Category Archives: Political Correctness

Italian delis are a staple of regular shopping trips for most New Jerseyans. Not just because nearly 1 in 5 New Jerseyans are "Italian-American" but because they offer some of the most delicious food you can buy.

A quick note on the percentage of Italian Americans in the U.S.: After the 2000 census, the government dropped the designation so there are no great stats on the actual percentage. Typically, New Jersey is #2 or #3 behind Rhode Island and Connecticut, but either way, we're at the top of the list. We do hold the top spot in the country where more than half the residents are Italian in Fairfield, NJ.

Emma Fabbri via Unsplash

Yes of course I'm annoyed at the clear bow to political correctness, but that's for another article. Back to the delis.

My favorite thing to buy at any local Italian deli is the hot soppressata. Typically hanging behind the counter it's perfect for any cheese board or to add to home fries.

Gabriella Clare Marino via Unsplash

There are two great Italian delis in my area, Gennaro's Italian Market on Route 27 in Kingston and D'Angelo Italian Market in Princeton. Both offer a selection of outstanding meats and prepared meals. Plus you'll get friendly attentive service.

Producer Kristen's go-to Italian deli isJoe's Italian Deli and Restaurant in Franklin Park. She's been going there since she was a kid and remembers her grandfather taking her every week.

Our morning show board op, Kathy, recommends F & M in Mount Laurel.

(Google Earth)

Jill Myra, New Jersey Traffic South, has two Italian delis she likes to visit. The first is Porfirios Italian Market in Hamilton and the other is Dolce & Clemente in Robbinsville.

Porfirio's - Google Earth

Chief Meteorologist Dan Zarrow's go-to is Erika's Cucina in Clark. He says the owner, Erika, is a sweetheart, beloved by the entire community. And she makes amazing food!

My go-to order is the grilled chicken panini, with fresh mozzarella, obligatory roasted red peppers, and incredible house dressing. The homemade potato chips alone are worth the trip. (OK, now I'm hungry...) - Dan

Erika's Cucina catering platter courtesy of Dan Zarrow

What are your go-to Italian delis? Hit me up on the free New Jersey 101.5 app and they may get a shout out on the air!

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.

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The best Italian delis in New Jersey that are actually Italian - New Jersey 101.5 FM

For most of the last 70 years in the United States, ever since the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Republican Party has been the party of repression more intolerant of political dissent, more inclined to censor and more eager to use government to ruin livelihoods.

Of course, the Democratic Party hasnt always been faithful to civil liberties. Southern Democratic administrations enforced racial segregation. Two Democratic national administrations put Martin Luther King under FBI surveillance, and one also spied on Vietnam war protesters. But on the whole, the Democrats moved past those things.

Not anymore. Amid the virus epidemic, the growth of political correctness and the cancel culture, coercion of individuals now is almost entirely a phenomenon of the Democratic national administration, Democratic state administrations and Democratic polemicists. Never before has the old joke been more accurate: that Democrats dont care what you do as long as its mandatory.

The polling company Rasmussen Reports may not be the best in the country, but it is generally taken seriously by leaders in both parties, and a poll it did last month on government policy toward the epidemic may be hard to dispute on the basis of published and broadcast news and commentary.

According to the Rasmussen poll:

55 percent of Democrats favor authorizing the government to fine people who do not accept COVID-19 vaccination, while only 19 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of unaffiliated voters do.

59 percent of Democrats favor authorizing the government to confine to their homes those people who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination. Republicans oppose that idea by 79 percent and unaffiliated voters by 71 percent.

Worse, 48 percent of Democrats favor letting government fine or even imprison people who publicly question the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines. Only 27 percent of all voters just 14 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of unaffiliateds favor making such criticism a crime.

45 percent of Democrats favor authorizing government to force people to live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse vaccination. This concentration camp idea is opposed by 71 percent of all voters, including 78 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of unaffiliateds.

47 percent of Democrats favor having the government electronically track unvaccinated people. This is opposed by 66 percent of likely voters.

29 percent of Democrats favor taking children away from parents who refuse to be vaccinated, more than twice the level of support found in the rest of those surveyed.

Of course, especially when Donald Trump is around, polls show that many Republicans also express belief in nutty things. But as reckless and repugnant as Trump could be as president, he was never a serious threat to civil liberty.

Despite the huge support among Democrats for more coercive policies amid the epidemic, Democratic governors, including Connecticuts Ned Lamont, lately have been retreating from coercion, either because those policies seem to cause more damage than they prevent or because the governors realize that people are getting tired of coercion on the eve of election campaigns.

Nevertheless, with repression and coercion finding such support among Democrats not just in regard to the epidemic but in regard to dissent generally people who want to preserve civil liberty may want to test all Democratic candidates, up and down the partys ticket, about the potential policies itemized in the Rasmussen poll, just as people might want to question Republican candidates about the return of Trump.

Meanwhile, complaints from parents about public school curriculums and books stocked by school libraries are being called censorship. Theyre not.

While the cancel culture seeks to drive dissenters out of all forums, complaints about school curriculums and libraries involve only what government chooses to teach or recommend to students. Even if the material being challenged in schools is removed, it will remain available elsewhere.

If a school is to be public, it must answer to the public for what it teaches and recommends, and school boards, superintendents, teachers and librarians cant be the last word about that. What is taught and recommended by public schools is ultimately for the public to decide.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.

Original post:

Opinion: Dems replace GOP as the party of repression - CT Post

When HBO announced a Sex and the City revival, I was on the fence. Despite the networks multiple attempts at recreating the iconic 90s show in various forms (Im looking at you, Girls), there had yet to be a rom-com series that lived up to the original. And thats partly because SATC is one-of-a-kind.

Adapted from Candace Bushnells 1997 book of the same name, SATC introduced something relatively unseen in mainstream media: a group of unmarried women in their mid-30s who had sexand lots of it. Though the idea of SATC doesnt seem that groundbreaking by todays standards, in 1998, it was a provocative premise. Still, the series aired for six seasons and got two movie adaptations. It doesnt matter it has lived far past its prime; it remains one of those iconic shows, with an avid fan base rivaled only by The Sopranos (which aired around the same time during HBOs heyday).

So, despite my concerns, I (along with thousands of others) tuned in every Thursday to see what our favorite, now middle-aged white women were doing in 2021.

Did I expect And Just Like That to be as good as the original? Of course not, especially with Samantha Jones missing in action (shes sort of replaced by realtor Seema Patel, but well get to that later). But the revival was more than a disastrous train wreck. It was wokeness and diversity messily packaged into three rich white womens lives.

The SATC reboot desperately needed diverse characters and inclusive storylines. New and old fans alike agreed that there were plenty of problematic moments in the show, from Carries refusal to date a bisexual man because she believes bisexuality doesnt exist to the blatant sexualization of Black men. (That one time when Samantha dated Chivon, a Black music executive and made sexual comments about his penis, labeling it a big Black cock, still irks me to this day.) And dont get me started on Dr. Robert Leeds.

So, I understand that AJLT wanted to right the wrongs by making Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte progressive and liberal, even though theyre all wealthy, cis, white women. Making Miranda leave her white-shoe law firm to get a degree in human rights or making prudish Carrie on a sex-positive podcast didnt feel realistic. But the shows attempts at inclusion werent just far from groundbreaking; worse, they repackaged some of the shows past problematic moments into modern-day microaggressions.

HBO

The fact is, theres nothing woke about AJLT. Although its great to see people of color and other non cis, white, disabled characters, these new characters wouldve gone further if they werent one-dimensional. Take Mirandas Black professor, Nya Wallace, for example. Even though her storyline includes important conversations about fertility struggles, the character still somehow feels pushed to the side. We dont know much about her degree, her husband, and her life outside not wanting to start a family. She simply serves to be Mirandas anti-racist co-signer, even though Miranda made racist comments during their first meeting.

Take, as another example, Charlottes mom friend, Lisa Todd Wexley, aka LTW (also dubbed the Black Charlotte by Anthony). Whats off-putting about their relationship is Charlottes painfully overt attempts to impress her, even go as far to googling Black culture in an effort to wow Lisa. Charlotte even pressured her Black neighbor to attend her dinner party just so Lisa and her husband wouldnt be the only Black guests in attendance. Maybe Charlottes intentions were good, and she wanted to make Lisa feel more comfortable. But this need to become friends doesnt feel genuine. People-pleasing may be a classic Charlotte trait, but thats not an excuse for her to treat the Black women around her this way. If Lisa were anyone else but a distinguished name in the New York social scene, would Charlotte still go to these lengths? I think we know the answer.

HBO

We also cant talk about diverse characters without talking about Samanthas pseudo-replacement, Seema. The similarities between Samantha and Seema are so identical: unmarried? Check. Unfiltered about her dating life? Check. Confident and self-assured enough to give Carrie a run for her money? Check. And while its exciting to see a South Asian woman in a role like this, Seemas storyline has its own issues, especially in the Diwali episode. The arranged marriage plot, while a custom still practiced today, felt stereotypical, and the writers failed to double-check before calling a lehenga a sari. Seema, like Lisa and Nya, falls into the POC best friend trope, only serving to propel their white friends storylines forward.

Perhaps the most jarring aspect of the reboot is Che Diaz. Unlike other fans, Im not so up-in-arms by Miranda and Ches love affair (Steve does deserves better, though). I was excited to see Che and their introduction as an unapologetically non-binary person of color who loves sex and doesnt subscribe to traditional rules of dating (the kind of representation we desperately needed in the original series). And yet, Ches main purpose is to trigger Mirandas sexual evolution. Though we see more of Che than other POC characters, their interactions with the cast (aside from our grey-haired girl boss) are rare. They simply come around to help Mirandas disastrous love life, become her new partner, and, most likely, vanish by the season finale. What a fairytale ending.

When viewers of color ask for inclusivity, we want genuine and honest representationnot side characters who are the punchline of every joke.

With the exception of Che, the newcomers on AJLT are kept in their own lanes. They dont interact with each other; theyre each main characters respective diversity girlfriend. They may each be dealing with their own issuesSeema is navigating unmarried life in her 50s, LTW argues with her husbandbut none of their decisions or actions drive the plot. They exist in their own scenes and then we move on.

I never expected for And Just Like That... to be this anti-racist and anti-oppression show. It is a series about rich middle-aged white women, after all. But this repackaged brand of political correctness is nothing but a 2021 version of I dont see color. And, honestly, its traumatic to viewers of color. These problematic moments are not just things we can cringe through and nervously laugh off (though many of us do); they have a harmful message too.

When viewers of color ask for inclusivity, we want genuine and honest representationnot side characters who are subject to microaggressions for laughs and lack the same dimension as their white peers, whose storylines arent solely driven by their identity. Were still living in a time where marginalized people are waiting to see more well-rounded representation in mainstream Hollywood beyond trauma porn, token casting, and supporting roles. AJLT doesnt do anything to change that. Its not a win for diversity when the show casts four new leads of color who only prop up the white main characters. As Black women, whose communities stories have been suppressed for generations, seeing the show use this stereotype informs me (and plenty of others) that nothing has changed in the 24 years since Sex and the City first premiered.

Craig BlankenhornHBO

I dont expect for the characters on And Just Like That... to have a perfect understanding of gender and race. And lets face it, the show wouldve faced criticism whether it included women of color or not. But the execution of the leading trio trying to be more aware and socially conscious, well, its just bullshit. Id rather see Miranda take Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion classes at her corporate law firm; Charlotte befriend only white moms rather than be propped up by the Black mom friends around her; and Carrie be as oblivious and self-centered as she was in the original. At least then I would recognize the three women on the screen in front of me, and see the shows limitations for what they are.

SATC was groundbreaking for a reason. A show that boldly featured 30-something financially independent women seeking love on their own terms will always be one of its kind. I like seeing Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie again, but sometimes, our old favorites are incompatible with the world as it exists todayand best left in the past.

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Why 'And Just Like That...'s Attempt to Diversify Didn't Change Anything - ELLE.com

Richard Pryor and Daughter Rain

Courtesy Rain Pryor

Richard Pryor is widely regarded as a stand-up icon, someone who helped put Black comedians on the Hollywood map. But his daughter Rain Pryor says if her late father were alive today, he wouldn't find much humor in America's current racial division.

The 52-year-old actress discussed the legacy of her dad, who died in 2005 of a heart attack at age 65, with PEOPLE for the 2022 Black History Month issue.

"I think he felt he was part of a movement forward, and he would be scratching his head on how the hell have we gone backwards," she says. "I think that's how he would look at it, like, 'We were making strides. Things were changing. We could say what we needed to say and move on.' He would have definitely felt that we have gone in the opposite direction."

Richard, whose comedy heroes included Bill Cosby, Buster Keaton, Danny Kaye and Lenny Bruce, influenced several generations of Black comedians, from Eddie Murphy to Dave Chappelle to Kevin Hart. After breaking out as a club performer in the '60s, he transitioned to TV and film in the early '70s, writing for shows like Sanford and Son and later co-writing the 1974 Mel Brooksdirected hit Blazing Saddles.

While honing his writing chops, he landed roles in front of the camera. Despite his success as an actor in movies like 1976's Silver Streak, 1978's California Suite and 1980's Stir Crazy (the latter of which was directed by the late Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier), and his memorable turn as the title character in the 1978 cult classic The Wiz, Rain says her father never considered himself to be much of a star.

RELATED: Richard Pryor's Widow Jennifer Lee Calls His 1980 Fire Incident a Suicide Attempt: 'He Warned Me'

Rain Pryor

Joseph Marzullo/MediaPunch

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"I think he was satisfied with his standing [in Hollywood], but he never quite understood how he got there," she reveals, adding: "My father was very humble about who he was and what he meant to other people. It always shocked him if someone recognized him. All those years, he just felt so honored about that."

Throughout his four-decade career, the father of seven who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986 and used a wheelchair later in life won five Grammys and an Emmy. In addition to being a major comedy draw in concert and onscreen, Richard also tackled roles in dramatic films, like the 1972 Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues and 1986's autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling. Richard wrote and directed the latter movie, which was based on a 1980 real-life incident in which he set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine.

Looking back at his entertainment legacy, Rain sees her dad as someone who united people with laughter.

Richard Pryor and Daughter Rain

Courtesy Rain Pryor

"He would talk racial politics, and he did it in a way different from today's comedians," she says. "He did it in a way that brought everyone together. It was at a time, too, that people were comfortable laughing at themselves. There was no political correctness back then, so he could talk about politics and race in a way that we all came together."

For Rain, an actress with her own string of TV and stage credits, including the 1986 to 1991 sitcom Head of the Class, Richard Pryor led by showing the world how to triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds.

"He had such a great vulnerability," she says. "People don't realize it was hard for him to memorize lines because my dad couldn't read very well because he was dyslexic and just wasn't a great reader. So to know what he overcame to do a lot of stuff is pretty amazing. To be from Peoria, Illinois, growing up in a brothel, and then sent to California with a few hundred dollars in your pocket and to become who he became is pretty amazing."

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Richard Pryor's Daughter Rain Says He'd Be Shocked by Racism Today: 'How the Hell Have We Gone Backwards?' - Yahoo Entertainment

After massive media coverage of the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016, manyHispanic people were caught off guard by the widespread use of a neologism that alluded to them, yet they had never heard before: Latinx.

The popularization of this term on the occasion was the result of an attempt by progressive English-speakers to adopt a more inclusive variant of the word Latino. They felt that, since the victims might not have necessarily identified as men or women, journalists shouldnt use a masculine noun to describe them.

The stories needed to be presented as respectfully as possible, but the question was how to respectfully describe this group of people in their own gendered language without falling into a gendered grammatical structure. Some American academics had created in the mid 2000s what they thought was the perfect solution: Latinx.

By using that term, English-speakers would be killing two birds with one stone. First, they would alleviate any discomfort with Spanish binary gender structures by avoiding the final masculine o in Latino. Second, they would place themselves on the always-favorable side of implicit kindness and compassion in other words, the side of political correctness.

This is how American media and institutions chose to disregard centuries of Spanishgrammar to come up with a hybrid, politically charged, impractical, offensive andunnecessary term but its more inclusive in their eyes.

Judging the Spanish language from a simplistic point of view, it may seem that it was designed to be non-inclusive. That is, non-inclusive of anything other than male or female and on top of that, seemingly discriminatory towards women. Otherwise, why in the world would the masculine plural be used to describe a group of people of more than one gender? But, by avoiding shallow interpretations and analyzing Spanish with the depth it deserves, its clear that these presumptions are not accurate.

There are many linguistic theories addressing the origins of grammatical gender in Romance languages, and it is clear that these grammatical structures are a remnant of the late Proto- Indo-European gender system. But there is no consensus when it comes to how and why they were assigned in the first place.

The fact is that in Spanish (as in 44% of the 256 languages included in a study by the World Atlas of Language Structures Online) there is grammatical gender. There is a marked or defined gender (feminine) and an unmarked or undefined gender (masculine). This is why the masculine is used to refer to an indeterminate group of people (as in Latinos, for example). The final o is not intended to indicate supremacy, but rather a lack of definition. Therefore, there is no need to substitute our already inclusive o with an unnatural x.

The Royal Spanish Academy, an institution that studies, defines and clarifies Spanish language rules, provided guidance via Twitter. The use of the letter x as a supposed mark of inclusive gender is alien to the morphology of Spanish, as well as unnecessary (and unpronounceable), since the grammatical masculine already fulfills this function as an unmarked term of the gender opposition, the academy said in Spanish.

It is worth noticing that, in stark contrast to the members of the Royal Spanish Academy and due to the term being created in the United States, most of the people who endorse Latinx are not native Spanish speakers. In the almost three years that I have lived in the United States, I have barely heard any Latinos refer to our community as Latinx. On the contrary, there have been many more times that I have heard them reject it outright without much consideration. And it is not about one political position or another, since data from the Pew Research Center shows that Republican and Democratic Hispanics agree when it comes to disliking Latinx. However, college media, and especially college activists, have insisted on the neologism despite its unpopularity.

And, in addition to the inherent immorality of trying to dictate changes in the grammatical rules of a foreign language, their opinion has another major flaw: they are contributing to the hurtful misconception of Spanish as patriarchal and discriminatory to meet a socially acceptable standard of political correctness. As Angel Eduardo put it in his article Call Latinx What It Is: Lexical Imperialism, it is like saying: Were going to take your savage, backward language, force it to adhere to our superior gender norms, and impose this change upon you so that you can be good, right, and just like us! Intentionally or not, advocates of the term Latinx are perpetuating the idea that Hispanic culture is retrograde and savage, and therefore must be colonized and illuminated by wokeness.

Looked at closely, Latinx is simply the result of a political dogma applied to linguistics.The postmodern notion that the binary must be neutralized in order to include people who identify outside of the gender binary is the main force behind the idea that, by changing an o to an x, we are empowering a marginalized group.

But, unlike societies and governments, the Spanish language doesnt have the ability to discriminate against anyone. It has not dictated that the o refers only to men, nor that it is inherently masculine. Based on this misunderstanding and fueled by deconstructive political ideas, some people have chosen not to feel included. But the fact that someone chooses not to feel included in a term does not make it discriminatory.

Seeing how Latinx is rarely found beyond American college campuses and the media that feeds off of them, it is obvious that it has less to do with inclusiveness than with satisfying a leftist narrative. While peoples urge to be more inclusive nowadays is understandable, especially when they can virtue-signal their inclusiveness, it is not inclusive to alienate 40% of the people you are intending to include in order to meet the ideological aspirations of a 2%. And this is exactly what data has revealed regarding the perception of the term Latinx among Hispanics.

According to a recent Politico poll that interviewed 800 Hispanic voters residing in the United States, only 2 percent used LatinX to describe their ethnic background, while 68% used Hispanic, 21% Latina/Latino, and 8% used something else. When asked if the use of the term LatinX to describe their community bothered or offended them, 40% answered Yes, and 20% said Yes, a lot.

Considering this study, we can draw some conclusions regarding Latinx. The first being, it was not the result of a natural evolution of the Spanish language, but rather an ideologically motivated imposition from an American academic elite. Second, it is impractical because it is unpopular and difficult to pronounce, especially for Hispanics. Third, it is offensive to the vast majority of the people it purports to describe. And finally, what I believe is one of the strongest arguments against it, it is completely unnecessary. Its not just that the Spanish o is already inclusive, as I mentioned earlier, but also that there are plenty of better (non-offensive and non-invasive) alternatives.

If you dont like the way our language works and that is, using the masculine for plural you can certainly avoid any moral dilemmas by calling us Hispanics or people of Latin American descent instead. One of the best ways to make someone feel included, however, is to respect their language.

American institutions should not allow ideologues to impose their will on a language spokenby 572 million people, just because they need to put their political leaning on recordwherever they go. A language does not belong to those who step on it for an ideological purpose, but to those who speak it. And many of those who speak Spanish have clearly said no to Latinx.

Justo Triana is a freshman classical civilization major. Their column appears biweekly. They can be reached at [emailprotected].

Published on February 9, 2022 at 12:59 am

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The term 'Latinx' is less inclusive and diminishes Hispanic culture - The Daily Orange

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. Lenny Bruce was a comedian in the '50s and '60s and was arrested for verbal obscenities in his act. Free speech and the exchanging of ideas is the topic of a new play coming to the Kravis Center Feb. 18 - 20 called "I'm not a comedian... I'm Lenny Bruce."

Ronnie Marmo and Joe Mantegna talk to WPTV's T.A. Walker about Lenny Bruce

An 'appropriate' tribute to Lenny Bruce at the Kravis Center

"They were arresting him for words," said Criminal Minds actor Ronnie Marmo, "He was sentenced to four months on Rikers Island just for words."

Lenny Bruce's story of censorship is playing out in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel series on Amazon (season three set to drops on Feb. 18).

"Lenny Bruce, the reasons he is coming up so much is because free speech is under attack, [as] it seems they'll always be on some level, but now more than ever, with cancel culture and free speech," said Marmo.

The play is directed by Joe Mantegna of Godfather III fame, "I think political correctness is almost gone. It's gone full circle and beyond."

"You know, there's some things that obviously you can't say anymore or do or whatever," comedian Gary Valentine told WPTV NewsChannel 5 in Jan. when talking about old sitcoms versus new ones.

"You have great comics who are afraid to do their acts now," said Marmo.

"I'm more of a Lenny Bruce guy," comedian Tim Allen told WPTV in Jan when talking about who influenced him. Allen said he's been handling sensitive topics by being upfront, "I'm more likely to want to poke that than I did. But out of respect, I will tell people as an adult, there's some things I'm going to say that don't mean the same thing to me as they might mean to you."

"I mean, I understand that there's going to be sensitivity about things... ...in terms of how people should be treating each other and relating to each other," said Mantegna.

But because of the social media Mantegna said, "We're at the point now where every little thing gets examined, torn apart... ...I'm afraid they're gonna change the name of the Chicago Cubs because we're, we're offending the bears."

"I think in our society is that no one's listening to each other. Everyone's waiting to respond. So [if I'm] thinking of my next thought, how can I actually be participating in a conversation and potentially a solution," said Marmo.

Performances will be at the Kravis Center next weekend. Tickets start at $45 plus tax and fee.

Read more from the original source:

An 'appropriate' tribute to Lenny Bruce at the Kravis Center - WPTV.com

For most of the last 70 years in the United States, ever since the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Republican Party has been the party of repression more intolerant of political dissent, more inclined to censor and more eager to use government to ruin livelihoods.

Of course, the Democratic Party hasnt always been faithful to civil liberties. Southern Democratic administrations enforced racial segregation. Two Democratic national administrations put Martin Luther King under FBI surveillance, and one also spied on Vietnam war protesters. But on the whole, the Democrats moved past those things.

Not anymore. Amid the virus epidemic, the growth of political correctness and the cancel culture, coercion of individuals now is almost entirely a phenomenon of the Democratic national administration, Democratic state administrations and Democratic polemicists. Never before has the old joke been more accurate: that Democrats dont care what you do as long as its mandatory.

The polling company Rasmussen Reports may not be the best in the country, but it is generally taken seriously by leaders in both parties, and a poll it did last month on government policy toward the epidemic may be hard to dispute on the basis of published and broadcast news and commentary.

According to the Rasmussen poll:

55 percent of Democrats favor authorizing the government to fine people who do not accept COVID-19 vaccination, while only 19 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of unaffiliated voters do.

59 percent of Democrats favor authorizing the government to confine to their homes those people who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination. Republicans oppose that idea by 79 percent and unaffiliated voters by 71 percent.

Worse, 48 percent of Democrats favor letting government fine or even imprison people who publicly question the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines. Only 27 percent of all voters just 14 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of unaffiliateds favor making such criticism a crime.

45 percent of Democrats favor authorizing government to force people to live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse vaccination. This concentration camp idea is opposed by 71 percent of all voters, including 78 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of unaffiliateds.

47 percent of Democrats favor having the government electronically track unvaccinated people. This is opposed by 66 percent of likely voters.

29 percent of Democrats favor taking children away from parents who refuse to be vaccinated, more than twice the level of support found in the rest of those surveyed.

Of course, especially when Donald Trump is around, polls show that many Republicans also express belief in nutty things. But as reckless and repugnant as Trump could be as president, he was never a serious threat to civil liberty.

Despite the huge support among Democrats for more coercive policies amid the epidemic, Democratic governors, including Connecticuts Ned Lamont, lately have been retreating from coercion, either because those policies seem to cause more damage than they prevent or because the governors realize that people are getting tired of coercion on the eve of election campaigns.

Nevertheless, with repression and coercion finding such support among Democrats not just in regard to the epidemic but in regard to dissent generally people who want to preserve civil liberty may want to test all Democratic candidates, up and down the partys ticket, about the potential policies itemized in the Rasmussen poll, just as people might want to question Republican candidates about the return of Trump.

Meanwhile, complaints from parents about public school curriculums and books stocked by school libraries are being called censorship. Theyre not.

While the cancel culture seeks to drive dissenters out of all forums, complaints about school curriculums and libraries involve only what government chooses to teach or recommend to students. Even if the material being challenged in schools is removed, it will remain available elsewhere.

If a school is to be public, it must answer to the public for what it teaches and recommends, and school boards, superintendents, teachers and librarians cant be the last word about that. What is taught and recommended by public schools is ultimately for the public to decide.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.

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Opinion: Dems replace GOP as the party of repression - New Canaan Advertiser

Ever since this show began in the early 70s as a summer replacement for The Brady Bunch, we were on top of one trend: Cancel culture.

The idea being, if your past isn't adaptable to current standards, you would lose your friends, social status, Netflix password and career. You'd be shunned from polite society.

Its kindred spirit was wokeism, political correctness on more steroids than Lance Armstrong, which allowed no forgiveness relating not just to your past actions, but to who you are.

Generally, it's things that can't be changed, like your race or Pete Davidson's bedsheets.

WOKE IDEOLOGY IS CRUEL, EVIL, AND WON'T END WELL: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

In the world of the woke, you're either oppressed or the oppressor, and the offenses only flow in one direction.

Suddenly, we no longer measure anyone by achievement, but by victim status, which creates a new kind of segregation that's now spreading like omicron in the Olympic Village.

I call it idea segregation, IN that we cannot share our knowledge, wisdom or ideas if we're not of the same tribe.

Now we see this with crime. This show has been blaring about rising crime, like the alarm at a broken Nordstrom's window, but the people who need to hear it won't listen because it's coming from us. It's the Fox crying wolf.

They'd rather drown in raw sewage than grab a life preserver from us meetings. And I get it.

It affects all issues, from the border to crime to COVID. It's a division of ideas, and none shall mix.

Now, imagine if this kind of thing existed before we had a chance to make things.

Did you ever wonder about how a pencil is made? Milton Friedman has. I certainly hope we have some grainy footage of him lying around.

MILTON FREEDMAN:The wood from which it's made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down on the state of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw. To make the saw, it took steel. To make steel, it took iron ore. This black center, we call it lead, but it's really graphite, compressed graphite. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser, a bit of rubber, probably comes from Malaya, where the Rubber Tree isn't even native. It was imported from South America by some businessmen with the help of the British government. This brass feral, I haven't the slightest idea where it came from or the yellow paint or the paint and made the black lines or the glue that holds it together. Literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil.

Someone likes his weed.

So the moral is obvious. It's not like one person sits in a room and makes a pencil.

As the lady in the pantsuit once said, it takes a village.

Now you can use that pencil to write whatever you want, or to gouge your eyes out if you're watching "The View."

But this is the case for everything we use today. It's the division of labor, which is not referring to twins being born more than 30 minutes apart, Cat.

This clipboard right here. The chair I'm in, Cat's hair extensions. They all likely weren't made by a single entity, but cooperation of sources, workers, ideas and, of course, labor from people who never even met each other.

MARCO RUBIO: SOCIALISM IS ABOUT POWER AND CONTROL

I wish that was how this show was produced.

Imagine if wokeism existed before the pencil was made.

Could the division of labor exist? Think of the micro and macro aggressions. Why does the pencil have to be yellow? Why isn't it black? Are you Black? Do you have enough transgendered persons of color making the erasers? What's with the lead? Talk about a carbon footprint. And why #2, why can't they all be equal?

The fact is, nothing would happen because wokeism prevents the cooperation needed for any shared labor. It wouldn't just be pencils, but everything you use. You have to work together, whether you like it or not. And sometimes, you know, we have no choice.

Take the Alec Baldwin tragedy, if there was an idea, segregation, that woman could be alive today because there would have been an NRA instructor on set, and that's cooperation, idea-sharing.

Sure. Baldwin, a Democrat, might not like the instructor's politics, but he's not there for that. He's there to share his safety expertise.

And, an NRA dude would have kept a loaded gun out of Baldwin's hands.

Idea segregation prevents that. Wokeism demands you can't benefit from a person's expertise if they're not like you.

JAMES CARVILLE: I WANT TO PUNCH PIECE OF S--T UNVACCINATED PEOPLE IN THE FACE

The political is now personal. Sure, you're having engine problems with your car, and your brother-in-law is a great mechanic, but he's got a "Back the Blue" sticker on his truck. Screw it, you'll just walk home.

So now to Joe Rogan, there's likely no person on Earth who's doing more to dismantle idea segregation than him.

The roster of his guests are more diverse than the Olympic opening ceremonies, and they're allowed to speak endlessly about whatever so the listener can decide.

It's the antidote to cable TV, where shows rely on the same people who say the same things over and over again.

I mean, look at this show. You get 42 minutes of content divided by five segments and five talking heads. No wonder I'm on drugs, and no wonder CNN hates Rogan.

He's widening the universe as they shrink it. At first, the legacy media tried to take him down with his COVID content. He had doctors on who disagreed with Fauci, the left's patron saint of masks, mandates and mind control.

But the takedown didn't take. So now some mysterious group released a supercut of Joe saying the N-word over a decade or so.

Probably matching what previous Democrat senators and presidents would say in one afternoon.

The fact that the montage was released after Spotify stuck with Rogen tells you it's less about the world and more about canning Joe.

He's apologized, sincerely.

But we all know, like me watching the first Magic Mike movie, that will never be enough. The N-word is being used as a tool. They're getting desperate. They want Rogen destroyed. I wonder what the Angry Black Male has to say.

TYRUS, ANGRY BLACK MALE:Greg, thank you for this time. This is not going to be your normal, everyday Angry Black Man. Oh, and I'm angry, but not for the reasons you might think. Yup. Joe Rogan said the N-word. Hell, he even said it with a hard-ass-R. A bunch of times on a podcast. And yeah, it pissed me off when I first saw it. So. Very clever woke.

But you kind of left out a few things like it was 12 years ago. Nobody cares what he said 12 years ago. Hell, you didn't. Where were you then? I'll wait for a response, but we know that will fall on deaf ears. Maybe it's time you stop using us African-Americans to do your dirty work and fight your battles.

Now I get it, you use your favorite little words to get us fired up. Racist. Systemic. Critical. And your new favorite word: Misinformation. And that'll get us fired up. And we won't even look at the facts of the whatnots, and we'll just jump in and cancel away with you.

Your fight with Joe Rogan was about COVID, but you were losing that conversation, so you needed something else and you went to the good old woke playbook, but you went one too many times.

How about this: Fight, Joe Rogan yourselves. Leave us out of it. Look, the N-word is bad. I learned his meaning at four years old. That was the first time I was called a N-word by a family member, and I've been called it enough times in my life to where I pretty much consider myself an expert on it.

Now I know it's going to be a news flash to you, woke. But us Blacks, we understand the word context. Joe Rogan should keep that word out his mouth. Hell, everyone should. He said it then. But you're saying it now, for no other reason than to cancel a man you can't compete with. And you know what? That sounds racist to me, because that's usually when I was called it. I was winning the argument. So you had to pull that out of your bag of tricks because you couldn't compete.

I think you just told on your woke selves. Now I just may be an uppity N-word, but that sounds a lot like - and I'll use one of your words - misinformation.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Well, there you go. You don't have to agree with him or you can. Either way, we get along like we always do, and he helps me and I help him. That's how it works in life, in making good pencils, making good TV and making good friends.

This article is adapted from Greg Gutfeld's opening commentary on the February 7, 2022, edition of "Gutfeld!."

Read the original:

Greg Gutfeld: Joe Rogan is widening the universe of ideas, media is shrinking it - Fox News

Many grandees of the Catholic Church in Europe are falling in with the Rainbow Reich. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg is president of the Churchs partner to the E.U. bureaucracy, the Commission of the Bishops Conferences of the European Union. In a recent interview with Germany's Catholic News Agency, he asserted that the Churchs current teaching about homosexual acts is false.

Hollerich adverts to tendentious historical scholarship introduced by John Boswell in 1980 and popularized by William Countryman in the 1990s. This work purports to show that New Testament condemnations of homosexuality concern only its role in pagan cults and do not rise to the level of moral teaching. Moreover, Hollerich continues, the world has changed: We cannot give the answers of the past to the questions of tomorrow.

The trend in Europe is not good. More than two years ago, the German Church embarked on the Synodal Way, a legislative process of bishops, clergy, and lay representatives. The branding epitomizes the corruptions of late modern Catholicism. It highlights one of the Francis pontificate's favorite words: synodality, an ersatz theological term invented to serve as a placeholder for the secular trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this way, German progressives position themselves as servants of the pope while endeavoring to radically revise Catholic doctrine and practice.

Last year, those journeying on the Way endorsed blessings for same-sex marriages, as well as for unmarried couples. More recently, the pious legislators of the German Churchs future called for the ordination of married men. They also voted to endorse the ordination of women to the diaconate.

The Way in Germany is not driven by lay activists, but by those at the top of the hierarchy. Cardinal Reinhard Marx in Munich recently told reporters that It would be better for everyone to create the possibility of celibate and married priests.

First Things founder Fr. Richard John Neuhaus often observed that where orthodoxy becomes optional, orthodoxy will soon be prohibited. Patrons of inclusion quickly become policemen of the new political correctness.

Cardinal Hollerich has a different argument for proscription. He deems the current teaching on homosexual acts false because the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct. We know so much more today, and the Church must keep up, Otherwise, we lose contact and can no more be understood. Under such circumstances, recalcitrant Catholics who are not willing to update their moral teaching and follow the science are dead weights. They impair the Churchs ability to relate to modern maner, modern persons.

Whether the officious denunciation of those who deny history, or the more direct censure of those who hate, we can be sure that Cardinal Hollerich and his allies will be ruthless in suppressing dissent. The future is a jealous god. And recent events suggest that Hollerich is maneuvering to use the clerical abuse scandal to destroy Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne, the highest-ranking and most powerful advocate for the apostolic tradition in the German Catholic Church.

Count me unsurprised. Christianity in the modern West has always been tempted by alliances with bourgeois culture, with the sensibilities and attitudes of well-to-do and respectable people rather than the truths of the gospel. Karl Barth was horrified when at the outset of World War I, his teachers, the Great and Good of German Protestantism, lined up in support of the nationalism considered the direction of history in those years.

In my years as an Episcopalian, I watched as church leaders adjusted to elite opinion, always careful to stay on the right side of history. In those years, that meant affirming the sexual revolution, especially homosexuality. Doctrine changes, but the Episcopal Churchs social role remained constant: to be the chaplaincy for white upper-middle-class culture.

Today, the German Catholic Church is doing something similar, serving as a chaplaincy for the Rainbow Reichthe empire of diversity, equity, and inclusion that flies the rainbow flag. Sociologically, this probably makes sense. German churches are emptying, and without a flock, what other role can the vast apparatus of German Catholicism play?

Meanwhile, in Rome, the present pope fiddles.

R. R. Reno is editor ofFirst Things.

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Catholic Chaplaincy for the Rainbow Reich | R. R. Reno - First Things

Occasionally you see a movie that just satisfies on all fronts the performances, the direction, the whole package.

Even less occasionally you see one that does all that and moves you, too. The Worst Person in the World is one of those.

What a triumph.

That description also fits Renate Reinsves performance, which stands out as brilliant even in a cast that perfectly captures what co-writer and director Joachim Trier is going for. Reinsve plays Julie, a young woman in Oslo (the film takes place before and after her 30th birthday).

She never sticks with anything, Julie says at one point. I go from one thing to another.

Indeed, as does the film its told in 12 chapters, along with a prologue and an epilogue which are announced through the voiceover Trier employs.

As for Julie, she goes from being a medical student to studying psychology. Then she decides she wants to be a photographer. Fine, her mother says, as long as you take it seriously.

Taking it seriously isnt really the problem. Signing on for the long term, as Julie suggests, is.

That goes for her relationships as well. She dumps one guy unceremoniously before things meaning movie things, not Julie things really get started. Other affairs lead her to Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie, also outstanding). Hes older, in his 40s, somewhat famous for having created a graphic novel thats being made into a movie, though times have changed; its political correctness, or lack of, will have to be smoothed over, angering Aksel.

Hes worried their age difference will cause problems between him and Julie and wants to break things off; this makes Julie fall in love.

They move in together, but Julie, being Julie, grows restless. She meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), a nice, low-maintenance fellow who works in a coffee shop, at a party she crashes.

The entire scene plays out as romantic comedy without any of the disparaging trappings that description has come to signal. Its what the genre could be but isnt much anymore. Its funny and hopelessly romantic as they explore the possibilities of what counts as cheating, the title of the chapter.

A later set piece is magical. Time stops, as does the rest of the world, while Julie runs through the city, enraptured, couples frozen in place (not literally; its warm out), racing toward Eivind. Its a fitting encapsulation of the heady rush of love. Nothing else matters. The rest of the world is just a jumble of stagnant distractions as you rush headlong into your feelings.

Someone uses the title as a self-description, but it doesnt really fit. What Trier has done, with the help of magnificent performances, is make the ordinary extraordinary, which is a mark of a great film.

Reinsves performance has been universally praised, deservingly so. Julie is at times closed-minded, selfish and self-centered. Who isnt? A life based on whimsy is probably a life in need or some repair, but her mistakes are honest ones. Shes not attempting to hurt anyone, though of course she does, as much as she is searching for that most elusive of things: herself.

Reinsve modulates all of the competing emotions and desires perfectly. At times we grow frustrated with Julie. But we never lose interest in her.

Lie has an equally tricky role, his Aksel facing challenges that reveal deeper layers to his character. Lie plumbs those depths with grace and skill. Its Reinsves movie, but it wouldnt be the film it is without Lie.

(Nordrum is plenty good, too good among a couple of greats.)

The various chapters give us some insight into what makes Juile tick her father is a piece of work but she is her own woman. What that means exactly is what shes trying to figure out, and its a joy to watch.

Great Good

Fair Bad Bomb

Director: Joachim Trier.

Cast: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum.

Rating:Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and some language.

Note: In theaters Feb. 11.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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Why Joachim Trier's 'The Worst Person in the World' is one of the best movies of the year - The Arizona Republic