take the medical care and therapy that patients require.”

After years of review, a Florida circuit court judge found that Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, and any emotions she appears to express are simply reflexive. Based largely on the testimony of her husband and friends, a judge ruled she would not want to be kept alive, and ordered her feeding tube removed Friday.

More Politics Than Usual

Jon Ponder

Americablog has two related articles on the Schiavo travesty. For both horror and amusement, check out DC’s Inside Scoop, which has the GOP talking points on Schiavo that were leaked. The Scoop says rumor has it that these gem were the handiwork of folks at the office of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA).

Here are three of the GOP message points:

* This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.
* This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida – has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.
* This legislation ensures that individuals like Teri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy.

The second AmericaBlog article points to an ABC News poll that indicates that Americans support removing Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube 63-28.

The politics propelling this tragic tomfoolery are no surprise to anyone reading this, I’m sure. Nor are the Gops’ syrupy denials of political motivation. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” I heard one of them purr, on CNN.

If there’s anything to the ABC poll, it would seem to indicate that the Gops may have gotten ahead of the public on this. Amazingly, Tom DeLay and crew even got Bush involved, meaning Karl and Karen approved it. It’s hard to believe those geniuses didn’t know they only had 28 percent of the public – basically their base – in their pockets when they flew George in early from his weekend in Crawford to sign the bill. Talk about believing your own press!

Unlike with the Gannon scandal, the media has all guns trained on this one. We’d like to think that such brazen political trampling into a woman’s tragic life – not to mention the sanctity of her heterosexual marriage – would raise a stink among the voters, but Americans seems to have endless tolerance for the shenanigans of George Bush and his crowd of Republicans in the Capitol these days.

Still, if the wind shifts in the way the ABC poll indicates, the Gops are going to have trouble blaming this one on 9/11 – or even the Democrats.

Hix Nix Science Flix at Imax

Jon Ponder

In this article in today’s New York Times, Carol Murray, director of marketing for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, which operates the local Imax theatre, explains why she decided not to show the documentary film, “Volcanoes.”

“If it’s not going to draw a crowd and it is going to create controversy,” Murray said, “from a marketing standpoint I cannot make a recommendation” to show it.

This is just flat wrong. Controversy sells movie tickets. If you want to put butts in the seats at local cineplex, there really is no such thing as bad publicity. Just ask Mel Gibson or Michael Moore.

Amazingly, the Fort Worth science theatre is not the only Imax operator to self-censor this science film because it presents science. The Times says, “‘Volcanoes,’ released in 2003 and sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation and Rutgers University, has been turned down at about a dozen science centers, mostly in the South … because of its brief references to evolution, in particular to the possibility that life on Earth originated at the undersea vents.”

Apparently, panic erupted in the museum’s marketing department after a test screening of “Volcanoes” for 134 local residents. Reading through the viewer comments, a whiff of controversy arose – and it seems to have set Murray’s hair on fire. She told the Times that “while some thought [the film] was well done, ‘some people said it was blasphemous.’ In their written comments, she explained, they made statements like ‘I really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact,’ or ‘I don’t agree with their presentation of human existence.'”

That this happened in a museum dedicated to science is as scary as it is sad. I suppose you could argue that avoiding controversy is mission-critical in marketing departments at a public institutions. But when avoidance of controversy leads to censorship, a line has been crossed.

Christian Radio Host Held on Child Porn Charges

Jon Ponder

Apparently someone reported Nashville Christian radio personality Chris Ruleman to the authorities, claiming he possessed child porn. According to WSMV- Nashville Channel 4 News, Ruleman was arrested after the FBI received information that he was in possession of the contraband materials.

Ironically, the station where Ruleman works – 94FM The Fish – bills itself as ” Safe for the Whole Family.”