Commentaries of the Week: Pro-life death? - Life Will Not Go On | JandJinJapan's Xanga Site - Weblog

Powered by ShareThis

Jamie Lee and I are having a cleaning relay!  I worked on part of my living room and kitchen on Friday (pics of finished half of kitchen below), but did not finish either room because I am being challenged by a sore throat, LOL.  I am hoping to at least finish the two rooms today, because I am ready to move on to the bathrooms (and maybe my bedroom?) tomorrow...

Once I get the entire house thoroughly clean, I am going to start decorating for Christmas.  I know...it's early--I usually start decorating the day after Thanksgiving, but we are not hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year, and I need cheering up after the debacle of the election, so bring on Christmas!

Protected picture post!

Protected picture post!

• beautiful, beautiful weather!
• having a cleaning-relay with a friend--talk about motivation!
• ice-cold raspberry Emergen-C first thing in the morning (down, sickies!)
• new jar candle to enjoy while cleaning:  Iced Snowberries
• morning funny:  I have been clicker-training our puppy for a while now and have inadvertently clicker-trained the boys!  They love to give Tess treats, so when they heard the clicker this morning, they all came running~too cute! 

Leftist censors aren’t just dropping hints about their determination to legislate conservative talk radio out of existence. They are screaming their intentions, loud and clear.

In the wake of the pending final demise of bankrupt and scandal-plagued Air America, the Left continues to be frustrated by the fact that America simply isn’t tuning in to their propaganda. So, according to reports from various news outlets, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Steny Hoyer, Dennis Kucinich, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein are joining their friends at the far-left Center for American Progress to cook up a new plan: force radio stations to accept unwanted programming in the name of “fairness” and “balance.”

Speaker Pelosi has reportedly promised to “aggressively pursue” revival of the poorly-titled “Fairness Doctrine,” whose regulations would mandate that radio stations featuring the views of conservatives like Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, or Bill O’Reilly “balance” those views (in the name of diversity) with an “equal” dose of, say, Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, or Thom Hartmann – all proven failures in a free radio market.

As if that news wasn’t alarming enough, a report released by CAP last week added even more fuel to the fire, reminding conservatives just how far the left-wing will go to silence dissent.

The organization’s report, titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” expresses a need to “close the gap” between conservative and Left-wing programming. It also advocates increasing “ownership diversity, both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the number of independent local owners,” which in the Left’s view would lead to more “diverse” programs. So instead of capitalism, we get the Leftist cure-all: quotas.

In a free market, the listeners decide which radio programs live and which die. Forcing stations to operate not on the basis of ratings and ad revenue, but in an ideological and multi-cultural affirmative-action system that dictates “fairness,” is not only unconstitutional – it’s downright Soviet. It’s offensive to the economic marketplace; it’s suffocating to the vital marketplace of ideas.

But, of course, that persnickety First Amendment has never stopped the Left before. They’re more than happy to rewrite it and bully Americans into submission, if they can’t capture and sustain an audience the old-fashioned way.

When the Fairness Doctrine was first introduced in 1949, it required licensed broadcasters to devote equal time to both sides of a controversial issue, and mandated that stations air programming addressing issues of local interest. At a time when television was in its infancy, satellite radio a fantasy, and the Internet non-existent, such rules may have had some merit. But in today’s market, with hundreds of choices in programming, such regulations are irrelevant – and nearly impossible to enforce.

But the Fairness Doctrine is more than useless – it’s counterproductive. The FCC realized 20 years ago that the law actually discouraged, rather than encouraged, more free speech. Rather than try to gauge what legally constituted “equal time” for both sides of a political contest, station owners began just dropping politically-based programming altogether. That led to the FCC’s ending enforcement of the doctrine in 1987.

The fact is that the success of conservative talk radio is a direct response to the Left’s virtual 50-year stranglehold on American media through its domination of all the major network and cable television outlets … through public broadcasting stations such as PBS and NPR … and through virtually every major American newspaper. Conservatives are simply fed up with Left-wing bias, and their heartfelt embrace of talk radio is clear evidence of their outrage.

It’s time for the Left to cut the static: Behind the calls for “regulation” and “diversity” hides a posse of political bullies who realize that they cannot compete against the likes of Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh in a free market. The left-wing’s failure to capture anything beyond a tiny niche market isn’t the fault of the FCC, nor of the dormant Fairness Doctrine. The “blame” rests with radio listeners who came, listened, and chose to tune out of “Dead Air” America.

article written June 26, 2007

So, I am going to cling to my guns and religion--but I am not bitter.  Clearly, our nation is divided.  I am curious about our future.  Some predict another civil war.  I take comfort that I am in Texas, where we could be our own nation, if need be! 

For the next two years (until we vote for the Senate and House again), I will continue to pray for our country while I take care of my own little country:  my husband, my children, and my home. 

My husband and I celebrated our seventh anniversary on Saturday (yesterday was our actual anniversary), spending the day together.  It was so nice.  My mom watched our boys while we went out to eat, shopped a little, then had dessert at a fondue restaurant.  We are already planning to take the boys to the Melting Pot in December for the full meal--it was fun!

My mom turned 60 last Monday and we had a little party for her at her favorite Mexican restaurant.  My sister and I kind of threw this party together at the last minute, and almost everyone we called came!  I was surprised--I told my mom and sister that we need to do things "last minute" more often, as more people showed up than I have had at activities that are well-planned in advance!  My best friend, who shares the same birthday as my mom, says that it is because people don't have time to dread the event, LOL!

We passed out these postcards of my mom:

I was trying to think of a good caption for this picture, and finally found an old movie advertisement (1956) for "Blonde Bait" that was too perfect!  Everyone had a good laugh--they would have LOVED the picture of my mom in her homemade swimsuit...maybe next year, LOL! 

To the winner goes the White House! 

I was reading the Family Circle magazine's November 2008 edition at the JCPenney salon yesterday, and found an article on a cookie recipe competition they hosted between Cindy McCain, Michelle Obama, and Bill Clinton (his votes dwindled to 2% after Hillary conceded to Obama).

Cindy McCain won.

The magazine noted that if history repeats itself, the winner of their cookie recipe competition would be next in the White House.

What if this little "recipe competition" were a better sampling of people's votes than all of the "polls" in the media?!    I guess we'll find out soon...

• my husband is home for the week
• the cool, crisp weather!
• two of our boys, running around the house in their Ironman costumes
• great strides in homeschooling
• homemade iced orange mocha~yum!
• an unexpected free makeover after my facial this afternoon~loved it!