You go through the visitors center and there it is. You’ve seen it in photographs a hundred times, the famous gate: “Arbeit Macht Frei.” Work will set you free. The idea was to be reassuring, unlike the slogan Dante hung over the entrance to his hell, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Put in an honest day and everything will be all right. Counterproductive to panic the arrivals. Here, and up the road, in Birkenau, they thought through all the details, down to the numbered hooks in the dressing rooms outside the gas chambers. The SS jollied you along. Remember which hook you hang your clothes on so you’ll be able to get find them after the shower. And don’t forget to put your shoes underneath so you’ll be able to get them, too. You’re a shoemaker? Great, we need shoemakers. At Auschwitz, they even had a prisoner orchestra playing inside the gate. It helped keep order. Good for morale, too. How bad could it be, if they greeted you with music?
It’s February and gray. The poplar trees that line the avenues between the cellblocks are bare. The swimming pool—See? We even have a swimming pool!—that was to impress the Red Cross is covered with dirty ice. Crows, gallows. It’s hands-in-the-pockets cold, but would you want to see this in springtime, with blossoms and sweet earth smells?
Exhibit B: Mande Wilkes, who has a dictionary and writes for one of the most sexist blogs in South Carolina, but has no discernable sense of history (emphasis added):
As a politically correct flipside to his effusive Arab overtures, Barack Obama visited a concentration camp yesterday.
Because an appeal to Arabs is a diss to Jews … or that’s how Obama must see it. Otherwise, why would he, apropos of absolutely nothing, visit some obscure Holocaust holdover?
The meanest people in American politics are on the left, bar none. No conservative I know can hold a candle for sheer outright meanness, sometimes savagery. And of course, that comes from believing that power is everything and winning is the only thing that matters, which we do not believe.
The men who landed on the beaches of Normandy are considered thegreatestGeneration. Rightly so. I have an awful saddest for what our generation will go down in the history books as.
The only people who are impressed with any of it are self-loathing leftists.
A pastor in Kentucky is redefining the tradition of wearing your Sunday best to services by encouraging his congregation to strap on holsters and bring their weapons to church.
Pastor Ken Pagano of New Bethel Church in Louisville, Ky., says that he organized an "Open Carry Celebration" to promote responsible gun ownership.
"As a Christian pastor I believe that without a deep-seeded belief in God and firearms that this country would not be here," Pagano told ABCNews.com. "I'm not ashamed of that fact. I'm proud of it."
The celebration scheduled for Sunday, June 27, will feature YouTube videospromoting gun safety and will ask congregants to join in singing patriotic songs, according to Pagano.
A $1 raffle to win a free handgun will also be part of the festivities.
Spell-check alert: it's deep-seated, Bozo, not seeded.
-National Review, one of whose online contributors bitched that Judge Sotomayor should pronounce her name the way white guys think it should be pronounced, and which has given space to others to call her a racist, doubles down by portraying her as Asian. Watch for NR to embrace the "N' word any day:
-Four western North Carolina loons have been indicted for printing their own libertarian currency:
Among the seized coins are the $20 dollar mark produced by the group,which features Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a libertarian icon and monetary policy critic, on its "heads" side.
- Buchanan Watch: Patrick Buchanan's sister says one of her employees was the subject of a Clarence Thomas-style "Internet lynching" after it emerged he assaulted a black woman minding her own business and (golly, we just predicted this a moment ago) invoked the "N" word against her.
-Girls, girls! One of the singular pleasures of the SC blogdom is watching the periodic eruptions between conservative bedmates Boy Fogle and Anaconda, each accusing the other of- in the words of the legendary western NC political boss Zeno Ponder- just "pootin' under the covers."
One thing unites the two: free-range homophobia. What divides them is who's paying their day jobs as campaign minions.
You know there's some real fees involved coz Scoop Doggy backhands Sic Willie as "The local blog FITSNews" and its proprietor, Mande Wilkes- sorry, Will Folkes- as "Bill Folkes."
Them's fightin' words from Pudge.
Aside from the fun of rattling the stick in an empty swill bucket before their pen, Waldo has no views on the dispute.
When not bitch-slapping Alexis in the lily pond, Krystle is serializing Harare Grocery's Bristol Palin Story. And indulging his ongoing, ghoulish, fascination with plane crashes.
the zombie, bare-shelved marketplace of conservative ideas, is beckoning readers over to have a gander at the abstinence tools behind the counter. A seven-part series on "authentic abstinence" is promised. As opposed to what? Two months they've been decomposing and it's evident they are becoming as might have been said of Bristol Palin, the pro-life movement's one-trick pony.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 4, 2009
Spartanburg County Young Republicans to hold Parliamentary Procedures Training
Spartanburg, SC – The Spartanburg County Young Republicans group will be holding a Parliamentary Procedures training course on June 23, 2009 at 6pm. The three-hour course will be held at the Evangel Cathedral (500 Evangel Road Spartanburg, SC 29301) in the Atrium. The class is designed to give a basic understanding of Parliamentary Procedure and Robert’s Rules of Order.
The course will be lead by State Parliamentarian Todd Kincannon, Associate with Barnes, Alford, Stork & Johnson.
Limited seats are available on a first come, first serve basis. Cost of the course is $25.00.
TPS: how did Boy Fogle get such butch-if tiny- hands?
Savonarola is the gift that just won't shut up. Today's observation by the state's number #1 conservative blogger and member of the US Commission on Civil Rights' SC Advisory Committee:
A pair of gay penguins have coupled to raise an orphaned baby penguin.
Vielpunkt and Z – two of six gay penguins in a German zoo – have “got straight down to raising” their adopted baby, according to a zoo statement.
“Since the chick arrived, they have been behaving just as you would expect a heterosexual couple to do. The two happy fathers spend their days attentively protecting, caring for and feeding their adopted offspring.”It’s news that adds heft – and dimension – to my “homosexuality-as-birth-defect” theory. You know, the one over which Sic Willie keeps taking inordinate grief from the gay community.
Anyway, as state after state legalizes same-sex marriage, (New Hampshire just yesterday succumbed to the “homomentum”) these penguins are evidence that homosexuality is universal. And universality goes a long way toward dismantling the perceived “abomination” of the whole thing.
And that goes a long way toward achieving humanity – not “equality,” that most mendacious of all ideals.
It’s humanity that should be the gays’ goal: Humane regard for that which is – and those who are – inherently something other than equal.
An so what if gays aren’t quite equal … if homosexuality just doesn’t “add up.” Well, neither do 11 fingers or 9 toes.
So what.
Humans are, ironically, the last among the animal kingdom to get the memo about humanity. (Really ironic, since the whole reason it’s called “humanity” is because compassion and empathy – and the capacity to choose to act accordingly – are supposed to be uniquely human traits, the very qualities which differentiate us from mere animals.)
And on that front people suck.
And penguins rock.
They’re cute, they’re compassionate, and they mate for life … which is something else people, straight or otherwise, can’t seem to do.
As we will no doubt see when Pastor Rick Warren offers a prayer for our incoming President, volatile, disordered rage seems to be part and parcel of the homosexual lifestyle. A Fox News headline declaring "Inaugural Pick Sparks Gay Fury," prompted an editor friend of mine to ask, "when was the last time gays were 'mildly vexed' by some turn of affairs, and expressed 'measured disappointment'"?
South Carolina's liberal blogosphere seems to have more than its share of enraged homosexualists. We don't expect them to like everything we publish here at Sunlit Uplands, and frankly, we don't care.
We will not engage their steady stream of insults, nor will we post coarse, insulting comments. We welcome comments of opposing points of view and will readily publish all that are civil. We will not provide a forum for those who coarsen the culture. Our intention is to defend, and in a small way to help in the renewal of a culture that is Christian and fully human.
So let the heathen rage! Our bet is that no one "is laughing" at their behavior, and most will find their manic rants rather tiresome after awhile.
Sunlit Uplands' #1 ranking by BlogNetNews is not the only proof of our effectively promoting the traditional values of "Faith, Freedom, Defense of the West, and Renewal of the Culture" in South Carolina's blogosphere.
Our effectiveness can also be measured and validated by the volume and intensity of vitriol sent our way by obviously disturbed and threatened liberals. The more effective we are at promoting our values, and thus the greater the threat the Radical Left perceives us to pose to theirs, the more intense and hostile will grow their attacks.
And on that scale, Sunlit Uplands is hurtling headlong toward the top as well. As evidenced by one particularly disturbed liberal, whose reactionary bile can only be described as over the top.
Perhaps overcome by a rush of wishful thinking, South Carolina's #4 Liberal Blogger wore his religious bigotry and personal hostility (dare we say "hate"?) on his sleeve Monday when he gleefully imagined my death:"One can only wonder what [Cassidy's] last thoughts would be if someone ran him to ground in his parish at confession (surely, as an aside, those sessions must be truly marvelous exercises in magical realism) or taking communion for the astonishing and popular spew of hate and bigotry his blog presents daily, and pumped a few lead rounds into him."Several observations...
First, this is an instructive example of what the word "hate" means to the left-wing hypocrites who seek ultimately to criminalize the free speech and thought of anyone who dares disagree with them.
1. If a conservative traditional values advocate merely expresses disagreement with or opposition to liberals' repressive political agenda, such mere expression constitutes "hate and bigotry."
2. On the other hand, if a member of the anointed left publishes a blog post graphically fantasizing about the violent murder of a conservative, that is of course merely reasoned discourse.
We also note that South Carolina's #4 Liberal Blogger makes frequent reference to all things "gay," even posting at the top of his blog a running count of how many times even our socialist president has failed to sufficiently safeguard the "rights" of those who engage in homosexual behavior.
Thus, we feel comfortable simply asking if SC#4LB should be judged by the same standard routinely demanded by professionally-aggrieved homosexual activist groups.
Their repressive thought- and speech-control rationale goes something like this, according to theNational Gay and Lesbian Task Force: "Anti-gay rhetoric and anti-gay violence go hand-in-hand. The right wing is creating the most hostile atmosphere for (homosexual) people in recent memory. Hate violence is a logical extension of these rhetorical, legislative, and electoral attacks. When anti-gay rhetoric escalates, so does anti-gay violence. Hate crimes are a result of that intolerance. No one should condone violence against any group of people, nor should they contribute to an atmosphere that fosters such intolerance and violence."
Thus, because Dr. James Dobson publicly advocates traditional Biblical morality, he is accused by homosexual activists and their left-wing media allies of being morally responsible for inciting the beating death of Matthew Shepard. (In other words, by merely expressing a traditional moral code, Dobson is characterized as evil, hateful, and reprehensible.)
If Cardinal Maida of Detroit publicly supports in his state a Marriage Protection Amendment such as that approved by 77 percent of South Carolina voters, then homosexual activists say he is morally responsible for inciting the falsely alleged beating death of a homosexual senior citizen in Detroit -- who as it turned out, according to the medical examiner, died of arthritic paralysis. (In other words, merely by defending the mainstream value of traditional marriage, Cardinal Maida is portrayed as both evil, hateful, and reprehensible -- or as one prominent homosexual activist called him, "recklessly wicked.")
Similarly, if Sunlit Uplands regularly posts comments promoting traditional American values, Biblical morality, or even sacred music, then -- in the eyes of disturbed leftists such as SC#4LB -- this author obviously must also be both evil, hateful, and reprehensible. (And in good company, at that.)
Which raises this simple "what's good for the goose" question:
By painting Dr. Dobson and Cardinal Maida and myself as evil, hateful, and reprehensible, and thus obviously worthy of contempt, do homosexual activists and their allies create a climate of hostility in which someone might be encouraged to commit acts of violence against us? Does anti-conservative rhetoric and anti-conservative violence go hand in hand? When anti-conservative rhetoric escalates, does anti-conservative violence follow? No one should condone violence against any group of people, so should liberals continue to contribute to an atmosphere that fosters intolerance and violence toward conservatives?
If merely expressing a different point of view amounts to "hate," as leftists define the term, does that term not all the more so apply -- in the real world -- to SC#4LB's graphic imagining of my being pumped full of lead while at church? Should I now go running to the federal government to demand special protection? If someone gives me a dirty look, or worse, should I demand specially-enhanced prison sentence for my assailant? Should SC#4LB be held criminally responsible, arrested, and charged with inciting a "hate crime"?
Forbid it, Almighty God.
In the meantime, we are promised by Christ Himself that we are "blessed" when were are reviled and persecuted for righteousness' sake, when they say all kinds of evil against us falsely for His sake, and we are under His direct instruction to "rejoice and be exceedingly glad" when it happens.
It is in that spirit that we know that the time, energy, personal hostility, and intensity with which the Left attacks us is one of the surest measures of how effectively Sunlit Uplands is threatening their repressive agenda.
Along with our #1 ranking in South Carolina's blogosphere, that's cause for a lot of rejoicing.
We also note that South Carolina's #4 Liberal Blogger makes frequent reference to all things "gay," even posting at the top of his blog a running count of how many times even our socialist president has failed to sufficiently safeguard the "rights" of those who engage in homosexual behavior.
These are some of the names who have signed onto a new document that calls on Senate Republicans to filibuster Judge Sonia Sotomayor when her confirmation hearings begin:
Gary Bauer, American Values
Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family
Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America
Donald E. Wildmon, American Family Association
Rev. Rick Scarborough, Vision America
Rev. Louis Sheldon, Traditional Values Coalition
Andrea Lafferty, Traditional Values Coalition
Linda Harvey, Mission America
Sandy Rios, Culture Campaign
Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth
Brian Camenker, MassResistance
Kris Mineau, Massachusetts Family Institute
Gary Glenn, President, American Family Association of Michigan
Diane Gramley, American Family Association of Pennsylvania
Don Feder, Feder Associates, Massachussetts
Janet M. LaRue, Esq., Jan LaRue Consulting, Texas
Larry Cirgnano, Virginia
Janet Parshall, Nationally Syndicated Talk show HostSome of the most anti-gay voices in the political realm, a few of whom even represent SPLC-certified hate groups. And these are not even close to the only queer-resistant folks on the list, just the ones that are most recognizable to G-A-Y readers.
Oh, but there's another voice who has signed onto this exact same doc:
Jimmy LaSalvia, GOProud
Yes, that's right: Openly gay Jimmy LaSalvia, head of the Log Cabin Republican splinter group GOProud, has put his name right alongside these professionally
homo-hostile "John, get your Hands off his cock"s! The same people who gripe about Lawrence v. Texas to this very day. The same folks who use the "activist judge" label when a justice so much as lisps when yelling "order in the court." The same people who'll surely take to the streets in rage if the court were to rule when the court rules in favor of our marriage equality. Jimmy has put his pen to the same court-centric paper.
GOProud? When your form of "pride" is this willing to join forces with your community's most heated opponents, who needs shame?
Conservatives Ask Republican Senators to Filibuster on Sotomayor [NYT Caucus blog] (H/t: Damieon)
-They's fightin' words: Tom Fetzer, the former mayor of Raleigh, N.C., filed a libel lawsuit late Monday afternoon against a Wilmington radio host who is accused of forwarding an e-mail insinuating that Fetzer is gay.
The suit comes in the middle of Fetzer's campaign against three other men to lead the state's Republican party, which will be decided at the state GOP convention June 12 - 14.
The suit seeks damages of $10,000 or more from Curtis Wright, the host of "The Morning Beat with Curtis Wright," as well as Sea-Comm, Inc., the corporate owner of WLTT, Curtis' employer. Wright could not be immediately reached.
Wright is accused of forwarding an email that included allegations that Fetzer is gay, though Wright is not thought to be the author of the anonymous email, according to the lawsuit.
Fetzer, in the suit, accused Wright of concocting a smear campaign against Fetzer to thwart the former Raleigh mayor's attempt to lead the state Republican party. Curtis, Fetzer claims in the suit, has endorsed Marcus Kindley from Guilford County for the position.
The lawsuit never mentions the word gay nor does it specify the potentially libelous statements.
Fetzer and his attorneys wrote that Curtis spread rumors that "tend to charge Mr. Fetzer with a crime of offense involving moral turpitude, to charge Mr. Fetzer with dishonesty, to disgrace and degrade Mr. Fetzer, to hold Mr. Fetzer up to public ridicule and contempt, and to cause Mr. Fetzer to be avoided and shunned," the suit states.
But Fetzer may face legal hurdles in the lawsuit.
The N.C. Court of Appeals ruled in 1994 that falsely claiming someone is gay or bisexual is not libelous on its face.
Fetzer sent an email to supporters late last month announcing his plans to sue Wright and denying that he's gay.
"I am not gay -- never have been -- never will be," Fetzer wrote. "The fact that I'm 54 and single does not mean that I have to put up with vicious rumors that I'm gay. The fact that I am heterosexual is a matter of public record."
No comment yet from Republican SC senator Lindsey Graham, who turns 54 July 9. Nor has Fetzer elaborated on how one's sexual orientation becomes a matter of public record short of public indecency.
- New Hampshire is the sixth state to allow marriage-equality, by a vote of its legislature. Rhode Island is willing to recognize the existence of domestic partners, but only when one of them is dead.
-Back to GPats: Mr. Hollywood says President Obama is dumber than President Bush.
In response, we offer Mr Olbermann:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
-79% of Anaconda's poll-answering readers believe Linda Ketner's outed the right three SC Republicans.
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