THE ARCHITECT OF MODERN CONSERVATISM

By Jeff Jacoby

Tuesday, February 27, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bosto...

  n the days and weeks ahead, a Niagara of words will be devoted to William F. Buckley Jr., who died this morning at the age of 82.

 It would be hard to overstate the impact that Buckley had on 20^th-century American thought and politics. The man who founded National Review in 1955 and launched “Firing Line” -- the longest-running public affairs talk show in television history -- 11 years later is rightly celebrated as the father of modern American conservatism. Had there been no Buckley, there would likely have been no Reagan administration, no Morning in America, no “Tear down this wall,” and no Cold War triumph for liberty and the West.

 It may sometimes be confusing, what with all the intramural squabbling among libertarian conservatives, neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, and the like, to know exactly what “conservatism” stands for these days. But Buckley more than anyone made clear that there are things it would not stand for. His “first great achievement,” the Dallas Morning News noted in 2004, “was to purge the American right of its kooks. He marginalized the anti-Semites, the John Birchers, the nativists, and their sort.” In their place, beginning in the 1950s, he cleared the way for the construction of a conservatism of optimism and progress and good humor. And, above all, of ideas: Ideas about limited government and individual freedom, about the blessings of the market and the lethality of Communism, about the importance of religion and the securing of peace through strength.

 But it wasn’t Buckley’s ideas alone that made him so influential. It was his style, too: funny, unflappable, irrepressible, glamorous, gracious. He could be merciless to the pompous, yet was renowned for his vast range of friendships. “He inspired and incited three generations of conservatives, and counting,” his successors at National Review wrote today upon learning of his death. He did so not only through the force of his ideas and an amazing gift for expounding them, but also by embodying a conservatism that was cool and fun and merrily down-to-earth. How many other influential American intellectuals ever penned a column singing the praises of peanut butter?

 In 1999, Buckley was interviewed for “Nightline” by Ted Koppel. "Mr. Buckley, we have 10 seconds left,” Koppel said at the end. “Could you sum up in 10 seconds?" Buckley replied, simply: "No." In the days ahead, no one will find it easy to sum up Bill Buckley’s extraordinary legacy. His output was so prodigious and his range so immense that he routinely made the rest of us “feel like hopeless underachievers,” as I wrote in a column four years ago. Today Buckley’s astonishing, history-changing output comes to an end. His life and his life’s work will resonate for many years to come.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

I just heard on the news that the SPCA was robbed again and the doors broken.  They said this happened back in August and it cost them $7000 to replace them.  Now they're looking at some sort of security doors for the outside but whether or not they have the money for them is another matter.

I'm thinking with all the animal lovers out there surely someone with welding abilities or access to metal grates or expansion gates could help out.

If you  or know anyone you know would be willing to lend a hand give them a call.  323-8353

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I had a horrifying experience last night and wonder if any of you have ever experienced anything like it.

Most folks here have heard me talk about Allie the Lab and Zack the WestieX hairball.  Yesterday morning my daughter came to stay a few days and brought her BoxerX Babygirl.  As we always do we left Baby in the back yard with Allie, Zack in the house and spent the day helping grandson move into their new home.  When we got back Zack slipped out into the back yard and immediately Allie started chasing him..something she never does so I started heading her off to leave him alone.  He headed back toward the door when she attacked him, shaking him like a rag doll.  He was screaming, my daughter and I were screaming at her and I was beating her with a hula hoe.  I ended up on the cement trying to pull Zack out of her mouth with daughter pulling on her tale (as she'd been told to do with a dog fight).  Allie finally dropped him, I rolled on top of him and Allie backed off only to rush in and grab him again.  Same scenario....she was trying to kill him.  When I finally got him loose the second time daughter was screaming "get him in the house" which, of course, I was trying to do.  Zack is OK, mostly scrapes and scratches although I'll take him to the vet for a check up.  He has no broken bones and gets around ok although he has one puncture wound behind one ear.  I'm amazed he wasn't torn to shreds.

A little history.  Both dogs are 4 1/2 years old.  I raised Allie from 7 weeks and got Zack from SPCA at age 2.  They became fast friends and yard buddies.  They played chase, wrestled, and ate out of the same dish at times.  Allie never showed any jealousy or animosity toward him or any other dog as she was always the submissive one. 

A couple of years ago daughter had a different dog and when he came to visit  Allie attacked Zack for the first time and after that I never let him out in the yard when another dog visited.   That's why, when Alllie started stalking/chasing Zack I tried to get her to back off.

I am baffled....totally baffled because this is the kindest most loving dog ever.  Loves everyone, great with kids, super companion.  I'm sitting here with cuts, scrapes and puncture wounds from the battle of prying Zack out of her jaws and not once did she ever turn on me or my daughter..OR the visiting dog.  Only his buddy.

Now I'm afraid to even let Zack out in the yard with her for fear something may trip her again.  Have any of you out there ever had a similar experience? 

You folks have GOT to be in shock over these last columns.  Possibly another one on which you can agree?

THE IRRELEVANCE OF OBAMA'S COLOR

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Sunday, February 10, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bosto...

     On the subject of Black History Month, I'm with Morgan Freeman, who described it a few years ago as "ridiculous" -- for the excellent reason that "black history is American history," not some segregated addendum to it. The only way to get beyond racial divisions, he told Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes," is to "stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man, and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."

     Amen to that. The sooner we resolve to abandon the labels "black" and "white," the sooner we will be a society in which such racial labels are irrelevant. And what better moment to make such a resolution than this one, when white Americans by the millions are proving that the color of a person's skin is no longer a bar to anything in this country - not even the presidency.

     Whether or not Barack Obama's bid for the White House ultimately succeeds, it has already demolished the canard that America will not elect a black president. His impressive win over Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses could perhaps be dismissed as a fluke, but after Super Tuesday there is not much left to argue about. Obama carried 13 states last week, and the whiter the state, the more imposing his victory.

     He took Utah with 57 percent of the vote. North Dakota with 61 percent. Kansas: 74 percent. Alaska: 75 percent. Idaho, that supposed redoubt of militant white supremacists, chose Obama over Clinton by 80 to 17 percent.

     Far from being a strike against him, Obama's color is manifestly a political advantage. Not only because black voters will vote for him with enthusiasm, but because tens of millions of white voters will, too. Countless Americans plainly relish the chance to prove with their vote that they are not tainted by racial bigotry. "I confess that I plan to be moved to tears," Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, has written, "on the day that I vote for a black man for the presidency of this stained and stirring country."

     It isn't only liberals and Democrats who find Obama attractive. Among his supporters is Jeffrey Hart, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Peter Wehner, a former assistant to President Bush, writes in The Washington Post that Obama is "an appealing figure to many Republicans," because, among other things, his campaign is not based on racial grievance. He cites MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, a one-time GOP congressman, who has been flooded with mail from Republicans praising Obama’s speeches. "Obama, more than any figure in America," Wehner suggests, "can help bind up the racial wounds of America."

     Obama is infinitely preferable to previous black candidates like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, professional racial activists whose stock in trade is the exploitation of black victimology and white guilt. As the first black presidential hopeful with a realistic chance of winning the White House, Obama is understandably attracting record-setting levels of black support. But what makes his candidacy so plausible is precisely his appeal to whites -- an appeal that would dry up were Obama to make racial identity the focus of his campaign. This is the interesting paradox at the heart of a campaign that is so often described as "transcending" or "going beyond" race.

    Yet real racial transcendence will be achieved not when a black candidate's race is no bar to his election, but when it is not even an issue in his election. When the Morgan Freeman standard becomes the rule -- when there are no longer "black" candidates and "white" candidates, because Americans will be indifferent to such labels -- only then will our politics have truly moved beyond race.

     Is the colorblind idea nothing but a dream? It need not be.

     There was a time in US history when anti-Italian prejudice was so intense that the prospect of an Italian-American president would have been unthinkable. When 11 Italian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans in 1891, The New York Times described the victims as "sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins . . . a pest without mitigation." During World War II, thousands of Italian Americans were expelled from their homes, and hundreds of immigrants were interned in military camps.

    Yet there was little if any attention paid to Rudy Giuliani's ethnicity during his recent campaign for president. No one blamed anti-Italian bigotry when his effort came to naught. For all intents and purposes, his Italian descent was simply not an issue.

     The color of Obama's skin is irrelevant to the content of his character or his fitness for office. Would that its significance to his campaign were also nil. No, we're not there yet. But until we are, we would do well to remember there is no faster way to a society in which race doesn't matter than to stop talking and acting as if it does.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

THE MYSTERY IN THE VOTING BOOTH

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bosto...

     The know-it-alls, it turns out, didn't know it all.

     Months of predictions to the contrary notwithstanding, the presidential nominations weren't all sewn up on Super Tuesday. John McCain didn't put it away. Mike Huckabee hasn’t been reduced to political irrelevancy. Once again -- as with earlier forecasts of Hillary Clinton's implosion in New Hampshire, Rudy Giuliani's commanding national appeal, and Mitt Romney's untouchable leads in the early states -- the politicos proposed but the voters disposed.

     In the final hours of his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton spoke repeatedly of the "great mystery of American democracy," by which an ordinary voter is transformed on Election Day into “the most powerful citizen in America." I haven’t agreed with Clinton on much, but he was on to something that day. For all the sophisticated tools and technology with which modern candidates wage their campaigns, what happens in the voting booth is still, so often, a mystery.

     Part of that mystery is just what a candidate needs to pass the voters’ threshold test of presidential believability. On paper, Romney seemed to have all the necessary ingredients: brilliant private-sector success, a spotless and wholesome personal life, ample gifts of intelligence and charm, proven appeal to Blue State voters, extremely deep pockets, and the benefits of massive advertising.

     Yet at no point in this seemingly endless campaign has he managed to dominate the Republican race. Instead he finds himself fighting to catch up not just to McCain, whose campaign was all but abandoned for dead last summer, but even, in some states, to Huckabee.

     What is it that pushes a candidate over that threshold of viability? Is it powerful media support? For weeks, many of the most influential voices on the right, especially on talk radio, have lacerated McCain, derided Huckabee, and fervently championed Romney. Yet voters in state after state yesterday ignored the talkers, choosing McCain or Huckabee over the former Massachusetts governor.

     Is it the “right” stand on issues that makes or breaks a candidate? Issues are obviously of great significance, yet they don't seem to be the key to this year’s campaign, either. Andrew Kohut, head of polling for the Pew Research Center, told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that in the race between Clinton and Barack Obama, "there is no correlation in the exit polls so far between the issues people think are important and the candidates they vote for." Among Republicans surveyed, McCain has often been the least likely to share voters' positions on issues. For all that, he has become the frontrunner in the GOP race.

     All theories about the presidential race should be treated as suspect, but here in a nutshell is mine: Voters this year are seeking character. More than popularity, more than ideological compatibility, what they crave is a candidate of honor, integrity, and decency. Perhaps that is why McCain and Obama continue to ride high, when so many others have left the field.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

I've never seen anything like it!

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

http://www.autobloggreen.co...

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Golf!:Can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies, obscured by the occasional miracle, followed by a good bottle of beer.

Golf!:You hit down to make the ball go up. You swing left and the ball goes right. The lowest score wins. And on top of that, the winner buys the drinks!

Golf is harder than baseball. In golf, you have to play your foul balls. 

The term"Mulligan"is really a contraction of the phrase"maul-it-again."

A"gimme"can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers ... neither of whom can putt very well.

An interesting thing about golf is that no matter how badly you play; it is always possible to get worse.

Golf's a hard game to figure. One day you'll go out and slice it and shank it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and for no reason at all you really stink.

If your best shots are the practice swing and the "gimme putt", you might wish to reconsider this game.

Golf is the only sport where the most feared opponent is you.

Golf is like marriage: If you take yourself too seriously it won't work , and both are pretty damned expensive!

The best wood in most amateurs' bags is the pencil.


SENIOR'S DAY AT THE COURSE:




David Letterman's Top Ten Reasons Why Golf Is Better ThanSex!
#10... A below par performance is considered damn good.

#9.... You can stop in the middle and have a cheeseburger and a couple of beers.

#8... It's much easier to find the sweet spot.

#7... Foursomes are encouraged.

#6... You can still make money doing it as a senior.

#5... Three times a day is possible.

#4... Your partner doesn't hire a lawyer if you play with someone else.

#3... If you live in Florida , you can do it almost every day.

#2... You don't have to cuddle with your partner when you're finished.

And the NUMBER ONE reason why golf is better than sex.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#1... When your equipment gets old you can replace it!

I know how much you folks love Newsmax so thought I'd sahre this with you.  Look like McCain will be our next president.  And I ain't all that happy about that either.

http://www.newsmax.com/morr...