UPDATING...

Several stories now running, at 6:18 p.m. EST, supplement our morning posts.

The headline on Drudge, until a short time ago, reported that the Democratic primary electorate is splitting along racial lines.  This is supported by a Rasmussen survey showing whites favoring Hillary Clinton, 41 percent to 27 percent for Obama.  Blacks, though, favor Obama 66 to 16.  This is not good, as we discussed earlier today in THE POLITICAL WEATHER. (See below.)  It's an American tragedy in the making, and you'll notice that no one is doing anything about it.  This is what happens when a party reduces itself - no one did it to the Democrats - to rigid ideologies and identity politics. The fault here lies primarily with Obama, who must show that he can be a statesman, and call for an immediate end to racial politics. We wait.

In SISTERHOOD - FOR SOME, again see below, we discussed the dry rot that has infected feminism.  As if to prove the point, feminist icon Erica Jong comes along with an absolute rant, devoid of any intellectual content, directed at something called pink men.  Erica Jong wrote the feminist tract, "Fear of Flying."  No matter what we might think of it, she does have a brain.  It needs exercise directed by a person brain trainer.

Those of you who visit this site, after only a week's publication, know that we defend the English language against assault, and that we needle sloppy journalists.  The needle has just come out.  The AP is running a story that shows what happens when a headline writer doesn't read the text carefully. The headline reads, "Heckler Behind U.S.-Iran Incident?"  The story, though, says nothing of the kind.  It merely suggests that a well-known, on-the-air heckler may have joined in the incident by saying nasty things.  The aggressive action of the Iranian patrol craft, which charged American ships and dropped objects ahead of them, stands on its own.  There's no evidence given that any heckler was "behind" the incident. It's important because many readers read only the headline and the first sentence or two. 

Posted on January 14, 2008