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01 — Intro. [Voice of Michael Graham] This is Michael Graham and you're listening to Derb Radio on NationalReview.com — what Air America would be if it were funny and informative. [Music clip: from Carmen, Act 1 Prelude.] [My voice] This is John Derbyshire with some news items from the past few days. |
| 02 — Political lexicography. In the new Harry
Potter movie, our juvenile hero, now an adolescent with emotional issues, is guarded by the hooded, soul-sucking and deadly Dementors.
Remember Julia Roberts' quip at an Al Gore fundraiser back in 2000 that "Republican" is in the dictionary right between "reptile" and "repugnant"? Well: Dementors — hooded, soul-sucking, and deadly? Does that remind you of any political party, whose name is on the same page of the dictionary? Of course, modern Democrats don't wear hoods. The last people to do that were the Ku Klux Klan of the Old South, who belonged to … which political party? I forget. |
| 03 — O.J. finds the real killer. In a taped TV
interview
to celebrate … er, sorry, that should be "commemorate" the killing of his wife and her friend Ron Goldman, well-known amateur
golfer O.J. Simpson blamed Nicole for her own death.
"It is clear," said Simpson, "that the low self-esteem of this sleazy white trash slut led her to hack off her own head with a carving knife in a fit of despair. Naturally the racist L.A. police then went looking for the nearest black guy to stick with this so-called crime." Simpson went on to declare his belief that Kobi Bryant and Michael Jackson were also innocent of the charges against them. "And you know what?" he added. "They'll get off! Yes, they'll get away scot free, because this is America, and you can get away with anything in America. Ha ha ha ha! Anything, you can get away with anything! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha …" |
| 04 — A new movie genre: Enviro-Horror. The
environmental horror movie
The Day After Tomorrow is raking in dollars at the box office.
In the movie, global warming causes tornadoes in Los Angeles, an Ice Age in India, and the destruction of New York City by tidal waves. Every expert who's seen the movie declares the science is totally bogus. Who pays any attention to them, though? Thanks to Oliver Stone, a hundred million Americans believe that the CIA killed Kennedy. Now a hundred million Americans — probably the same hundred million, actually — are going to believe that if we don't sign the Kyoto Protocols a.s.a.p., Manhattan will be turned into a splash park. "The truth is great and shall prevail," says the Bible; but that was before the Left got hold of the movie studios. |
| 05 — Remembering WW2. At a moving ceremony in
Washington, D.C. the memorial to the fallen of WW2 was dedicated by President Bush in front of an audience including 150,000 veterans of that war.
What a war that was! Four hundred thousand American dead, Europe devastated, atom bombs dropped on Japan, trmendous heroic engagements on land, at sea, and in the air. And the U.S. media were on our side! |
| 06 — Of the people, by the people, for the people. A lefty feminist judge
in San Francisco has declared the Partial Birth Abortion Act unconstitutionalthe grounds that it infringes a woman's right to have her baby's head
crushed with surgical pincers as it emerges from her womb.
America's nine hundred or so Planned Parenthood clinics can now work the pincers again. And one day — not soon, but we can live in hope — one day, a law passed by Congress with overwhelming public support yet pleasing to the left-liberal elites will be struck down by a conservative judge. It will happen one day. It will, it will. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course it won't. |
| 07 — A fearless hero speaks. A fearless hero
speaks. Billionaire nutcase George Soros has compared the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandals with the terrorist
attacks of September 11th. Quote: "I think that those pictures hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself," said Soros. "Not
quite with the same force, because in the terrorist attack we were the victims. In the pictures we were the perpetrators and others were the
victims."
Nice of him to notice that. Still, his main point seemed pretty clear. A couple dozen humiliated Iraqi terrorists equals three thousand dead American office workers. The audience of leftwing activists applauded wildly. Soros had been introduced by Senator Hillary Clinton, who said: "We need people like George Soros, who is fearless and willing to step up when it counts." |
| 08 — Some dogs go hungry …. Americans who wonder why so many
British people detest the EU (that is, the European Union), listen up.
A new EU regulation forbids butchers giving customers bones for their dogs. The regulation says that bones must be properly incinerated. Butchers who violate this ordinance will be breaking the law. The London tabloid I picked up this story from quoted dog owner Aled Morgan from the fine city of Aberystwyth in Welsh Wales, speaking thus: "My dog Arnie loves bones. They're good for him. If he could understand what's going on, he wouldn't be happy." Ah, Mr. Morgan. If any of us could understand what goes on in the minds of bureaucrats, we should likewise be plunged into despair. Fortunately, we can't. |
| 09 — … while others eat their fill George Burhart, a
75-year-old Philadelphia man, died of natural causes while alone in his house with his Labdador retriever.
The retriever, disappointed when dinner did not arrive on schedule, proceeded to eat George. The dog is now in care of Burharts' brother, Robert, who is looking for a family to adopt the pooch. Lots of luck there, guy. Says Robert: "I guess he is scared of being left alone. You can't even go to the bathroom without him following you." If you're letting that mutt into the bathroom with you, Bob, you're a braver man than I am. |
[Music clip: more Carmen]