Journalist held up at gunpoint, 2 others robbed - Yahoo! News

Journalist held up at gunpoint, 2 others robbed - Yahoo! News

MAGALIESBURG, South Africa – A Portuguese photographer was held up at gunpoint early Wednesday and two other journalists also were robbed at the same World Cup hotel.

Antonio Simoes said he woke up around 4 a.m. and found two men entering his room at the Nutbush Boma Lodge outside of Magaliesburg, 75 miles northwest of Johannesburg.

"One of the guys pointed a hand gun at my head, and then they took all my gear — cameras, lenses, laptop," said Simoes, who works for the Portuguese daily O Jogo. "Then they told me to lie on the bed and they covered me with a blanket, pressed the gun against my head and told me to sleep.

Lift the Siege of Gaza : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Lift the Siege of Gaza : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

SA@TAC - Israel, the World and Us

Nathaniel Macon and The Way Things Should Be : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Yet another great American never spoken of:


Nathaniel Macon and The Way Things Should Be : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Nathaniel Macon summed up his philosophy in advice to a young Tar Heel: “Remember, you belong to a meek state and a just people, who want nothing but to enjoy the fruits of their labour honestly and lay out the profits in their own way.”

By the end of his life Macon had realised that the cause of republicanism was lost at the federal level, and also that the North was determined to exploit and rule the South. South Carolina tried in 1832 to use “nullification,” state interposition, to force the federal government back within the limits of the Constitution. After he read Andrew Jackson’s proclamation against South Carolina, Macon told friends that it was too late for nullification. The Constitution was dead. The only recourse was secession—there was nothing left but for the South to get out from under the “Union” and govern itself.

Thirty years later, in the spring of 1861, the North Carolina convention met to ratify secession unanimously. Nathaniel Macon’s son-in-law, Weldon N. Edwards, was in the president’s chair.

Nathaniel Macon left us a invaluable legacy from which we can learn much about the way things should be.

The Wailin' Jennys - The Parting Glass

Our Vitriol, and Theirs by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com

Our Vitriol, and Theirs by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com

"Frum, the pompous hypocrite, is about as “moderate” as a rattlesnake, reserving his poison for advocates of individual liberty and anyone who opposes his agenda of perpetual war. As co-author of a book with Richard Perle which advocated invading practically every country in the Middle East – and instituting a quasi-dictatorship on the home front in the name of fighting the “war on terrorism” – his “moderate” disguise is about as convincing as that of a wolf out of the Brothers Grimm.

How’s that for “vitriol”?"

Great stuff as usual from Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com

Maxims for American Intellectuals : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Clyde Wilson is one of the best commentators I know of. A true gentleman and scholar.


Maxims for American Intellectuals : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

by Clyde N. Wilson

May 3rd, 2010 • Related • Filed Under

• No Related Post

Filed Under: Featured • The Old Republic

[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].

(good for putting down right-wing bigots at cocktail parties or in the classroom)

Taking off your shoes at the airport is patriotic and makes you safer.

If college athletes fail academically it is obviously society’s fault.

HIV is an unfortunate virus and not caused by human behaviour.

Presidents are good and do what is best for us, except Nixon.

Poverty causes crime and if we eliminate poverty we can eliminate crime.

America has always been a nation of immigrants.

Diversity is a wonderful thing. Everybody should be required to accept it.

Excellence in education and equality in education are the same thing.

We are bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. We ought to be, and soon will be, doing the same for Iran.

Freedom means that all forms of non-coercive sexual activity are equally acceptable, as is declared in the Constitution.

In our Constitution, the Founding Fathers established for all time that “all men are created equal.”

Our Constitution demands a “wall of separation” between church and state. Churches should never interfere in politics unless it is to support progressive causes.

There is no such thing as race, but some races deserve special advantages.

Crime and social dysfunction in Northern metropolises are caused by slavery in the South that ended a century and a half ago.

Slavery in the South was the greatest atrocity in history except for Hitler’s killing of the Jews.

People oppose Obama only because he is black.

Bigotry is totally unacceptable except anti-Catholicism and anti-Arabism.

Terrorism mostly is to be feared from right-wing bigots.

The volcano eruption in Iceland was caused by rising right-wing extremism.

We are Better than That!!!!!

I will be voting for this man for President

Rand Paul: Unprincipled Hero : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Rand Paul: Unprincipled Hero : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Tom Flemming always gives an interesting analysis. I like Flemming, would vote for Paul and voted for his Dad but this is a great critique.

FOXNews.com - Top Official Says Feds May Not Process Illegals Referred From Arizona

FOXNews.com - Top Official Says Feds May Not Process Illegals Referred From Arizona

A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.

John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.

---

If you had any doubt that we have a government that is ruling against the will of the American people you are simply not paying attention.

Who has a right to live in U.S.? | illegal, people, live - Opinion - The Orange County Register

Who has a right to live in U.S.? | illegal, people, live - Opinion - The Orange County Register

Posted using ShareThis

Christendom’s Great Defeat (This Rock: March-April 2010)

Christendom’s Great Defeat (This Rock: March-April 2010)

The official history we are all taught in school is from an Anglo-Protestant point of view. I have jumped into the history of Spain and now see that most of the history I learned was BS.

SA@TAC - Rand Paul Revolution

Sorority Girls Gone Wild - May 24, 2010

Sorority Girls Gone Wild - May 24, 2010

I see college parties are not much different than when I was there.

Are Liberals Anti-WASP? - HUMAN EVENTS

Are Liberals Anti-WASP? - HUMAN EVENTS

Are Liberals Anti-WASP?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

05/14/2010

"A chorus of black commentators and civic leaders has begun expressing frustration over (Elena) Kagan's hiring record as Harvard dean. From 2003 to 2009, 29 faculty members were hired: 28 were white and one was Asian American."

CNN pundit Roland Martin slammed "Kagan's record on diversity as one that a 'white Republican U.S. president' would be criticized for."

This is an excerpt from the Washington Post about the rising anger in a black community, which voted 24-1 for Obama, that one of their own was once again passed over for the Supreme Court.

Not since Thurgood Marshall, 43 years ago, has a Democratic president chosen an African-American. The lone sitting black justice is Clarence Thomas, nominated by George H. W. Bush. And Thomas was made to run a gauntlet by Senate liberals.

Indeed, of the last seven justices nominated by Democrats JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, one was black, Marshall; one was Puerto Rican, Sonia Sotomayor. The other five were Jews: Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats.

Is this the Democrats' idea of diversity?

But while leaders in the black community may be upset, the folks who look more like the real targets of liberal bias are white Protestants and Catholics, who still constitute well over half of the U.S. population.

Not in living memory has a Democratic president nominated an Irish, Italian or Polish Catholic, though these ethnic communities once gave the party its greatest victories in the cities and states of the North.

What happened to the party of the Daleys, Rizzos and Rostenkowskis?

And not in nearly half a century has a Democratic president nominated a white Protestant or white Catholic man or woman.

The last was Byron "Whizzer" White, the all-American running back from the University of Colorado, nominated by his friend Jack Kennedy. White cast one of the only two votes against Roe v Wade.

What of the record of Republican presidents?

Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford made seven nominations. All were white Protestant males: Warren Burger, Clement Haynsworth, Harrold Carswell, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist and John Paul Stevens.

The diversity Nixon sought was first to put a Southerner on the court. He succeeded in his third try, with Powell. And he sought to put the first woman on the court, but pulled back from nominating Judge Mildred Lillie of California when the American Bar Associated rated her unqualified.

With Ronald Reagan and Bush I came Republican diversity.

Reagan's first choice was Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman ever nominated. His second was Antonin Scalia, the first Italian-American. When his third nominee, Robert Bork, a Protestant, was rejected, Reagan chose Bork's Jewish colleague on the U.S. Appellate Court for the District of Columbia, Douglas H. Ginsburg. When Douglas Ginsburg was pulled because of a marijuana incident in college, Reagan chose the Irish Catholic Anthony Kennedy.

George H. W. Bush picked David Souter, a Protestant from New Hampshire, and Clarence Thomas, the second African-American to sit. George W. Bush chose John Roberts, a Catholic; Harriet Miers, the first Evangelical Christian of our era; and Sam Alito, the second Italian Catholic.

If Kagan is confirmed, the Court will consist of three Jews and six Catholics (who represent not quite a fourth of the country), but not a single Protestant, though Protestants remain half the nation and our founding faith.

If Kagan is confirmed, three of the four justices nominated by Democratic presidents will be from New York City: Kagan from the Upper West Side, Sotomayor from the Bronx, Ruth Bader Ginsburg from Brooklyn. Breyer is from San Francisco.

What kind of diversity is this -- either in geography or life experience?

While Sotomayor went to Yale Law School, the other three liberals went to Harvard, though Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from Columbia. Seems a fairly narrow range for a party that once claimed to be America's party.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg tied for first in her class at Columbia, but neither Obama nominee is academically distinguished. Sotomayor called herself an "affirmative action baby" who, at Princeton, was urged to read children's books in the summer to improve her reading and writing skills. Kagan never served as a judge, never litigated a case before being named solicitor general, never wrote a book or anything else anyone has turned up that manifests real legal scholarship.

From her Princeton thesis on the sad demise of 20th-century socialism, to her tears at the defeat of the radical liberal Senate candidate Elizabeth Holtzman in 1980, to her hostility to the U.S. military on the Harvard campus while dean of the law school, Kagan has revealed herself to be one more Ivy League leftist anxious to use a lifetime seat on the court, winning the plaudits of her peers by imposing her ideology on a nation that has never voted for it.

Conservatives will not soon get another opportunity like this to take down Ivy League pretensions to represent and rule America.

04-07-2010 Sobran

04-07-2010 Sobran

Liquidating the Empire

A decade ago, Oldsmobile went. Last year, Pontiac. Saturn, Saab and Hummer were discontinued. A thousand GM dealerships shut down.

To those who grew up in a “GM family,” where buying a Chrysler was like converting to Islam, what happened to GM was deeply saddening.

Yet the amputations had to be done—or GM would die.

And the same may be about to happen to the American Imperium.

Its birth can be traced to World War II, when America put 16 million men in uniform and sent millions across the seas to crush Nazi Germany and Japan. After V-E and V-J Day, the boys came home.

But with the Stalinization of half of Europe, the fall of China, and war in Korea came NATO and alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Australia that lasted through the Cold War.

In 1989, however, the Cold War ended dramatically with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the retirement of the Red Army from Europe, the break-up of the Soviet Union and Beijing’s abandonment of world communist revolution.

Overnight, our world changed. But America did not change.

[continued at website]

Catholic-School Comeback?

Patrick J. McCloskey

City Journal

Inner-city kids would be the big winners.

6 April 2009

Since Catholic education in America peaked in 1965, half of the nation’s Catholic schools have shut their doors, with an average of 250 closing per year. Many of these schools have been in inner cities, making the closings a particularly tragic development for disadvantaged students, who’ve benefited tremendously from the orderly environment and first-rate instruction that these institutions provide and who now have no educational alternative but failing public schools.

The usual suspects for the school closings are the loss of religious teaching orders, demographic shifts, rising costs, and falling enrollments. The current economic crisis will push closings to epidemic proportions in the next few years, according to National Catholic Education Association president Karen Ristau. First to go, in even larger numbers, will be inner-city schools serving vulnerable populations, since they depend heavily on philanthropic and diocesan support. The Catholic school system might end up becoming an elite consortium for affluent Catholics.

Thus far, the Catholic response has been far from adequate. In fact, most bishops haven’t even begun contemplating how to deal with the closings crisis comprehensively. Astoundingly, last May a Church official responded with indifference to Catholic philanthropists’ proposal of a $100 million national campaign to save parochial schools. The proposal eventually grew to $1 billion but was shelved because of the weakening economy and the Church representative’s discouraging reaction.

But hope remains. Some lay leaders and bishops have begun working together to effect local change that could apply across the country. In 1998, Memphis bishop J. Terry Steib boldly announced that he’d reopen eight inner-city schools serving a student population that was over 90 percent non-Catholic. But the diocese had no funds, and its bureaucracy was typically inefficient. “We were the problem,” said Mary McDonald, the superintendent of Catholic schools in Memphis. “We had to move from a bureaucratic to an entrepreneurial way of thinking.” And McDonald did. Instead of hitting up donors to cover deficits (the usual Catholic approach, which philanthropists find unattractive), she developed a fiscally sophisticated business plan. Seeing the Catholic schools as investments in Memphis’s future—lowering drop-out rates significantly reduces crime rates and dependence on social services—foundations and local businessmen, mostly non-Catholic, responded by providing over $70 million to date, enough for an endowment guaranteeing long-term survival.

Some other dioceses are finally developing strategic plans that aim to reestablish their schools’ vitality. Like most big-city districts, those in New York have relied too heavily on wealthy donors, whose investment portfolios have shrunk considerably in the downturn. At the same time, job losses in a struggling economy prevent parents from paying rising tuitions. But a New York philanthropist has initiated a project, the Catholic Alumni Partnership (CAP), to track down elementary school alumni in several northeastern dioceses and solicit donations. If successful, CAP’s backer will lend other dioceses funds to institute their own CAP programs.

In Wichita, Kansas, the emphasis is on “stewardship,” the practice of involving all Catholics, which originally built the entire nexus of Catholic institutions. Wichita’s parishioners agree to give “their time, talent, and treasure as the spiritual way of living Christian discipleship,” explained Father John Lanzrath, Wichita’s stewardship director. “Treasure” means 8 percent of parishioners’ gross salaries, which support all diocesan ministries, including tuition-free schools. It took over 20 years to get all Wichita’s parishes on board with the practice, since it applies whether or not a parish has a school or a family has school-age children. But the result is high-quality schools with strong Catholic identities that most Catholic children, rich and poor alike, attend. (It helps that 75 percent of Wichita’s Catholics attend church regularly.)

Catholic colleges and universities are also stepping in, shouldering more responsibility with increased research and training of teachers and principals, as well as “adopting” nearby inner-city parochial schools—forming partnerships to improve their academic quality and helping with fund-raising. For the first time, the newly formed Catholic Higher Education Collaborative brings together elite Catholic universities like Boston College and Notre Dame to work on behalf of parochial schools.

Finally, the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management (NLRCM) sends highly accomplished lay (and some Church) leaders in business, finance, academia, and philanthropy to consult with dioceses in crisis. These experts supply data-driven strategic planning on all diocesan managerial, financial, and human-resources issues. Consequently, though it is engaged in just 18 diocesan consultancies so far, NLRCM has become the leading organization with the sanction and potential to implement real change in Catholic education.

So amid the dreary news of school closings, some bright spots exist for Catholic education. The question now is whether enough bishops and their superintendents will adopt successful models before massive numbers of parochial schools close.

Patrick J. McCloskey is the author of The Street Stops Here, a book about inner-city Catholic education published by the University of California (Berkeley) Press.

Iraqi Christians Wary of Withdrawal

Iraqi Christians Wary of Withdrawal, Says Prelate

Doubt Ability of Native Police to Provide Security

VIENNA, APRIL 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- According to the archbishop of Kirkuk, Iraq's Christians are worried about a forthcoming withdrawal of international troops from the country since security is still lacking.

Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako spoke of the security issues and the inability of the Iraqi police to handle the situation on their own at a press conference in Vienna sponsored by Aid to the Church in Need and the organizations Christian Solidarity International, Austria, and "Pro Oriente."

"Under Saddam's regime we had security but no freedom," he said. "Today we have freedom, but the problem is security."

According to a Tuesday report from Aid to the Church in Need, the prelate said that another problem is the tendency of many Iraqis to equate the U.S. troops with Christians.

During the conflict, there has been a mass exodus of Iraqi Christians from Iraq. "Some 200,000 Christians have left the country. This is a tragedy for us," Archbishop Sako lamented.

Nevertheless, the archbishop affirmed, "We have many problems, but we also have great hope. We are not afraid, but rather we want to be able to live together with the Muslims in Iraq in peace."

Archbishop Sako expressed the conviction that a dialogue with Muslims is still possible -- "not a theological dialogue, but a 'dialogue of life.'"

At the same time, the prelate stressed the importance of Muslims finding an understanding of the "responsible freedom" of man. Muslims, he said, should find an interpretation of the Koran for the present time. Instead "the Muslims are living as though in the 7th century, and that is a problem."

Catholic bishops plan to forcefully confront Obama

By Manya Brachear |Tribune staff reporter

8:38 PM CST, November 11, 2008

BALTIMORE - In a direct challenge to President-elect Barack Obama, America's Roman Catholic bishops vowed on Tuesday to accept no compromise for the sake of national unity until there is legal protection for the unborn.

About 300 bishops, gathered in Baltimore for their national meeting, adopted a formal blessing for a child in the womb and advised Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, president of the conference, as he began drafting a statement from the bishops to the incoming Obama administration. That document will call on the administration and Catholics who supported Obama to work to outlaw abortion.

"This is not a matter of political compromise or a matter of finding some way of common ground," said Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio. "It's a matter of absolutes."

The bishops, long one of the leading political forces against abortion, spent the first part of Tuesday behind closed doors reportedly debating the merits of "Faithful Citizenship," a nuanced guide for Catholic voters issued last November.

Though the document made clear that "the direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many," it also advised Catholics to weigh issues like poverty, war, the environment and human rights when choosing candidates.

But some bishops said they were surprised to see Catholics cite the document as justification for selecting candidates--like Obama--who support abortion rights. A slim majority of the nation's Catholics voted for the Democratic candidate.

Several bishops said that Catholics could not in good conscience vote for a candidate who favored abortion rights after Obama pledged to pass legislation that would overturn state's restrictions on abortion such as late-term abortion bans and requirements of parental consent.

"Any one of us here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow--die tomorrow!--to bring about the end of abortion," said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis.

Bishops Thomas Paprocki of Chicago said such legislation could threaten laws that allow health-care workers to refrain from carrying out procedures that violate their conscience, putting Catholic health care institutions in jeopardy.

"There are grave consequences," Paprocki said in an interview. "If Catholic hospitals were required by federal law to perform abortions, we'd have to close our hospitals."

"I don't think I'm being alarmist," Paprocki told the bishops.

George agreed that losing federal funds would put Catholic health care facilities, which make up a third of the nation's hospitals, out of business. Closing Catholic hospitals would put many patients seeking charitable care from those facilities at risk, he added.

In crafting the statement to Obama, the bishops urged the cardinal to indicate a desire to work with the administration in areas of economic justice, immigration reform, health care for the poor and religious freedom. But they stressed the church's "intent on opposing evil" and "defense of the unborn child."

They vowed to oppose any law or executive order that might loosen restrictions on abortion.

They emphasized that efforts to advance abortion rights would "permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans and would be interpreted by many Catholics as an attack on the Church." They also urged Catholics in public life to be committed to the teachings of the church.

Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, Pa., vice president-elect Joe Biden's home town, called on his brother bishops to be more punitive against Catholic officials who are "stridently anti-life."

"I cannot have the vice president coming to Scranton and saying he learned his values there when those values are utterly against those of the Catholic Church," Martino said.

Sister Jamie Phelps, a theologian at Xavier University in Louisiana, also served on Obama's National Catholic Advisory Board. She applauds the bishops for issuing the statement. But she said the Faithful Citizenship document made it clear that while the rights of an unborn child are a priority voters should consider a whole range of issues regarding the preservation and quality of life.

"That child has no voice if it's not the voice of the bishops and the voice of Catholics," she said. "But you can not pick and choose an intrinsic evil."

George said the Faithful Citizenship document remains the guiding principle for Catholic voters. But he said future versions should be tweaked so portions are not "misused and misinterpreted." He said Catholics seemed to overlook the "whole question of proportionate reason."

George has attributed Obama's victory to the economy, insisting that it was not a referendum on moral issues such as abortion rights.

The bishops also approved a blessing on Tuesday devoted to a child in the womb, intended to support parents, unite parishes and foster respect for human life within society.

"Obviously it's a very tangible way for us to witness pastorally and sacramentally to the life of an unborn child," said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville. "It's very consistent with the priorities we've raised."