This coleslaw is not edible, which is probably a good thing as I am a very bad cook. Rather, it is bits and pieces from various articles, mixed together and seasoned with my comments. The idea behind this is one well-known to us lazy cooks: when you don't feel like slaving over the hot stove, serve people a salad of everything you find in the fridge.
The first thing I unearthed is the news that the National Public Radio is, alas, not liberal as we have all been taught to believe:
Despite a perception that National Public Radio is politically liberal, the majority of its sources are actually Republicans and conservatives, according to FAIR, a left-leaning media watchdog.
"Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge," according to a report accompanying the survey, "individual Republicans were NPR's most popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of appearance." In addition, representatives of right-of-center think tanks outnumbered their leftist counterparts by more than four to one, FAIR reported.
This isn't news to anybody who has recently listened to the NPR, which just may be short for Nice, Polite and Republican. Though they do broadcast the BBC World News. But the widespread assumption that NPR is left-wing tells us something about how the public conversation has been hijacked by the right, and how they now define all the terms, including the term 'liberal'.
The second snippet is on a topic that scares me, and I include it here for its scare value, not because I necessarily believe that it is true:
If religious conservatives win their fight to define marriage as between a man and a woman, Ferree warns, they might not stop there.
We find ourselves now in a strange period of what might be called attempted Christian Fascism. Our president believes God has called him to the White House (it certainly wasn't the popular vote). Empowered by Bush, evangelical Christians are pushing for a rollback of Darwin, the end of scientific experimentation, and the coming of Armageddon. The hallowed American separation of church and state has never been more under attack. The goal is the creation of a Christian nation - and later a Christian world - under Biblical law.
So after a constitutional amendment, the next logical step would be defining the roles of men and women in heterosexual marriages according to Biblical standards. Can you hear the patriarchy calling?
I stopped my ears with wax a long time ago, and also had myself tied to the mast of my ship. So I don't hear the patriarchy calling, but there are lots of people, with names such as Ann and Rush and George and Midge and so on, who not only hear this calling but hum along as loud as they can. A Christian world doesn't appeal to me that much, either; what would happen to my snakes in such an environment? They would probably all be hunted down and turned into Bible covers or whips for self-flagellators.
Finally, something about animals:
"Human beings," says an American novelist, "are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power." The novelist is selling the chimpanzees short. Ever see a chimpanzee force another chimp into acts of sexual degradation - for tourist photos? Or cut the head off another chimp - for God? Or unleash the forces of "smart bomb" hell on other chimps - for freedom, for imaginary weapons of mass destruction, for oil?
Indeed.