Two Women - One Horrid and One Glorious

Today is June 4 and today is the day, in 1919, that the 19th Amendment was passed by Congress (ratification would take place on August 20, 1920). The 19th is the Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote.

Something, by the way, that the horrid Ann Coulter thinks is a bad idea. From the Guardian:

Who exactly has the vote who shouldn't have? "Women," she says, laughing. "It's true. It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 - except Goldwater in '64 - the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted."

And The New York Observer:

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

Fortunately today is also the birthday of the glorious Cecilia Bartoli. Who is she? Just watch. She's the one in front in the pink dress:


The piece is K 165 of Mozart, the "Exsultate, jubilate" and here's the score, if you wanted to follow along. Or just the text if you can't read music.

While it's far more likely that the Universe just is - that there's no design or balance to it and that happiness (to quote, yet again, Bertrand Russell) begins when facing the fact that the world is horrible - it's good to know that not all of it is horrid Ann Coulter.

Some of it is glorious Cecilia Bartoli singing glorious Mozart.

Who Said It?

Tony Norman's got a good column posted today (go read it). It's about Congressman Peter King's upcoming hearings on Radical Islam and there's some broad brush satire of anti-Islamic rhetoric in it.

Satire - look it up.

But I wanted to see how, as satire, it stood up to the real anti-Islamic rhetoric floating in the toilet bowl that's the right wing media.

First, here's Tony:

With their hard-to-pronounce names, aversion to pork ("the other white meat") and inscrutable "foreign" ways, the Muslim presence on these shores makes a mockery of one of our most sacred mantras:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag / of the United States of America / and to the republic for which it stands / one nation / under [a Judeo-Christian] God / indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

How can we be "indivisible" when so many so-called Americans of the Islamic persuasion go out of their way to be different?

Not bad. Just tongue in cheek enough to know he's kidding.

But here's Michelle Malkin:

If it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, it’s just another day in the life of a true believer in violent jihad.

Yes: Violent jihad. Two words the current occupant of the White House won’t say together and about which he remains in stubborn denial.

Violent jihad. A fundamental tenet of legions and legions of Muslims worldwide — and untold numbers of homegrown and immigrant practitioners of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage here on American soil.

And now Ann Coulter:

The Middle East is on fire again, and crazy Muslims with funny names aren't helping things -- Mahmoud, ElBaradei, al-Banna, Barack...

And Peter King himself:

I would say, you could say that 80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists. Those who are in control. The average Muslim, no, they are loyal, but they don't work, they don't come forward, they don't tell the police … .

That last one's a two-fer as it comes from the World Net Daily.

As good a writer as he is, if the above quotations show anything they show that Tony's satire of teh crazie pales in comparison to the real crazie.