Hanoi Jane turns 70...still sucks.

this past week saw Atlanta roll out the red carpet for a huge 70th birthday gala for Jane Fonda. in attendence were lovely people like Ted Turner, Eve Ensler, and Rosie O'Donnell (who dragged along that poor woman she's partnered up with...shudder...

among the adoring remarks made on Fonda's behalf were these by a drunk (as usual) Turner:

"One of the things that attracted Jane to me...[audience laughter]...Sorry, i didn't write anything down...I've had a glass of wine. What I meant was, what attracted me to her is her incredible courage. Jane has more courage than just about anybody i've ever met. During the Vietnam War, i kept my mouth shut. I learned early on that you don't get in trouble if you keep your mouth shut. Jane never learned that."

i'm sorry...but wasn't Turner formerly known as "THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH"??

not everyone, of course, considered her actions during the Vietnam war "courageous". one vet took issue in a guest column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Media glow on Fonda ignores her treason"...

i like his take...he's more pissed at the media for fawning over Fonda all of these year than he his at Fonda herself. but, since he accuses the media of "looking the other way", he reminds the people of Fonda's stated embracing of the enemy through her speeches (she wasn't just an "anti-war" activist...she literally was pulling for the other side!) and the historical facts of her trip to Vietnam:

What she actually did matters far more, of course, than what she thought or said as a young woman long ago. When Fonda took a camera crew to North Vietnam late in the war, her actions easily crossed the line of "aid and comfort to the enemy."

While in Hanoi, Fonda delighted our enemy by cavorting for cameras on an anti-aircraft gun, pretending to shoot at U.S. aircraft. Under pressure in recent years, Fonda said that was bad judgment, but her other actions were far worse.

She made speeches and recorded propaganda radio broadcasts in Hanoi expressing solidarity against " . . . our common enemy - U.S. imperialism." She called our troops, our POWs and our president war criminals and begged U.S. troops to disobey orders from their officers.

Fonda returned to the U.S. and reported our POWs were well treated. When the POWs later came home to tell stories of their sustained starvation diet, maltreatment and torture - real torture, not the kindergarten variety we now debate - she called them liars.

this story would make one helluva movie.

algore celebrates a touchdown! UF/FSU game to go "green"...

this is surreal.

they want to highlight the "fact" that football games produce a ton of greenhouse gasses. to help combat this problem,

...UF and its partners, the Florida Forestry Association and Environmental Defense, are arranging for approximately 18 acres of rural North Florida land to be set aside and managed as a pine plantation forest for 10 years. UF calculates that this is an acreage and period of time sufficient to absorb all the carbon emissions from the game.

according to Deedee Delongpre', director of UF's "Office of Sustainability",

At 18 acres for one game, some quick calculations reveal that we would need 126 acres to be managed for 10 years just to offset our football program for one year,” she said.

in a statement released from his office, Governor Crist approves, and will attend the game.

this is being hyped as the "first" carbon-neutral game ever. with 3 losses, i guess it's nice to be "first" in something...

go gators.


3 A.M. update--i can't sleep, this stuff is really bugging me. the more i read of this "office of sustainability" at UF, the more i want to puke. what a commie front. i'm going to this game tomorrow, and these whiners want to make me feel bad about it? i think a good old-fashioned protest could be in order...

FLASHBACK: Whittaker Chambers reviews "Atlas Shrugged"

to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the release of "Atlas Shrugged", the peeps over at National Review have reprinted Chambers' scathing review of Rand's epic polemic.

Chambers was, as you may know, the former communist spy whose testimony helped to convict communist spy Alger Hiss.

the review clearly stakes out the anti-Randian position of the National Review and it's editor, William F. Buckley, Jr...

American Decadence, Full Speed Ahead: Hooters in Beijing

"First Nixon, then Clinton and now the Hooters Girls will make an impact in China’s capital. The Hooters of Beijing will host the grand opening celebration on September 12th."

full story here...

some of my feminist "friends" here in gainesville, FL decided to "fight the power" when they protested the opening of a Hooters downtown a few years back...featuring signs with slogans decrying the objectification of "hooters"...something like "breasts are for baby's milk" or something like that...




...c'mon...GET A LIFE.

Castro's fight against "the dragons which devour our electricity"

This was a pretty interesting article in the New York Times yesterday. it's all about the effort by Castro's government to switch Cuba's population from the use of ancient (50's models) American refrigerators to new, "improved" models which they buy from China. Simon Romero, the author of the article, describes the effort as "(getting rid) of some of the most resilient totems of American imperialism".

switching over to the new Chinese fridges is not as easy as it may seem:

"...unlike education and health care in Cuba, refrigerators are not free. A concern for Cubans is the cost of the new Chinese models: about $200, a small fortune in a country where the average monthly wage is about $15.

Ten-year payment plans have been made available.

TEN-YEAR PAYMENT PLANS. for refrigerators. oh boy...

anyway, though it's not mandatory to switch, to comply is seen as "patriotic", a way to become "the apple of Fidel's eye".

the article goes on to blame Cuba's economic plight on it's "economic isolation" from the world and the American embargo against it. the problem with this is that Cuba is free to trade with the rest of the world freely. maybe it's main problem is that their economic policies, socialism, and totalitarian government might be restraining the Cuban people from prospering? just a thought...

i work with a recent Cuban refugee who was just last week describing how Cubans kept all of their old clunker cars running..."they make things." replacement parts are non-existent. in the NYT article, a Cuban newspaper' headline asks: "Where do the old refrigerators go?"..."from them, everything is reclaimed". it shows how technicians swarm Cuban junkyards confiscating every little thing off of junked appliances, which in turn go to produce small items (like forks) for the people, or the scrap sold to China to be re-sold to Cuba in the form of new appliances.

the Chinese refrigerators are being lauded by the Cuban government for their energy-usage efficiency. but, they are loathed by the Cuban people because they're tiny in comparison, and they have acquired a nickname: "Llovizna" (that's "Drippy" in English...).

the article goes on to describe how some Cuban artists have used the discarded refrigerators to create art which celebrates the efforts to keep the old refrigerators running all of these years. one example was of a refrigerator having oars installed onto it...another was painted olive green, covered with medals and named "General Electrico". haha--that's pretty good...

i asked my co-worker if she wanted to return to Cuba...her response: "Si, yes, when he dies", as she stroked an imaginary beard.

Cameron Diaz needs to learn about "cultural sensitivity"

though the picture to the right features cameron in camouflage (i had to look twice, to make sure she was really there!), AND she's carrying a bag, this picture has nothing to do with this post. in other words, this in no way is meant to insinuate that cameron is some sort of revolutionary figure...

i saw this at huffington post: "Diaz's bag with Maoist slogan raises ire". you can click on the link if you want, but the gist of the story is that cameron was hanging out in Peru carrying a bag with Mao's most famous political slogan, "Serve the People" (in chinese), written on it.

unfortunately for the lovely ms. diaz,

"...the phrase has particular resonance in Peru, where the Maoist Shining Path insurgency brought Peru to edge of chaos in the 1980s and early 1990s with a campaign of massacres, assassinations and bombings.

Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the insurgency."

what was kind of freaky was to read that in Peru, "human rights activists" actually criticize leftists. it was so "man bites dog" that i did a double-take..

cameron, i feel your pain.


i was embarrassed recently when i wore this great t-shirt (i bought it here at thoseshirts.com), and ran into a venezuelan friend of mine. i don't really understand her all the time (she speaks excellent english but we tend to speak around each other), but, basically she saw the picture of che on my chest and thought i was supporting him. she told me about how all the young commies who are ruining her country run around wearing che accessories. i tried to point out the irony of the shirt, but, i could tell that i had been compromised, as far as she was concerned.

the shirt has not left my drawer since. wow.