Re: LJ "VOTP"

I'll try to answer your questions as best I can:

He was in prison, but I don't recall why. But the prison wasn't Casa Rosada, as it wasn't and isn't a prison. He became President (the first time) in 1946. After Evita died in 1952, he hung on until a coup in 1955 sent him to excile, in Spain I believe. He returned to Argentina and became President again in 1973, but died in office less than a year later.

The Casa Rosada was not a prison - it is the Presidential Palace / gov't house. It was originally a fort, but I've never read anything that said it was a prison.

The "Mothers of May Square" march every Thursday (and have done so every Thursday for 20+ years) demanding justince for "los desaparecidos" (the young people who disappeared during the military government's reign from 1976 to 1983). When I was marching with them, I thought the signs and banners they had were referring to that. Our Argentine friends told me when I asked them what the banners and signs said, that they referred to the world bank forgiving Argentina's foreign debt.
I guess the Mothers are figuring out that they need to branch out to protest other things so that they can recruit younger protesters. I would assume that the Mothers themselves are getting old and dying off.

Hope this answers your questions

A Confession

I too have marched shirtless. Here I am getting ready for my morning march to the local Stop and Rob for cigs.

Re: LJ "VOTP"

OK, A little research tells me (I think) that Casa Rosada is the prison where Peron was held in 1945 (for what I don't know) and that descamisado means shirtless and that the men waiting for Peron's release(?) took their shirts off because it was hot.

Can you fill in the details? Why was Peron in prison? Why/how did he get out? Why do people march every Thursday? Why were you marching (VOTP, I know, but what do you mean?)? What does "PAGO" on the sign mean? Why are you so short and wearing a scarf on your head?

Katrina Evacuees Donation Update...Feb 17 Update

I posted previously about my wonderful clients' generosity in purchasing two homes for Katrina family evacuees and the wonderful work of Foundation Communities.

A second family has now been chosen. I did not have the opportunity to meet this family so I asked one of the great folks at Foundation Communities to write a bit about the new family. This is what she sent me (only slightly edited to protect identities):


When the dad and mom heard about the storm, they didn’t hesitate to pack up their two daughters, 6 and 4 and just start driving. They eventually made their way to Austin. The dad has an aunt and uncle (and several cousins) who live in Austin, and they figured that they could stay there for awhile. The aunt and uncle took in over 20 relatives who were fleeing the storm!

The mom, who grew up in New Orleans and never dreamed of leaving, thought they would eventually return home. Then they visited what was left of their apartment in the ninth ward. The roof was gone, the walls were moldy, and nothing was salvageable. It was at that point that she began to see things as a sign that they were to start a new life in Austin. In New Orleans, she had been an elementary school teacher and a Girl Scout leader for her oldest daughter’s troop. Now she works for AISD as a substitute teacher. She hopes that in May when teaching jobs usually open up, she’ll be able to secure a full-time teaching position. She has just joined a new church, and feels more and more at home in Austin every day.

The dad also grew up in New Orleans. Recognizing there wasn’t any opportunity for him in New Orleans, he had thought about leaving, but didn’t want to take his wife far from her family. With a high unemployment level and most jobs only paying minimum wage, it was hard to save and get ahead. Before coming to Austin, he’d worked at the Superdome. Right after arriving in Austin, he got a job working in the warehouse at Large Austin Computer Related Company with which most of you are familiar. He’s very happy with his job and although it requires him to work the night shift it pays $4 more per hour than he ever made in his life.

As soon as they arrived in Austin, their aunt immediately enrolled the two girls in school. Since then, the girls have adjusted amazingly well. They love their new school, teachers and friends. On the weekends, the girls get to see their Aunt, Uncle and cousins. It has become a weekly event for the family that is here to get together for Friday night dinner.

In New Orleans, they thought about purchasing a home, but were waiting to become more financially stable to do so. With a job that paid minimum wage, the dad knew it would have been a long time before they would have been able to save enough. When mom and dad mom were told that they were the second HOPE family, mom couldn’t stop screaming with excitement. "This is really a dream for us, we’re staying in Austin!" Dad put on his Longhorn hat, a present from his wife, and they drove off to visit their new home.

Come on, visit Foundation Communities and help.

Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice...my favorite Lib

While I'm not nearly as concerned as Mssrs. Hentoff, Weyrich or Will, I do have misgivings about the horribly tagged "domestic spying" program. Mr. Hentoff employs the term, "warrantless surveilling."

Quoting Weyrich on FBI tactics, not on warrantless surveilling, "However, put another administration in power —— one bent on enforcing political correctness —— and it will no longer be Greenpeace or PETA that is under the microscope.

"It will be property-rights groups, pro-lifers, defenders of traditional values, Second Amendment stalwarts."

Part of the solution offered by Hentoff from today's JWR:



"Instead of keeping lists of who appears with whom at various meetings, it would be much more restorative of constitutional values if conservatives, liberals and independents were to unite in a campaign to strengthen the currently lamentable state of teaching the history and contents of the Constitution throughout all levels of our educational system.

How many colleges, for instance, have as many courses, if any, on that founding explanation of why we are Americans, as does the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan? And I would start in the lower grades around the country with how we gained, and have kept, our liberties. Not jingoistic stories, but the actual tumultuous history of our Constitution. And, by the way, are key presidential advisers Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld constitutional scholars? The president needs one."

Seems his problem is not just with the administration but also the lack of public outcry.

SSJ's "Voice of the People"

This is a post to do nothing but to prove my bona fides as a voice of the people:




This is yours truly (in the back left), showing solidarity with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, taken in April 2005 in Buenos Aires. I joined their weekly Thursday march in front of the Casa Rosada. And I did feel like a true descamisado (even though I didn't remove my shirt).

Why We Fight

From today's Houston Chronic: The director on his conclusion after making the film: "We fight because it's lucrative, thanks to collusion among the defense industry, Congress, the Pentagon, think tanks and media."

On Michael Moore: "[He] inspires young people to be engaged in the politics of our time. And that is a tremendously valuable contribution." On his politics: "I'm a radical centrist." Whatever that is.

Yep, LJ, sounds like a movie for you.

Re: Coulter

A) Nice "peppering."

B) I'm an AC fan, having hated, HATED, her as a CLL.

C) I've (and I'll let the others speak for themselves) used that epithet.

D} Scooter, check me on this but don't we (and others) traditionally demonize the "other"?

Coulter craters, sort of, following SSJ "peppering"

Ann, following the scathing SSJ attack, from today's Yahoo news:


"If you don't want to get shot by the police, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then don't point a toy gun at them. Or, as I believe our motto should be after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about "camel jockey"? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?"

Ok, maybe it wasn't due to SSJ...

Wasn't Paul a tent merchant?

Ann Coulter's Recent Comment, a Gaff?

From CNSNews, this from the mercurial Ann Coulter:

Referring to Iran, Coulter said, "What if they start having one of these bipolar episodes with nuclear weapons? I think our motto should be, post-9/11, 'Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'"

Lazy, lazy, lazy.

I know I appear to be contradicting myself from my dhimmitude post, but this is less about free speech than common sense and good taste in what is really funny. I supported Ms. Coulter for her post 9/11 comments about going to the terrorists, holding a gun to their heads (or was it swordpoint?) and forcing their conversion to Christianity (which I think got her dismissed from several conservative websites/publications) because that was clearly journalistic/editorial license to make a point about the anger felt in the aftershock of the September attacks. No clear thinking person thought she genuinely advocated such an action.

Here the quote is just lazy and not funny. I don’t think it rises to hate speech (I don’t even know what that is) or reflects genuine racism…just a lazy effort to get a laugh. She’s better and smarter than that. Profanity was only funny out of the mouths of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin and, heck, I’ll even go as far as Eddie Murphy. For everybody else, it’s lazy. Use of such a term is beneath her. "Raghead" was amusing the first time I heard it...25 years ago during the Iranian hostage crisis.

Ms. Coulter, cut back on the schedule and work a little harder. (This from a guy who's bought and read or listened to three of your books, never misses a column...and is a huge fan who happens to be very lazy.)

Coppin' a (dhimmi) tude

The effect of the "spontaneous" riots in reaction to the publication of the cartoons in Denmark really is having a startling effect, a "chilling effect" on the press. The press may claim it is out of respect for the Muslim culture but fear (probably justified) is really what's at play here. How else can the press in the US have published so few of the offending images? This IS news. When did our press, not to mention our State Department, become such wimps? What has happened to the crusty, cigar smoking editors lionized in the past?

The Arab press has long published horrific cartoons of Jews, not to mention furthering the myth of the Protocols of Zion yet the "demonstators" want us to give up a right that they are unwilling to surrender themselves. Besides, modern western trends notwithstanding, there is no right not to be offended.

From today's Townhall article by Diana West:


"Wherever Islam conquered, surrendering dhimmi, known to Muslims as "people of the book (the Bible)," were tolerated, allowed to practice their religion, but at a dehumanizing cost."

She goes on to describe that cost:


"There were literal taxes (jizya) to be paid; these bought the dhimmi the right to remain non-Muslim, the price not of religious freedom, but of religious identity. Freedom was lost, sorely circumscribed by a body of Islamic law (sharia) designed to subjugate, denigrate and humiliate the dhimmi. The resulting culture of self-abnegation, self-censorship and fear shared by far-flung dhimmi is the basis of dhimmitude. "

Our self-censorship is our preemptive submission to dhimmitude.