** GRASSLEY PUSHING PROBE OFINSPECTORS GENERAL FIRINGS.Also, Robert Stacy McCain, "The ‘Domino Theory’ in the IG Scandal."
** AMTRAK 'SYSTEMATICALLY'VIOLATED LAW, SENATOR SAYS.
** 94-PAGE REPORT (PDF)
** MICHELLE MALKIN: Biden Connection
** DAN RIEHL: Amtrak VP Is Lobbyist
One of Michael Jackson's most famous lyrics proclaims, "It don't matter if you're black or white." But when it comes to the late singer's identification with African Americans, that declaration becomes much cloudier.Also, here'a bit from the Globe's story:
Jackson's massive popularity was continually shadowed by his evolving physical makeover from a dark-skinned boy with obvious ethnic features to a lighter-skinned man who had extensive plastic surgery on his face and nose, prompting concerns among African Americans and others that Jackson was trying to deny his heritage.
His high-profile relationships with white actresses, his marriages to Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe (who are both white) and suspicions that he wasn't in fact the biological father of his light-skinned children further divided African Americans. Some felt alienated by the singer's actions; others dismissed them as the acceptable eccentricities of a creative genius.
In 1993, Jackson told Oprah Winfrey - and, by extension, the entire planet - that he struggled with a skin condition called vitiligo that drained the pigment out of this skin. Regardless of whether this was actually the case, his face itself told the story of a torn soul. By the time of his death, he had become the perverse personification of the “double-consciousness’’ that W.E.B. DuBois described more than a century ago in “The Souls of Black Folk.’’It's hard to deny that in all of this, for Jackson, there was some racial self-loathing. Like black men of the pre-Civil Rights era - many of whom "pomaded" their hair with a nylon stocking-cap overnight, Jackson took efforts to minimize his blackness and make integration into the dominant white society easier. In so doing, his political message was a pop-culture version of the great '60s era of black Civil Rights: Racial integration was the last best hope of black American upward mobility. Economically, Jackson's phenomenal wealth, especially in the years prior to his personal decline, illustrated that the American dream was indeed available to those of talent and effort, irrespective of race.
“It is a peculiar sensation,’’ DuBois wrote, “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. . . . The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing . . . to merge his double self into a better and truer self.’’
Through his ongoing plastic surgeries and increasingly pale skin, Jackson took this longing to a kind of tragic extreme. The African features of his youth that he had been conditioned to loathe - through his troubled upbringing, through the limiting funhouse lens of popular culture - steadily disappeared. His wide bulb of a nose became a precariously slender triangle. His ice-cream-scoop Afro and, later, his juicy Jheri curl dried into cascade of straight, ravenous hair. And his bumpy brown skin became a chalky mask with a model’s cheekbones, a starlet’s doe eyes, and a matinee idol’s cleft chin. Jackson had grafted America’s white beauty myth (for both genders) onto his face.
This always happens to me. If there is a lonely dirty old man around he will undoubtedly find me and attach himself to me like a moth to a flame. He started talking about the current world we live in and how different it is for kids blah blah blah. So I humored and said yes it is different and continued with how I am getting old and am feeling it since all the icons from when I grew up pretty much all died in one day. I was of course being sarcastic, since there are still plenty of living icons from the 70's and 80's. He said, who? Michael Jackson? An icon? No way. Now this man was at least 20 years older than me and was acting like we were kindred spirits growing up in the same decade. Whatever. So I said well, he was pretty huge when I was a kid. He said, no he was only famous for a while, and then turned into a weirdo. He said some other choice things, but I tuned him out like a man watching football.
Thirty-four more pictures, at the link.
Of course, the Honduran military acted with the support of that country's supreme court, who had ruled Zelaya's proposals to change the constitution so that he could remain in power illegal. Also of course, Zelaya is a radical leftist allied with Hugo Chavez.Fox News notes the administration's quick action, "Obama Calls for Order as Honduran Military Arrests President." More at Memeorandum, and The Rhetorican.
Wow, the Obama administration springs immediately into action to succor a wannabe Marxist dictator, yet Beloved Leader Barrack couldn't find it in his heart to say a few "just words" when Iranians were dying in the streets under the thumb of the mullahs.
In a blatant attempt to stop the march of progress, comes this outrage. If newspapers are dying, good riddance to bad rubbish. The death of propagandists and disinformationalists can't come soon enough. America is in trouble. The inadequate traitor in the White House could never have been elected had it not been for the greatest act of perfidy in the media history. They have long abdicated their role as public servant. They are guilty of high treason.Interesting examples at the link.
Over the last few days I’ve noticed that a couple Republicans are taking to Twitter to discuss some pressing issues — boobs.NTTAWWT!!
Chris Wysocki, Blasting Caps and Dynamite, Moonbattery, Sweating Through the Fog, Three Beers Later, PA Pundits, Paco Enterprises, Ken Davenport, Sister Toldjah, Blazing Cat Fur, Dan Collins, Scott Kingsmore, The Astute Bloggers, The BoBo Files, Grant Jones, Tapline, New Testament News, Wizbang, William Jacobson, Phyllis Chesler, TigerHawk, Point of a Gun, Right Wing News, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Nice Deb, Becky Brindle, GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD, Fishersville Mike, Monique Stuart, No Sheeples Here!, Dana at CSPT, Glenn Reynolds, Obi’s Sister, Right Truth, Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels, Chicago Ray, Ace of Spades HQ, Natalie's Blog. Ann Althouse, Track-a-'Crat, Right View from the Left Coast, Generation Patriot, Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Edge's Conservative Movies, Stop the ACLU, Snooper's Report, Grandpa John's, Cranky Conservative, Jimmie Bise, Little Miss Attila, Moe Lane, Private Pigg, Pundit & Pundette, The Rhetorican, R.S. McCain, Saber Point, Stephen Kruiser, Suzanna Logan, TrogloPundit, Villainous Company, PoliGazette, Prying 1, The Western Experience, The Oklahoma Patriot, Right Wing Sparkle, Conservatism With Heart, Duck of Minerva, Doug Ross Journal, Wolf Howling, Right Wing Nation, Right Wing Nuthouse, Melissa Clouthier, Paula in Israel, Pamela Geller, Vanessa's Blog, Pat's Daily Rants, Bob's Bar & Grill, Power Line, Melanie Morgan, Dave in Boca, Neo-Neocon, Right in a Left World, Flag Gazer, Stephen Green, The Tygrrrr Express, The News Factor, Israel Matsav, The Conservative Manifesto, Gates of Vienna, Joust The Facts, Panhandle Poet, Steven Givler, The Astute Blogger, The Daley Gator, Just One Minute, Dave's World, Sparks From the Anvil, Gateway Pundit, Political Pistachio, Liberty Pundit, Not One Red Cent, Right Truth, Dave's Notepad, The Red Hunter, Maggie's Farm, The Next Right, This Ain't Hell, Stop the ACLU, Politics and Critical Thinking, Riehl World View, Midnight Blue, Caroline Glick, The Average American, The Griper, FouseSquawk, The Other McCain, Cheat Seeking Missiles, Roger Simon, Classical Values, Samantha Speaks, Grizzly Mama, The Capitol Tribune, The Patriot Room, The Real World, RADARSITE, Serr8d's Cutting Edge, Bloviating Zeppelin, Born Again Redneck The Educated Shoprat, St. Blogustine, Yid With Lid, Pondering Penguin, Betsy's Page, The Anchoress, Ace of Spades HQ, Right Wing Sparkle, Thunder Run, The Classic Liberal, Conservative Grapevine, Cassy Fiano, Jim Treacher, NetRightNation, Q and O, Urban Grounds, Ed Driscoll, Cold Fury, Michelle Malkin, Neptunus Lex, Neo-Neocon, The Liberty Papers, The Monkey Cage, Law and Order Teacher, Mike's America, AubreyJ, Dan Collins, The Jungle Hut, Wake Up America, Dan Riehl, Nikki's Blog, Maggie's Notebook, Hummers & Cigarettes, Mark Goluskin, Jawa Report, Darleen Click, The Skepticrats, Fausta's Blog, Clueless Emma, Obob's World, Seymour Nuts, Red State, Dr. Sanity, The Desert Glows Green, Not One Red Cent, Vinegar and Honey, Sarge Charlie, Thoughts With Attitude, Kim Priestap, Swedish Meatballs Confidential, Five Feet of Fury, Amy Proctor, Blonde Sagacity, Liberty Papers, The Blog Prof, and Big Girl Pants.
Also, never forget Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit!
