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Hispanic, Asian Immigration Decline Is a Republican Opportunity--and Danger
Tweet Share on Facebook May 14, 2009 Comment (12)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Census Bureau report on the slowing growth of the Hispanic and Asian population in the United States should give pause to those critics of immigration reform, who insist that foreigners come here in search of free social welfare programs.
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Wal-Mart's Attack on Civil War Battlefield in Northern Virginia
Tweet Share on Facebook May 13, 2009 Comment (52)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Wilderness battlefield cannot be moved.
It is a one-of-a-kind place, where tens of thousands of Union and Confederate boys died in the Civil War. You can't just shift the signs down the road a mile and call another tract of ground the battlefield.
But a Wal-Mart shopping center? How special is that?
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Catholic Church Should End Celibacy Rule, Let Rev. Cutie and Other Priests Marry
Tweet Share on Facebook May 12, 2009 Comment (45)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
A handsome priest named Cutie. Fame. Television. What did we expect?
You would think that after all the molestation scandals of recent years, the Catholic Church would give its priests a break and let them choose to be celibate, or to enjoy loving relationships with women.
After all, if you come to the priesthood already married, the church doesn't make you divorce. There are practicing Catholic married priests, and the world has not come to a flaming end.
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Help Wanted: Looking for a New Me on Facebook and Twitter
Tweet Share on Facebook May 11, 2009 CommentBy John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Help Wanted
Facebook/Twitter Ghostwriter
Quick-thumbed texter needed to improve aging chairbound writer's dull Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets.
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'Outrage' Film Is Gay-Bashing in the Name of Gay Rights
Tweet Share on Facebook May 8, 2009 Comment (37)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One thing we're going to miss, in the 21st century, is the quality of mercy.
Life is not, cannot be, just. If it was, children would not die. All but a tiny few of us would roast for our sins. And to quote the lovely Jennifer Nettles, this would be the very last country song.
But if human beings cannot be just, we can be merciful. We have that choice. And not too long ago, folks took mercy seriously. We believed in values like the Golden Rule, and lessons like the Sermon on the Mount. These days, the exercise of mercy is seen as a sign of weakness, or self-delusion.
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No Bailout for Newspapers: Dinosaurs, Meet Capitalism and the First Amendment
Tweet Share on Facebook May 7, 2009 Comment (6)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
True story. Several years ago, a Senate press secretary called to tell me he was leaving the Hill for more lucrative corporate PR work.
He was chuckling on the phone, for he had just informed a coworker of mine at the Boston Globe that he would be joining us in the private sector, and my colleague responded—sincerely!—by saying, "We don't work in the private sector."
How is that for a self-fulfilling prophecy?
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He's No Sarah Palin, but Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels Could Unite the "Party of No"
Tweet Share on Facebook May 6, 2009 Comment (22)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Now here is an interesting morsel. A Midwestern governor, labeling his rivals the "party of no," got re-elected in November with the biggest vote total of any statewide candidate in history. And he is a Republican.
That is correct. Our old friend Mitch Daniels, who went home to Indiana to engage in some hands-on governing after years as a well-liked Republican apparatchik here in Washington, says lambasting the other guy is not enough. The voters kind of like to know where candidates propose to take them.
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Miss California Carrie Prejean's Breasts Not the Oddest Fakes at the Miss USA Pageant
Tweet Share on Facebook May 5, 2009 Comment (49)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Chicken cutlets?
I must admit that, in all those years watching the Miss America pageant as a small-town Catholic school kid, it wasn't to hear Bert Parks sing.
It will be hard for those under the age of 40 to grasp, but there was a time when Elly May Clampett's blue-jeaned butt, the bra ads in the Sunday Times , and the bathing suit competition from Atlantic City were what passed for titillation in the US of A.
All those girls with pearly teeth, trying to look like Barbie. Then came Playboy, Penthouse...and the Internet.
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Bush Torture Witch-hunt Could Take Pelosi Down Too
Tweet Share on Facebook May 1, 2009 Comment (108)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Do we really want to see the first woman speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives resign in disgrace as an enabler of torture?
That is a not-so-wild prediction of what may have to happen if the Left keeps pushing for show trials over U.S. interrogation methods after the 9-11 attacks.
It is undeniable that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were briefed about the CIA's interrogation methods.
And conservatives are asking, fairly, whether the various proposals to stage Capital Hill hearings or independent commissions won't have to address the question of congressional complicity.
They should, and they will.
So, if you believe that former President Bush and former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials should face a public burning for their roles in this drama, how can you not include Pelosi as well?
You must.
