This Week at Human Events…

30 Jul

My newest column, The Secrets of Michelle Obama’s Success, is up at Human Events.

“Americans are already spooked by a President who is sagging in popularity, struggling to deliver on the most basic elements of his platform, from Guantanamo to the environment.  With the exception of a few issues, in the past 16 months Mrs. Obama has deliberately shown no designs on power. She has studiously avoided controversy, and made no demands for a West Wing office she can decorate with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, à la Hillary.

Instead, Michelle Obama seems to be challenging Laura Bush to a June Cleaver-off; whoever makes the best meatloaf wins. While a lot of women are left wondering why a Harvard-educated feminist is content to wear the apron, the polls prove she’s smart to leave the knives in the kitchen drawer.”

READ MORE

PAINT IT PINK!

23 Jun

(Editor Maggie Prescott wants everything painted pink in the classic movie Funny Face)

Today I’m hanging out with the fabulous women over at Project GOPink, writing for their blog. Project GOPink is dedicated to inspiring, mobilizing, and supporting female conservative and independent candidates dedicated to traditional values. If you’ve ever checked out the roster of conservative women in the House and Senate, or in political leadership positions Nation-wide, you’ll see why their work is so necessary. In a nutshell: “while women make up a majority of voters in this country, 83 percent of the current Congress is male and 84 nations currently surpass the United States in the percentage of women serving in the national legislature.” How sad is that? Check out the blog (and my post:  ”Will 2010 Be The Year of the Woman?”) and be sure to support and volunteer for female candidates in your area elections.

-S.F.

The Daily Caller

18 Jun

Pleased as punch today to have an op-ed over at the Daily Caller, The Palin Effect (visit HERE). The DC is the online paper that’s going to save us from a dwindling news force, lack of advertising revenue, and – oh yes, conservative boredom. They also have Jim Treacher, which is pretty much all you need to succeed.

-S.F.

George W. Bush Beats Gore (Again)

3 Jun

Photo by Paul Morse.

On Wednesday of this week, at around noon, Vanity Fair online smugly reported that things weren’t going so well at George W. Bush’s newly inaugurated Facebook page:  he had a mere 500 fans. They should have checked the time stamp more closely. Out the gate at around 10 a.m., the Facebook page had amassed those 500 fans effortlessly – and the “likes” kept coming. By midnight, the President had already gathered more than 55,000 followers. And it looks like he’ll make 100,000 by the end of day two. My article on the former President’s online popularity, excerpted from American Maggie, below:

“The 43rd President knows how to make friends – fast. George W. Bush’s Official Facebook page launched yesterday, and in less than 24 hours, Bush became more popular than Al Gore, John Kerry, and Jimmy Carter (who has an official Carter Library page – and a mere 669 fans). In just one day, Bush had gathered more than 55,000 followers, surpassing many politicians with long-standing accounts. Among presidents and presidential hopefuls, Bush looks like he’ll easily catch up to Bill Clinton, who had nearly 328,000 fans at press time. Sizing up the 2008 election, pages from Joe Biden, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee (at several hundred thousand each) are also within sight. Not so easy to surpass? Tea-party and Facebook fan favorite Sarah Palin, who updates daily to a cool one million followers, and President Barack Obama, now past eight million followers.

While Bush’s joining the A-list on Facebook may surprise some, his popularity on the networking site and online has been growing steadily. Last February, a website called bushfans.com launched the “Miss Me Yet?” fan page, celebrating the highlights of the Bush presidency and criticizing the Obama Administration. It now has more than 160,000 fans. Even Bush team members have fared well in the high-school halls of Facebook popularity. “The Architect” Karl Rove, with more than 22,000 fans, is no one to sniff at. Laura Bush has been similarly successful; her relatively new page has a following of nearly 19,000.

So a lot of people want to be friends with Bush – but who is he friending?” Read on…

Social (Media) Conservative

26 May

I’m overwhelmed this week by the sudden glut of new social media apps for conservatives. First, Ricochet began its “soft launch” with a beta version; a new GOP media site, America Speaking Out, is up and running; and today Heritage Foundation and Hillsdale College booster Ginni Thomas launched Liberty Central, “America’s Public Square.” I realize three launches for Republicans in 2010 isn’t necessarily a lot – but give us a break. We’re heavily geriatric.

First up, America Speaking Out, where the look is GOP meets Juno. This means sketchy style graphics and going congressional casual with a sport jacket (honest to blog!). Rep. Kevin McCarthy opens with a video describing what you’re supposed to do at ASO (and for you clever visual learners, the frozen screen below is enough). Short version, it’s like your Facebook wall, with an unlike button:  write your own idea for solving a problem, or react to others’ ideas with a click or a comment. After enough interaction, you can earn badges and even a Senate seat. Kidding! As this next election cycle spools up, the GOP is hoping to start an open dialogue with Americans, both the sympathetic and the frustrated, by giving them a place to call their own online.

The new casual GOP – “Hey punk, where’s your TIE!?”

Like America Speaking Out, Ricochet is an attempt to get the conversation going, but this time, it’s with a pre-selected group of people. Whereas ASO is like drinking out of a fire hose, Ricochet offers a more limited stream of dialogue. With only 22 official “contributors,” ranging from WSJ columnist and former Bush speechwriter Bill McGurn to novelist and Thatcher biographer Claire Berlinski, the site is more like participating in a panel. Hear the
contributors hold forth on a subject, and then ask them questions, evaluate their comments, and “follow” them Facebook style.

Unlike America Speaks Out, Ricochet is unaffiliated – but it isn’t free. When the hard launch comes this summer, it will cost $3.47 a month to share your thoughts.

Liberty Central is the least unconventional of the bunch; it’s more like a traditional website. But, just like America Speaks Out and Ricochet, this new site by Ginni Thomas (wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) is an effort to be more interactive with voters. Unlike the others, Liberty Central’s goal is to get you to talk directly to Congress. My favorite feature is buried near the bottom of the page:  when you visit, LC picks up your IP address and automatically uploads the Senators and Representatives for the area you’re in, along with their contact information. Speaking truth to power has never been easier.

All of these new sites are exciting developments for the GOP, and conservatives in general. Today the Daily Caller, which ran a story on the America Speaks Out launch, highlighted surprising statistics about the Republicans and new-fangled media: “When it comes to new media, House Republicans have gone from making progress to taking the lead,” said Rep. Kathy McMorris Rogers, Washington Republican, who noted that House Republicans have “tweeted” on Twitter five times as much as Democrats.” If this trend continues, the “O” in “GOP” will no longer apply.

The New Adult Adolescence

1 May

This is a little late in coming, but my most recent article, Threat Level Orange:  The Real Housewives of Orange County and the New Adult Adolescence is up at American Maggie. Watching an episode reminds me of two things:  swimming (so many inflated lips) and the movie Freaky Friday. How did these women become grown-ups with children and adult responsibilities? They can’t even figure out how to pay rent! It’s definitely entertaining, but the BRAVO network expects us to like these women, and even worse, to emulate them. That’s where things become troubling.

Excerpt:

“But this isn’t Freaky Friday, and according to Bravo, these are real women. Orange County dweller and recently evicted Lynne opines during the opening credits: “It’s not enough to have money. You have to look good spending it.” That’s a nice motto for Kimora Lee Simmons and her mogul/model/mom millions, but it fits nearly-broke Lynne as poorly as her polyester sheath dress. The rest of the Orange County Housewives’ strictly blonde cast (Lynne being the sole peroxide-free exception) have their share of troubles, both real and imagined. Vicki, the only member who appears to really work, struggles with a possible diagnosis of cancer for her daughter. Tamra, always the center of the party in big bling and a radiation-bright tan, has a tumultuous private life and a verbally abusive husband. Then there’s Gretchen, a blonde bombshell with a laugh like a jackhammer, perpetually on the husband hunt, and Alexis, a scalpel-happy Stepford Wife who keeps the home fires burning and her husband’s slippers at the ready. But mostly, they spend their days in self-indulgence, gossiping, fighting, and fighting about gossiping. As the official website says:  “The ladies show no signs of slowing down, and shopping, dining, drinking, dancing, plastic surgery and working out continue to remain at the top of their list of priorities.” Well, thank goodness.” Continue reading…

My thanks also to excellent writer Mary Hasson for citing Threat Level Orange in her story on men and and adult adolescence. Don’t miss out on her great blog, Words From Cana.

Image, BRAVO.

Many Voices, One Nation

12 Feb

“Americans are united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals. The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, and that no insignificant person was ever born. Our country has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by principles that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every citizen must uphold these principles. And every new citizen, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.” – President George W. Bush, First Inaugural

Back before Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was known for drinking lager in the Rose Garden with Boston’s finest, he hosted a fantastic PBS series called African-American Lives. The show was based around a simple concept:  examine the genetic and genealogical legacy of well-known African Americans through their oral history, DNA tests, and historical records. The results were alternatively heartening, educational, and disappointing, and they raised tantalizing questions about how our knowledge of our genetic material shapes our view of self. What does it mean to discover that you are descended from slave owners? That you are more American Indian than African American? That your ancestor was a pillar of the Civil Rights movement? Or that your origins are, in fact, untraceable?

This month, Gates ups the genetic roulette with a new derivative show on PBS, Faces of America. Participants include Stephen Colbert, Malcolm Gladwell, Yo-Yo Ma, Queen Noor, Meryl Streep, and others. In case you lost count, that’s Irish, English/Jamaican/Jewish, Chinese, Syrian, and German. It’s biography via DNA; I can’t wait to see the results.

Airing on PBS stations on Wednesdays, from 8 to 9 ET.

The Unethical Treatment of People

29 Jan

Earlier this week, I wrote an article for American Maggie about PETA’s willingness to strong arm pro-animal rights celebrities into appearing in PETA ads. So imagine how celebs they don’t like loathe get treated. Olympic ice skater and flamboyant dresser Johnny Weir found out this week, after he refused to remove some tufts of fox fur from a skating costume at the request of another animal rights group, Friends of Animals. All hell broke loose. After a smear campaign by animal rights activists against Weir and his costume designer, Weir decided that faux was the way to go. Or maybe it was the death threats that convinced him. He will skate for gold in Vancouver this winter, and it takes no time at all to realize that anyone who claims to love small furry creatures, but will threaten to murder people, also probably wouldn’t hesitate to bash in a few kneecaps a la Tonya Harding.

To a reasonable person, this behavior is obviously wrong. But it also encapsulates the great flaw underlaying extremist animal rights beliefs. Jonah Goldberg sums up the problem nicely:  “What the PETA crowd doesn’t understand, or what it deliberately confuses, is that human compassion toward animals is an obligation of humans, not an entitlement for animals.” As I point out in my article, “What PETA unwittingly demands of its supporters is that they behave like the rest of us: treat animals better than animals treat each other, and acknowledge that humans are different than animals in their capacity to act in reason and kindness, rather than instinct.”  Threatening to murder people to save animals is upside down, both logically, and morally. For further reading, a discussion of animal vs. human rights, and a conservative’s fight against animal abuse.

An excerpt from my article:

“PETA claims to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, and that seems to include captive first ladies, whom the organization pointed out couldn’t endorse them in an official capacity, so they didn’t bother to ask. But they’re mind readers; they just know Mrs. O loves them.

So much so in fact, that Mrs. O herself couldn’t at first convince them to take down the ads. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk explained her unusual thinking to the Washington Post:  “we got a call from the White House counsel’s office… we said to them, we’re not selling a coat, only an idea that glamorous beautiful women who you look up to don’t wear fur…. We’re honoring her. Lawyers are lawyers, but PETA is honoring her fashion sense.” It’s tough to argue with the unimpeachable logic that lawyers are, generally, lawyers, but it’s more difficult to see how completely disrespecting someone’s wishes honors them. But chalk one up to Mrs. O and those attorneys:  PETA is now pulling the ads.

As an unwilling PETA advocate, Michelle Obama is in good company. None of the other three women in the ad gave their consent either, although Oprah (no last name necessary), Carrie Underwood, and Tyra Banks have all participated with PETA in some capacity in the past. And unconventional (unauthorized) celebrity endorsements or willful misrepresentation are simply modus operandi for PETA. Princess Diana was once a victim, as was the Dali Lama. PETA routinely ropes people into promoting them, fencing them into situations with little room to maneuver, and force-feeding their ideas to the public. Just don’t treat animals that way.”

From AmericanMaggie.com.

Picture, feltworks.wordpress.com.

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