During his 12-year tenure, Governor Clinton never approved a state civil-rights law. However, he did issue birthday proclamations honoring Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. He also signed Act 116 in 1987. That statute reconfirmed that the star directly above the word "Arkansas" in the state flag "is to commemorate the Confederate States of America." Arkansas also observed Confederate Flag Day every year Clinton served. The governor's silence was consent.
Arkansas' former governor, the late Orval Eugene Faubus, attended Bill Clinton's 1979 gubernatorial inauguration, where the two pols hugged, as Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial page editor Paul Greenberg recalls. Faubus, of course, resisted the integration of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. He actually deployed National Guard soldiers to bar nine black students from entering. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to break that logjam and give the black teens a fighting chance to learn. Clinton once lauded that same Faubus as a "man of significant ability."
What was Lott thinking when he aped Clinton--of the Presidency perhaps? Alas for Lott, he forgot only Democrats can get away with being racist. Just ask former Klansman Robert Byrd who "remains the Senate's president pro tempore, the third in the line of presidential succession behind Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R, Illinois)." He's a Democrat.
Jan 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
In a column in the England's The Independent newspaper, it is reported that leftist American movie director and author Michael Moore ("Roger and Me," "Stupid White Men," "Bowling for Columbine") alleged that black men--being more violent--would have better fought the 9/11 terrorists than the white people on the planes.[Moore] went into a rant about how the passengers on the planes on 11 September were scaredy-cats because they were mostly white. If the passengers had included black men, he claimed, those killers, with their puny bodies and unimpressive small knives, would have been crushed by the dudes, who as we all know take no disrespect from anybody. God save us from such stupid white men, especially now, when in the US and the UK, black people's lives are being ripped to shreds by drugs, lawlessness, fear and frightful violence plus the endless circle of racism, exclusion and incarceration. This is not awesome, Mr Moore; it is a calamity, for descendants of slaves unimaginably more so.
Mr. Moore is a disgrace for many reasons. Here is yet another. This is up there with Senator Trent Lott's infamous recent comments.
Jan 6, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Kudos to Paul Farhi at the Washington Post for his exposé of the financial media's abusive grandiosity in interpreting retail industry holiday sales figures as bellwethers of the overall economy. Among other gems in this article, Farhi writes, "Consider this fact: Total retail sales in the United States have increased every month, with one exception, for the past 11 years, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's seasonally adjusted data. That's 130 months of rising sales (compared to the same month a year earlier) vs. one month of declining sales (October). I'll give 130-1 odds that December was yet another 'up' month.
"But surely, you say, holiday sales give us some idea of how the overall economy is doing, right? Wrong. It's true that the economy has been relatively robust for some time, but the arrow hasn't been pointing straight up for all those 11 years. Indeed, during the period when retail sales have been climbing, the quarterly gross domestic product has declined four times.
"..The retail-in-December story is, I think, irresistible to the media... First, tradition. The media are creatures of habit, reflexively recycling the same seasonal chestnuts. The holiday-shopping story is a comforting staple of the season.
"Second, retailers -- who are among the biggest advertisers on radio and TV and in newspapers during December -- are more than happy to encourage such stories. Media coverage of shopping is yet another reminder to the masses that it's their patriotic duty to get out there and spend."
Farhi is free to truth-tell like this because he's a recovering business reporter who now writes for the Post's "Style" section. And, perhaps, because his conscience is clean. Heading off the legion of blogging fact-checkers like me, a post-script to the article states, "He was a Business section reporter for 11 years, during which he managed to avoid writing about the holiday shopping season."
Jan 6, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Quoting from a Miami Herald article, "The joke's on President Chávez",Two Miami radio-show hosts known for playing outrageous pranks on the air got Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on a private line this morning by pretending that Cuban leader Fidel Castro was calling him from Havana. ''We still can't believe it,'' said Enrique Santos, co-host of El Vacilón de la Mañana, (The Morning Joker), on WXDJ-FM El Zol 95.7, a Spanish-language salsa station. ``He fell for it.'' [...] The joke was part of a segment called Fidel Te Llama or ''Fidel's Calling You,'' in which Santos and his co-host, Joe Ferrero, call various people and play snippets of a controversial conversation between Castro and Mexican President Vicente Fox that Castro made public in 2001.
Probably the only ones who were not laughing was Castro and his fan club known as CNN-NBC. Here was how the "conversation" went...
''Hello Fidel!'' booms Chávez.
''Did you receive my letter?'' asks Castro.
''Of course I received it,'' replies Chavez. "I spoke with Germán."
''I'm all set to collaborate with you,'' Castro says.
As the nonsequiturs start, El Vacilón fakes trouble on the line to disguise the rejoinders that don't make sense.
''Yes, brother, how's it going?'' Chávez asks.
''I'll do what you're asking me to,'' Castro replies.
''I don't understand,'' a bewildered Chávez says.
''But I'm going to be harmed, I confess to you,'' Castro says.
Silence from Chávez. Castro goes on: ``Everything's set for Tuesday.''
''Everything's set for Tuesday,'' Chávez repeats, obviously befuddled. ``I don't understand.''
Santos then breaks in and announces they were calling from Miami. Complete silence from Chávez. Santos launches into a tirade: ''Terrorist! Animal! Murderer!'' plus a few choice four-letter nouns. ``You're finishing off the Venezuelan people!''
Absolutely hilarious.
