May 7, 2004 by s.z.

"How Low Can Women Go?" Dr. Laura has a few words to say about Barbara Walters -- and they boil down to "you ignorant slut."  But first, Laura has to explain how feminism has brought about the fall of civilization as we know it -- by encouraging women to not listen to Dr. Laura. As I wrote almost a dozen years ago in my first bestseller, "Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives," the ultimate baseness and immorality of a culture depends on what women will themselves do and tolerate from their men. So, women are solely answerable for the morality of a culture because they are responsible for not only what they do, but for what men do.  That's because men are born without souls.  (I'm just guessing about that second part.) The first battle cries of feminism had to do with this amorphous misery of being a so-called "drudge" in the home – being a wife, mother and homemaker would somehow cause a woman to contract the "disease with no name." This disease supposedly represented the unhappiness due to routine housework and a lack of sense of meaningfulness, importance and power because she was not in rush-hour traffic dealing with an impersonal corporate structure. Women, your only choices are (a) Stay home and find true feminine fufillment from scubbing toilets, mopping floors, changing diapers, and cooking dinners for your loving family; or (b) deny your womanly nature and enter the masculine world of work, which only involves frustrating traffic, cold, unfeeling "corporate structures, and boring, icky HARD stuff that you won't want to bother your pretty, little head with. The cure for this "disease" was to demean everything uniquely feminine, womanly and maternal, and to ultimately attempt to destroy the traditional culture of society and family – in other words, give up everything that was powerful and unique about being a woman. One doesn't have to come from a religious fundamentalist background to recognize the incredible miracle of life's re-creation that takes place in a woman's body with pregnancy. But it helps.  Anyway, women, remember that feminists HATE pregnancies, and will rip your baby right out of your womb if they get the chance.  The feminist "pro-choice" message is not about choice at all – how many Planned Parenthood and private physician abortion clinics present the 50-50 choice of abortion or adoption? Where is the choice issue? Abortion has become legal murder by inconvenience. Because unless Planned Parenthood devotes exactly the same amount of time to both options, you don't actually have a choice between them.  And I kind of wonder about the statement about abortion being "murder by inconvenience"  -- because if you can murder things by inconvenience, I swear my bank is trying to murder me, because its employees make even the simplest thing so difficult that you finally just give up.  Or die.   One doesn't have to be a religious fundamentalist to value the sacred nature of the human body – the female body in particular. In fact, 1960's feminists decried what they saw as the sexual objectification of women. Now, the feminists hold up the Britney Spears, Madonnas, Hiltons and so forth as powerful, significant, important role-models for girls. Laura, I challenge you -- name even one feminst who holds up Britney Spears as a role model for girls.  Name even HALF of a feminist who holds up Paris Hilton as a role model for anyone, even for aspiring millionaire porn stars.  One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to see how this has been profoundly destructive to the American family and the morale of young people, somewhat confused and still idealistic about having a loving, secure marriage and family. When women call my radio program and start out by telling me how many children they have, I now have to ask: "How many different fathers?" and "How many marriages?" and "With whom does each child live?" and "Which child gets to see which mom or dad?" and "Are you shacking up or married to any of these men now?" This is maternal instinct protecting their young? Yes, Laura has to ask these rude and intrusive questions, even if the woman was calling to ask Laura for toilet scrubbing tips or pot roast recipes.  Because Laura's job is to belittle and demean other women.  Eventually, we get to the part about Barbara Walters:  The ultimate in how low can women go is Barbara Walter's recent TV special where a child – shown full face on television and in print – is the prize in a contest for adoption. The child's proud and bold 16-year-old unwed, unattached mother (you see, folks, men have been taught that they need take on no responsibilities for their offspring or women) will select from a group of five couples which one will win her baby and be bothered by her continued (open-adoption) presence as they take responsibility for her irresponsibility by becoming virtual babysitters while she gets to pretend to be a responsible and involved "mother." So, as we see here, despite her earlier talk of choices, Laura doesn't really believe in adoption-- because it's just trying to pawn off your responsibility onto somebody else.  Of course, abortion is murder, so you don't get to choose that.  And you don't DESERVE to raise a baby if you're the kind of slut who would get pregnant out of wedlock.  You little tramp, Laura just washes her hands of you and hopes you rot in hell! Anyway, Dr. Laura finally reveals the point to the whole screed: Then again, this is from the woman who gives you "The View" – which, for the sake of complete disclosure, I walked off during the middle of the show after they grossly mistreated me (you see, women with traditional values don't fall within their perception of the correct "View") and misrepresented my published book's subject matter.) Yeah, "The View" hosts grossly mistreated Dr. Laura, presumably by laughing at her and her book about feeding husbands.  And besides, they're women, and therefore evil and stuff.  Dr. Laura hopes they rot in hell too. 6:41:43 AM

The Freepers Will Be So Happy An American convert to Islam has been "detained" in connection with the Madrid bombings -- now the wingnuts can get back to accusing Muslims and liberals of being traitors and al Qaeda supporters, and stop having to think about that unpleasantness coming out of Abu Ghraib.  The White House must be pretty relieved too. But it is an interesting story -- here are some highlights from Newsweek: May 6 - FBI agents today detained a Portland, Ore., lawyer after receiving evidence from Spanish authorities that the man’s fingerprints allegedly were found on bomb-related evidence associated with the March 11 railway attack in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded 2,000 people, NEWSWEEK has learned.  The man was identified as Brandon Mayfield, a convert to Islam who is tangentially linked to one of the chief defendants in the so-called “Portland Seven” case—a suspected terror cell in Oregon whose six surviving members pled guilty last year of plotting to fight for the Taliban against U.S. soldiers during the war in Afghanistan. Sources said that Mayfield had been under round-the-clock surveillance by the FBI for some time. According to law-enforcement sources, he was picked up by agents in Portland today and is being held as a “material witness” in a Grand Jury investigation—a status that allows the Justice Department to hold him in secret without formally filing charges against him. So, he's been under surveillance for "some time" -- I wonder why they chose today to make their move against him? Sources said Mayfield's fingerprints were found on a bag containing bomb material connected to the Spanish attack. But officials said considerable uncertainty remained about Mayfield's role. [Mayfield has reportedly never been to Spain.] The lawyer’s previous connection to the Portland Seven was tangential; he had represented the interests of one of the chief defendants, Jeffrey Battle, in a custody matter involving Battle’s 6-year-old child that arose after he and the other suspects were arrested in the fall of 2002.  [Battle wanted his son raised by an uncle, who was Muslim, instead of his ex-wife, who wasn't -- Mayfield lost the case]. The Portland Seven case was among the significant—and to some, controversial—cases brought by the Justice Department since September 11. Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed it as a “defining day in America’s war against terrorism,” asserting that the FBI had “neutralized a suspected terrorist cell within our borders.” Critics later charged that the Justice Department produced no evidence that any of the suspects had engaged in acts of terrorism. But prosecutors did establish that the six men arrested had traveled through China trying unsuccessfully to cross into Pakistan in early October 2001. Their stated goal was to join Taliban forces in Afghanistan to help defend fellow Muslims against U.S. soldiers. (A seventh man was never arrested and prosecutors later said he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan.) Among the most incriminating evidence in the case were secret tape recordings made by a U.S. informant before the group left for Asia.   So, was Mayfield materially involved in the Madrid bombings?  Is he part of a terrorist cell in Oregon?  Is he associated with Al Qaeda?  Were any other Americans involved with the Madrid bombings?  Are we all in danger from Muslim converts?  From lawyers?  Expect to hear a lot more about this case in the days to come -- whether or not the FBI releases any official information -- because it refocuses everyone's attention back where it should be: on terrorism, instead of American war atrocities. 5:25:28 AM

Today's Worst Drivel About Abu Ghraib 1.  Kathryn Jean presents an interesting theory about what led to the abuses of prisoners: A LESSON OF ABU GHRAIB [KJL] Pornography ain't harmless, kids. Would this really be a total coincidence?: The head of a U.S. military police unit at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison is under investigation following charges he secretly photographed naked female American soldiers, officials said on Wednesday. Capt. Leo Merck, 32, a member of the California National Guard who commanded the 124-strong 870th Military Police Company, is under U.S. Army investigation and has been relieved of duty, they said. Posted at 05:32 PM The logic in this one is kind of hard to follow, but apparently KJL is saying that pornography caused Merck to sneak into the women's facility and film his unwitting female comrades as they showered, and from there, it was only a short step to condoning (or being unwitting of, or something to do with) the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners.  The only flaw in Kathryn's theory is the lack of porn -- unless she's talking about the photos which Merck took.  And in that case, her argument is kind of like saying that money causes bank robbery, in that at the conclusion of a successful heist, the thieves have money.  And since some people in Texas have money, and Charles Whitman shot several people from a bell tower in Austin, then money is the cause of spree killing. 2.  Now here's Charlotte Allen driveling at the InkWell, the blog of the Independent Women's Forum (which, btw, includes Lynne Cheney as one of the "Directors Emeritae"): But I can’t help grinning at the yelps of outrage from our liberal opinion-molders--the very same people who had nothing whatever to say about the genuinely ghastly physical tortures that Saddam Hussein inflicted on thousands of Iraqis over the years. At Abu Ghraib, by contrast, there are no allegations of physical torture. The pain was strictly psychological: having to strip naked, simulate sexual acts, wear hoods, and get hooked up to electrical wires that led to--nowhere. Oh, and chicks were on the torture teams, which to misogynist Muslim fanatics is a Very Bad Thing. But in all the photos I’ve seen, not a single pyramided body looks bloody, pained, or starved. Charlotte, a classical scholar, apparently only subscrives to the newspaper for the naked photos and doesn't read the articles, and so is unaware that the Taguba report detailed the following reports of abuse at Al Ghraib: Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet; Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; And then, of course, there are those 25 dead prisoners, two of which (so far) have been determined to have been murdered.   Frankly, it all sounded only slightly worse than the inititiation ceremony my classmates and I had to endure when we tried to join a secret club at my snooty all-girls’ high school. Damn!  That much have been some snooty high school that Charlotte attended! And anyway, what's with all these pundits saying that the prisoner abuse is much like initiations conducted in elite schools?  Maybe we need to investigate Yale et al. and see if their sadistic hazing practices are responsible for the morally twisted characters of so many right-wing stalwarts. We had to don gunnysack robes, walk barefoot through mud and over rocks, get pelted with garbage, have honey smeared on our hair, kneel abjectly to our captors--and then, after all that, I didn’t even make the cut to get into the damned club! Well, yes, that does sound a lot like being forcibly arranged in sexually explicit positions for photographing; being forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped; and being stripped and positioned on a MRE box, with a sandbag on one's head and wires attached to ones fingers, toes, and genitals to simulate electric torture.  You know, it's practically identical -- if you think that having garbage thrown at you is the same as being stripped naked and having some guys penis positioned in your anus.  And when you eliminate the word "FORCIBLY," of course.    Charlotte then waxes indignant over Philip Kennicott's piece in the Washington Post, and says in part: The stuff about pornography and sexual humiliation is also rich. When American social conservatives complained about Janet Jackson’s bared breast at the Super Bowl, Kennicott’s kind ridiculed them as a bunch of puritans. But naked Iraqi Muslim men--we can’t offend their sensibilities. Again, that concept of "forcibly" seems totally foreign to Charlotte.  That's a rather alarming omission for someone speaking for a group called "The Independent Women's Forum."  IMHO, of course. 3.  And our last drivel for today comes from James Taranto, the WSJ Opinion Pages'  Philosopher King.  He makes a case for the accused reservists featured in the photos not being the sharpest and most stable knives in the drawer, then blames the mess on left-wing academic institutions: No doubt many people enter the military and successfully overcome troubled lives. But it also occurs to us that increasing the quality of military recruits would probably help avoid future Abu Ghraibs. One constructive step toward that end would be for elite universities to drop antimilitary policies, so that the military would have an easier time signing up the best and brightest young Americans. Many academic institutions have barred ROTC or military recruiters from campus for left-wing political reasons--first as a protest against the Vietnam War, and later over the Clinton-era "don't ask, don't tell" law. Whatever the merits of these positions, it's time the academic left showed some patriotic responsibility and acknowledged that the defense of the country--which includes the defense of their own academic freedom--is more important than the issue du jour. But.  but . . . aren't American's best and brightest young conservatives raised from the cradle with the desire to serve their country, and aren't they taught from birth a proper appreciation for military service?  And aren't they smart enough and motivated enough to find the recruiting office on their own if their schools won't allow the ROTC or recruiters on campus?  Or is Taranto just decrying the lack of LIBERAL soldiers in the military (who might have the moral integrity to prevent such atrocities)? In any case, I think that Taranto should work on getting Ben Shapiro to enlist -- I mean, Ben is supposedly the best and the brightest that the right has to offer, so why isn't he joining the infantry instead of going to grad school this fall?  Whatever the issue, it's time the academic right showed some patriotic responsibility and acknowledged that the defense of the country is more important than getting an MBA and making big bucks. UPDATE We have a winner in the Drivel contest  -- it's George Neumayr, editor of the American Speculum.  Thanks to Lucianne.com for recommending it. And why is the behavior depicted in the photos so appalling to liberals? If the behavior had been voluntary, liberals would call it free speech. That's our winner, folks!  But there's more -- George smears gays, blames the "unisex" army for making woman unattractive, and at the end, finds that Democrats and Clinton are responsible for the whole mess: In the liberal mind, such acts form an important identity and alternative lifestyle worthy of respect and tolerance. As the pop culture they have bestowed upon us might say, "Don't be ignorant." Who is to say those acts are wrong? After all, in Massachusetts now, they are construed as courtship. Because gay men are known to be perverted masochists who would love doing the stuff depicted in the photos -- you know, if it was voluntary behavior we were taking about. The Democrats don't want this to ever happen again? Okay, let's discuss Bill Clinton's Don't ask, Don't tell, Don't care policy. Could that perhaps have something to do with indiscipline in the ranks? No, that's not a permissible thought, according to the Democrats. We must close our eyes to the obvious lest the march of progress in the military grind to a halt.  Yeah, "don't ask, don't tell" was the problem.  And I thought that maybe we'd have to have a debate about the mismanagement of the war (poorly trained troops, not enough troops, poor living conditions for troops, no guidelines for use of contractors, the tossing of the Geneva Conventions, etc.) but it turns out it was all because somewhere there were possibly some gays in the military.  George, you're a genius! Nor will the Democrats permit their vision of a unisex military to be a matter of debate. Even if the clock is broken, we must not turn it back. The female GI who tried to turn that prison into a pound personified Bill Clinton's unisex military perfectly: it is difficult to tell if she is a man or a woman. (According to last night's news reports, we know she's with child thanks to a fellow torturers to whom she's now engaged.) So, the female soldier in some of the photos is (a) unfeminine-looking; and (b) pregnant and unmarried.   This is (a) much more important than what was done to the Iraqi prisoners; and (b) Clinton's fault. The Democrats who said that women could perform the dirty deeds of war as well any other man are horrified that women are performing the dirty deeds of war, but not so horrified that they would reconsider the wisdom of placing women in the muck next to men. Again, not a permissible thought.  Well, from what I've read, the Democrats are horrified that AMERICAN SOLDIERS abused Iraqi prisoners -- and they don't consider the torture and murder of prisoners to be a necessary part of conducting war for either male or female troops.  It's the conservatives who seem to be having the vapors over the idea of women being "coarsened" by military service. The phoniness of the outrage in Washington, D.C. can't be overstated. If a college president decided to house a fraternity and sorority on the same dorm floor and shocking sexual pranksterism broke out, then said, "This is deeply troubling. I had no idea this would happen," parents would call him a jackass and call for his sacking. So, per George (a)  The whole unfolding abuse scandal is just the equvilent of collegiate sexual hijinks; and (b) the Democrats are still somehow in charge of everything, and have some eerie power that keeps the White House and the Republican congress from making any changes or demonstrating any leadership.  I wonder if that will be one of Bush's campaign slogans: "Vote for me -- I'm impotent." Democrats do the equivalent of this in the military and ask for reelection. When their experiment blows up in their face they just blame the ensuing mess on the very conservatives who didn't want the experiment conducted in the first place. Then once the cameras stop rolling and the appropriate anger has been exhausted, the Brave New World experiment resumes. So, the real victims here are the conservatives.  I think the Iraqis should apologize to them.  1:38:06 AM