“Girlie Man”

Some coworkers and I had a lively discussion about the Gubernator‘s “girlie man” comment.

An awfully literal interpretation is “a man who is like a little girl,” a supposed backhanded insult to girls and gays.

But do we always intend the technical, literal meaning of every word? If I call you a “moron” or “nimrod” do I literally mean that you are mentally retarded or an ancient hunter? No, I mean that you are a bonehead. (Disclaimer: I didn’t literally mean your head is made of bone!)

“Girlie man” comes from a goofy Saturday Night Live skit featuring steroidal “Hans und Frans.” Anyone who wasn’t equally “pumped up” got labeled a “girlie man.” It was a goofball, witty skit.

By making an issue of such a lighthearted double-entendre, which by the way was given at an informal, almost spur of the moment shopping mall pep rally, California Democrats are distracting voters from the real problem: special interests. That’s not a partisan issue.

Stupid Politics

Many apparently believe that the US President uses magical levers to control the economy. Apparently Reagan and Clinton pushed the levers to “full steam ahead,” but Bush I and Bush II chose to pull the levers back to “slow.” It’s all Bush’s fault that we’re barely emerging from a recession, right?

Bull corn! What silly logic. Suddenly we forgot the hangover from the irrational exuberance of the late ’90s, 9-11, and general global instability? Somehow the current President is entirely to blame for these? Ever heard of something called the business cycle?

If presidents really had such clearly-labeled levers to pull, then every president in history, regardless of party, would prevail over an expanding economy.

Michael Moore is a bonehead

Despite Christopher Hitchens’s anti-Reagan leftie views, he got something 100% correct:

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

Read more at http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/.

And check out http://www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com/.

Ronald Reagan

The world lost a great man on Saturday.

I had a poor knowledge of politics during Reagan’s presidency, but I have good memories of him. (My first memory of an American president was when my maternal grandmother expressed disenchantment with Jimmy Carter while he was on the TV.) I never understood Reagan well until my teenage years, well into Bush 1’s term.

I really liked this article: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/ed_events/person.htm.

By the way, why is the web site for his California library hosted by the University of Texas at Austin and not by the National Archives?

Wright and Shelby Amendments

I sent this letter to my Congressional representatives:

I am writing to ask for the simultaneous repeal of the Wright and Shelby Amendments that restrict air travel from Love Field Airport in Dallas. By arbitrarily restricting the destinations of passenger flights, these amendments dilute the nation’s foremost discount carrier’s ability to compete with other airlines. This effectively increases Dallas-area airfares, causes a major inconvenience to passengers, and pointlessly impedes Dallas’s already-struggling economic vitality.

Aren Cambre
Dallas, TX