The Dim Dem Price Is Wrong

Ari L. NoonanSports

Curren Price of Inglewood appears to represent the Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy Wing of the State Assembly. This Amen Section is reserved for Democratic legislators who travel the state, blindly reading from scripts provided by their union bosses. The same way a henpecked husband is ordered to shlep around a reminder with the words “Yes, Dear,” on a beautifully embossed index card. Happily ensconced in Sacramento after 12 years on the Inglewood City Council, the pride-free Mr. Price is unashamed of his lack of independence. Make no mistake, the Assemblyman is a reliable union toady. He lacks both the will and the imagination to deviate one comma from the strict marching orders issued by his union puppeteers. I think of a 5-year-old being forced to perform at a family gathering. She mouths a carefully memorized Shakespeare sonnet. But she has no notion of the meaning. She was only told to repeat them. I presume Mr. Price is a fan of karaoke. I don’t know if he has told his audiences that unions will help bald men grow their hair back, but who would be surprised? In honor of this weekend’s nationwide Martin Luther King Day celebrations, Mr. Price has attached his name to an essay that sounds like a copy of a copy of a copy of a xeroxed talking-points bulletin from union headquarters. The memo first was sent to Democratic legislators several years ago. This was at a time when, nationally, the leaders of certain unions were scuffling around, looking for a retail target to go to war against. Anybody. They only required a name, not a reason. Finally, the name “Wal-Mart” was pulled out of a hat. As America’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart represented an ideal bullseye for unionists and their Democratic toadies. Most liberals share a common birth defect — congenital envy of those are larger and those who earn more money than they do. Bingo. Wal-Mart. Arguably, Wal-Mart benefits more workers than any employer in America. But, shhh. Don’t tell Dems.

Is the Professor Defending Latino Racism?

Ari L. NoonanSports

Calling to order this morning’s session of the Dim Bulb Society, composed of the opinion essayists at the Los Angeles Times and their shills in the reading audience.

In Defense of Bad Behavior

Tanya Hernandez, a law professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, raised a prickly, sometimes shaky, academically slender racial debate in last Sunday’s opinion section of the Times. Groping to explain the deadly rivalry between the 720 known Latino and black gangs in Los Angeles, she argued Latinos come by their distaste for blacks naturally. “It is important not to ignore the effect of Latino culture and history in fueling the rift,” Prof. Hernandez said. Racial hatred started at home, she says, back in their motherlands. “Racism — and anti-black racism in particular — is a pervasive and historically entrenched reality of life in Latin America and the Caribbean.” According to Prof. Hernandez, 9 million of the 10 million slaves kidnapped from Africa several hundred years ago were deposited in Latin lands, Mexico being the largest repository. Then the professor carelessly strayed into her Welfare Queen, I Am a Victim mode. Essentially, she said “poof, and then came bigotry,” hardly a scholarly illumination of causes and events. Facilely and disingenuously, Prof. Hernandez wrote that “the legacy of the slave period in Latin America and the Caribbean is similar to that in the United States: Having lighter skin and European features increases the chances of socioeconomic opportunity, while having darker skin and African features severely limits social mobility.” By supposedly checking off the roots of racism to a vague, rubbery term such as “legacy,” she climbs onto the road for justification. How insightful of you, Professor. Instead of explaining why/how Latinos came to hate black people, Prof. Hernandez, a spineless liberal, weaseled out. Were I her professor, I would have flunked her on this test.

Wanna Bet They Will Gum Up Culver City’s Party for Dr. King?

Ari L. NoonanSports

I will reserve judgment on the merit of Culver City’s 2-day tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King on Sunday and Monday until it is over. Not one minute more. I complained for several years that Culver City went out of its way to snub the memory of Dr. King with throwaway hiccup observances that seemed to have been designed by a first-grader. A year and a half ago, I listened for one evening to chattering, overmatched housewives try to organize a train wreck of a celebration. I hear they pulled it off last January on a day when I was out of town for a family wedding. This weekend, we are coordinated. The problem with this town’s Dr. King programs is that liberals are in charge. This is tantamount to putting a 5-year-old behind the wheel of a fire truck roaring down the street at 60 miles an hour. Hold onto to your wallet — and your seatbelt. The organizers whom I know are good-hearted people. But they suffer from a chronic case of vast misguidedness. These well-meaning people dedicate their lives trying to convince the unwashed that down is up and good is bad and west is east.

Suja Baby Suggests a 64-Day Remedy for What Ails You Not Her

Ari L. NoonanSports

Suja Lowenthal is a first-term City Councilperson in Long Beach who specializes in conceiving of feel-good projects. She and three other lady liberals on the City Council, including her mother-in-law, have come up with a proposal that seems designed to make killers and their victims feel more kindly toward each other. Tomorrow night, the City Council will vote on whether to draft a resolution that designates 64 days every year when killings and other mayhem should be halted in deference to 9 weeks of programs and dialogues known as “A Season of Nonviolence.” This is a 10-year-old national project thought up by delusional do-gooder liberals. These clouded meddlers spend their lives trying to convince us heathens that if we hugged each other, then sat down at a table and shmoozed, what those radical right-wingers call “evil” would just blow away. A one-woman self-promotion machine, Suja Baby has been a drum majorette in the Long Beach nut parade. She is one of the most outspoken feel-gooders on a City Council with a growing reputation for crackpot-hood. Suja Baby is an updated version of the 19th century back-of-the-covered-wagon Medicine Man. There is a difference. She really believes what she is pushing. Suja Baby and her lady liberals are selling see-through silliness.

Tepper and Evans Found Their Life Solutions Nearby

Ari L. NoonanSports

As qualitatively alike as they are, Nathaniel Evans and Bob Tepper probably never will meet. They live in worlds distant from each other. One grew up poor. The other bottomed out as a young adult. When they needed to figure a way to make a living, neither gentleman turned to the government for a handout. Neither panhandled at a fast-food drive-thru. They did not complain about affirmative action. They did not worry whether their schools had a “disproportionate” number of brown-haired girls over 6 feet tall in the upper grades. (In this context, what does a “disproportionate” number of students of a certain ethnicity mean? If Albanians are 1 percent of the American population, should a conscience-struck citizen pout or shoot them if 2 percent of his class at UCLA is Albanian. What is the answer, Normie?) In their own schooldays, neither Mr. Tepper nor Mr. Evans griped that the Norwegians among their classmates were “disproportionate” to their number in the general population. What admirable restraint, you say.

No. 3,000 Is Reason for U.S. POWs to Break Out the Bubbly

Ari L. NoonanSports


  • See wartime data below

As you know, with left (hyperbole) wing politicians and left (hyperbole) wing journalists, exaggeration is their middle name. No disagreeable situation is too small to resist the temptation to amplify. The objective of both the journalists and the politicians appears to be a permanent commitment to make the utterly meaningless look meaningful. Those rascals were at it again over the New Year’s weekend. And so it was yesterday morning that the wary, weary war-watching bean counters sailed triumphantly into the safe harbor of nirvana. Deaf to the normally irresistible holiday revelry of more sensible Americans, the boys and girls who teeter on the lip of the left (hyperbole) wing broke into spontaneous cheers when the 3,000th American military death of the Iraqi War was announced. Now they could tell the rest of us how right they were and how wrong we were. For sheer show business hype value, this surpassed the long-awaited arrival of the Messiah. It was a peace-lovin’ liberal’s dream, better than a date with Beyonce or Angelina, even better than not having to take a bath for one more week. For sheer visual fireworks, the 3,000th American fatality in the Iraqi War was the synergistic equivalent of 10 Fourths of July to this crowd.

The Sunny Day Grandfather Turned Into Dad

Ari L. NoonanSports

My wife was as eager as a first-time grandmother could be for us to drive up the coast this morning to walk with our first grandchild through the doors of the first full calendrical year of his life. Secreted among the soft, fluffy winter apparel we packed was a selection of irresistible gifts for Gabriel — and a couple extras for his parents, in case they happen to be at home this weekend. Ever since Gabriel’s birth 6 months and 6 days ago, as of 1:45 this afternoon, the internet has been sizzling with a practically daily transmissions of hundred-angle photos. One month after Gabriel was born, he welcomed a girl cousin, Maya Nehama, in Jerusalem, and once again the photo traffic on the internet increased exponentially. Grandparenthood is to parenthood what baseball is to baking a cake, as unalike as a conservative is to a liberal. Reaching for my favorite pair of at-home footwear, I was settling into grandfatherhood almost 3 months ago when one of my sons, long estranged, unexpectedly re-entered my life. Sixteen years after the roots of my fatherhood were effectively removed, like a beautifully blooming flower jerked out of the ground, one shining star of my fatherhood returned. Just as suddenly. From a Sunday night in February 1990 until a Thursday afternoon last October, “Dad” was mostly an abstract term rather than a direct address in my home. When this son, then 6 years old, was told that his parents were divorcing, he said he would take a picture of me to bed with him every night.

Happy Kwanzaa — Or Is That Greeting Proper?

Ari L. NoonanSports

The curious American-born, African-centered weeklong holiday of Kwanzaa started on Tuesday and ends on Monday, New Year’s Day. Same dates every year. What are we to make of this festival? Popularly, it is seen as a celebration organized to heighten cultural pride among African Americans. “Heighten?” What a splendidly sterile, unisex, emotion-free concept. I picture a man turning to his wife and saying, cheerily, “Time to whoop it up again, Martha. Let’s go heighten our awareness that we are African Americans.” We are told that observant families display art objects and African cloth of vivid coloring through their homes. The ladies of the home wear an African-style dress, called a uwole. Fresh fruit is served. A 7-piece candelabra, called a “kinara,” resembles the 9-candle menorah. Daily rituals include the serving of drinks and an exchange of gifts. In East African Swahili, “kwanzaa” means “first fruits.” You may wonder why “first fruits” are celebrated on the agriculturally unlikeliest days of the year. The father of Kwanzaa provided a slightly ambiguous answer. Founder Ron Karenga was a black militant in the 1960s when “black militant” was an angry, dynamic phrase, packing far more resonance than it does today. “Separatist” probably would be a more precise characterization of Mr. Karenga. He said he designed Kwanzaa as a “black alternative to the existing holiday (Christmas).” He timed it for the peak of party season, he said, for street gangs. The marketing-wise promoters of Kwanzaa added an “a” to the spelling of the Swahili term. This was done, partially, to create a 7-letter word, one for each of the Seven Principles of Blackness. Because most of you out there in Newspaperland are white, you may be surprised to learn this is the 40th anniversary. Kwanzaa, as you will conclude, has not exactly caught fire. Just as my family annually celebrates the anniversary of the date my Uncle Fred paid off his second set of dentures, Kwanzaa is a date known and observed by a select few.

Arnold Better Duck — Here Comes the L.A. Times, Hatchet in Hand

Ari L. NoonanSports

When you climb into the ring with the wide-eyed ideologues from the Los Angeles Times, you don’t have to ask your corner about the newspaper’s fighting style. Their central tactic never varies. Hunkering down, they place their left knee on the hapless fellow’s reddening neck. They don’t ease up until he is out of office or in the ground, preferably both. This morning, for about the 4500th time, what Larry Elder calls “the Democratic Times of Los Angeles” flogged Gov. Schwarzenegger. Being a Republican, Arnold, as sensible people address him, ranks lower on the favorability — or fair-play — scale than that old dead rascal Joe Stalin. Having failed in a desperate ploy to submarine Arnold 5 days before he won the recall election against Very Gray Davis, the Times snarled, growled and vowed to count and evaluate every breath, every move, until Arnold was out of office. Under the present amateurish leadership, the Times never worries about losing face. Playing the game of “gotcha” journalism that many failing newspapers have resorted to in the past, the Times, always in a mood to zetz a member of the “wrong” political party, elbowed Arnold in the headline, and the race to the ethical basement was on. You may remember we have pointed out that in the hundreds of Schwarzenegger headlines that have been written through two election cycles, the liberal policymakers at the Times have ordained that The Guv with the 14-letter name never, never will be identified in a headline as “Arnold.” In the strange ways that a liberal mind operates, the Times reasoned such a reference would imply familiarity, or, heaven forbid, approbation.

Whether Crook or Messiah, Black Politicos Soar in The N.Y. Times and the L.A. Times

Ari L. NoonanSports

We have come this far from the days of slavery, a blurrily remote memory that liberals love to periodically sprinkle on the rest of America, as if it were fairy dust: Barely 120 hours before the start of the new year, the most desirable job in America is to be a black liberal Democrat running for the highest office in the land. Harriet Beecher Stowe never would believe it. The ambitious black man, once despised openly by less educated Americans and moré discreetly by sophisticated types, now has raced to the opposite extreme. When you read the two most liberal daily journals in the land, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, you learn that the politically ambitious black man is grossly feared by the politically liberal descendants of the classic American racial bigots of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the turn of the present century, which marked the full-bore arrival of serious, reliable news, maturely, reflectively presented via the internet, stolid oldtime print giants, such as the two Timeses, have suffered staggering losses in revenue and, perhaps more significantly, in prestige. Formerly loyal readers have deserted them as if a medieval plague had returned. Between them, they have laid off enough people to start new communities of their own. Gasping for fiscal air, they have floundered like suddenly beached whales. For 6 years, they have thrashed along the sands of each coast, groping for the stability of solid ground like a career alcoholic.