As IF Times

link AFP: Kims 11-ace debut round recalled on Twitter.

This is all about lack of respect.  A guy scores 11 holes-in-one, on the very first time playing golf and yet the world is largely indifferent.  This feat was witnessed by no less than 17 of his personal bodyguards, so it must be true.  While other so called pros manage to finish perhaps 1 or 2 under par in any given tournament,  their exploits are considered heroic.  I don’t recall any kind of coverage of Kim’s feat on the Golf Channel and certainly no pro to my knowledge has paid any respect to this accomplishment.  Makes you wonder about the bias of the western media.

As we know by now, “Dear Leader” as Kim Jong Il was referred to by his subjects, passed away at the too young age of 69 just the other day.  The importance of Kim to his people as the spiritual and political leader was clearly demonstrated by televised footage of massive demonstrations of inconsolable grief by scores of women broadcast  for the outside world to see.  It’s possible that similar outpourings of grief may also be found in the golfing community, but video just hasn’t surfaced.  Nevertheless, to his faithful and his community, the 5 foot-nothing leader was a giant in his exploits and his life.

But Kim was not just a capable golfer, that was just one of his sideline pursuits.  Kim was much too busy doing important nation building things such as, subjugating his own people, exposing them to starvation and random torture and detention.  There was also the delicate task of sabre rattling in order to make sure everyone paid attention to his latest rants.  There were missiles to be fired off to the south, nuclear weapons to build and people to enslave.  Oddly, these kinds of activities are admired by many, even outside of his own culture.

In other parts of the world, many lesser types were doing exactly the same thing, except that they were getting all kinds of attention and adulation.  Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and even Hugo Chavez have managed to draw as their ardent admirers, prominent actors, writers and journalists breathlessly and romantically describing their struggles for their people.  Kim had the misfortune of being short, pudgy and comical looking whereas guys like Guevara and Castro had beards and looked the part of the valiant revolutionary.  It’s hard to portray an Asian Elmer Fudd as a romantic hero I guess.  At least Cuba had the respect to fly their flags at half mast in respect of their kindred dictator.  It was Kim’s unfortunate fate to be physically unimposing and not have as his native tongue, a classic romantic language.

In the USA,  a backbench senator arrives from nowhere and vaults into the highest position in the world.  Before even passing one piece of policy during his first few months  in office, he is awarded the Nobel prize for peace!  Now that’s impressive.  Not 11 holes in one impressive, but impressive.   As of now, he’s even staking the claim to be among the top 4 presidents in history, sounding like the kind of claim Kim would have made, if only he had the support of a fawning press.  It’s possible that all this swooning over Obama drove Kim mad and may have even caused his heart failure.  Obama takes up golf and plays like Urkel whereas Kim gets 11 holes-in-one on his first outing, but Obama gets the Nobel!?  Obviously, everyone else had a better media team than departed Dear Leader.  Did I mention he was also a bowler?

link Cleaver: If Obama wasnt president, we would be ‘marching on the White House’ – The Hills Blog Briefing Room.

Apart from the racism that this sentiment represents, the truly astounding aspect of this announcement is the blatant stupidity and naivete.  It’s all but saying that policies coming out of the White House are horribly wrong and ineffective, especially to the Black community.  Hello! Rational people have been saying that for years and only now it’s become obvious? 

Barack Obama is the standard bearer for a number of constituencies which pushed him into the world’s highest office.  By liberals of course who were keen to demonstrate their willingness to embrace a non white candidate.   By youth because he was someone closer to their age than option B at the time.  By Latinos and other minorities because he represented a possible movement towards their sensibilities.  But especially by Blacks since he was one of their own and finally, some measures would be taken to address their issues of inequity in society.

It would be useful to look at history and note that some of the biggest human tragedies happened because of misplaced idealism granted to a member of that particular society.  By some counts the death of between 45 and 75 million Chinese by starvation during the Great Leap forward was orchestrated by…a Chinese, Mao Tse Tung, surely one of the biggest mass murderers in the history of man.   We’re not sure if those who died were pulling for the homey in Peking.  Josef Stalin didn’t care too much about the native blood since he was responsible for about 23,000,000 people’s death through starvation.  Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il haven’t exactly treated their own countrymen particularly well either, apparently disposing of  over 2 million of them over their terms in office.  During the terror reign of Idi Amin in Uganda, apart from being one of the 300,000 or so killed while he ran that country, you’d have a good chance of being eaten as well.

We could go on to list statesmen such as Saddam Hussein, Charles Taylor, Pol Pot and Ho Chi Min.   The point is, having a common racial heritage in all of these cases didn’t prevent people from being victimized in their own countries.  People who think that just because they happen to share a trait with someone in charge puts them on the insider’s list for favours are…well, they’re just dumb.  Would anyone ascribe any more trust to someone who was left handed just because they also happened to be a lefty? Or redheaded? Or bald? 

On the religious front, I’m sure lots of people happily absorbed all the earnest pleadings of James Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert before it was discovered that in fact they were the wolves among the lambs.  We know that Bernie Madoff was considered a mensch in the Jewish community until somebody asked for a cheque.  

The kind of identity politics being played out today ironically reduces the chances of anything being done which can benefit the most people.  Somebody will always feel aggrieved and the irrationality of their tribalism prevents the ability for society to move forward in a cohesive way.  It makes no sense to support someone who is unsupportable.   The bottom line is, if he’s a goof to you, he’s a goof to all.

link When race is mentioned in the Chicago Tribune – chicagotribune.com.

More idiocy masking as objectivity.  The ill advised policies of political correctness actively pursued by liberal sensibilities are fast becoming caricatures of stupidity.  In the animal world, only the highly advanced humans would ignore the most basic tenets of survival.  The natural equivalent of all of this politically correct nonsense would be if Wildebeest were to blithely frolic about while all around them lions began to gather. This is fantasy, we would never see this because Wildebeest are not that stupid.

In the human world, thanks to moronic notions of fairness, people are asked to literally turn a blind eye to the nefarious elements of society.  Apparently, the label of racist is the most heinous of all things one can be accused of, more to be avoided than other sundry labels such as, oh let’s say, murderer, child molester, or Internet creep.  We know this thanks to the exploits of Fidel Castro, Roman Polanski and of course recently, Anthony Weiner.  Because of this mentality, we have an entire expensive and cumbersome bureaucracy dedicated to making life miserable for the travelling public at airports including the prototypical Swedish grandmothers and nursing infants.  Rather than scrutinize the segment of society that has historically been most at risk to cause grief and mayhem to innocents, why not be inclusive and give the Mexican prisoner treatment to everyone? This despite the fact that troublemakers tend to have distinct characteristics of appearance and background.

The non-reporting of all the facts that pertain to the rash of mob attacks in many US cities, but in particular as depicted by this Chicago paper is fomenting the same type of willful stupidity.  If the ‘kids’ involved in the mob attacks are not only generally, but almost exclusively black, wouldn’t that be germane to the story?  When the Tribune reports that packs of ‘kids’ were attacking innocent civilians, are the readers supposed to imagine a gaggle of Richie Cunninghams mobbing them?  What if you had to fill out a police report?

“Well, let’s see, there were 7 or 8 of them…they were young… all had arms…some had hair….”

“Any other distinguishing characteristics? Hair color, race perhaps?”

“Oh no, we didn’t notice whether they were all black kids wearing baseball caps askew,  baggy pants  and speaking Ebonics or not, no sir, none of that occurred to us because we’re not racists at all, no sirree…”

The whole charade is farcical.  For some to pretend that racial issues don’t exist and that those dynamics don’t come into normal social interaction is ostrich behaviour at its best.  When the current President of the United States is elected into office coming out of nowhere, with no executive experience, no history of legislative achievements and with a closet full of sketchy collaborators, there is no explanation for it other than the naked truth.  He was elected because he was black.  Given similar qualifications, no other person would have been elected if they didn’t have the racial advantage.  If fact, much has been made of this milestone in American history.  This achievement has been endlessly trumpeted by the liberal left as proof of society’s evolution.  The only thing this has really proved however is that a black president can be just as incompetent as a white president.  But hey,  at least they were inclusive.  The policies and results derived from Obama’s time in office would never be tolerated by the public and media if he were not black.  In fact, any criticism of his agenda is construed as a racist attack.

Nevertheless, Obama proves that people of color can achieve high office and indeed THE highest office, so the on going arguments for politically correct sensibilities are outdated.  The old chestnut of the disadvantaged inner city black youth has less validity.  The  achievements of Obama, of Oprah, of Condaleeza Rice, of Colin Powell, although exceptions, prove that the possibility for great success exists for black people and that resorting to anti social, criminal lifestyles is an option, not a destiny.

The delusion of the left over the foibles of people of any color perpetuates the segmentation of people and prevents true equality in society.  It’s unclear to me why people should be regarded as one big homogeneous glop.   It is an affront to rational thinking.  Stupidity and brilliance are present in all peoples and as such, instances of both should be pointed out, especially by an ‘objective’ media.  Those that ignore this are the true racists.