Well, thats what the ACLU makes it sound like.

The University of Michigan-Dearborn is spending 25,000 of taxpayer money to fund footbaths for Muslims to use before their prayers. Yes, thats right.. taxpayer money to pay for religious needs at a public school.

What does the ACLU have to say about this? They think it is ok! The same ACLU that sued a Luisianna State School board for allowing a Christian Preacher to hand out free pizza at a school. The ACLU cried that an educational campus is no place for religious activities. The leader of the Detroit chapter of the ACLU actually tried to convince us that it is a matter of public health and cleanliness, not religion.

Well, he said it… Muslims have feet so dirty that we have to band together as a community to fund their washings.

I found this amazing article found on the site, zombietime.com. I suggest you check the site out, it is really pretty informative!

Anatomy of a Photograph

An analysis of a single seemingly innocuous photograph, and the pervasive media bias it reveals.

My photo essay of the anti-war protest in San Francisco on September 24, 2005 was not the only report done about the event. A few other outlets ran their own coverage. But the one photo from the rally that was seen by the most people was this:

Why? Because the San Francisco Chronicle, which had the only mainstream media coverage of the rally, published this photograph on the front page of its Web site as a teaser for their article about the event.

Now, let’s take a closer look at this image.

By chance, I took a photo of the same girl just a few moments later. Looks practically identical, doesn’t it?

But you might notice that my picture is lower resolution. That’s because it’s a zoomed-in portion of a much larger photograph. I cropped off the other parts of the picture to get a close-up of the girl.

But what would happen if I hadn’t cropped off so much? Let’s take a step backward and reveal what the San Francisco Chronicle didn’t want you to see.

Here’s the same photo without as much cropping, revealing more of the context. You can see that the girl’s protest contingent also sported Palestinian flags and obscene placards.

Now let’s take another step back.

Here’s my full original photo, uncropped. Now we can see that the girl is just one of several teenagers, all wearing terrorist-style bandannas covering their faces.

But, as you’ll notice, the bandannas are all printed with the same design. Was this a grassroots protest statement the teenagers had come up with all by themselves?

To find out, let’s take a look at another photo in the series, taken at the same time:

Oops — it looks like they’re actually being stage-managed by an adult, who is giving them directions and guiding them toward the front of the march. But who is she?

The last picture in the series reveals all.

It turns out that the woman giving directions belongs to one of the Communist groups organizing the rally — if her t-shirt is to be believed, since it depicts the flag of Communist Vietnam, which has been frequently displayed by such groups at protest rallies in the U.S. for decades.

The San Francisco Chronicle featured the original photograph on its front Web page in order to convey a positive message about the rally — perhaps that even politically aware teenagers were inspired to show up and rally for peace, sporting the message, “People of Color say ‘No to War!’” And that served the Chronicle’s agenda.

But this simple analysis reveals the very subtle but insidious type of bias that occurs in the media all the time. The Chronicle did not print an inaccuracy, nor did it doctor a photograph to misrepresent the facts. Instead, the Chronicle committed the sin of omission: it told you the truth, but it didn’t tell you the whole truth.

Because the whole truth — that the girl was part of a group of naive teenagers recruited by Communist activists to wear terrorist-style bandannas and carry Palestinian flags and obscene placards — is disturbing, and doesn’t conform to the narrative that the Chronicle is trying to promote. By presenting the photo out of context, and only showing the one image that suits its purpose, the Chronicle is intentionally manipulating the reader’s impression of the rally, and the rally’s intent.

Such tactics — in the no-man’s-land between ethical and unethical — are commonplace in the media, and have been for decades. It is only now, with the advent of citizen journalism, that we can at last begin to see the whole story and realize that the public has been manipulated like this all along.

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UPDATE: This essay has caused such an outcry that the San Francisco Chronicle has now (on October 2, 2005) run a column about zombietime and the controversy surrounding the photo, defending itself from charges of bias. You can read the column here. (Someone at the Chronicle also wrote to me directly and rather brazenly requested that I update my site with a link to their response — which I have just done — although they purposely did not include a link to “Anatomy of a Photograph” in their column. They insist that I allow my readers to see the Chronicle’s side of the story, but they won’t let their readers see my side of the story. Again, the whiff of arrogance.)

Some of the Chronicle’s defensiveness is the result of the paper’s having been barraged by emails from zombietime readers, some of whom slightly misinterpreted a couple of points in my analysis above. Please note that I do not claim that the Chronicle cropped its photograph, which is obviously a high-resolution close-up and thus not cropped much, if at all; I only discuss cropping my photograph. I also didn’t say that the Chronicle ran the photo on the front page of its print edition, but rather on the front page of its online edition.

Part of the Chronicle’s attempted rebuttal is the claim that, since some of my readers jumped to the conclusion that the picture was on the front page of the print edition, this somehow constituted an “error” on my part that I refuse to acknowledge. I think that it should be fairly universally understood that when a Web site provides a link to an article or photo it is discussing, it is referring to the online version. Blogs and media-related Web sites deal pretty much exclusively with information and links that are online.

The Chronicle also defends itself by saying that its article about the rally did mention a few of the controversial aspects of the event. A defense which, to me, misses the mark on two counts: first, “Anatomy of a Photograph” was specifically about the Chronicle’s photo coverage (and the decision to highlight one specific photograph), not about the textual news article; and second, its article only very peripherally referred to a couple of radical elements, and glossed over almost all of the extremism that was manifested at the rally.

And lastly, the Chronicle claims that the photo was chosen because it was visually arresting, not for any political considerations. And of course the photo is a good image, based solely on stylistic characteristics: the girl is pretty, and her face is in sharp focus.

But this brings up a larger issue concerning media coverage of these events. Newspapers and other mainstream outlets run photos that almost always fall into these four categories:

a. Wide shots of the crowd at a distance, in which individual messages aren’t clearly visible. A good example is this photo in the Chronicle (oops, I mean: on the Chronicle’s Web page).

b. Close-ups of individuals’ faces, with no message visible — as in this example from the Chronicle.

c. Human-interest images of people, in which the political aspect is peripheral or cut off, as in this photo.

d. Mid-range shots of people displaying “safe,” non-controversial messages, like the one visible here.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of these kinds of photographs; each, in its own way, is a valid type of image. But what media outlets rarely publish are the kind of photographs that I feature on zombietime: mid-range images focusing on individual protesters displaying their heartfelt (and often intense) messages. And that’s all a rally is really composed of: thousands of individuals, each with their own messages. By showing them as an overall group, or by showing the individuals without their messages, or by showing only non-controversial messages, media outlets (probably unconsciously) influence the public’s impressions of such events as being somewhat less disturbing and less politically radical than they really are.

Yet the public is hungry for the type of uncompromising, in-your-face photography that can be found on zombietime and similar Web sites and blogs, since we show the kind of images that simply can’t be found in mainstream media outlets. At least 250 Web sites linked to zombietime’s photo coverage of the September 24 rally. How many sites specifically linked to the Chronicle’s photo coverage? (The answer: None.)

If the Chronicle is truly unbiased in its coverage (which I doubt rather strongly: I know several Chronicle staffers, and have been in the Chronicle offices, and I can say that there is — as there is at most major newspapers — an overall left-wing/”progressive” atmosphere at the paper), and if it wants to increase readership, then it should take a close look at how it frames and reports on certain issues. Whitewashing potential controversies, or lazily presenting unchallenged the narrative of people or groups it is covering, only leads to a bland paper and a bored readership.

This blurb is found at various sources all over the internet:

“Doctors:

(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.
(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services.)

Now think about this:

Guns:

(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. Yes, that is 80 million.
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000187.

Statistically, doctors are 9,144 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, “Guns don’t kill people, doctors do.”

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!

(Out of concern for the public at large, our statistician withheld data on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.)”

Now, even though I really like the idea conveyed by this quote, it does have some shortcomings. It compares accidental deaths caused by doctors and guns only….what about purposeful deaths? I would like to think doctors still produce a larger number, but the fact remains, this quote fails to cover that variable.

I found another quote from ‘Freakonomics’ by Chicago economics professor Steven Levitthat makes a better comparison:

“In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential swimming pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 millionplus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by swimming pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn’t even close.”

What do you think?

Is voting a right? I thought it was a privilege. One that can be revoked by the government.

Well, the ACLU is at it again… they files a lawsuit in Seattle, Washington arguing that the state shouldn’t be able to restrict convicted felons from voting. The state prevents these convicted felons from voting, even after they have completed their full prison term, due to their indebtedness with the state concerning their legal and court fees.

The ACLU is trying to make the point that a person’s “right” to vote shouldn’t be based on financial status. Well, it’s not… it’s based on moral status. Poor people that obey the law are allowed to vote all across America. It seems that if they never had a problem distinguishing right from wrong in the first place, they wouldn’t be in this position. And that is exactly why I don’t want them voting, their diminished capacity to make clear decisions for the good of society.

So why does the ACLU want them to vote so bad? The ACLU is an unappologetic extreme liberal organization and they feel this will gain their party more votes since criminals tend to hold liberal viewpoint since Democrats are far softer on crime.

A spokesperson for the ACLU said, “…our current laws keep former felons from exercising the most basic right of citizenship.” No, our current laws are broken by convicted felons and they are choosing to give up certain privileges that law abiding citizens have.

I would like to thank Bryant Gumbel of HBO’s Real Sports for this amazing quote. For without it, I would not have had the motivation to create yet another blog entry.

“Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them … Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing.  So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won … So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin.” –Bryant Gumbel

So let me get the bolded section of his quote correct:

1. Olympic athletes are not the best in the world
2. They are not because they aren’t black
3. GOP conventions (republican) are only for whites

So what should we do to fix this problem Bryant? The last time I remember you crying and complaining about something, a solution was reached that made America happy. You whined and cried about your job on CBS’ morning program, “The Early Show” and threatened to quit many times. Well, finally one day you did, after you failed to do the job for which you were hired. You were supposed to use your three years on the air to increase the show’s ratings…and you couldn’t. Now you are on some HBO show that I had to research to find the name of.

So, readers, what is it that makes it OK for him to say such blatantly racist comments? If I were to say an equivalent, I would be persecuted!

Don’t believe me? OK, I’ll try.

So try not to laugh when someone says that professional basketball players are not thugs and criminals, despite a scarceness of whites that makes the NBA look like a prison yard basketball game.

Oh, now I got your attention. That is racist isn’t it?
If you are truly upset, and think that my statement is wrong, let me show you how it compares.

1. Basketball players are thugs and criminals
2. They are because they aren’t white
3. Prison yards are only for blacks

I used the same format to summarize my statement as I did the first in order to allow for a comparison. The first part of the statement insinuates that professional basketball players are all thugs and criminals. This is untrue. It is just as untrue as hinting that the Olympic athletes are not the best in the world. The second part of the statement tries to support the first untruth based on skin color in both circumstances. And the third part of the statement makes a racist connection between a group of people that happen to be a majority of a certain color, whether or not it has anything to do with it.

Yes, prison yard basketball games are majority black.

In a recent study conducted by Ray Nagin, New Orleans Mayor, God actually prefers chocolate to any other flavor. Nagin, during his Martin Luther King Day speech, honored MLK’s vision in ending racist views by saying, “I don’t care what people are saying uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be.”

Since there is no way this could be racist, he must have been talking about ice cream. Apparently he has discovered that God truly favors chocolate and wants to cover the city in ice cream as an offering to God.

If I want a vanilla city, am I racist?

It amazes me, and it shouldn’t, every time I see these gross double standards in our society!

Here is Liberalism at its finest:

Oh, the horror! These cartoons are horrible! How dare somebody use a political cartoon to make a point! How dare they bring to light the absurdity and violence of terrorists!

According to an associated press article on msnbc.com, “Several thousand Iraqis in the south rallied to demand severing all ties with countries in which the caricatures were published. The protest witnessed the burning of Danish, German and Israeli flags and an effigy of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Protesters called for the death of anyone who insults Muhammad…..In Kabul, hundreds of young men, many wielding sticks, marched through the capital and attacked the Danish embassy with stones, smashing windows….”

These poor downtrodden people of the “religion of peace” spoke out to defend their religion. They wanted to show the world that they are not violent terrorists as these cartoons wrongly describe. They are actually loving, accepting people that mean no harm to anyone!–

Well, I am convinced! That sure looks like the religion of peace to me! Or perhaps with all of that holocaust and beheading talk, we have actually lost the true name for their religion somewhere in the translation. Somewhere some UN interpreter mistook ‘peace’ for ‘pieces’. Yah, that has a better ring to it, Islam: The Religion of Pieces.

Too bad everyone is ganging up on these poor defenseless Terrorists! Why didn’t the Dutch make appropriate cartoons like these instead of the horrible and disgusting ones that they did.

These are much more humane and obviously acceptable, since we don’t hear anyone complaining about these:

So let me get this straight, I wouldn’t want to offend anybody. It is alright to show Jews as lice (An instant classic!), the Statue of Liberty shooting missiles (Now, that’s funny!), a U.S. Soldier raping an Iraqi woman (originally clever and funny at the same time!) , Ariel Sharron eating Arab children (That’s priceless!), and an American flag as snakes.

Just more examples of it being OK to insult or talk down about someone or something as long as the liberal left sees you as a minority.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10705393/

Am I referring to Paul Revere’s famous ride warning us of British invasion? Nope. No lanterns here. What should we then use to warn the rest of America of Mexico’s invasion? Tamales?

The Mexican military, as it has done 216 other times, has illegally crossed into our country to support human and drug trafficking. The military of Mexico can be bought for a fee and they are supporting supply lines and assisting drug traffickers and human smugglers in crossing the border.

Undocumented military force for sale!
Get your Mexican flag memorabilia while it lasts!
Don’t be that gringo during the occupation!

Come to think of it, this isn’t new, they have done it so many other times, and a huge portion of their citizens (repeat THEIR citizens) are already here under their government’s permission and influence! We are getting occupied!

Maybe our new dictator will let me keep my blog title!

Did liberals go through eight other titles until they found one they could sell to America?

• Title I: Screw male athletes plan
• Title II: Unfair advantage for female athletes plan
• Title III: Lets coddle the girls plan
• Title IV: Money for gender, not merit plan
• Title V: Girls need extra help plan
• Title VI: Socialism in sports plan
• Title VII: We ran out of important things to do plan
• Title IIX: Maybe France will like us now plan

After the first eight titles, they apparently saw their chances of implementing this plan dwindling, and they surely ran out of ideas. Someone somewhere in some boardroom must have said, “Let’s just call it Title IX, that way nobody will know what it is about.”

Title IX was instituted in 1972 and its entire design was to prevent Universities from discriminating athletes on the basis of sex…..remember this sentence.

Title IX says that if 52% of the student body is female, then 52% of the athletes need to be female. The major offender in keeping this proportionate number unbalanced is the football program at many universities. Backers of Title IX complain that the school spends too much money on their football programs. According to Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who specializes in Title IX cases where she teaches at the Florida Coastal School of Law, “There are three genders - men, women and football.” Yes, football does get a large amount of the budget…but let’s not forget this, football brings in a large amount of the budget.

If the women want their football, fine! Let them have it! Of course they will have to go through the same steps to birth their super sport as men did. They will have to invent a new game, establish rules and regulations, organize teams, and go from there. After 20 or so years, if their sport is popular with America, they will have started to create their own football. Then, when the sport is played in universities, people will actually want to go see them play and the money will start coming in. Simple as that.

I wish the argument ended there. Instead of promoting sports for female athletes in order to comply with Title IX, universities are cutting males and entire male sports programs to “even” the numbers out. Greg Louganis, the Olympic gold medalist, dove on the University of Miami’s swimming and diving team. That team no longer exists because of Title IX. The UCLA gymnastics team, which boasts a proud history of Olympic level gymnasts, was smashed in the path of Title IX as well. You may not care that only 20 men’s gymnast teams now exist instead of the over a hundred before Title IX’s wrath. Maybe you will care when you see the screenshot of whatever news station is covering the Olympics shows the total number of medals by country. Just as a start, don’t plan on seeing any for men’s swimming, diving, wrestling, or gymnastics….they are becoming extinct.

In order to boost numbers of female athletes, many universities have created female crew. What a wonderful idea! A new sport that we can cram as many women on as we need to get our numbers to comply! As 60 Minutes interviewed the new female members of Arizona State University’s crew team, many of the girls (receiving full ride scholarships mind you) admitted to not only never rowing a boat, but one girl even admitted to not knowing what crew was when she was approached by ASU. Wonderful idea! ASU cut Olympic level gymnasts, and replaced them with a bunch of women on full ride scholarships that don’t even know what their sport is. How does this not piss women off? Don’t you ladies see that you are being used here?

So, many men are being told they can’t play simply because they are men….remember that sentence from before? —“ Title IX was instituted in 1972 and its entire design was to prevent Universities from discriminating athletes on the basis of sex” Sure looks like Title IX is working to me!

I have it…the missing title for Title IX!

• Title IX: Females rowing to equality