Culture Clips – April 24, 2007

Heroes in Hell’s Mass

No one who hasn't been through it can tell the family, friends and victims how they should react, or what helps them cope. To mangle Frank Sinatra: I'm in favor of God or grief counseling or whatever else helps you get through the night.

But for the rest of us, who sit helplessly on the sidelines watching another senseless massacre break out at a McDonald's, a post office, a Luby's cafeteria, a high school, or a Virginia university, I personally want to say: Enough with the healing process, the fingers of blame, and most of all enough with the senseless explanations of the mass murderer's psyche, background and motivations…

Yet, in these unimaginable situations, some choose to act. I want — no, I need — to remember them, too.

In Room 204, professor Liviu Librescu was showing his engineering students slides of "virtual work" when the gunfire went off next door. "A steady pop, pop, pop, pop," a student eyewitness told The Washington Post. Librescu went to hold the door, giving students time to escape through the windows. He is reported among the dead.

Meanwhile, in Room 207, the gunman shot instructor Christopher Bishop in the head and began firing on the students, killing three or four. "Everyone hit the floor," said Trey Perkins, and the gunman left. Trey, a student named Derek and an unnamed girl went to the classroom door and held it shut with their feet. Two minutes later, when the gunman returned, he couldn't get in. He started shooting through the door, but the kids, lying flat on their backs on the floor, feet pressed to the door, held it tight.

Maggie Gallagher
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/Maggie
Gallagher/2007/04/17/heroes_in_hells_mess

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The Supreme Court Upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban

Roe v. Wade is on its last leg. The impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the federal partial-birth abortion ban is clear to all of us who have been deeply involved in these cases. The pro-abortion forces are panicking. Justice Ginsberg, in her angry dissent, states the importance of this case best when she says, "For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health." Ginsberg is right in this one statement — it is an absolutely historic occasion. The majority's 39-page opinion has provided a roadmap to those who stand for life.

The Court's decision is a tremendous victory to the pro-life community in several ways. First, states can pass laws requiring abortion doctors to give explicit information to potential clients about how the abortion is performed. Second, health and safety regulations that apply to other doctors need not exempt abortion doctors. Third, this case gives a shot of adrenaline to energize the pro-life movement, which will be a major influence on the presidential election.

Anita Staver
WorldNet Daily
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp
?ARTICLE_ID=55290

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Religious Roots

Most liberals — and most American Jews are liberal — argue that America does not derive its value from the Bible, but that the United States was founded on the secular values of the Enlightenment ... Of course the Enlightenment played a role in forming America's values. But its concepts were largely add-ons to already established Bible-based values.

The Europeans who settled on North American soil and formulated America's original ideals were deeply religious people. These Bible-based Christians did not need the Enlightenment to tell them that government should not be theocratic ... While the United States has no state-based religion, it was designed to be a deeply religious country. And American religiosity was uniquely Judeo-based.

America's Christians were not European Christians — which is why it is foolish and immoral to liken American Christianity to Europe's, as Jews do when they cite the Crusades and the Inquisition. America's Christians were such Judeophiles that they founded America to be a 'Second Israel.' "

“Which is More American, the Bible or the Koran?”
Dennis Prager
Quoted in The Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/culture/
20070417-104736-4574r.htm

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Cable Choice

Basic cable service has become almost mandatory. The older citizen with the TV on a stand and an aerial on top is a vanishing species inasmuch as there is no reception anymore without cable. And though the days of free TV are long past, the "basic" cable package, which runs at around $10 a month, is not the problem. The problem is that the consumer must pay an additional $30-60 and take an additional 80 channels when he or she only may want a few.

As Tim Winter, Executive Director of the Parents' Television Council, wrote:

With the exception of cable television, no other media sector requires a customer to purchase a product he/she does not want — or that he/she may even find harmful or offensive — in order to consume a product that he/she does want. When you go to the ten-theater Cineplex to watch a movie, are you forced also to pay for the other nine movies you're not there to watch?

Not surprisingly, the cable companies do not agree. Bundling cable channels together has been their bread and butter and now they have income from cable Internet as well. Lots of money for lots of lawyers and lobbyists. They have insisted for many years that unbundling is impractical if not impossible even though it works quite well in other countries, such as Canada. Several studies, including one by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), have shown that an average family subscribing to a premium cable package with 60-80 channels only watches about 17 of them regularly. The cable companies and their lobbyists tried several other arguments to show the downside of this simple proposition, including their belief that cable prices would rise if they had to sell each channel individually. (Presumably, the companies did not explain how even without cable choice, the average family's monthly cable bill has risen at more than twice the rate of inflation, by nearly 90% since 1995.)

…The CHOICE Act, as it was know, was introduced with much fanfare in May of 2006. It died in committee.

This is the time to bring it back. With gas and oil prices on the rise for the second year and electricity about to double in certain parts of the country, there is one bit of good news for consumers. Your cable bill could be cut in half and you won't be forced to subscribe to MTV just to get Disney and Nickelodeon if the Congress would act in your behalf.

Paul Weyrich
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PaulWeyrich
/2007/04/19/unbundling_cable_channels_an_opportunity _
for_selectivity

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