Brian's Column-Article
Media PC Machine Slimes Another Good Man
Ted Bishop of the Professional Golfers Assn. of America canned for misspeak…

His tenure was marked with many accomplishments, particularly (ironically) in opening the game up to women and girls. Nonetheless, when the media PC Slime Monster rises, it’s awfully hard for a decent individual who misspeaks to find cover and save his anatomy. At least if he’s a man. I go back to Don Imus and golf commentator Ben Wright… both shishkabobbed and dismissed for a) Imus speaking mockingly (of black rapper culture) by emulating rapper lingo about a women’s basketball team and b) Wright in an unguarded moment expressing his view that women’s golf suffered because of perceptions of lesbianism... and that women's breasts interfered with the best possible swing mechanics. (I thought the feminists were going to lynch ol' Ben for that last one. Speaking of 'lynching.') [Full Column]

Book Review
The Appeal (2008)
A novel by John Grisham

Mr. Grisham is a big time writer and when you read this book on what happens when the corporate power buys justice, you’ll appreciate more why. Nobody can produce the authenticity of life at the top (how the 1% live: executive boardroom machinations; posh parties; help from sleazeball US senators; billionaire stock manipulation; and making clean, ever so stylish getaways in luxury automobiles, fast jets, and oceangoing yachts) and life among the long-suffering people without access to privilege (the most unfortunate of the 99% who are continually injured and killed by corporate criminals) better than Grisham. [Full Column]

Movie Review
Walkabout (1971)
Unusual movie that will have you wondering
about the essence of things __ 8.5/10

Believe me, this low-budget, early 1970s subtle cause-oriented art film is unlike any you will ever see. Unique in so many ways: a) for painting an unromanticized, existential-angst picture of white Australia, b) for showing the connection/disconnection between a colonizing civilization and the indigenous culture displaced by that civilization, and c) for plumbing the elemental depths of how man and woman survive in nature. If I had to pick a genre for the film, I’d call it a combination of environmentalist and native peoples’ epic, say, Jeremiah Johnson meets Dances with Wolves—to the accompaniment of Albert Camus reading his book, The Stranger. [Full Column]

Guest Column
The Bad Guys Won Again: What Now?
By Shane Trejo (excerpted from The Detroit Constitutionalist)

Last week’s election results are being openly celebrated by some misguided conservatives. The partisan cheerleaders are excited and gloating because the Red Team prevailed. This is supposedly going to lead to a profound shift in the direction of the country, according to these people. While it was certainly fun to watch Obama and his stooges take it on the chin, the people who got elected are unfortunately not much of an improvement. By and large, it wasn’t the tea party wing of the party that succeeded on Nov. 4. Instead, it was by-and-large the establishment hacks that were funded by the same corrupt interests that tried to unseat Justin Amash gaining the seats of power. [Full Column]

Quote of the Week

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation  of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country.
— Edward J. Bernays, Propaganda (1928)"