Which History Gets Valued?

So Sharpton, civil rights activist, is descended from a slave owned by relatives of segregationist senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Big deal. How about whether Sharpton is descended from Mandinka royalty in Mali or sheep herders in Gambia? Better yet, trace Al to Lucy, the graceful Australopithecus anamensis, “First Humanlike Woman of the World,” who lived in Ethiopia about 3.2 million years ago. Now we’re talking genealogy.

Otherwise, we’re just splitting hairs on a gnat’s butt. Can we move into the 21st century, please? The encoded human genome ought to render such Sharpton-Thurmond connections as insignificant knots on a dead “family tree.” It’s a forest out there, and everything is tangled up.
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Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright learns that she is of Jewish descent. And the world is astounded. Yvette Silverman Melanson of New York used to wear just a gold Star of David, but now she also wears a heavy strand of turquoise beads because she learned that some of her relatives are Navajo. “Unbelievable,” Melanson declares. Black writer Thulani Davis discovers Confederates in her genealogical attics. When she saw pictures of her relatives for the first time, “I went, ‘Oh my God, it’s my hairline; it’s my raccoon eyes.” Peel back that ethnic onion all you want, and everybody finds the same thing: deceased humans who walked on feet of clay.

So says Courtland Milloy, in the WaPo, this morning. His point, of course, is that Al Sharpton is not raising this issue for gynecological research.  He’s probably not suggesting that this influences his life in terms of his physical or mental abilities. What Molloy does not say, however, (apparently for reasons of his own) is the real motivation behind what Mr. Sharpton is doing.

I submit that what we have here is Sharpton making mountain’s out of molehills, so as to lay claim to victimhood.  Victimhood has always made Sharpton a fairly decent amount of money; he’s either declaring himself a victim, his fellow blacks victims, or he’s picking up victims and attaching things to them that never happened.  An example of this would be Tawanna Brawley.  It is clear that without that victimhood , Mr. Sharpton considers himself and his fellows ill equipped to deal with the world.

But since he’s taking a historical turning with this argument of his, perhaps we should look at history within the context of the American culture, shall we?

Years ago, someone having ancestors who came to this country on the Mayflower would speak with pride of such an event… their ancestors accomplished something to be proud of.  In fairly similar fashion, those making the trek through Ellis Island were considered ‘American’ for having gone though the troubles that Ellis represents, and made it in America, anyway. In both cases, some sort of personal accomplishment, or more correctly one’s familial attachment to such historical accomplishment, was a point of pride, and an indication of the abilities of the current generation.

See…. accomplishment used to be part and parcel of what it was to be an American, and that was shown by those event we held high in our own mindsets… events and accomplishments such as these.

So, along comes Al Sharpton.

I’m quite sure I’ll be labeled a racist, here, by those who will stop reading at this point… but race isn’t the issue I’m raising… and I would ask you attend my words carefully, here to confirm this. What I am focused on here is what gets valued… historical accomplishment, or historical victim hood.

Al Sharpton, or someone in his family, MUST have some sort of major accomplishment in their past they could hold high. I make the assumption that one does not rise to the level of prominence that Sharpton has without having something on the ball. I also, apparently, think more of the Sharpton family and their collective abilities, then does Sharpton, himself.  But, no… what Sharpton clearly labels himself as here is not an accomplisher of deeds, but a victim of them. His concentration is on that historical victimhood.
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Forgive my leaning toward the obvious, but it occurs to me a natural question; If those touting their family’s historical accomplishments take such great historical accomplishments as indication of what they themselves are capable of doing, shall we not also take a reliance on historical victimhood to indicate that those expounding on their familly’s historical victimhood are in reality saying that they will never become any better than victims?

Americans tend to celebrate accomplishment, and to celebrate the achiever , not the victim.  Mr. Sharpton is a professional victim.  He expects and anticipates that his followers will be the same.  In all honesty, this is precisely why I have never liked Mr. Sharpton.  His vistas Seem to me incredibly narrow, and his estimation of the abilities of the people he calls victims incredibly small. And I’ll bet he can’t understand for the life of him why nobody wants to take him seriously.
But so it is with so much of black culture today, as well.  Anyone who manages to achieve within the system, suddenly isn’t black enough. How many cries of “uncle Tom” was Mr. Justice Thomas greeted with?  Another example: I think the man’s politics abysmal, but the entire question of whether or not Barrack Obama is black enough to succeed in his run for the presidency, revolves around what he has been able to accomplish for himself, versus what he has been able to accomplish by his victimhood.  How black one is, apparently, is at least partially measured by how much one is a victim.

Such is the kind of snake oil, that Mr. Sharpton is selling, here.

As Milloy points out, Sharpton may very well be telling the truth about the ancestry he’s pointed out.  But what of it?  I wonder how many people will say that Mr. Sharpton, having a gynecological past that includes Strom Thurmond, isn’t black enough to speak for blacks anymore?  that he’s really just a white guy trying to pass. Think that argument is going to work?  So, why does it work in the other direction?

I say again; race has nothing to do with this.  What we’re talking about is the value of the cultures in question. The argument is between the culture of achievement, and the culture of victimhood.  That kind of battle can only occur, in a world where the victims assume that achievement can only be had by adding someone to the roles of victimhood.

Marxism in Amos and Andy black face, in short.

Is Mrs. Clinton’s campaign issuing rubber checks?

“An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.” 

Simon Cameron

All those many endorsement checks and to what end.  Mrs Clinton’s problem is that her supporters will not stay bought:

(CBS) CHICAGO Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are just beginning their presidential campaigns, but a poll says there has already been a major shift among African-American voters.

It would seem strange for a campaign awash with millions to have their checks returned NSF.

The Morrises, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, attempt to explain John McCain’s campaign collapse.   The Morrrises attrit over seventeen hundred words in the process, and fail.  Don Surber does the job in but two words  — McCain-Feingold:

Americans do not like to be told to shut up.

McCain-Feingold told Americans to shut up

Go home John.

While the Libby jury deliberates, Clarice Feldman takes a break from the trial to take a shot at the liimosine class of watermelons: 

I’m trying to figure out why Norman Lear with a 26 car garage insists we cut our driving and Barbra Streisand from her well-staffed mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean advises her fans to air dry their laundry outside. And Teresa Heinz and John Kerry, who use a private plane to travel to their 5 mansions and SUVs, warn us all to cut back on our energy use.

K.C. Johnson, Durham-in-Wonderland reported that last December the defense in the set off this provervial bomb shell: 

After his disastrous performance at the December 15 hearing—when he admitted that he and Mike Nifong had entered into an agreement to intentionally withhold exculpatory DNA evidence—Dr. Brian Meehan filed an amended report, which purported to be the complete results of his findings. That report did little more than confirm what he admitted under oath in questioning from Brad Bannon: that DNA from multiple, unidentified, males was found in the accuser’s rape kit.

Now ABC 11 TV has detonated yet another bomb shell, yet more exclupatory DNA, which was withheld from the defense.

Adding to that revelation, the defense filed a 39-page motion Tuesday. It says another report Meehan sent to the defense last month shows more DNA was found on the alleged victim that was previously disclosed — DNA that doesn’t match the three defendants in the case.

It  appear ever increasingly difficult to find a single male in Durham  with whom Crystal Gail  Mangum did not have sexual relations.   That is aside from the three defendants David Evans, Reade Seligmann, and Collin Finnerty

It is long past time to end this persecution.

BAGHDAD, Iraq —AP- The Iraqi Cabinet approved a draft law Monday to manage the country’s vast oil industry and distribute its wealth among the population _ a major breakthrough in U.S. efforts to press the country’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups to reach agreements to achieve stability. Parliament will take up the measure when it reconvenes early next month after a recess. With all major parties endorsing the bill, approval is likely _ although some politicians predicted a vigorous debate on some of the details.

Interesting. The left has been screaming for literally years that such a deal would be the first step toward quelling violence in Iraq. They’ve been busy blaming the President for it not happening, and have been all over the Iraqis, as well.  One wonders what their reaction would be, today. So far, silencio, but the day is not over.

Here, it seems, is a chance for the Democrats to show their quallity, their integrity… or their lack of same. I’ve said it repeatedly, here… the worst thing you can give a Democrat is exactly what they ask for. Will they now admit that the goal has been accomplished by the Bush administration, in spite of their catterwalling about it? Or will they be as silent on this victory as they have been all the other recent victories in Iraq by the United States? Or, in the worst case, if violence is NOT curbed by this action, will they admit their original assesment was wrong?

Caught on the radio this morning, from a small town station I stumbled across:

“It took Brittany Spears to make KFed look like a good parent.”

Matthew Cox Army Times, reports on a hero:

President Bush bestowed the Medal of Honor Monday on retired Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall in a White House ceremony.

In a recent interview, the honoree said he can’t stop thinking about the men on the ground who inspired him to repeatedly expose his helicopter to intense enemy fire during the Battle of Ia Drang 42 years ago.

The retired Army helicopter pilot said it was “the bravery of the infantry on the ground” that he remembers most about that fierce fight in November 1965.

Salute.

(H/T  photo: Age(AU)  

As a member of PETA, Pamela Anderson (pictured left wwaring Uggs) has protested the use of leather.  Now, the Daily Telegraph(AU) reports on Anderson’s, epifany:

The Hollywood pin-up credited with turning the Australian boots into a global fashion phenomenon denounced the footwear on her website.

In a truly blonde moment, the actress has suddenly realised that the boots are made from shaved sheepskin.

And mother-of-two Pammy, a staunch animal rights activist who has been a PETA member for a decade, says she is racked with guilt that women worldwide have followed in her footsteps.

Anderson’s last season on Baywatch was 1997

I don’t know which is the more disturbing thought. One that Anderson would think that women  would choose to use her as if she were a role model, or two, that some fools actually do.

More: Tim Blair; Michelle Malkin.

While the Clintons are not reknowned for their honesty, I am willing to take Mrs. Clinton for her word, that she personally wants to to take all oil company profits.

That is what socialists do and that is what Mrs. Clinton is.  Socialists should be taken at their word when they say theyh intend to take private property for their own use.   Hugo Chavez said he would national Venezula’s oil industry.  Natalie Obiko Pearson, Associated Press::

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez ordered by decree on Monday the takeover of oil projects run by foreign oil companies in Venezuela’s Orinoco River region. 

Chavez had previously announced the government’s intention to take a majority stake by May 1 in four heavy oil-upgrading projects run by British Petroleum PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Total SA and Statoil ASA.

When it come to personal greed, Hugo Chavez proved himself to be a man of his word.    I suggest the same be said of Mrs. Clinton, when it comes to her personal greed, she too can be taken at her word.

Ed Morrissey, Captain Quarters, seems to be suggesting that Chavez is smarter than Mrs. Clinton:

Interestingly and not surprisingly, the Venezuelan strongman didn’t mention how he planned to compensate these companies for 60% shares of their projects. Instead, he told them that he didn’t want them to leave, and take all of their expertise and technology with them. Chavez wants them to accept the fact that they would do all the work while he gets most of the profits.

Chavez is dangling the carrot that he will let the oil producers keep forty percent of the profits.   In effect, Chavez is proposing a sixty percent tax on oil revenues, quite unlike Mrs. Clinton’s one hundred percent tax.   Chavez is hedging his bets by gambling that the oil producers in Venezula will prefer forty percent of something rather than nothing.   Then of course, if the oil producers call Chavez, Hugo could end up owing a hundred percent of nothing.

Of course Chavez is not smart enough to realize that he give oil producers sixty percent less reason to make any future investment in Venezula.  That still leaves Hugo forty percent ahead of Mrs. Clinton, who would provide utterly no incentive for future investment.

When observing a slam of a leftist icon, a measure of how truthful that slam is, is how much the left screams about it.

Personally, I will take Al Gore more seriously when I see him actually driving one of the thimbles he thinks the rest of us ought to be driving; when I see him giving up his private jets, and his “high consumption lifestyle”. At least, at that point, he will have the virtue of honesty. Maybe.

As it stands, he does not.

Addendum:  (David L)  Just as surley as the Sun rises in the East, the folks at Think Progress are upset. what yet again, that one their heros has been smeared by the right wing:

The right-wing is angry that Al Gore has won so much public attention and goodwill for his work on global warming. Determined to smear his efforts, Drudge writes in a screaming headline:

While I find rating a person’s greenworthy rating in terms of the size of his house and his energy consumption to be so much Barbara Striesand, I’d find more amusing to give green rating is terms of waistlines.   Al is a big boy, and big boys need to eat a lot of food and Gore certainly does.

* I took the boys out for a rail photo run on Sunday… We quickly saw that nothing was moving… and quite by chance, stumbled onto why. The picture, here, is taken from one of our favorite sitting spots… and one I’ve written about before.  You’re on Sanford Road, in Churchville, NY, looking west toward Buffalo

Since we weren’t able to photograph any trains going by we decided to concentrate our efforts on what we had in front of us. This first picture is a very powerful zoom as well as some after the fact editing to touch things up a little bit.  From the point of the shot to where the white truck used to the right of the shop, is approximately a mile.  Note the bridge in the background.

What has essentially happened here, is the train that we’re looking at has lost a couple of cars.  My guess, based on the damage we saw was a bearing failure on one axle.

This is a shot from the opposite direction, from Gough Road… which is in fact, little more than an unpaved farm lane.

Remember the bridge in the background from the first shot.  Now check the map. Observe where route 33, Buffalo road, goes over the main line.  This shot is taken from that bridge looking back east for Churchville, and Rochester.  That’s the Churchville water tower to the upper right of the shot, perhaps three and a half to four miles away.  The Union Pacific power you see on the right hand track is waiting to pull away some of the undamaged cars from the train.

Not very exciting, photography wise, but we found it interesting to observe the practiced ease with which the damaged cars were re-railed and moved out. I will admit that most times our rail fanning trips and of being all about the machines.  On this occasion we had the opportunity to observe the human element at work.  Particularly the teamwork.

* Since those pictures were taken, we have had an additional 4 to 5in. of snow.  With any degree of luck I’ll have some snow covered shots to show you in the next day or two.  They’re currently sitting in my camera, waiting to be downloaded.  I could be wrong, but I get the genuine impression that this is going to be the last really heavy snowfall of the year.

* So I’m doing my normal rounds, this afternoon, and I notice that Hillary Clinton has decided that Bill Clinton’s impeachment back in 98 is off limits for her fellow Democrats to bring up. I won’t bother linking it, since it’s likely be in all the national outlets.  She was in the Rochester area today pushing one giveaway or another, and the subject of her husband’s impeachment came up.  She once again raised the phrase “politics of personal destruction” apparently neglecting the idea that her husband was already pretty much destroyed , and her along with it, particularly if you consider the behavior of both of them…. (“We ARE the President”) that led to that impeachment. Poor Hillary… First the David Geffen nonsense, and now this.  One begins to wonder if Hillary Clinton is of the impression that she’s going to be able to sneak into the White House by virtue of a sympathy vote.  She’s certainly playing the victim to the hilt.
* I’ve spent most of the last week, trying to determine what a was causing my wife’s desktop to continually reboot .  I’ve replaced the power supply, thinking that to be the problem.  As it turned out it wasn’t; there was a collector like capacitor on the motherboard in the power supply stream that was heating up breaking and resetting itself.  That kind of fault happens often enough… I know of three different models of Dell, IBM, and a couple Compaq models…all of which do it.  Fortunately I have a spare of the same model on the shelf, slapped it into service and it’s been fine ever since.

* So, they’ve supposedly found the tomb of Christ.  The claim of course is that this disproves the Godhead of Christ. but did anybody happen to notice the season that they’ve released this information in?  Easter is what, three weeks away? Wasn’t this the time period of the last supposedly final proof Christ is not who millions say he is? Forgive me, but I’ve been at dairy farms and sewage treatment plants that smelled better than this supposed “find”. I will guarantee you that what’s going on here, is not Almighty God, but the almighty dollar.  Just like every time before.

It never fails to irritate me to see professsional reporters pontificate on subjects in which they are so bloody ignorant. 

This story has one reporter in a snit:

Victor Harris zoomed at 80 to 90 miles per hour in his Cadillac covering nearly nine miles in six minutes with a deputy sheriff hot on his tail. But when the chase ended in a violent crash that left the 19-year-old driver a quadriplegic, the roles reversed.  

The reporter, Warren Richey of the Christian Science Monitor, pulls this whopper out thin air

The Fourth Amendment prohibits police from using unreasonable tactics during arrests.

Yet read Article IV of the Bill of Rights:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

Having read the actual text of the Constitution, maybe you should send your resume to the Christiian Science Monitor. 

The Constitution gives the federal government no power to dictate to the several states how to conduct a police pursuit.  Police powers belong to the states and not to the federal government.  In any case, establishing pursuit policy is not a judicial function.?

You can always figure somebody’s priorities, by what they do and do not do.

A case in point would be last night’s Oscar awards.

How is it that the academy managed to find time to award Al Gore for his propaganda film, but somehow, after eight tries, has never managed to get an award to Peter O’Toole who actually deserved it?  That’s eight times this guy’s been denied…. robbed, in fact…. treated like a rank journeyman.
If I were to counsel Mr. O’Toole this morning, I would advise him not to worry about it much; the bottom line is they were never about acting and good filmmaking, anyway.

CBS News info babe, can’t call her a reporter, reports a “grass roots” anti war movement among soldiers in Iraq.  Logan’s, and CBS’s problem, is that this is not a grass roots movement but rather an Astroturf campagned by Fenton Comunications, the same group which foisted Mrs. Sheehan off on  you.

Milblogs has the story that Logan missed.   More Uncle Jimbo, Blackfive.

Mudville Gazette has the background on Astroturfing.