Friday, March 05, 2004

Lots of interesting stuff on Howard Stern vs. Clear Channel over at Instapundit. I'm down with most of it. But it does seem worth noting that Clear Channel is not just "a big corporation sucking up to Bush," it is an enormous and widely feared corporation with very close ties to Bush. The closeness of Bush to both enormous corporations and the Religious Right (which Stern blames in part for his downfall) is something that many people dislike about Bush. That, and the stature of Howard Stern (inexplicable as I also find that stature) are reasons that this issue may have legs where the firing of other loudmouths did not. 3:41:46 PM    comment []

My mom called at 7 this morning. The first thing she said was, "Andrew is still breathing." "So why are you calling at 7 in the morning?," I asked her. "I could have called at 3, or 4, or 5," she said. She spends her nights sitting by a hospital bed hoping her husband doesn't die yet, and she's still able to banter when the sun comes up. Black humor and false cheer in the face of awfulness are things I love about my family. Repression gets such a bad rap. It works for us. Elijah came in the room. "Did Andrew die?," he asked. I told him, "Not yet. He's fighting." 12:26:39 PM    comment []

UNC-Greensboro Chancellor Pat Sullivan says the school erred in allowing Village Voice sex writer Tristan Taormino speak to a student group about safe sex. Taormino's talk was fine, apparently, but her career as a propagandist and practitioner of anal sex is enough to make her persona non grata at UNCG. It is worth pointing out that the person most concerned about Taormino's visit was himself a visitor to Greensboro -- Mike Adams, who teaches at UNC-Wilmington and writes for Townhall.com. He has published two columns about Taormino and UNCG -- he's one of those moralists who spends a lot of time looking at porn so he can tell the rest of us how bad it is and where to find it: "Before I left the UNCG website earlier today I did a word search for anal sex..." Adams is supposed to be back at the Greensboro campus soon as part of a "Morals Week" sponsored by the UNCG College Republicans. Fine. Universities should be open to all sorts of ideas, including those promulgated by speakers obsessed with the fundament, and by those who market themselves as one. UPDATE: I meant to link to the N&R story by John Newsom -- here it is. 8:51:34 AM    comment []