Ash Wednesday

In Christianity, Lent is a time of penance, prayer, preparation for or recollection of baptism, and preparation for the celebration of Easter Ash Wednesday in the Western Church, the first day of Lent, being the seventh Wednesday before Easter. On this day ashes are placed on the foreheads of the faithful to remind them of death, of the sorrow they should feel for their sins, and of the necessity of changing their lives. The practice, which dates from the early Middle Ages, is common among Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Episcopalians, and many Lutherans; it was also adopted by some Methodists and Presbyterians in the 1990s.


So -- New Orleans has had its Mardi Gras celebration. It was a grand symbol of renewal and regeneration for a devastated city. Fat Tuesday is over, the revelers are gone, and guess what? The whiners who didn't want the celebration to happen in the first place are now going to have to find something else to bitch about. These poor, miserable people who just didn't think that it was very nice for the people of New Orleans to have their celebration while they were still recovering from the hurricane will head out today to find something else to be miserable over. This is the way they have always been, and shall always be.


Violence begets Violence
Today comes news that two security guards were shot at a concert in London by rapper Kanye West. Evidently an altercation took place after somebody tried to get in without a ticket....whatever. The point is this: why is it that the only time you hear of violence at a concert is when it involves rappers? When's the last time somebody got shot at say...a Barry Manilow concert? (We're not counting suicides, either.)

THE PORTS
The CEO of Dubai Ports World testified in front of the Senate yesterday, saying his company wasn't taking over or buying the ports...just merely operating them. Right. So they're not taking them over...just....taking them over.

Meanwhile, the parent company of Dubai Ports World officially boycotts Israel. So we'd be turning over operation of our ports to Islamic fanatics that oppose one of our allies in the Middle East and one of the few democracies there. Good move! It should come as no surprise that the Anti-Defamation League opposes the deal.

WOW!
Walter E. Williams reminds everybody that the word "democracy" appears neither in The Declaration of Independence, nor the U.S. Constitution. In fact, he says that the United States isn't a democracy and that Iraq shouldn't be one either.


HIGHER LEARNING?
Professor David Bernstein has been following the American Bar Association's latest idiocy--requiring law schools to be "diverse" in both student body and faculty--even when this requires the law schools to violate state laws. (You know: those benighted, backward places like California that have prohibited racial discrimination in college admissions, to the horror of liberals everywhere.)

You know back when S.I. Hayakawa was one of California's U.S. Senators (back when Californians could send a Republican to the U.S. Senate--long, long ago), he used to tell a joke that he claimed showed the difference in philosophy between a Republican and a Democrat.

A man is 100 feet out in a lake, thrashing about, yelling for help. "I can't swim, I'm drowning help me!"

The Republican would come along with a 50 foot length of rope, throw one end to the man, and tell him, "You'll have to swim half the distance; it'll do you some good to be part of the process."

The Democrat woudl come along with a 200 foot coil of rope, throw the entire coil to the man, and then run off to do another good deed."

As with many such jokes, it exaggerates on both sides for effect. But affirmative action, to the extent that it has become a racial preference system in college admissions completely divorced from questions such as, "Will this student be adequately prepared for this university's requirements?" is throwing a 200 foot coil of rope.

As Professor McCaskle points out, the costs of that coil of rope is coming from taxpayers and from the black community.

Maybe we need to fix the problem of inferior primary and secondary schools?