When additional description is redundant

A couple of pics from the digital tribe that caught my eye. . .

Original source unknown

Iconic Shot: A “Dynamite” cast

© Gage Skidmore

I didn’t like Napoleon Dynamite when it debuted on the big screen in 2004. I thought it was just another indie waste that benefitted from MTV-generated hype. But after watching the flick another six or seven times, I am now compelled to drop whatever I’m doing the moment I see it on television.

Taken at Comic Con in San Diego last July, the pic above is a nice candid shot of Deb, Grandma, Napoleon, Kip, Pedro, Uncle Rico and Rex. An outstanding ensemble if ever there was one.

Sunday’s Quote: Chesterton on education

c/o The Guy with the Glasses

Having authored dozens of books, hundreds of short stories and several thousand essays in his lifetime, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was “a man of colossal genius” whose intriguing, if not groundbreaking, take on a plethora of topics established this London-born sage of Christian apologetics among modern history’s most extraordinary intellectuals.

Below is a selection of his opinions about education, which evidently ring just as true today as they did a century ago.

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“IT is rare to come across anyone enthusiastic for our system of elementary instruction. It is not common to find anyone who is even free from grave misgivings about it. Nobody seems very keen about education — least of all the educators. I have a huge personal respect for the teachers in the Church and State schools, in regard to their untiring cheerfulness, industry, and courage. But I never met one of them who seemed at all certain that the system was doing any good.”
~ from Chesterton’s piece in The Illustrated London News; August 24, 1912

“IT is the great paradox of the modern world that at the very time when the world decided that people should not be coerced about their form of religion, it also decided that they should be coerced about their form of education.”
~ from Chesterton’s offering in The Illustrated London News; August 8, 1925

“NO MAN who worships education has got the best out of education; no man who sacrifices everything to education is even educated. I need not mention here the many recent examples of this monomania, rapidly turning into mad persecution, such as the ludicrous persecution of the families who live on barges. What is wrong is a neglect of principle; and the principle is that without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman's education is complete.”
~ from Chesterton’s essay, The Superstition of School

“WE believe that a purely intellectual conspiracy will soon threaten the very existence of civilization, that the scientific and artistic worlds are silently bound in a crusade against the Family and the State. We have formed a special corps of policemen, policemen who are also philosophers. It is our business to watch the beginnings of this conspiracy.”
~ from Chesterton’s novel, The Man Who Was Thursday

Editorial Sketch(es) of the Week: Duplicity at home and abroad



© Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune

© Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner

“Runaway slave”

C.L. Bryant, a former NAACP chapter president and current Tea Party activist, is set to debut a documentary-style movie about his journey away from “the Progressive plantations of the government masters, the eyes of liberal overseers and the whips of conformity.” His trailer is definitely worth a look.

Sunday’s Quote: Conviction and fortitude

c/o Thy Black Man

There’s a lot to like about Allen West. Anything but a typical politician, this 22-year Army veteran has spoken frankly about Islam and the War on Terrorism more than once. His most recent statement is no exception.

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“I want to extend my sincere condolences to the families of the Army Colonel and Major who were killed by Afghanistan security forces over this ‘burning Koran’ episode. If we had resolute leadership, including in the White House, we would have explained that these Islamic terrorist enemy combatants being detained at the Parwan facility had used the Koran to write jihadist messages to pass to others. In doing so, they violated their own cultural practice and defiled the Koran. Furthermore, they turned the Koran into contraband. Therefore, Islamic cultural practice and Parwan detention facility procedures support burning the ‘contraband’. Instead here we go again, offering apology after apology and promising to ‘hold those responsible accountable’. Responsible for what?

“When tolerance becomes a one-way street it leads to cultural suicide. This time it immediately led to the deaths of two American Warriors. America is awaiting the apology from President Hamid Karzai.”

~ Rep. Allen B. West (R-FL, 22nd congressional district); February 27, 2012

Editorial Sketch of the Week: The downside of prophecy

© Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)

Some pics that caught my eye

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Regarding Andrew Breitbart’s untimely death earlier today, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi wrote “Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.” So someone vandalized (so to speak) his Wikipedia page, replacing his profile shot with a picture of excrement — to which I say. . . good. F--k him.

c/o The Jane Dough

Real Music: Higher Love

I was recently reminded by The Clearly Dope about one of my all-time favorite songs (accompanied by a suitably festive video), which will always be reminiscent of the good times of my youth spent in Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach, VA.

Just Thinking Out Loud: A certain repeat of ‘04

From season 8, episode 8 of South Park

The ingenious, if not disturbed, minds of “South Park” compared the 2004 presidential election to deciding between a giant douche (John Kerry) and a turd sandwich (George W. Bush). This year, and no matter who gets the nod for the GOP, the American electorate will face the same options. The only difference now is that the giant douche will be a Republican and the turd sandwich will undoubtedly be the Democrat.

Original source unknown

Sunday’s Quote: Securing the Republic

The older I get, the more I appreciate the Founders. One of them, an original Tea Partier, offered a bit of wisdom for some of the vexing ills we face today.

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“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign Invaders.”

~ Samuel Adams, from his letter to President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress James Warren; November 4, 1775

Editorial Sketch(es) of the Week: Self-explanatory

I couldn’t pick just one. They stand on their own merit. . .

© Dick Locher, Chicago Tribune



© Michael Ramirez, Investors’ Business Daily

© Olle Johansson

© Rick McKee, The Augusta (GA) Chronicle

© Walt Handelsman, Newsday

A word from Churchill

I began reading “Citizens of London” by Lynne Olson recently. Thus far the story about the Americans — centering primarily on Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman and John Gilbert Winant — who stood with Churchill’s Britain during “it’s darkest, finest hour” has proven a good read. Hence I found the pic below both notable, and personally applicable, as well.

“Fat Tuesday” (a day late)

And to think Mardi Gras was once a relatively laid back Christian celebration prior to Lent. . .

c/o Philip DeFranco

He was Elvis to a lot of people

Kurt Cobain would’ve turned 45-years-old today.


c/o World Falls Down

“He had the desperation, not the courage, to be himself. Once you do that you can’t go wrong, because you can’t make any mistakes when people love you for being yourself. But for Kurt, it didn’t matter that other people loved him; he simply didn’t love himself enough.”
~ Dave Reed, one-time foster father

Sunday’s Quote: Christian America

It seems that many among the Left are driven, in part, by a yearning to dictate the prevailing opinion of the Founders (1, 2, 3), especially in regard to the consequent establishment of our country, by diminishing the philosophically Christian foundation that was otherwise undeniable for over two centuries. Their interpretation of the Treaty of Tripoli is just one example.

The construal of facts, for the sake of supporting their own conclusions, is put into effect to have the opposition believe that they are wrong, backwards, and nowhere near the mainstream. Nothing could be further from the Truth.

Our first President added the following:

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“If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”
~ from George Washington’s Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia; May 10, 1789

Postscript: Painting by John Trumbull (1756-1843), currently displayed at City Hall in New York City. His work is easily among the best of the era.

Editorial Sketch of the Week: The blame game

© Jerry Holbert, Boston Herald

Couldn’t have said it much better myself

Just spreading “hate,” or something. . .

Original sources unknown

A couple of random internet pics that caught my eye

Take from them whatever you like. . .

Rest in peace, Whitney

One of the greatest singers of all-time passed away on Saturday. Being that February is Black. . . excuse me, African-American History Month, I believe a tribute by Randy Watson and Sexual Chocolate would be in order.