RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/jan/14/oscar-ban-proposed-bigelow-angers-sonys-amy-pascal/

WASHINGTON, DC, January 14, 2013 — Kudos to Sony Pictures’ Amy Pascal for snapping right back at Ed Asner and Martin Sheen for suggesting an Oscar ban against those involved in the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”

“To punish an artist’s right of expression is abhorrent.”

Yes, abhorrent! This brings to mind John F. Kennedy’s brilliant reminder of our First Amendment:

“Democratic society, in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may.”

By virtue of Asner, Sheen and others like them, the chips have already fallen upon Kathryn Bigelow, director, and Mark Boal, screenwriter, for “Zero Dark Thirty.”

We saw this coming right here on these pages.

As noted and as reaffirmed, out First Amendment now comes with an asterisk.

Sheen acted as (West Wing left-wing) President of the United States on TV, and Asner portrayed the boss of a TV newsroom. It’s a good guess that they would be politically selective, and that they feel duty-bound to tell the Academy and the rest of us what’s in and what’s out.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ There are a few things worth knowing about revolutions. Most people don’t participate in them, even if the history books often make it seem otherwise. Revolutions are thought up by small groups of people who then make it everyone’s business. Or alternately they don’t. And those are the revolutions that never happen. Most people, […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3242 An incident at a junior high school in Hod Hasharon on Friday morning catapulted the issue of societal violence to the top of the news, just below coverage of the coming Knesset elections. A teacher was attacked by the father of a student whose cell phone had been confiscated because he was talking on […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ryan-mauro/no-blank-check-for-israel-march-coming-to-dc-on-january-19/ ‘No Blank Check for Israel’ March Coming to DC on January 19 The Jewish Voice for Peace, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace has put together a “No Blank Check for Israel” march in the nation’s capital on January 19. The promotional video boasts of the event’s Christian support, […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/behind-the-democracy-initiative/print/ When is a conspiracy, not a conspiracy? Like the answer to Sir John Harington’s famous epigram, “Treason doth never prosper,” a conspiracy isn’t a conspiracy when it has proven to be successful. Then it’s no longer conspiracy; it’s authority. The now mostly-digital pages of the New York Times, Time, Newsweek and the Washington Post […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/337671 I CAN’T STAND THE BULLIES ON BOTH SIDES OF THIS DEBATE….IT POISONS THE ELECTIONS AND SHOULD BE ON THE BACK BURNER INSTEAD OF BEING A LITMUS TEST FOR IDEOLOGUES ON BOTH SIDES…..RSK Last year’s attack on the Susan G. Komen Foundation, a breast-cancer charity, for daring to make better use of its funds and […]

So much buzz about films among conservatives…. Argo yes but it blames America for the advent of the Mullahs in Iran and then credits Jimmy Carter who actually midwifed the rule of the Ayatollahs with bringing six hostages home safely. Zero Fast Thirty is pretty good and does prove that roughing up terrorists can extract […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/all-for-nothing-nihilism-in-cinema
It is common knowledge that, as Washington is now the citadel of the Left, Hollywood has been a fiefdom of the Left for a very long time. The Left picks the projects, the scripts, the actors, and the directors, and then foists its films on a hapless American movie-going public, saying it’s only entertainment and not to be taken seriously, adding, “We don’t mean nothin’ by it.” The Left calls nearly all the shots in Hollywood. Anyone who doesn’t toe the Left’s Party line is left unemployed, unnoticed, shunned, and ostracized, regardless of talent or experience. In short, blacklisted. They may be invited to fill seats on Oscar night, but that is the limit of their visibility.

But how did the Left take over Hollywood? What made it possible? Without rehashing a history of Hollywood’s political struggles, its flirtation with self-censorship (the Hays and Breen Offices), and subsequent abandonment of self-censorship in favor of “ratings” (the MPAA), the Communist infiltration of the studios and various unions, the McCarthy Era, the HUAC hearings, and the Hollywood Ten, the subject here will be what I perceive to be one of the means by which the Left effected its conquest. That method is psycho-epistemological in nature, and it is insidious.

What is epistemology? Novelist/Philosopher Ayn Rand defined it as “a science devoted to the discovery of the proper methods of acquiring and validating knowledge.” Psycho-epistemology, she went on to explain, is “is the study of man’s cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious.”

Briefly, epistemology can tell us existence exists and why we know it. Psycho-epistemology tells us the method of our awareness of existence. Epistemology can validate that you are reading these words and that they are real. Psycho-epistemology, for example, will prove that reality is not some kind of super piñata to be approached blind-folded with a stick in hopes of thwacking some meaning from it.

In her brilliant essay on the effects of modern education on children, “The Comprachicos,” Rand noted that:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324235104578242121666374116.html?mod=opinion_newsreel President Obama likes to talk about civility in politics, but then he has a particular personal talent for attributing to his political opponents only base motives and beliefs they don’t come close to holding. Consult his Monday press conference for a classic of the genre. Mr. Obama was asked an anodyne question at one […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324734904578240023150080286.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

“The facts speak for themselves. Today in America, 26% of children are raised by a single parent, including 72% in the black community. Among poor families with children, 71% are headed by single parents, mostly single mothers.”

The first lady can help kids by encouraging marriage the way she has by encouraging exercise.

As Barack Obama approaches his second term, there has been much discussion about new goals the president should set for the next four years. But what about the first lady?

Michelle Obama must also be drawing up plans to build on a first term devoted to promoting healthy eating and the greater well-being of American children. Her “Let’s Move” campaign to encourage exercise has probably done some good for young people, but there is an even better message the first lady could promote—one likely to have an even longer-lasting and more significant effect on the lives of young people and on society in general: “Let’s Marry.”

The facts speak for themselves. Today in America, 26% of children are raised by a single parent, including 72% in the black community. Among poor families with children, 71% are headed by single parents, mostly single mothers.

The economics are plainly better for married couples with children—their joint income averages $80,000, while single mothers average $24,000. And getting out of poverty from a single-parent situation isn’t easy. A 2010 Pew report found that “among children who start in the bottom third of the income distribution, only 26% with divorced parents move up to the middle or top third as adults, compared to 50% of children with continuously married parents.”