Forrest Whitaker -- best actor Oscar for 2007

I have always had a very high regard for Forrest Whittaker, the Hollywood actor who won Best Actor this year for his performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. I was especially impressed by his acceptance speech.

I will try to recreate it here, from memory.

"Whoa! Okay. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this! Thank you for this opportunity. That someone like me, from east Texas, with a dream, could have that dream become real -- what can I say?"

"Anything's possible. Anything can happen!"

"And thank you, God, for making this possible. In this life. Wow! Before going on to the next life. Thank you."

"I really believe that we can take hold of that spark inside each of us and reach out and touch the spark in others. And once that happens, everything changes. Nothing stays the same once that happens. I really believe that. Thank you."

I respect his Christian faith, his belief in an afterlife, his encouragement to other artists not to give up on their dreams, his belief that anything is possible, and his conviction that we can make a profound difference in the lives of others. What a refreshing change from the politicized pap that passes for conviction in Hollywood.

Congratulations, Forrest!

9/11 remembered

The 9/11 victim list available here, is still staggering, 5 1/2 years later. To see the ordinary faces, of those victims on American Airlines Flight 11, with 11 crew and 92 passengers, that crashed into the WTC North Tower; on American Airlines 175, with 9 crew and 56 passengers, that crashed into WTC South Tower; on American Airlines 77, with 6 crew and 64 passengers, that crashed into the Pentagon; and United Airlines 93, with 7 crew and 45 passengers, which, though headed for the Capitol buildings, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, because ordinary Americans had the opportunity to fight back.

It is horrific to see the pictures of ordinary people, doing ordinary jobs, going about their ordinary business, as we do in normal, free, peaceful societies. And then to realize they were murdered, viciously and without the slightest regard for the fact that they were innocent civilians.

And then to realize that the leftist media, leftist academia, leftist Hollywood, are ashamed (how dare they!) and feel that America brought this on herself. That belief is the most monstrous thing of all. It truly makes my blood boil, to know that the dead are being so brazenly dishonored. It makes any thinking person sick.

The Anchoress has it right

I started this blog a month ago & fully expected to be blogging daily, yet that isn't how it turned out. In the past I found I was writing letters to the editor of multiple newspapers on a very regular basis. I was motivated by my chagrin at the media's routinely selective reference to facts, its interpretive distortions, implausible extrapolations, misanalysis of causes, ideological bias, and more. I often wrote such letters twice or more times per week.

Yet now I find I've fallen silent. I truly find my passion is waning. Political discourse in the West seems now to be all about pessimism, defeat, guilt, blame. We in the West have lost our focus, and incredibly to me, few of us any longer believe we're in a war with a supremely vicious enemy. We pretend all is well. All that's necessary is to correct the many horrendous mistakes of the conservatives in power. We blame conservatives for the message we don't want to hear.

I feel very much as the Anchoress appears to feel.

"No, I still don’t feel like writing," she wrote recently on her superb blog. "Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s hormonal. I read the news, the blogs and the op-eds and it all feels like hyperventilation and apoplexy to me."

"I keep thinking of that old phrase, 'diabolical disorientation,' and that’s what the news, the politics and the blogosphere feels like to me, right now. When you’re a kid, you spin and spin, because the disorientation is thrilling and new. Over the past 15 years we’ve watched whole governments spin and spin and now the press does it incessantly…and we’re all disoriented."

'Diabolical disorientation.' Tell me about it! So, for now, I'll just continue posting when I feel the desire, if at all.