
It's a great picture. I'm glad that it doesn't endanger any lives or blame America or George Bush first. In fact, Rosie says she likes the picture.
Here's wishing Rosie O'Donnell and The View a great season in 2006-2007.
Links, commentary, and news on all things political and theatrical. Thespis is said to have introduced the first featured actor into dramatic performances which previously were presented exclusively by the chorus. His contemporary Solon resented him, with the explanation that what he showed on stage soon would be acted out in reality as well.

I'm not one to put much faith in opinion polls. But the other day, I came across an interesting set of statistics that I want to mention. It seems that the Pew Research Center asked opinion leaders in the United States their views of the prospects for a stable democracy in Iraq. Here were some of the results: 63% of people in the news media thought the enterprise would fail. So did 71% of people in the foreign affairs establishment and 71% in academic settings or think tanks.
Interestingly, opinion leaders from the U.S. military are optimistic about Iraq by a margin of 64% to 32%. And so is the American public, by a margin of 56% to 37%. And the Iraqi people are also optimistic. I've seen this demonstrated repeatedly--in public opinion polls, in the turnout for the elections, and that tips to authorities from ordinary Iraqis have grown from 483 to 4,700 tips in a month.
This prompts the question: Which view of Iraq is more accurate? The pessimistic view of so-called elites in our country--or the optimism expressed by millions of Iraqis and by the roughly 158,000 troops on the ground? But, most important is the question: why should Iraq's success or failure matter to the American people? I'd like to address these questions today.
From its very start, the ballyhooed case of who leaked the name of CIA analyst Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak has been drenched in partisan politics and media hypocrisy. The more we learn, however, the more it also reveals about the internal dysfunction of the Bush Administration and the lack of loyalty among some of its most senior officials.In other words, the leaker wasn't Karl Rove or Scooter Libby or anyone else in the White House who has been accused of running a conspiracy against Ms. Plame as revenge for her husband Joe Wilson's false accusations against the White House's case for war with Iraq. So what have the last three years been all about anyway? Political opportunism and internal score-settling, among other things.
While conspiracy theories can be used to weave an intricate plotline, the wild-eyed, totally contrived theories promulgated by liberals and their willing accomplices in the media are finally exposed as the deceitful heresy that has become the foundation of the democrat party. If democrats plan to use these fabricated mantras as Fall campaign slogans, the November elections should prove to be very entertaining.
"So, here is what we have. Valerie Plame uses here married name, her cover name, working at the CIA front company called Brewster-Jennings & Associates, contributes $1,000 to the Gore campaign. The media spins this as a revelation resulting from the Novak article-and of course, Karl Rove. But, this is not what this shows. What this shows is that Valerie Plame blew her own cover because she contributed to the campaign of Gore under the same name that she used for her undercover, her married name, and the name of a CIA front company that she worker for. So, Valerie Plame violates who knows what other kinds of protocol using her undercover name, exposing the existence of a CIA front company and all of this is totally ignored because supposedly her name was leaked and that is how people noticed. Now, this is a clever, clever attempt to try to spin the as she didn't do anything wrong. Why is it perfectly normal for an American and CIA agent to contribute and want to contribute to the Gore campaign."
“Let me be clear, however. I am not against textbooks, nor do I have it in for the big textbook publishers. I do not support the radical decentralization of instructional decisions to individual classroom teachers. My general beef with instructional materials is NOT the materials themselves. My frustration is that the structure of the market for educational materials does not reward innovation, does not reward effectiveness, and does not lead to general improvements in student performance.”
I keep saying this but here it is again: There are certain skills that intelligent persons simply must have, at certain ages. When one becomes a self-sustaining adult, (which status of course many 'adults' never attain because their families and they themselves allowed them to go through school without doing or learning anything!!!) (My SELF ESTEEM!!!!!!) a decent person will be armed with skills, marketable skills, with which to earn one's own living.Alexander at This Week in Education writes about the rate of Blogging, and the appropriate number of posts for an education blogger. There are two week totals of posts from several prominent education blogs and a comparison chart. This is Wicked good.

Kathie Bracy has more.


And then there are the victims, two blameless young men who are left with disabling injuries and the distinct impression that what happened to them matters less than the future of those who committed the thoughtless act.
In what apparently was supposed to be a prank, the Kenton boys stole a deer decoy and put it in the middle of a road last November so they could watch as motorists swerved to avoid it.
One driver, Robert Roby, Jr., crashed his car, suffering a broken neck, collar bone, arm, and leg. Now 19, he faces his 11th surgery to repair those injuries. His passenger, Dustin Zachariah, 18, wasn't as fortunate. He has brain damage.
The perpetrators, Dailyn Campbell, 16, and Jesse Howard, 17, pleaded no contest to charges of vehicular vandalism and juvenile delinquency counts of possession of criminal tools and theft.
The two were sentenced to house arrest, ordered to pay fines and restitution, and they must write 500-word essays on "Why I Should Think Before I Act." But they're still free to play with the Kenton Wildcats when the team opens its season next Friday. Their coach testified on their behalf.
While it may be true in theory that football builds character in young men, we believe the more important lesson to be taught is that criminal behavior - even a stupid prank gone awry - has serious consequences, and that there are worse things in life than missing a football season.


And, the Daily Kos loved it! In well over 300 comments, readers of the Daily Kos express their obvious glee at the meeting of Elphaba and Fiyero. (If lost, see the Wicked homepage). In the meantime, The Times, The Post, and The Daily Kos are cheering Hilary on in her latest display of unadulterated duplicity. These media outlets hold only conservatives accountable.
From the New York Post: August 26, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday jumped off the sidelines to throw the full weight of her monstrous political machine behind anti-war Democratic darling Ned Lamont - a move aimed at appeasing her liberal critics. To help Lamont thwart an independent general election challenge from Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Clinton is loaning Lamont her trusted political spinmeister Howard Wolfson and vowing to help the political novice raise gobs of campaign cash. The relationship is mutually beneficial: While Lamont gets access to Clinton's campaign experts and fund-raisers; she can reap some of the liberal love being heaped on Lamont by party activists and bloggers. She revealed the stunning scope of her support over coffee during an hour-long meeting with Lamont, his wife Annie and his campaign manager Tom Swan at her Chappaqua home yesterday morning.
Poor Jack Murtha, he's tried everything, and he obviously can't help it. He will say anything to get back to the front and center of the mainstream media circus. He seems to know precisely what to say to return his name and picture to the front pages of the mainstream media. "Instead of deterring terrorism, our policies are fostering it," Murtha said. "We're spending $8 billion a month on this war, our courageous fighting men and women are being killed and maimed and we are wreaking havoc on Iraq. An end must be brought to this now.” Murtha truly believes that America has created the terrorism. His logic surely applies to pre-9.11 policy as well. Therefore, Murtha blames America for 9.11 and the entire scope of worldwide terrorism. What a fool! It looks like Murtha has the early lead for idiot of the week.To continue with the Wicked theme, Murtha seems to see himself as the great Wizard himself, behind the curtain, pulling the strings and pushing the buttons. Too bad Murtha already overplayed his hand, and pulled his own curtain away as he exposed his true motive: to run for majority leader when Nancy Pelosi ascends to Speaker. Murtha’s fifteen minutes of fame has probably just entered its final Act.
From the New York Daily News: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refused to apologize for taking a cheap shot at the sluggish rebuilding of Ground Zero - but Mayor Bloomberg would not hit back. Bloomberg said he was "scrupulously avoiding criticizing anybody" and focused on the efforts New Yorkers made to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina last year. "We sent down police officers, firefighters, correction officers, equipment to New Orleans," Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. "So I'll let Mayor Nagin worry about [rebuilding] New Orleans and I'll try to do everything I can to help the governor here." Nagin had upset some New York officials by invoking Ground Zero during a tour of New Orleans' still-decimated Ninth Ward in an attempt to deflect criticism about the pace of the cleanup in the Big Easy.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized efforts to redevelop the World Trade Center site when confronted in a television interview about delays in rebuilding his city after Hurricane Katrina.
During the CBS "60 minutes" interview, a correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of New Orleans' devastated Ninth Ward. Nagin replied, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be fair," according to CBS.
In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam. They are busy trying to wreak harm on us in any way they can. Against them we can fight back, as we did when British authorities arrested the men and women who were plotting to blow up a dozen airliners over the Atlantic.
Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.
At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours -- who's to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. Rich white men have imposed their ideas because of their wealth and through the use of force. Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.
The Democratic Party still has no plan, and Ted Strickland is really nothing more than Ohio's Jimmy Carter. When push comes to shove, a lot of people are going to decide that - regardless of what they think about the Ohio GOP - Strickland is too liberal, too inexperienced, and too much like what we've already had.
This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.
To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they're all for the war against terror — absolutely in favor of that war — they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians," even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.
As Howard Dean put it this week, "The occupation in Iraq is costing American lives and hampering our ability to fight the real global war on terror."
This would be like complaining that Roosevelt's war in Germany was hampering our ability to fight the real global war on fascism. Or anti-discrimination laws were hampering our ability to fight the real war on racism. Or dusting is hampering our ability to fight the real war on dust.




Fox News Channel reporter Steve Centanni and freelance cameraman Olaf Wiig are still missing. It has now been more than a week since their kidnapping at gunpoint in Gaza by unknown terrorists. FNC top management, the journalists' families, and Palestinian journalists continue to press for their release..
Following up on my post late Sunday night, some media types are now musing that one possible reason the story is not getting the attention it deserves is that there aren't any "new" developments to report. Vaughn Ververs, CJR Daily, and Stephen Spruiell at The Media Blog weigh in. TV blogs are covering the story: check TV Newser, Johnny Dollar, and Inside Cable News.
My opinion: No news is news. So is unchecked terrorist thuggery against Western journalists. The disappearance of Centanni and Wiig is at least as newsworthy as--and far more threatening to our national security than--people falling off cruise ships or getting eaten by alligators or attacked by bees.
Thanks Michelle and others covering this topic: MsUnderestimated, Hot Air, Media Blog, TV Newser and many others.


By lifting the quality of its road shows, Broadway also raised their cost and the audiences’ expectations. And when the show coming through town is “Little Shop of Horrors” rather than an internationally acclaimed hit, fewer people are willing to pay $150 for a pair of tickets, especially when they can instead watch a rented movie on their flat-screen television. “There are no inexpensive shows anymore,” said Scott Zeiger, a producer who previously ran the division of Clear Channel Communications that promoted touring shows. “Ticket buyers are now forced to make choices. They can’t necessarily afford to see every single show in a year.”
Want to know where the Democratic Party stands and where America would be under their leadership? Just ask Jimmy Carter.
Carter is certainly not bashful about bashing the United States, even on foreign soil or to the foreign press. He sat for an interview with Der Spiegel recently and fired with both barrels at President Bush, "fundamentalist" Christians and Israel.
Carter states the Democrats' position quite clearly. Islamo-fascist terrorists aren't that bad. They are probably peace-loving people like the rest of us who just have their noses out of joint over Bush's "unilateral" foreign policy and his "preemptive" attack on Iraq. Indeed, Carter said the Arab world hates us because we invaded Iraq, and even more so for "supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon."
So the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, occurred because we attacked Iraq in 2003? Israel was unjustified in retaliating against Hezbollah, which is supported by (and a part of) the Lebanese government and its people? If we would just talk to these reasonable terrorists -- such as Hezbollah and Mike Wallace's hero, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we could achieve peace?
In the interview, Carter pointedly blamed Bush's foreign policy on his Christian "fundamentalism." He nicely articulated the position of today's Democratic leaders, which while scrambling for "values voters," consistently insult them, and while holding themselves out as superior guardians of our national security, see America, not the terrorists, as the problem.
“The New York Times editorial today, cheering on Judge Taylor's lame and irresponsible decision striking down the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), is, like Taylor’s opinion, a joke. The liberals like to talk about judicial review and judicial precedent. Yet, this judge ignored all of it. Over the years federal appellate courts have recognized the president's inherit constitutional authority to protect our nation from foreign threats against our national security without the requirement of warrants.”

Tuesday and Thursday. On Tuesday, anti-Iraq war candidate Ned Lamont beat Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary. On Thursday, British authorities arrested more than 20 British Muslims who were plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic Ocean.
Tuesday was a victory for the angry antiwar Left that set the tone in the Democrats' 2003-04 presidential cycle and seems likely to set the tone again in 2007-08. Thursday was a reminder that there are, as George W. Bush has finally taken to calling them, Islamic fascist terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our way of life.
Thursday's lesson was not one Tuesday's victors wanted to learn. Left-wing bloggers played an important part in Lamont's victory. Here's the reaction of one of them, John Aravosis, to the red alert ordered here in response to the British arrests: "Do I sound as if I don't believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don't believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an 'Al Qaeda footprint.' Ooh, are you scared yet?"
What we are looking at here is cognitive dissonance. The mindset of the Left blogosphere is that there's no real terrorist threat out there.
Can we expect as much of our Left? It seems doubtful. Our Left criticized George W. Bush when The New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency was surveilling telephone calls from al-Qaida suspects overseas to the United States. Now it appears that the United States surveilled the British terrorists, and that they made phone calls to the United States. The Left cried foul when The New York Times revealed that the United States was monitoring money transfers at the SWIFT bank clearinghouse in Brussels. Now it appears that there was monitoring of money transfers by the British terrorists in Pakistan. On Tuesday, the Left was gleeful that it was scoring political points against George W. Bush. On Thursday, it seemed that the supposedly controversial NSA surveillance contributed to savings thousands of lives.
Joseph Lieberman is being criticized for saying, "I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us -- more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet communists we fought during the long Cold War. We cannot deceive ourselves that we live in safety today and the war is over, and it's why we have to stay strong and vigilant."
That view didn't prevail on Tuesday. But it sure made sense on Thursday.
This late summer day is perfect time for a cup of coffee or glass of iced tea and reading news you'll never see covered in the mainstream media. Just hearing the headlines from the drive-by media: CBS, NBC, CNN, or other liberal media outlet is confusing and confounding on a daily basis. Enjoy the best of the web.Much of the conversation on yesterday's interview shows centered on the tools needed to provide the necessary security for the US. Chertoff noted that the British have more flexibility for counterterrorist efforts within their country, and those additional powers played a significant role in discovering the extent of the conspiracy. Chertoff declined to explicitly endorse the no-warrant NSA surveillance on international communications, but he told two news shows that we should not leave "tools on the table" in our fight against terrorists. That assertion came under some fire from other talk-show guests. Senator Russ Feingold, widely rumored to be staging a presidential run, says that he thinks NSA surveillance of terrorists is fine, but he wants the NSA to get the warrants first when part of the communication comes from within the US. Ned Lamont struggled to answer Chris Wallace's questions on Fox News Sunday in an appearance that lent little luster to his flagging campaign. He insisted that the US is distracted by the war in Iraq despite the discovery and halt to this massive terrorist plot and the lack of successful attacks on the US since 9/11. He told Wallace that it was "time to focus", but then opposed the Patriot Act and the surveillance programs that Chertoff mentioned. The distraction argument sounds great as a political sound bite, but the evidence seems very thin. It assumes that the government can only perform one task at a time. Congress created the DHS in order to allow for homeland defense while the Pentagon focused on a forward strategy against the terrorists. DHS has nothing to do with Iraq or Afghanistan, and no one has yet to explain why those wars distract DHS from its primary mission. If anything, Katrina showed that homeland security had distracted Chertoff and his team from emergency response, a secondary task that Congress grafted onto the department in what has now widely been acknowledged as a mistake. Chertoff emphatically discarded the notion that Iraq or the successful end to the terrorist plot against British and American airliners had provided a distraction. Their track record speaks to their success, and the collapse of this grand al-Qaeda plan seems to demonstrate even better competence and cooperation than we had hoped.
Tuesday was a victory for the angry antiwar Left that set the tone in the Democrats' 2003-04 presidential cycle and seems likely to set the tone again in 2007-08. Thursday was a reminder that there are, as George W. Bush has finally taken to calling them, Islamic fascist terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our way of life.







If I were Mr. Lieberman's campaign manager I'd take heart from Mr. Lamont's victory speech on Tuesday night. At one point he seemed to catch himself, stop himself from going down one rhetorical route and go down another. But he didn't do it like a pro. He did it like someone who all of a sudden remembered some political advice someone whispered in his ear. He was talking about what seemed to be a voter he'd met on the trail, and you could tell he was going to paint her frustration and despair. Then he remembered he was supposed to come across not as aggrieved but as triumphant and hopeful, so he pulled himself off the anecdote and wandered down some safer route of banality.
He was standing there with confetti glittering distractedly on his hair, and on the shoulders of his dark suit--he and his people are new enough in politics that there's no one around him yet to brush the confetti off and say, "It looks like dandruff." He looked as shocked as anyone that he was the Democratic nominee for senator from Connecticut. He looked like what Dick Morris, who said he'd once had Mr. Lamont as a client, said of him in his column the next day: a "rich, light-weight dilettante" who inherited the fortune of J.P. Morgan's partner. Mr. Lamont does have the soft, startled look of the inheritor of huge wealth. And we'll certainly be hearing more about that.


Chris,
Thank you for your thoughts. I am also a big supporter of Thespis Journal. I read your comments today and would like to address some of your points.
First, I am wondering about the common values you would have Americans coalesce around. From my quick read of your letter, it seems that the way the American people should come together is through mutual support of an increase in the minimum wage, redistribution of wealth in New Orleans, Al Gore being president, universal child care, and high-tailing it out of Iraq as soon as we can distribute the white flags to our soldiers.
Surely, you see that these values that you hold are poisonous to the eyes of any conservative leaning individuals that may read your post. And that is just it...this is the very reason why we can not, will not, and should not "come together" and end partisanship in the United States. Partisanship is the place where opposing views meet in the arena of ideas. Instead of discouraging partisanship, you should be heralding it and wishing for a tidal wave of it. If you truly believe that increasing the minimum wage and getting out of Iraq are the paths to a better America...then fight for it, argue for it, have your partisanship kick my partisanship's ass in the arena of ideas. May the best man, woman, or transgendered individual win.
I believe in competition. I believe in it in business, in the schools, at the post office, and yes in politics. If we were to go the way of the John McCain's of the world, the "moderates", then how would our best ideas come forward? If we just took the bland middle road doing what was agreeable to both sides how would we ever get to try out new ideas. Would we have ever passed welfare reform? No of course not because if the republican majority in congress waited around for the democrat minority to agree to a plan...we would have never passed any reform and we would still have life-long welfare mothers milking the system. Now you have two years of welfare benefits for life, so you better get your life together quick! Welfare to WORK baby. But instead, the republican majority passed welfare reform over the political corpses of the congressional democrats, and we finally got some reform that now even democrats will reluctantly admit has been successful (and then will immediately change the subject).
Instead of ridiculing Ann Coulter for her sarcasm and wit, you should be encouraging her to speak her mind. If she is that crazy and "over the top" the American public will see this and will be more inclined to vote for the Democrats in November. This is exactly what republicans have been doing with Cynthia McKinney in Georgia for years. Every time she makes a statement in support of Hammas, Al Qaeda, or any of her other socialist beliefs...I just sit back, enjoy and hope that a lot of people are watching her embarrass herself.
I will look forward to seeing more of your write on Thespis Journal. Maybe we can spar again later.
Almost Dr. Kevin

When Variety’s review of the Broadway-bound revival of “A Chorus Line,” which opened this week at the Curran Theater in San Francisco, went online on Thursday, fanatical “Chorus Line”-ologists experienced a memory check. The critic, Dennis Harvey, called the show’s finale the “only notable departure” from the original 1975 Broadway production, which, he wrote, ended “with a spotlight tracing the invisible marquee star’s soft-shoe path, while the dancers, who’d knocked themselves out to get this far, smiled and sweated in the background.” The change, the review said, “feels like a heinous error.” Which was, in a sense, true. Because the shiny gold phalanx of dancers that ended this production was very much in the original. The mistake was quickly corrected online, and the offending sentences did not appear in the print edition of Daily Variety. But what happened? In an interview yesterday, Mr. Harvey, a freelance reviewer, said he recalled seeing a production in the early 1980’s, though he could not remember exactly where, which had the ending he described. “It made a very strong impression on me,” he said. “I assumed it was part of the original directorial intent, since it was so striking.”


Bob Fosse’s “Sweet Charity” is a true period piece now, as the lively new production at the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport colorfully demonstrates. The minidresses and go-go boots in the first scene bring back very specific memories for audience members of a certain age. The hippie outfits in the “Rhythm of Life” number are decidedly groovy. (A costume coordinator, Marianne Dominy, is listed in the program as well as a costume designer, Lesley Neilson-Bowman.) And the stop-action party scene at the Pompeii Club reveals just how much the innovative 1960’s television series “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” stole from Fosse.
But what matters most about “Sweet Charity” is the title character, played by Gwen Verdon in the original 1966 Broadway production and by Shirley MacLaine in the 1969 film. (There have been several Broadway revivals, including one last year that starred Christina Applegate. Enough said.)






A hiker in the Himalayas has a better chance of spotting a snow leopard than a theatergoer at "The Color Purple" has of seeing its Tony-winning star, LaChanze.
The actress, who got glowing reviews for her portrayal of the oppressed girl turned pants-making lesbian, Celie, hasn't given a full week's worth of performances since the awards show in June.
The week after the Tonys, she missed three out of eight performances, and now drops one or two shows a week.
The tension erupted into open hostilities recently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which discovered that one of its instructors has an unorthodox view of recent history. Kevin Barrett, who teaches a course on Islam, thinks the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were "an inside job" masterminded by the Bush administration to justify U.S. aggression in the Middle East.
If you advocate this theory on the street corner or the Internet, you can count on being ignored. But if you propound it on a college campus, you will not lack for attention. When Barrett went on a local radio show and said he had addressed the subject in class, he raised up a mass movement of Wisconsinites who thought he shouldn't be allowed to mop the floors at the state's flagship university, much less contaminate the promising minds of its students.
The revelation confirmed the widespread view of Madison, and its famously liberal university, as "76 square miles surrounded by reality." Some 27 state legislators signed a petition denouncing Barrett. The speaker of the House warned that the school could face punishment in the form of funding cuts if it kept him on.
Said U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Republican who is running for governor, "Not a dime of either taxpayer or tuition dollars should be going to Kevin Barrett so he can tell students that September 11 was a creation of the government, and that the most murdering terrorist organization in the world is a myth created by the CIA.




Dear Thespis Journal,
Let me first start by stating that I am very much a fan of Thespis Journal. I thoroughly enjoy the claims and information presented on both the arts and politics. However, as a reader from Thespis Journal's beginning, I have some questions about its content.
I claim that those at Thespis Journal focus too strongly on the cultural
divide that already exists in America. The red versus the blue, the
liberals versus the conservatives. It is clear to those who even pay
a small amount of attention to American politics today, that America
is polarized. The polarization that exists is apparent through the
strong divide between democrat and republican ideologies, through
extreme media outlets like Fox News and CNN, and through the
blogosphere that has recently developed. As college a student who
stands for and believes in progress and process more than any one
political group's set of ideas, I find it irresponsible and
neglectful, for those intellectual writers on politics, to encourage
America's polarization.
America currently faces a state of crisis.
Thousands of American families are forced to live below the poverty
line, while working full time for five dollars and fifteen cents a
hour, a minimum wage that hasn't been raised for ten years. This
internal problem was especially made clear by Hurricane Katrina.
Those service working Americans of the lower 9th district, who lived
pay check to pay check, couldn't leave if they wanted, they didn't
have the financial means. Thousands of Americans live without health
care. Parents are faced with the choice to miss a days work without
pay or stay home and take of their child, a choice no parent should
have to make. And I doubt those earning minimum wage can afford a
trip to emergency room without health insurance at $500 a visit.
Public schools across the country are under funded and are failing to
meet federal standards, while college and university tuition
continues to rise. Internationally America is losing support and its
ability to influence other countries. We are in a war without an
exit strategy under false pretenses, and more and more foreign
countries are becoming threats.
Is now not the time America needs to come together more than it
ever has before?
I question what good blogs like these can do to
unite our country. I'm not here to blame. Both the right and left are
guilty of this distracting propaganda. For example, you strongly
support author Ann Coulter and recently described her as creative,
original, and colorful. To me this very accurately depicts a great
cartoon character. A character that is completely over the top and
outlandish, however, the same can be said of authors on the left side
of things.
But why isn't there more support and more mainstream
support to bring America together? Haven't the actions or lack of
action from congress and the president and his administration proven
enough for the need to put differences aside and support progress.
This brings me to my second point of discussion. What is your and
your reader’s opinion of the conservative and republican leader
President Bush? Have his approval ratings dropped even too low for
the very people who fought so adamantly for his false election and
his re-election? It seems like conservatives have attempted to
completely remove themselves from any ties they might have had with
the President.
I only ask that those who supported him to recognize
where their support once lied. In conclusion, my main point of
concern is the cultural war in America and the polarization America
faces. Please help me to understand the role Thespis Journal and
blogs similar to these can help in our tremendous need for progress.
Christopher Rice