Heads up to all those of you interested in watching the debut episode of Glenn Beck, at his new Fox News show every 5 PM. His first guest ever will be...Governor Sarah Palin of the Great State of Alaska!
I like saying it like that, as it reminds me of the Dayton, Ohio roll out presentation by Senator John McCain of his running mate. I recall that it was the first (and very last) time I ever felt anything approaching happiness at John McCain.
In case of interest, here is Governor Palin on Beck's Headline News show.
You know, I never liked him, and I never watched his programme. He's a lightweight, despite having penned a rather sweet novella which I read called "The Christmas Sweater".
But you better believe I'll be watching his own roll out, this Monday. Nice move, Glenn.
9. University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, Calif.
10. Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla.
11. University of New Hampshire, Durham, N.H.
12. University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
13. University of Colorado, Boulder, Co.
14. Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.
15. Tulane University, New Orleans, La.
16. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Ill.
17. Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.
18. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.
19. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
20. Loyola University-New Orleans, New Orleans, La.
I'm completely in agreement about the Gators being a party school, perhaps even THE party school -- though FSU, I thought, always beat them (the 'Noles have FAMU to help out, though).
However, I congratulate alum and Sundries reader, José Aguirre, on the finish!
I simply do not understand the University of Miami not making the top 20, though. That's like listing the 20 coolest people on late night television, and failing to cite Red Eye's, Andy Levy, and his surgically-altered, cynically-raised eyebrow.
Because in his first major interview since the now infamous remarks about America from the pulpit, Senator Barack Obama's ex-pastor for 20 years, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright will be on PBS' Bill Moyers Journal tonight.
Politicised pulpits and incendiary rhetoric are nothing new in this world. They've existed since the first person went on top of a rock, and harangued crowds about life.
What is striking to other Christians who listened to what he has had to say, saved in video tapes, is that other Christian denominations around the world would be hard-pressed to find similar sermons, full of bitterness, frustration, and just plain hate, at their Sunday services.
I am predicting that he will call his outlandish rhetoric a "wake up call" which he used to get his parishioners' attention.
Nothing gets sinners' attention quicker, he will say, than to point out their horrifying hypocritical sins, even if its by extension -- the sins of all Americans, which comprise America itself.
You can see he can frame this argument about the following sermon:
"Wright delivered his most notorious sermon the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001, when he suggested that the U.S. had brought on the attacks by committing its own acts of terrorism. "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," he said in the Sept. 16 service."
...by quoting this injunction from the Bible:
1 Corinthians 6:3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
Even if he has assuredly forgotten this:
Matthew 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Given that he is starting to go out and explain himself, in this show and on Monday 28 April at the National Press Club, I think there will be ample opportunity for him to clarify his statements below.
I can't wait.
UPDATE 9:55 PM EST
Just finished watching the segment, and I have just a few things to say.
First, this was a very controlled response by Rev. Wright. Gone were the preacherman flourishes, full of hellfire and damnation. Obviously that would've been the case, but in no small sense does one get the impression that he was coached very carefully not to reveal any of the hatred he holds very deep inside, as per his words above.
People speak of President Bush having a smirk when he speaks. It's been revealed by many Bush insiders that this is in part his derision of the hypocrisy of public discourse. He would much rather shoot from the hip, but in politics that's suicide, so he resents having to play the "game" of pretending to answer gotcha questions he knows are loaded against him, from the word go.
What few people criticise is that certain black "leaders" and "spokesmen" (in that ridiculous phrase, which doesn't exist anywhere else in the world) have that self-same sardonic smirk when in public.
Until now I thought the worst version of this smirk I had seen was Reverend Al Sharpton. Another example I can mention, which is less political and religious, is Whoopi Goldberg.
But today I add Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. to the list of smirkers.
It was astoundingly condenscending, and very off-putting to see a man who feels he's been railroaded, when it is merely his own words which did him in.
Again and again he said that his words were taken out of context, but there is NO context where his words would make sense, and be something a Christian pastor would say during A SUNDAY SERMON.
No amount of "It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand" retorts can wipe away the resentment he feels towards this nation, which he was given a chance to explain tonight.
Obviously Bill Moyers was not at pains to be a hard-hitting interviewer. Had it been a Bush operative or associate, the hardball questions would've come fast and furious.
But he played his usual midwifing role of asking amenable questions, the kind a person who truly wants to understand, rather than to judge would (the stark opposite of MSM when dealing with this administration).
I didn't know what to expect, but basically I got Wright Lite. Not even his words about Reverend Farrakhan, who he said is like EF Hutton (when he speaks, black Americans listen...they may not agree, but they listen) sought to pass judgement on what simply cannot stand in our public officials and community leaders.
It's almost as if someone argued that because Pablo Escobar built his Medellin neighbours hospitals and gave them food this would somehow exculpate everything else he did in his life.
No, Reverend. You're going to have to understand what you said is wrong, and moreover, you've caused a lot of damage to your acolyte, Senator Obama.
When minority leaders are caught with their pants down, they ask that the topic of race be "at last" explored.
This is their way of saying that what their words would be more fully understood if people (namely, the white "power structure") understood their struggle and tears better.
Sorry. Not only have we been exploring this topic in earnest for 40 years now, but this isn't going to be another time when all you do to justify your hateful words is to cry racism.
We're past the exploration phase as a nation, Reverend.
Moreover, should Senator Obama not distance himself further from you, a large swath of Americans FROM ALL backgrounds will rightly consider his judgement at fault.
I'll update this one last time, later on, with the PBS video of the interview.
IN THE COMMENTS:JSU points out another wannabe Smirker-In-Chief. "McCain's smirkiness is up there with anyone's. Watch every time he says "my friends"...".
Oh God, yes. It's sickening even if you understand where they are coming from. It suggests they have insider info to which you, poor little idiot, could never be fully deep enough to understand.
Whilst I'm being catty and observant, who does Senator John S. McCain III remind you of?
How about Nikita Khrushchev?
See, I could never do that about Senator Obama because Reverend Wright would accuse me of being a racist. "We all look alike, huh!?"
ADDED: In a seering, marvellous review, Ann Althouse uses her legal skills to analyse last night's segment. This passage filleted the interview to the bone.
"The fourth candidate for a hard question is implied by this statement: "That chapter [Psalm 137] ends up with some very brutal words. You used them in one of your sermons." Wright understands the question to call for an explanation of his post-9/11 speech. He speaks first of his pain over 9/11 and explains the thinking behind his sermon:
I had to preach. They came to church wanting to know where is God in this. And so, I had to show them using that Psalm 137, how the people who were carried away into slavery were very angry, very bitter, moved and in their anger from wanting revenge against the armies that had carried them away to slavery, to the babies. That Psalm ends up sayin' "Let's kill the baby-let's bash their heads against the stone." So, now you move from revolt and revulsion as to what has happened to you, to you want revenge. You move from anger with the military to taking it out on the innocents. You wanna kill babies. That's what's going on in Psalm 137. And that's exactly where we are. We want revenge. They wanted revenge. God doesn't wanna leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And that's the context, the biblical context I used to try to get people sitting again, in that sanctuary on that Sunday following 9/11, who wanted to know where is God in this? What is God saying? What is God saying? Because I want revenge.
I think he's saying that the Psalm — God speaking? — is saying that people who have suffered want revenge and feel motivated to do terrible things. But he's really held himself open to a terrible interpretation — and calling it my "hermeneutic" isn't going to help. "What is God saying? What is God saying? Because I want revenge." What is Wright saying? That's going to sound to a lot of people as though he's saying 9/11 was God's revenge on America. He quotes the Psalm: "Blessed are they who dash your baby's brains against a rock." Well, now, it really sounds as though he's saying that God blesses the 9/11 hijackers! God damns America and God blesses the hijackers? Wright has not backed down. He's stepped up."
Tonight, Renato and I were each watching the Jay Leno Show, when his cringingly hilarious "game show", The Battle of the Jaywalking All-Stars, came on.
"Jaywalking" is the term used for Mr. Leno's famous segment on selecting people on the street, and asking them questions about this or that famous event, geographical location, or historical person.
The whole premise of the skit, is to highlight to the audience the dumbest answers as said by the dumbest "random" passersbys, called Jaywalkers.
The skit works with everything, including Christmas carolling.
Because we the studio and home audience have no idea how heavily editted this segment is, or not, there is no way of having a real idea of who answers what, how they choose each passerby, or if they target them in the age-old, "S/he looks dumb, let's go pick on him" split-second judgement call.
Come on, it happens to all of us.
Before a person opens their mouth, you have an idea of what they will say, based wholly on your perception of the way they look, the way they act, or later, and instantly, how they speak.
If we do it to others, you can be sure it's being done to us, too.
Now, every single person chosen to be a Jaywalking victim could ALL well be as dumb as a shoehorn.
But the whole premise is to go for the belly-laughs, since the questions asked are so basic, that any half-way educated person would at least get within a city block of the right answer.
The people interviewed just plain don't. They ARE as dumb as a shoehorn.
Hence the hysterical laughter it produces on the viewing audience.
Well, the All-Stars as you can infer from the name, is the collection of the most egregiously ignorant Jaywalkers, all vying to see who can "win" the game show, one whose express purpose is to highlight yet again, their complete ignorance of the world.
Where am I going with this, you ask?
Well, here's the deal.
Inherent in this game show, is the premise that AMERICANS especially don't know about geography.
Indeed, when a girl was asked to name what this is, and where it was at:
She didn't know what it was.
But she thought it was in Berlin.
Another chap, who unfairly was playing with his even dumber brother as one team, was asked, "Where does Danish come from?".
His response being, "I think there were some in my hotel room."
Another gal was shown a photo of the newest Dear Leader, and though she guessed his profession correctly ("dictator"), she had to be coaxed as to his name.
Jay Leno: "What is his name...? (waiting) "Kim......JONG....what?"
Girl: "Kim Jong MAO?"
I almost split a gut.
Listen, these are segments that make people feel bad about their own lack of knowledge about the world. But they're still very funny.
But that's just not good enough for me.
I'm as pedantic as all get out.
To that end, I want you to check out the new Hit Counter I have placed to the right, in the Sidebar -- which highlights a nation's flag, when a person from that country visits Sundries.
My readership is VERY international, since I am, but I think all of us can sharpen our flag/geographical skills.
Now, when you click on this or that flag, it will show you a map of said country in relation to its world location.
On the off-chance you don't know how the Burundi flag looks like, all you have to do now is click on it. Hours of fun, promise.
And anyway, you think I myself knew, straight off, what the Burundi flag looked like?
