November 10, 2004
 
COMMENTARY: Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, Part Deux
 
by David M. Kinchen
Editor, Bluefield News Network
 
Hinton (BNN) -- At my last newspaper, the editorial page staff periodically published a useful commentary column involving thumbs: Up for good, Down for bad. I’m using this format, which is offered in many variations at various magazines and newspapers, to comment on some recent news items or events. This is my second of an occasional series.

THUMBS DOWN to the West Virginia Republican Party in the person of state GOP Chairman Kris Warner for firing executive director Gary Abernathy a couple of days after the Nov. 2, 2004 general election. Many state GOP officials apparently agree with my assessment, judging from a scan of news media accounts. I’m an equal opportunity condemner, as the next item indicates, but I think Abernathy did a marvelous job for his party in winning the state for Bush, Betty Ireland and Brent Benjamin. That controversial T-shirt saying “It’s All Relative in West Virginia ” makes sense here, since Kris Warner is the brother of Monty Warner, one of two losing gubernatorial candidates. I agree with the Republicans who say: “Fire Warner, keep Abernathy.”
 
THUMBS DOWN to state Democratic Party Chairman Nick Casey who urged Democrats who supported GOP candidates to get out of the party. He wants straight-ticket voting, something I abhor—and I’m a registered Democrat. Like many members of political parties, I always look at the candidate and his/her qualifications. That’s why I voted for Reagan twice and picked Ross Perot over Clinton in 1992. May the best candidate be rewarded with my vote, I say to myself in the polling place. (Of course, two or four years later, I will probably vote throw the rascal out!). Casey is quoted in the ( Beckley ) Register-Herald as saying: “Times have changed. The Democrat who wins the primary is not assured they will win the general.” Good! Nobody is guaranteed a win in our democracy. As one boss told me as the company was planning to throw me overboard: “We’re all temporary employees around here.”

THUMBS UP to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his predecessor Rudy Giuliani for cleaning up New York and making it safe for tourists and residents alike. I spent five days in the Big Apple early this month (November 2004) and was impressed with how user friendly the place has become. Cabs are plentiful and reasonable and the drivers that I encountered on three cab rides were helpful and courteous. They must have attended that “charm school” for cabbies I read about somewhere! Most of the time I walked, day or night, it didn’t make any difference. I wouldn’t walk around Huntington or Charleston at night, but I didn’t feel threatened in the nation’s biggest city. I stayed in Times Square and used the visitor center on Broadway across from the George M. Cohan statue to buy stamps and mail postcards. It reminded me of the similar visitor center in Chicago ’s recycled-into-a-cultural-center old public library. This is a concept Los Angeles , San Francisco and other cities could very well copy.

Times Square has a B.I.D. (business improvement district) designation, meaning workers scurry around with brooms picking up litter and security guards augment the police force.

B.I.D.’s are a great idea whether they’re used in L.A. (they are); Chicago , New York or Huntington. Contrary to news accounts, Times Square is not Disneyland or another theme park. It’s free of homeless people and panhandlers, but it’s still a lively entertainment center at all hours of the day or night—the best in the world. Bloomberg and Giuliani are both Republicans and they’re doing or have done an excellent job.

THUMBS DOWN to those politically correct useful idiots of the commentariat who equate evangelical Christianity with radical Islam, especially in the wake of the Bush re-election. Kerry did a fine job, but he was beaten fair and square. Game over! I continue to believe in Sam Huntington’s clash of civilizations theory which definitely doesn’t consider Islam to be just another religion.

Take what happened in the Netherlands on Nov. 2, 2004 as a cautionary tale. Radical libertarian filmmaker and newspaper columnist Theo van Gogh was murdered as he was riding his bicycle in Amsterdam . Police apprehended the alleged murderer, a Muslim immigrant. According to an op-ed piece by Dutch novelist Leon de Winter in the Friday, Nov. 5, 2004 Wall Street Journal, Van Gogh—a distant descendant of the painter—was singled out for a film called “Submission” he made with a lapsed Muslim, attacking Muslim treatment of women. De Winter writes that Van Gogh was an equal opportunity offender, attacking Jews and Christians as well as Muslims. But it was a Muslim who shot him six times and attempted to cut off his head as he lay dying on the street.

In the wake of Van Gogh’s murder, several mosques and Islamic schools were firebombed, with Muslims in turn setting fire to Christian churches and schools. As Sam Huntington points out many times—and as Arab writers like Fouad Ajami (“ Dream Palace of the Arabs”) concur, Islam is not just another religion: It’s a way of life that is famously intolerant of other cultures. Think Roman Catholicism before the Protestant Reformation. A fundamentalist Christian didn’t assassinate Theo van Gogh—a member of the death cult of Islamo-Fascism did. There is no way we can co-exist with people who perpetuate the horrors of 9/11 and the daily murders in virtually every country in the world. Karen Armstrong and other non-Muslim defenders of the religion are just plain wrong.
 
Thumbs Archives:
10/16/04 — Part I
11/10/04 — Part II
11/26/04 — Part III
12/15/04 — Part IV
12/24/04 — Part V
12/31/04 — Part VI
01/08/05 — Part VII
01/14/05 — Part VIII
01/21/05 — Part IX
02/04/05 — Part X
02/11/05 — Part XI
02/18/05 — Part XII
02/25/05 — Part XIII
02/28/05 — Part XIV
03/06/05 — Part XV
03/10/05 — Part XVI
03/18/05 — Part XVII
03/26/05 — Part XVIII
03/30/05 — Part XIX
04/09/05 — Part XX