As IF Times

link Chris Rock disses the tea party – PATRICK GAVIN | POLITICO CLICK.

No matter how much money is spent on education, it only takes the rantings of a handful of ‘entertainers’ to wipe out the benefits.  When Chris Rock declares that the Tea Party is a racist group, it’s hard to know if Mr. Rock is playing to his base, which is likely a younger, self professed cooler audience, or if he actually believes what he spouts.  Chris Rock is a disciple of the Don Rickles school of stand up humor but Rock’s material predominantly and predictably centres on racial themes.  Specifically, the nuances of black/white interactions.  While there will always be an audience for this humor, the one note aspect of it must get old as people mature.  The Three Stooges for example still command an audience despite the fact that the poking eyes with fingers shtick lost its novelty decades ago. 

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinions, that’s the benefit of freedom.  But some opinions are more valid than others, because they are actually based on fact.  Being educated means you have been exposed to critical thinking, that any conclusions you arrive at are based on a logical process.  If someone like Rock were to pick on redheaded people as the butt of his humor, deride their intelligence, their habits, their views of the world, most rational people would see this as caricature and accept it for what it is, attempts at humor.  Sadly, there will always be that contingent that will absorb some of that humor and subliminally accept it as truth, people who somehow think entertainers are on some higher intellectual plane. 

Luckily it was only Politico that aired his comments so it’s unlikely many people would notice them except for news junkies like yours truly. However, by giving Rock airplay, it clumps him into the usual gaggle of people who view everything through the lens of race.  This makes him look bad.  The irony of this may be lost on Mr. Rock, but what he implies in his recent publicized comments  are both irrational and racist.  Despite what he thinks, black people can be wrong.  They can be guilty of crimes.  They make mistakes. They can do stupid things.  Just ask Michael Vick.  Or Tiger Woods. They can be just as dumb as anyone else.  Speaking of Tiger, his golf game has gone to zero.  There have been negative comments on his swing changes, his demeanor on the golf course.  Is this racist? 

Just because people object to the President’s direction on policies doesn’t make them racist.  Nancy Pelosi is widely considered a force behind the errant Democratic agenda as well.  I have yet to hear anyone call the Tea Party sexist.  If a building owned by a black person is on fire, pointing it out does not make one a racist.  Guys like Rock and notable others, have played the race card so many times, it’s a one card deck.  It’ a pretty loyal audience who listens to jokes to hear the same  punch line.

Mr. Rock has made a career of tapping into the latent paranoia of racism.  There will always be an audience for this stuff, as there is for the slapstick  humor of the Three Stooges.  It gets old though and it’s all funny until someone loses an eye.

link FT.com / Middle East & North Africa – Iran’s Greens seek to fire up support.

I’ll bet if you took some DNA strands from the incumbent Iranian Theocracy and also from the liberal/progressive media in the U.S., there would be conclusive evidence that they sprouted from the same potted plant.   The Mullahs in Tehran’s glee from cheering on the ‘people’s revolution’ in Egypt has turned to indignation now that it appears that  the same demand for change is starting again in Iran.  As we know, this is the same double standard of perspective that is used by the predominantly liberal media in the U.S.  It may well be true that the uprising in Egypt was a spontaneous movement of  youth against a despotic ruler and that the entire population had a role.  Anyone who watches the daily broadcast will note that not only is there  a conspicuous absence of women from the protests, but that most protesters are hardly young.  Maybe the women get filled in on the day’s events at home later on.

It will be interesting to watch the attitude of the media when the Iranian authorities move to squash the so called green movement ( no relation to the wackos here) in that country, and they most surely will,  when the crowds try to emulate what has happened in Tunisia and now in Egypt.  The Iranians may be shocked to find out that the Egyptians really DO want to throw off the old dictator, but NOT to be replaced by a theological one sympathetic to Iran’s.  They may not have seen that coming.  Will the west report the brutality of the government when they start putting down the protesters?  Will the U.S. government make public comments about respecting the will of the people in Iran? They didn’t the first time as we recall. 

Most people are nervous that Egypt will fall under the rule of theocratic nutbars, but it may well be that the people don’t want to be under anyone’s arbitrary dictates, especially those with their modern 12th century ideas.   If social media is responsible for allowing the people to rise in the first place, they must also be aware of life outside the prison of most Arab states.  It may occur to them that living life pretty much the way it was just after the invention of the wheel isn’t all that great.  They look at people like Michael Moore in the west and think, ” I can do that!” 

It is also amusing to compare the popular uprising in Egypt and Tunisia with the same kind of of movement in the U.S. just recently, namely the Tea Party movement.  As we know, that movement was labelled by the lefty media as a fringe movement, pushed by conservative wackos and racists with nefarious intents.  In fact, it was and is a populist movement against the creeping take over of all that affects people’s lives by big government.   They’d have had a much better shake of it if only they had younger people and no women.