Am I the only reader who noticed an embarrassing error in The Washington Times last Wednesday?
As a courtesy to the newspaper's copy editors, I have waited a week to post this, hoping that a correction might be printed in the meantime. Unless I missed it, however, no correction has been forthcoming.
Perhaps I am the only one who noticed because the error appeared in the print edition of The Washington Times and not in its online edition.
What am I talking about? Last week, the Times printed an opinion article on page A4, part of its series called "Reinventing Conservatism," with the headline "Austin to Obama, Congress: Limited government works" and a byline of Rick Perry (the governor of Texas). (The headline in the online edition was "PERRY: Texas proves limited government works.")
But the photograph accompanying the article is one of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA7).
Here's the evidence:
Here's a closeup, for those with poor eyesight:
For comparison, here is a photo I took of Eric Cantor at the RPV convention in May 2009:
In what seems to have been somebody's idea of a sick practical joke, Fort Worth police and alcoholic beverage regulators staged a violent raid early Sunday morning on a recently-opened gay bar, arresting at least seven people and sending one unfortunate victim to the hospital with a severe head injury.
Partying like it's 1969, the raid took place on the 40th anniversary of a similar raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a raid that led to days of rioting and demonstrations that are popularly believed to have launched the modern gay-rights movement.
Perez Hilton has a superficial report on Sunday's action, with a photograph from on the scene. Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has twoposts that gather information from across the MSM and the blogosphere, plus an update on the seriously hurt patron, Chad Gibson. The Institute for Southern Studies reblogs Pam Spaulding's report. Fort Worth's acting mayor has called for an investigation. (I wouldn't be surprised if the inquiry turns up evidence that police or regulators demanded baksheesh that the bar owners refused to pay.)
Oddly, the police claimed that the raid was launched based on complaints from "disgrunted ex-bartenders," a curious thing, given that the Rainbow Lounge (the target of the police, who came equipped with handcuffs and a paddy wagon) had only been open for about a week.
UPDATE: Jim Burroway raises a significant question: Why were the police who staged the raid on the Rainbow Lounge wearing uniforms from a non-existent law enforcement agency?
The Dallas Morning News notes that today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States. There will be several events in Texas commemorating LBJ's birthday, including:
AT THE RANCH
The late president's two daughters and others will celebrate his birthday at the LBJ Ranch near Stonewall. LBJ's working office at the ranch, which was the Texas White House from 1963 to 1969, will be open for tours.
AT THE LIBRARY
A party – open to the public – will be held at the library in Austin, which will open a new exhibit, To the Moon, the U.S. space program in the 1960s.
Radio station KLBJ -- naturally -- offers more details on the celebrations in Austin:
Today would have been LBJ's 100th birthday, so the Presidential library here in Austin is throwing a party; complete with bar-b-que, peach ice-cream and Fresca... It *was* President Johnson's favorite soft-drink.
Dr. Betty Sue Flowers - Director of the LBJ Presidential Library says today also has other significance... It was on this date in 1964 he accepted the Democratic nomination for President.
The celebration will be held from 6 to 8 tonight on the lawn in front of the library, and yes, they will have the Democratic Convention on the big screen... just as LBJ would want it.
More information about the centennial celebration can be found at LBJ100.org.
As it happens, almost precisely one year ago, I was in Austin and had the opportunity to tour the LBJ Library and Museum, which is on the campus of the University of Texas.
I posted some video from that visit (which was on August 29, two days too late for LBJ's 99th birthday) on the anniversary of President Johnson's famous announcement of his decision not to seek re-election, but it seemed appropriate to post it again today, given the historical significance of the day and the coincidence of it taking place during the Democratic National Convention.
Part I is largely a montage of images and sounds from the main exhibition area of the museum. It includes some items meant to evoke the pop cultural reference points of Johnson's life, and especially of the turbulent 1960s, when LBJ served as president.
One highlight is a recording of Lady Bird Johnson recalling, in her own words, the events of November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Other images are meant to recall Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement, Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!, and the Vietnam War as reported on television. (One exhibit refers to 1968 as "The Nightmare Year," with its assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy -- two events we have been remembering this year, forty years on.)
The library displays many letters written by and to President Johnson, including letters from Barry Goldwater (who lost the 1964 election to Johnson but sparked a political revolution in the process) and the Smothers Brothers (whose CBS-TV show was canceled in large part because of their satiric barbs aimed at the President and his Vietnam War policies).
Part II begins with a rather creepy animatronic rendering of President Johnson in a stable at the LBJ Ranch, with recordings of him telling funny stories on various occasions, including an anecdote about Winston Churchill. Part II also includes pictures of the reproduction of the Oval Office that has been installed in the LBJ Library and Museum, which is 0ne-eighth smaller than the real one in the West Wing of the White House. (For a look at the Reagan-era Oval Office, check out the video I posted of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. I visited the Reagan Library just about one month before my trip to Austin last year.)
This part also features more Carol Channing memorabilia. (Hello, Dolly! had its pre-Broadway try-out at the National Theatre in Washington, and its title number was transformed into the campaign song, "Hello, Lyndon!")
I happened upon a YouTube video of Walter Cronkite learning of President Johnson's death at the age of 64 on January 22, 1973, and breaking the news live on the air, which I have added as a bonus.
Cronkite's skills as a journalist are demonstrated by the way he segues from this unexpected news to a pre-written story about negotiations to end the Vietnam War. It's also interesting, by the way, given current global petroleum prices, how Cronkite ends the segment by saying "I'll be back in a minute with our report on the energy crisis." This was about ten months before the OPEC oil embargo precipitated what was the first energy crisis of the 1970s, with the second one due largely to misguided policies of the Carter administration, policies which are likely to be emulated by the Obama administration.
I wonder whether the LBJ centenary will be commemorated in any significant way at the Democrats' convention in Denver. Is it something worthy of prime-time, or would mention of a stubborn and unpopular leader who presided over an ill-conceived and unpopular war bring to mind undesirable parallels to the present day?
The radio and television news is pouncing on the massive child custody proceeding that began today in San Angelo, Texas, in regard to the children who were (at least temporarily) made wards of the state and taken from their parents, who lived in an unconventional local society dominated by a fundamentalist Mormon sect that encourages men to take multiple wives. (The shorthand for this arrangement is "polygamist sect.")
The recent raid on the Texas compound of a religious sect that practices polygamy has raised again a number of issues regarding marriage, family, and sex. On the one hand, the existence of such a large group of practicing polygamists within our borders reinforces the concern that some have (which I share) that redefining marriage for the benefit of homosexuals would put us on a slippery slope toward other redefinitions-including legalization of polygamy.
Had I been drinking while reading this, my immediate reaction would have been a spit-take. (The colloquial abbreviation of the thought I had is "WTF?")
The group he describes aspires to live a 19th-century lifestyle, protect itself from secular influence by geographically separating itself from the larger society, and bases its rigid rules on fundamentalist religious beliefs. Yet Peter Sprigg wants us to think that this conservative sect's marital practices are the result of liberalized attitudes toward homosexuality and a robust public debate about whether gay men and lesbians should be able to wed legally.
Isn't this more than a bit disingenuous?
I think Sprigg is just being silly. He's so obsessed with the private lives of gay and lesbian couples that he thinks any unconventional living arrangements emerge only because of increased tolerance of homosexuals. Given that he uses gay marriage as a "hook" for his article on an entirely unrelated topic, his mode of thinking likely rests on the slogan, "If it's wrong, it must be gay."
If his absurd cause-and-effect argument were true, why aren't these weird fundamentalist compounds being built in Massachusetts or Vermont? Why do they pop up in places like rural Texas and Utah, where the animus against gay people (and opposition to same-sex marriage) is so pronounced?
Do people like Sprigg even ask these questions before jumping to unwarranted conclusions?
I came across this item on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol in Austin yesterday.
The image is pregnant with unintentional symbolism.
More photos and video from Austin, including a visit to the LBJ Library and Museum on the campus of the University of Texas, will be posted soon (well ... eventually).
"One of the smarter blogs is the libertarian-leaning collection of Charlottesville posts put up by Rick Sincere..." -- Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, May 8, 2005
