Jeannie-ology

It was regrettable to hear the sad news that Hollywood actor Michael Douglas has recently been diagnosed with throat cancer.  Naturally, Douglas’ wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, is upset and concerned as any spouse would be when a beloved partner takes seriously ill.

Ms. Zeta-Jones is doubly distressed because, according to the actress, Douglas was subjected to “Intolerable Cruelty” by doctors who failed to detect his serious condition sooner. Catherine claims Douglas “spent months seeking attention for persistent throat and ear pain only to be told nothing was wrong.” In a recent interview Michael Douglas’ perturbed wife shared: “It makes me furious they didn’t detect it earlier…He sought every option and nothing was found.”

Thankfully, Michael Douglas is a famous man of means.  As soon as the walnut-sized tumor at the base of his tongue was discovered, Douglas instantly began receiving radiation and chemotherapy. Despite the fact that when it was diagnosed Douglas’ cancer was a harrowing Stage 4, doctors feel the actor has an 80% chance of survival.

In touch with earthly transience, Douglas claimed in a recent interview to be “uncertain about the future,” noting “you just never think it’s going to be you.” America hopes and prays that with prompt care Michael Douglas regains his health. However, there is a strange sort of irony to this otherwise tragic situation.

Awareness of human mortality is interesting coming from a noted Democrat like Michael Douglas.   Especially since the “Basic Instinct” actor faithfully contributed to candidates responsible for passing a horrendous health care reform bill poised to negatively impact the mortality of defenseless Americans.

After suffering the ravages of a dread disease like throat cancer, maybe Michael Douglas will comprehend the error of financing candidates who eagerly signed onto a bill that, in due time, will subject gravely ill people to the same frustrating situation Douglas has endured for months.

The Hollywood actor’s contributions to Barack Obama’s campaign and every other Democrat candidate – including the late health care reform champion, “lion of the Senate” Edward Kennedy – ensured that, unlike Michael Douglas himself, many sick Americans will never have the same opportunity to promptly see a doctor.  Faced with an uncertain future, it’s possible the ill and infirm will be forced to wait months for diagnostic care.  Then, if need be, when a government bureaucrat decides to approve treatment, in many cases it may be too late.

Zeta-Jones said that “After months of feeling the pain creep up on him, of having a dry throat and hoarse voice, the news of his cancer … wasn’t a huge shock. I knew something was up. He knew something was up.”

Before the Douglas family casts a vote in 2010, and especially in 2012, after experiencing what they’ve experienced maybe the couple will reflect on how it would feel to be subjected to watching Michael endure unbearable pain, aware that “something is up,” while waiting months for access to a physician.  And then being forced to wait six more months for a too-late-in-coming second opinion.

Zeta-Jones said “she can’t stand the thought of watching her husband undergoing chemotherapy and radiation and losing his strength as he battles the disease.”  At least Catherine’s husband has the opportunity to fight and conquer throat cancer. However, thanks to Michael Douglas’ choice for President in 2008, the future looks dim for other terminally ill Americans who in the future stand a good chance of being denied the type of life-saving treatment Michael Douglas, thank God, has had the benefit to receive.

Regardless of politics and at a difficult juncture in his life I pray Michael Douglas beats throat cancer and is fully restored to full and vigorous health.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Originally posted at American Thinker Blog

The Obama vacation was a smashing success. Rested and ready Obama made an impromptu appearance in the Rose Garden sans the now famous bicycle helmet. America’s back pedaling president looked so refreshed it appeared as if New England lobster managed to erase even the telltale grays from the President’s closely cropped hair.

The reason for the press briefing was Barack’s desire to extend presidential comfort by reassuring the nation, via the press, that the team that ushered in a code blue economy remains “on top of the economic crisis.”

While vacationing, Obama proved to America that riding a miniature two-wheeler is not a life skill a 6’2″ man ever forgets.  The President also proved a 10-day break in Martha’s Vineyard does not affect an ingrained propensity to blame George W. Bush.

Stepping toward the podium, Obama dove right in.  However, due to technical difficulty, it took Obama three tries to blame Bush for the appalling economy.  Stumbling over well-planned condemning comments, even the microphone refused to broadcast Barack’s never-ending drivel.

The solemn, accusatory president began by saying that when elected he was completely unaware of the depth of America’s “economic hole,” let alone how long it would take to “climb out.” However, when in a fix, Obama appears extremely knowledgeable as to how effectively project perpetual culpability onto everyone other than himself.

Obama expressed the following opinion about the flagging economy:  “What we did know was that it took nearly a decade – to dig the hole we are in.” Then the President gave himself eight years of economic leeway following the “dig the hole” comment with an “even longer to dig our way out.”

After the sound system issues, garbled statements and flyover airplane interference ceased, the President continued blaming G.W. and then segued directly into pointing the finger at Senate Republicans.  Never once did Obama acknowledge any personal culpability for being completely and hopelessly clueless.

Maybe someone should have raised their hand and reminded Obama that during the first six years of Bush’s tenure the economy was booming.  It was the last two years, after a national referendum on Iraq, that Democrats took over both houses and the economy began to falter. Adding Obama’s liberal-socialistic policies to the already ailing economy turned a benign common cold into a case of full-blown pneumonia.

Obama claimed Republicans are now in the process of obstructing an “initiative [he] proposed to cut taxes that will encourage small businesses to hire and expand, as well as a $30 billion small business lending initiative.”

Partisan President Obama actually had the temerity to accuse Senate Republicans of damaging economic growth by “holding this bill hostage.” The man who impedes everything from individual freedom to economic recovery dramatically uttered the scripted slogan: “Drop the blockade.”

Soberly droning on, uttering meaningless poppycock, Obama continued reading off the teleprompter.  The president’s rhetoric included references to small businesses, middle class tax cuts, job creation and economic growth. As usual, in a five-minute statement Obama managed to fit in incendiary lingo like “partisan minorities” and “political games.”

Towards the end, the sun must have been in Obama’s eyes because the President stumbled over words like “effort,” correcting it to “attack.” Before turning and walking away, the smooth talker slipped up and blurted out the very apropos “silver spoon” instead of “silver bullet.”

A few hours after the technically-challenged economic encouragement/blame-Bush undertaking, the Dow plummeted 140 points, proving the point that, like everything Barack does, the ready-to-wreak-havoc Rose Garden declaration was just another in a long list of “smashing” Obama successes.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Originally posted at American Thinker Blog

MSNBC political pundit Chris Matthews was so smitten with the President’s speechifying that stirring electrical currents physically manifested in his body. The separation-of-church-and-state commentator admitted he “cried over an Obama speech” and “compared him to Jesus.”

Completely infatuated, Matthews openly gushed when Barack spoke: “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.”

Apparently, Chris’s tingle didn’t cease with his legs; based on the MSNBC anchor’s pre-Glenn Beck rally comments, the current traveled straight to his race-baiting brain.

The night prior to the Glenn Beck-hosted gathering, Chris Matthews felt it was his patriotic duty to spew malice and spin the “Restoring Honor” Lincoln Memorial event into what he defined as a “nightmare.”

Americans gathering to peacefully pray, exercise freedom of speech and laud the greatness of our nation are being depicted by Chris Matthews as “Little right-wing boys and little right-wing girls joining hands and singing praise for Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.” Matthews’ tingly hero worship explains the MSNBC commentator projecting juvenile idolatry on hundreds of thousands of peacefully assembled Americans who were doing anything but worshiping Beck and Palin.

Reporting on the event, an acerbic media stunned by the large, God-centered turnout repeatedly played the race card and underscored the fact that few minorities were spotted in the crowd.  In the run-up to the rally, hypocritical news organizations even lowered themselves to negatively grilling “Restoring Honor” speakers like Martin Luther King’s niece Alveda King, the unspoken implication being that Black Americans are traitors if choosing to speak anywhere besides the Al Sharpton “We-Alone-Own-MLK rally.”

The left cultivates division and then complains about a racial divide.  Liberals stir up strife and then claim that minorities avoid gatherings like the “Restoring Honor” event, which was attended by hundreds of thousands of people who, regardless of race, treasure the values Martin Luther King espoused.

Chris Matthews’ lies and innuendos demonstrate that the anchor believes the left has cornered the market on understanding the gravity of the injustices Black Americans suffered during a shameful period in our nation’s history. Pundits like Matthews forget that just two short years ago, a largely Caucasian nation ecstatically elected America’s first African-American president.

Of late, the majority is coming to the stark realization Obama’s policies are bad for America, not his race.  As a result, a colorblind electorate that catapulted Barack into the Oval Office is now being accused of racism because of efforts to restore lost honor and foster national harmony.

Presently, the left is frantically rooting around in a political dumpster for their last grasp of discordant power. Race baiters are emerging from the farthest recesses of a refuse heap with a crumpled, stained race card firmly in hand. Racial strife is the last great hope of the likes of political pundits whose true “nightmare” is the exercise of Constitutional freedoms giving rise to the dream of which Martin Luther King spoke and the realization that that “dream” is hindered only by those like Chris Matthews, who fear its unifying power.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Originally posted at American Thinker blog

The hate crime accusers are on the march.  What could be better than a WASP psychopath with one too many Budweisers under his cowboy belt slashing a Muslim cab driver just as the 9-11 mosque controversy came to a rolling boil in New York City?

Muslim cab driver Ahmed Sharif picked up a very thirsty American student and, as a result, one unsuspecting Muslim nearly became a statistic.

Apparently, after imbibing numerous alcoholic beverages, Michael Enright felt obligated to embark upon a personal Checkered Cab Crusade, slashing a taxicab driver in the neck and upper lip in what is being reported as an “explosion of anti-Muslim violence in the close confines of [a] New York City taxi.”

Is it fair to define one drunk and one Muslim as an “explosion of anti-Muslim violence?”  To date, an assemblage of tee-totaling Muslims killing 3,000g 3,000
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Victim-cabdriver Ahmed shared the horror story: “I’m driving. He asked me where I’m from. I said Bangladesh. Second question he ask me, are you Muslim? I said yes. Then he tells me ‘assalamu alaikum,’” Sharif said.

A pattern is emerging: Arabic terms like “Assalamu alaikum” and “Allahu akbar” seem to be the war cry of hate mongers as faraway from New York City as Ft. Hood, Texas.

Sharif said Enright began “ridiculing the Muslim holiday of Ramadan and then started a bizarre, belligerent rant.” Enright allegedly said, “This is checkpoint [expletive]. I have to put you down.”

Then the honor student/Afghanistan reporter from Putnam County “lunged through the cab partition with a knife.” As Ahmed struggled, the cab rolled for two blocks. “The knife came here and when he knife like this by his right hand then I back up like this, then it come here,” Sharif said, showing defensive arm wounds.

Police claimed an under-the-influence Enright lacerated Sharif with a Leatherman military knife. Eventually, the drunk was arrested and charged with “attempted murder as a hate crime.”

In a climate described as “anti-Muslim,” and based on objections to a mosque being erected near Ground Zero, why is a singular act of asinine behavior on the part of a frat-boy with a history of alcohol abuse being called an “explosion” of anti-Muslim sentiment?

Why couldn’t Enright’s hateful actions be attributed to post-Afghanistan traumatic stress disorder, which many suggested instigated Major Nidal Hasan’s massacre of 13 American soldiers?

As the taxi fracas ensued, instead of exiting the cab, a bloodied Sharif decided to lock the inebriated Enright inside the vehicle.  The injured cabbie chose to shuttle a person dead set on murdering Muslims around town until finding a police officer?  What happened, did Enright black out in the back of the cab?

Javaid Tariq of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance is convinced the incident is a hate crime. “It is not any robbery or fare dispute or anything else. Talking to him, asking him if he’s a Muslim? Telling him, it’s a checkpoint and stabbing him. Of course it’s a hate crime,” and a conveniently timed hate crime at that.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Sharif accepted an invitation from pro-Cordoba Project Mayor Bloomberg to visit City Hall. After Enright’s intolerant act, Sharif could potentially become the official poster child for hate crimes against Muslims in America.

Ahmed Sharif may have been sliced up by a drunken lout just in time to convince Americans that the only way for the nation’s anti-Muslims sentiment to be breached is by building a 15-storey mosque next to Ground Zero.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Originally posted at American Thinker

Down through history there are untold examples of hostility and acts of war resulting in the loss of millions of lives. Regardless of ethnicity, religion, or point of dispute, the universal agreement amongst civilized people is that genocidal aggressions like the Nazi Holocaust or Pol Pot’s Killing Fields constitute crimes against humanity.

However, history tells us that if Islam is at the source of the antagonism, reciprocal sensitivity and consideration toward victims of Muslim aggression are oftentimes absent. In fact, the annals of time reveal a disturbing trend: “In the cases where the Muslims conquered principal cities, they constructed the mosque in the place that was the centre of the religion of the conquered people.”

Presently, controversy swirls around the Cordoba Project, a proposal to build a fifteen-storey mosque/community center two blocks from the site of an attack where an attempted deathblow to America was delivered by Islamic jihadists.

The Cordoba Project is partially being promoted as a monument to the three thousand who perished in the World Trade towers that fateful September morn. Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, maintains that Muslims associated with the Cordoba Initiative intended only “to look at the legacy of 9/11 and do something positive.” Khan claims the American Society for Muslim Advancement represents moderate Muslims who want “to reverse the trend of extremism and the kind of ideology that the extremists are spreading.”

In addition to portraying it as a memorial bridge between faiths, defenders of the mosque maintain that building a house of worship on private property is an exercise of the constitutional right that grants freedom of religion to all Americans.

The site where three thousand perished is revered and consecrated by the blood of the dead. Regardless of “moderate Muslim” intentions, Americans view the site of the 9-11 massacre as sacredly significant. In essence, lower Manhattan is a burial ground where the unearthed remains of many still reside.

Muslims who insist on placing a mosque so close to holy ground, which would not exist but for the murderous aggression committed by Muslim warriors, is eerily reminiscent of acts of dominance carried out from age to age by Islamic conquerors.

In 630 AD, Muslims captured Islam’s holiest city, Mecca. It was there that a mosque was erected at the Ka’aba on the site of a building built by Abraham, the Judeo-Christian Old Testament father of faith. Muslims honor Patriarch Abraham for siring desert-dweller Ishmael, son of slave woman Hagar. Muslims claimed Abraham for Islam by building a mosque around the original Abrahamic structure, encircling the building and calling it the Masjid al-Haram.

In the 7^th century, when Islam triumphed over Damascus, the Church of Saint John the Baptist (believed to enshrine the head of the baptizer) was destroyed and replaced with a mosque. Legend has it that “Under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid the church was demolished … [and] Al-Walid himself initiated the demolition by driving a golden spike into the church.”

Most notably, the struggle for religious dominance continues between the Muslims and the Jewish seed of Isaac on what was once the Jewish Temple Mount, site of Solomon’s Temple. The Muslim descendants of Ishmael, after conquering Jerusalem in 638 AD, turned the temple into a Muslim shrine. The infamous holy place called the Dome of the Rock is situated in close proximity to the highly revered Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Around 700 AD, in Cordoba, Spain, after Muslims conquered the Visigothic kingdom, Emir Abd ar-Rahman I took possession of the Church of St. Vincent, and for the next two centuries, what was once a Christian church was transformed into the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

Before the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia was the “center of Eastern Christianity.” The Ottoman conquest initiated the “era of Islamic worship in the holy structure, which Mehmed II converted into a mosque immediately after his conquest.”

In modern history, a territorial struggle started by Muslims culminated in one of the worst acts of genocidal aggression in modern times. The massacre took place at the end of the Slavic civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mining town of Srebrenica, on the border of Serbia. Only this time, barbarian Serbs, Christian in name only, targeted a Muslim enclave and systematically slaughtered 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men.

To date, there is nothing on record that indicates that Serbian Christians have ever requested permission to erect an Orthodox church in Srebrenica to pay homage to the memory of the 8,000 Muslims who perished.

Proposing to erect a mosque whose outline will cast a dark shadow across the ground where Muslim jihadists slaughtered three thousand Americans, even if sincere in intent, is nonetheless an example of tactless insensitivity on the part of those supposedly attempting to bridge a religious divide.

However, if the Cordoba Project is revealed to be menacing in its objective, the Park 51 mosque is yet another example of radical Muslims seeking triumph over territory. Disguised as merchants of peace, men like Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, may in truth be just others in a long line of warriors who, down through the ages, have committed themselves to advancing Islamic dominance for Allah by subjugating and occupying the world, one mosque at a time.

UPDATE: I have never claimed to be an expert on any subject let alone Balkans history.  Since writing this article I have come to find out the Srebrenica incident remains a controversial issue worldwide and a minority believe in a view contrary to what was contained in my article.  The research I did indicated that the USA, the UN, NATO and the world court all believe there was a massacre at Srebrenica.  At no time did the research indicate an opposing view.  The point about the Christians, in name only, slaughtering Muslim men was peripheral to the article whose main objective was the history of victory mosques.  If, when writing the article, I had been aware of the controversy or the offensive nature of the statement, I would surely have left the comment out.

Popularity: 22% [?]