Hollywood Shocked (Again) As Family Films Flourish

The surprise box-office boom for the cartoon "Despicable Me" is making it clear again to Hollywood this summer that family films are the most likely to be top-grossing films. "Toy Story 3" is No. 1 for 2010, not only among the critics, but among the people as well. "Despicable Me" already has broken into the top 10 box-office hits for the year to date with almost $130 million in ticket sales.

It happens over and over again. And still the "executives" are caught off guard. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Nobody needs a graphing calculator. Bring out the whole family, and you bring out a bigger audience. It's summertime, and the kids are bored. If the whole family doesn't go, the driving-age teenager gets assigned to take the young ones to the movies, sometimes more than once.

(Memo to Hollywood: Really, truly, this is how it works.)

And yet, The Hollywood Reporter finds the movie market gurus slightly embarrassed at what they call the "family stampede." Family films have well outpaced pre-release projections repeatedly since May, and the studio bosses are puzzled over why these movies "outperform" their guesses.

"The simplest answer is that the tracking doesn't include the young kids themselves," Disney distribution boss Chuck Viane said.

"It's just harder to get a handle on what kids are thinking," another brilliant marketer guessed. "Tracking surveys are based on what people express in phone and Internet surveys, and you're not going to find the young kids that way." Pre-release tracking surveys focus on parents. "The nag factor is what drives those kind of movies," a studio executive tartly declared. "The parents might be less inclined than the kids to see a picture, but then the kids pester the parents, and the rest is history."

So why don't the studio bosses start factoring in the possibility of a "nag factor" from young children wanting to go to the movies with parents who demand quality for their children, and make some movies accordingly? No million-dollar marketing exec has thought of that yet?

"There can be a disconnect in tracking sometimes about how far a picture will reach across all audiences," said Sony distribution president Rory Bruer, whose gone-to-China remake of "The Karate Kid" debuted last month with a much-better-than expected $55.7 million. "There's no doubt that word-of-mouth is important in that aspect." Maybe the studio underestimated the affinity of parents for the first version of the film, released back in 1984. It's well on its way to grossing $200 million.

Sometimes, pre-tracking surveys are wrong the other way, overestimating turnout. Last fall, pre-release surveys suggested the Michael Jackson tribute film "This Is It" could ring up "$40 million or more" on its first weekend. The actual figure was a lot less: $23 million.

"Despicable Me" is a great example of the "out-performed expectations" story line. The Universal cartoon with the inept bald-headed villain who learns to love and parent three young girls grossed $56.4 million in its opening weekend, although the "experts" expected a much lower $30 million to $35 million weekend.

"People think it was a whole host of things contributing to the big opening," one executive told the Hollywood Reporter. "You had some fresh-looking characters, funny trailers and a huge boost from running those trailers with other hit family films over the past several weeks." Surveys had suggested "tepid" interest from consumers.

Anyone watching NBC or Universal's cable channels were subjected to repeated on-screen promos during their favorite shows. NBC also ran a 30-minute "behind the scenes" infomercial on the opening night of the film, since Friday night TV in the summertime isn't a hot spot for advertisers.

Only one R-rated movie has grossed more than $100 million this year, the Leonardo DiCaprio horror flick "Shutter Island." It has just been squeezed out of the top ten by "Despicable Me." Three movies have grossed more than $300 million to top the 2010 list: "Toy Story 3" (a daring G), "Alice in Wonderland" (PG) and "Iron Man 2" (PG-13). Three more movies have grossed more than $200 million: "Twilight: The Eclipse Saga" (PG-13) and the family cartoons "Shrek Forever After" (PG) and "How to Train Your Dragon" (PG).

Why can't greedy Hollywood just look at the math and put their money where the American public's eyes want to go?

Here's what should follow: more respect from the movie awards shows for these animated films. "Toy Story 3" drew rave reviews across the board. The St. Petersburg Times said it "isn't merely the best movie of the summer -- even with summer just kicking in -- but an immediate candidate for best of the year." Don't bet the mortgage.

WRITTEN BY: Brent Bozell with original article at Town Hall available by clicking on the title of this posting

Real American Hero: Brandon Darby

For the past couple of years I have written a semi-regular series of articles here titled "Real American Hero", all of the previous entries of which can be viewed by clicking on that 'label' at the bottom of this original post here at the http://www.mattveasey.com/ website.

Beginning with the very first article whose subject matter was Arizona Senator and former American POW John McCain, each of the entries has highlighted a hero from the American military. These were people who put their lives on the line, and in many instances laid down those lives, for their country. And except for McCain, every one of them was virtually anonymous outside of their own closest inner circle of family and friends.

But it is not just within the military that we can find individuals whose significant contributions have gone mostly unnoticed, and this article is going to begin the process of incorporating some of those civilian stories into the series as well. The story of Brandon Darby, a former radical leftist activist who openly called for the overthrow of the U.S. government turned Real American Hero, is a fitting one with which to begin.

Darby is a good ol' Texas boy who grew up to harbor and cultivate anti-government and anti-establishment feelings. He became an outspoken critic of fellow Texan George W. Bush during his presidency, in particular following Hurrican Katrina. It was in the relief response to the Katrina disaster in Louisiana that Darby began to come to some prominence.

As Matthew Vadum tells the story in Town Hall magazine, Darby used $50 of his own money to co-found the group 'Common Ground', a supposed relief agency that was in actuality a far-Left political activist organization that included a number of former Black Panther members. It was during and thanks to his experiences with this group that Darby's social and political viewpoint began to change and mature.

During the process of trying to restore some semblance of order and peace and rebuilding of lives in New Orleans, Darby met and began a relationship with an NOPD commander named Major John Bryson. At first completely distrustful of and at odds with one another, Darby and Bryson began to see as they worked both together and separately for the rebirth of the Crescent City that not only were each not the other's enemies, but they were indeed on the same side.

Then in 2006, Darby undertook a trip to Venezuela as part of a group seeking funding from the Marxist government of Hugo Chavez to keep Common Ground in operation. Chavez had been subverting American influence in the region by funneling discounted fuel oil through Congressman Joseph Kennedy of Massachuessettes, whose TV commercials painted Chavez as a friend to America's poor while portraying President Bush as disinterested at best.

When Darby arrived and began to meet with the Venezuelans it became obvious that helping New Orleans and Americans was the last thing on their minds. What they really wanted was to set up a terrorist network of guerrillas that would operate out of the swamps of Louisiana and begin work towards undermining the American government further.

As Vadum also reports, Darby was further alienated from his original Leftist beliefs when a long time friend from Texas, Riad Hamad, tried to hijack a new relief group that Darby was trying to start called 'Critical Response', which would have sent medics into Middle East and African war zones to help civilians who were caught there in cross-fire exchanges.

When Hamad began to suggest that the medics could be sent to Israel and put on motorcycles or in ambulances that could be fitted with bombs to kill Jews, Darby decided that law enforcement needed to be informed and approached the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. This was a radical departure for the Lefty radical who previous to his relationship with Major Bryson in New Orleans would never have trusted law enforcement.

Darby was having the epiphany that many intelligent former Leftist and liberals have when they begin to wake up and realize that the world is not some utopian social experiment, but a real place where real people have to live out real lives, and where the worst power ever wielded has come from Marxist, Socialist and Communist governments. Darby began coming to an appreciation for the brilliance of the American system.

Without letting on to any of his many friends among the Leftist community, Darby began to work with the FBI as an informant in matters relating to these threats from Radical Islam and other segments of the violent underground community. It was here that Darby took the actions that completed his transformation from radical to right, from revolutionary to American hero.

At the request of the FBI, Darby infiltrated the Austin (Texas) Affinity Group, which had become allied with other radical organizations to form what had become known as the "RNC Welcoming Committee", a group that planned not to welcome but to completely disrput the Republican National Convention in Minnesota in 2008.

During his infiltration of the group, Darby met with and eventually informed on two individuals, David McKay and Bradley Crowder. These two had manufactured homemade riot shields for use in St. Paul to help radicals block the streets and keep GOP delegates from attending the convention. Their group also gathered gas masks, slingshots, helmets, knee pads, and even manufactured Molotov cocktails. Thanks to the cooperation of Darby, their plots to injure and possibly kill people at the convention were thwarted.

Darby could have continued to follow his original far-left impulses. He could have taken the Chavez regime money and fully funded his own organization and went along with plans to undermine America. He could have fully established his medic network in the Middle East and aided plans for attacks on Israel. He could have justified in his own head that somehow he was using the terrorist and Marxist groups himself to help needy people. Instead, Darby saw what was right. He saw that violence and power and hatred were what these organizations were truly about, not any kind of change in order to help real people. And as he truly compared these foreign groups and governments to his home, he awoke to the beauty of America.

Brandon Darby woke up in time to help save American lives and help keep the American system of peaceful political selection moving forward. As he said to Vadum: "I started to realize how brilliant and miraculous the American system of checks and balances was...that has been working since this nation was founded. I realized just how hard a task that is." He went on to state: "I'm proud of helping people, but I'm ashamed of what I used to believe. Thankfully, I had the honor of serving my country by working undercover with the FBI and participating in efforts to protect the safety and civil rights of others."

Clearly, Brandon Darby now gets it, finally. Having travelled the road of anti-establisment liberal to right-thinking American traditionalist myself, I can fully appreciate much of the journey that Darby has taken. You could have never told me that I would grow to become an American law enforcement officer, just as I'm sure you could not have told Darby that he would ever become an FBI informant. But in his willingness to do the right thing, and in his awakening to a full appreciation of the greatness of his nation, Brandon Darby certainly qualifies as a civilian Real American Hero.

Something Rotten in America

One thing we can conclude from David Letterman's bad jokes about Sarah Palin: He hasn't flown commercial in a while.

Letterman's "slutty flight attendant" remark about Palin was in poor taste, we can all agree. But it was a joke and Letterman is a comedian. The joke probably would have been shrugged off and forgotten -- Palin proved her humorous good sportsmanship on "Saturday Night Live" during the campaign -- if not for Letterman's sexually suggestive "joke" about her daughter.

Everyone knows by now that Letterman made fun of the Palin family's trip to New York last week. He quipped that Palin's daughter got "knocked up" by Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez during the 7th inning. Unable to stop his slide into the gutter, he said the hardest part of the visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.

Ba-da-bad. Alas, the only daughter with Palin was 14-year-old Willow.

Sorry, Dave, not funny. It was a joke according to stand-up formula -- take two disparate news items and combine them in an unexpected way. No one does this better than humor columnist Andy Borowitz, who has the blogosphere in a snit with his column suggesting that Newt Gingrich accused Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor of faking her broken ankle to get sympathy. It was a JOKE!

The flight attendant line is a grown-up joke that one may or may not think is funny -- though my guess is that many of the offended big brothers out there were happy to participate in the Palin-as-sexy-librarian fantasy. Fess up.

In any case, the joke was about an adult voluntarily in the public arena and, therefore, clearly of a different order than suggesting sexual relations between a child and a man. We call that rape. Letterman's sort-of apology fell short of fixing things. He didn't mean the 14-year-old daughter, he said. He meant the 18-year-old.

Sir, may I offer you a shovel? Or, perchance, a backhoe? Letterman was way off base and should apologize sincerely. But, please, may we stop there?

Calls for censorship or worse are far more dangerous to the land of the free than any inappropriate one-liner. John McCain -- ever the chivalrous warrior -- sallied forth with his own disapproving statement Thursday, saying: "They (the Palins) deserve some kind of protection from being the butt of late-night hosts."

They DO? Are we talking vigilantes -- or just good ol' government censorship?

No, the Palins don't deserve protection from late-night hosts. No one does. But children deserve protection from adults who have lost sight of their responsibility to be wardens of the innocent. And parents are the best guardians of their children. Keeping them out of the limelight seems a good starting point. And, no, I'm not suggesting that anyone "asked for it."

The Palin jokes, for lack of a better term, were merely the latest in a string of recent hostile treatments of women -- conservative women in particular. The Playboy magazine Web site listing conservative women whom men would like to have "hate" sex with was beyond the pale. The harsh treatment of poor Miss Runner-Up California when she expressed her opinion that marriage should be between a man and a woman was simply unfair.

Opinions don't get punished in this country. Period.

But we do have a problem, don't we? Simply put, the Zeitgeist has become mean and nasty, and we're at a loss as to how to fix it. Here's one thought: The Internet -- which, ironically, contributes to the problem -- may be the best solution possible.

Both gift and curse, the Internet has been so revolutionary and its gifts so immense that we've been like inmates in sudden possession of the keys. Instant access to a bullhorn and the world as one's stage has unleashed a monstrous id, that undisciplined, infant part of the human psyche that wants what it wants when it wants. Multiply that by billions and civilization is one harried nanny.

Thus, we have hate-sex Web pages and millions of others that degrade women, sexualize children and leave man- and womankind to their basest instincts. Such is the profoundly messy, sometimes frightening, part of free expression.

On the other hand, we also have the passionate voices of sensible Americans, who won't let a comedian get away with trivializing rape. Which suggests that the best defense against rude comics is not "some kind of protection," but the rallying cry of people who demand more from their society and themselves.

WRITTEN by Kathleen Parker at TownHall.com on June 14th, 2009

Have We Got a Deal For You

"I," said the president, who is inordinately fond of the first-person singular pronoun, "want to disabuse people of this notion that somehow we enjoy meddling in the private sector." He said that in March, when the government already owned 80 percent of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "When a difficult decision has to be made on matters like where to open a new plant or what type of new car to make, the new GM, not the United States government, will make that decision."

But the government is GM's largest shareholder, customer, tax collector, regulator, partner in determining employees' compensation, protector of dealers and pension guarantor. GM's other large owner, the United Auto Workers, is increasingly a government dependant.

Yet Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom, two of the president's fixers of Detroit, recently wrote in USA Today that government "will play no role" in running GM. They were not under oath.

"What we are not doing -- what I have no interest in doing -- is running GM," says the president who, when not firing GM's CEO, purging its board of directors and picking new members, is designing new products (imposing fuel economy requirements that will control size, weight, passenger capacity and safety). The president, overcoming his professed reluctance to run GM, resembles the journalist Don Marquis when, after a month on the wagon, he ordered a double martini and exclaimed: "I've conquered my goddam willpower."

Washington mandates that Detroit must build cars for which there is much less demand than Washington demands that there be. Then Washington tries to manufacture demand with a $7,500 tax credit for purchasers of the electric Chevrolet Volt, supposedly GM's salvation. So, GM is to be saved by a product people will not buy without a cash incentive larger than the income tax paid by 83.4 percent of America's families.

It is reasonable to assume that GM will become profitable -- if you make unreasonable assumptions about annual vehicle sales and GM's share of the market. Besides, the government that runs Amtrak (which has lost $23 billion, in today's dollars, just since 1990) vows to make GM efficient.

But one reason Amtrak runs on red ink is that legislators treat it as their toy train set, preventing it from cutting egregiously unprofitable routes. Will Congress passively accept auto plant-closing decisions? Rattner says Washington's demure vow is: "No plant decisions, no dealer decisions, no color-of-the-car decisions." He is one-third right. Last week, under the headline "Senators Blast Automakers Over Dealer Closings," The Washington Post reported, "Because the federal government is slated to own most of General Motors and 8 percent of Chrysler, some of the senators said they have a responsibility, as major shareholders do, to review company decisions."

The pressure to politicize the economy is spreading. John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, and Gerald McEntee, head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- which is government organized as an interest group to lobby itself -- have demanded the resignation of two directors of Citigroup. Their premise is that businesses receiving direct government subventions should conform to the wishes of the president's allies.

GM is adopting new ways to lose money: Responsive to its UAW masters, GM is moving from China to America the production of some components of one Chevrolet model. Says UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, "It should be built here if it's going to be sold here." That principle, now successfully asserted, means economic autarky -- the end of international trade, and of prosperity.

The government's $50 billion -- so far -- acquisition of the shadow of GM will injure, with unfair financial advantages, the surprisingly healthy U.S. auto company, Ford. Of course, the government does not intend that injury, any more than it intended to cause protests in Mexico over the high price of corn tortillas, a result of Washington's mandate that Americans burn corn (ethanol) in their cars.

Washington's "rescue" of GM began because GM is "too big to fail," and bankruptcy is (well, was) "unthinkable." Big? GM's market capitalization, $375.8 million on Wednesday, is about the size of California Pizza Kitchen's ($340 million) -- is it too big to fail? -- and one-eleventh that of Harley-Davidson ($4.3 billion). Fail? If GM has not already failed, New Coke was a success.

The administration is determined to prop up GM as a jobs program for the UAW and Midwestern states rich in electoral votes. This frenzy will intensify as the administration's decisions deepen the debacle.

WRITTEN by George Will at TownHall.com on June 7th, 2009

Recovering the Lost Art of Manhood

Not only should Perez read this particular book, but so should Obama and his male entitlement mooks. Maybe Adam Lambert should give it a gander—and all the rest of the American Idol males, too, for that matter. I’m also certain that it would be advantageous for 99% of evangelical men and all the current boys who make up the Republican Party’s leadership to peruse its contents.

So, what’s the book that’ll cure Perez’s paranormalities and shore up BHO’s sell out mentality? Well, it is not Liberace’s biography or Dr. I. Blow’s new book, How Guys Can Get in Touch with Their Inner Diva, or my 2006 book, 10 Habits of Decidedly Defective People, or another one of Alinsky’s rags.

The book that could possibly (maybe) cure Hilton’s heinously deep weirdness, the effete bent of our culture, the wuss tick in churches, Obama’s many ills, as well as the pusillanimity of GOP politicos is Frank Miniter’s new destined-to-be-bestselling tome, The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide: Recovering the Lost Art of Manhood.

As most of my regular readers know, one of my favorite whipping posts is the metrosexual male imago the man-haters are successfully saddling our sons with. This Puss-in-Boots culture detests men who would be men. That’s why parents and grandparents who loathe what the media and various institutions are trying to do to our boys need Miniter’s new book more than Pelosi needs Jesus and a straight jacket. Frank has penned a manifesto for manhood, a veritable tour de force for testosterone that decisively rebels against the gush of this sassy society.

So what’s so great about Miniter’s book on the lost art of manhood? Here are four things that flick my switch:

• It’s not 400 pages long. Frank cuts to the chase. No long, drawn-out blah, blah, blah fluff trying to fill pages so his publisher won’t sue him for not hitting his contractual word count. As a man, I appreciate that. I’ve got stuff to do. Don’t go wafty on me. Get to the point. And Frank does just that.

• It’s insanely practical. In TUMSG, not only will Miniter hit you with some heavies regarding the philosophic aspects of classic male virtues, but he’ll also lay out: 5 ways to purify water; which survival knife is best; how to survive if you get lost; how to rescue a capsized boater; how to fend off a bear, cougar and alligator attack; how to spot poisonous snakes; how to control arterial bleeding; 10 rules of gun safety; Marine Corps sniper tactics; 10 steps to field dress a deer; fishing strategies for stream, lake and ocean; how to throw a fastball, curve and a change-up; how to run with the bulls of Pamplona; how to choose the perfect candy, flowers and jewelry for your lady; how to judge, cut and smoke a cigar; the differences between certain whiskeys, wines and beers; how to win at poker; the importance of the 10 Commandments; 100 movies and 100 books every dude should see and read; and the 10 most manly deaths—from Davy Crockett to Jesus Christ. And that’s just a fraction of the useful stuff Frank cranks in this politically incorrect, metrosexual maligning manuscript.

• It lauds classic male traits of yesteryear, things like: self confidence, precision, wisdom, humility, bravery, strength, honor, sacrifice and knowledge. You remember those masculine traits, don’t you? Not only does Frank float these old school assets but he also profiles many men who embodied these goodies while here on planet earth.

• He walks his talk. Believe it or not, Frank lives this stuff . . . at least as much as a sinner can. Miniter has floated the Amazon (the river, not the online superstore), run with the bulls of Pamplona, and hunted everything from bear in Russia to elk with the Apache to kudu in the Kalahari. Along the way Frank learned boxing from Floyd Patterson, spelunked into Pompey’s cave, and I hear he can make a wicked martini. FM’s a graduate of the oldest private military academy in the US, a place that still teaches honor and old school gentlemanly conduct and believes, obviously, “that men need this book because the US has lost its code of honor as enumerated by its Founding Fathers.”

Hey parent and/or grandparent, give me your good ear for a sec. The MSM, public schools, pop culture, effeminate branches of evangelicalism and liberal politics have made being a man, in the classic sense of the word, a bad thing. If you want to make certain your son or grandson morphs into a dandy dilatory dipstick then allow him to ogle pop culture, admire our current political clime, and send him to a church that’s filled with dancing wood fairies, a lot of “hugging and sharing,” and more floral displays than an FTD warehouse. They will wring out of him any and all vestiges of that which makes him a man. You might as well stock up on eye-liner, fingernail polish, glitter, James Blunt CDs, and some skinny stretch jeans right now because he’s gonna need ‘em.

However, should you desire that your son become a William Wallace, you must do the following:

Buy Miniter’s book!

In addition, buy my audio books, Raising Boys That Feminists Will Hate and God’s Warriors & Wild Men (www.clashradio.com), and Doug Wilson’s book, Future Men. The aforementioned will provide you and your Y chromosome with all the information and inspiration needed for him to be the provider, protector, hunter and hero God intended him to become.

Also, single ladies, if you have some 21st century metro guy begging to take you out on a date or wanting your hand in marriage, before you plow forward with Mr. Sassy Pants you might want to have him digest Frank’s book as a good acid test to verify whether or not you’re saddling up to a man or a hamster. Let him read it. See if it gives him a tummy ache. If it doesn’t make him run screaming to mommy and he actually cowboys up and begins to embody what this survivor guide espouses—for, let’s say, five years—then go out with him. Unless, of course, you like dating hamsters who weep while watching the movie Twilight.

Great stuff, Frank.

Congrats!

WRITTEN by Doug Giles as "Here's a Book Perez Hilton and Barrack Obama Should Read" at TownHall.com on May 23rd, 2009

'American Idol' Sign of Brewing Culture War

Every year prior to this one in the McCullough house we've engaged in a little ritual. It goes something like this.

The Lovely Bride asks me who I think will win, and my answer is always the same.

"The most original one will..."

And every year I have been correct until this year, where about midway through the season it was obvious that the most original, theatrical, and possibly more vocally talented singer might not win.

Guess Google Pics count for something after all...

But NO ONE should have been surprised at tonight's results.

And that haters who are already screaming "homophobia" need to shut up!

Look at the math people.

In the final three of this year Danny Gokey, Kris Allen, and Adam Lambert were more or less evenly split with 30%, 31%, & 32% respectively.

Voting patterns on Idol are an interesting cultural phenomenon because I do think they tell us something about the culture at large. The fact that Allison did not squeak into the top three was very telling this year. But it also probably shows that fewer Latinos watch and/or vote for Idol than some other groups. And since no African American has made it into the top three since Fantasia several years ago draw your own judgments about the power of black households as well.

And before you dismiss that last assumption consider that African Americans are the only ethnic population in the country that is shrinking.

Tonight's finalists were gracious to each other and in the end the more talented all-around musician, singer, songwriter, player of multiple instruments edged out across the board the guy with the more flamboyant flair and gifted vocal range.

Consider also that Danny Gokey and Kris Allen were both born-again Christians. One entered the competition as married contestant (Kris) who was even openly advised by Simon in the early rounds to "keep that marriage thing" under wraps if he wished to get the single girl vote. Kris did the opposite and openly expressed his love and appreciation for his bride. Danny entered the competition with the most heart wrenching story of all attempting to win the competition as a sign of dedication to his recently deceased wife. His song choices throughout the competition said it all.

In the end the fact that there were so many more Gokey voters that preferred the IMAGE of what Kris was as a person, artist, and musician to what Adam was discovered engaging in seemed to be the issue that decided the matter.

Americans were not ready for on-stage open bisexuality to be the icon of the American pop culture scene... at least not yet. Katy Perry eat your heart out.

And I for one...

Was on some level...

Reassured.

There will be more debate in the days to come. And my rule still generally holds true - originality will usually trump the field.

This year, in the largest vote ever cast, America instead voted for tradition...

Now if we could just get those who focus on public policy to do the same!

WRITTEN by Kevin McCullough in his blog at TownHall.com on May 20th, 2009

God Has His Ways of Getting a Nation's Attention

When Old Testament Israel strayed from following God, Yahweh had unique and painful ways of getting the Hebrews’ attention. His first line of attack was to send in His prophets—who were not the shiny, happy-clappy, cliché-spewing, aphorism-addicted mega church pastors who are more interested in hawking their books than bearding the priests of Baal.

No, the prophets were wrecking cranes to wayward Israel’s facades. They were imperfect, difficult dudes who called a spade a shovel for a perfect God. They didn’t give a crap who you were, who your mommy was, if you were the King or Pastor Whoop-Dee-Frickin’-Do. They were fiercely devoted to God and His ways. Janet Napolitano would call these truth-tellers “terror threats” because they loathed godless governments and butt-kissing priests and had no problem whatsoever letting those entities have it verbally.

Yep, if you were out of sorts with God because of practicing whacked stuff or preaching Oprah instead of Obadiah, you were about to be publically roasted via the prophets’ sizzling invectives.

Need a mental image? Imagine Rush, Beck, Coulter, Miller or O’Reilly on steroids.

This skewering, to be sure, was about as fun for the rebel recipients as watching Nancy Pelosi do an interpretive dance of “Riders on the Storm” (the extended version) would be for Simon Cowell.

A humiliating open rebuke, however, was a mere love tap when compared to an eternity of misery and the coming decades-long national butt kicking Israel was in line to receive should they remain contumacious.

The prophets’ messages were never complicated. These gruff and holy critters offered God’s people two choices: turn or . . . burn. If Israel obeyed, they’d be blessed. If they disobeyed, well . . . let’s just say things didn’t go that well for the next four decades.

You see, if Israel turned from their profane BS (belief systems) and back to God, Yahweh would chill and relent from the attention-grabbing calamities He was heatin’ up on heaven’s back burner. The prophet, unfortunately, was officially out of a job if the Hebrews went the repentant route. Yep, Amos had to go back to fig picking.

However, when Israel blew the prophets off by condemning the messenger, categorizing the message as hate speech, jailing the prophet(s) or, as in some cases, killing the prophetic salvo, God would in turn switch to plan B to get His insubordinate group’s good ear.

God, not the one to run out of advanced repentance techniques, would allow Israel’s economy to go to hell, plagues to ravage their land, nature to convulse, and enemies the ability to pulverize them.

Yep, unless I’m reading the Bible upside down, it seems that when the nation went astray from God’s law and wouldn’t listen to the prophets’ calls to repentance and instead vilified the saving voices, God allowed one (or more) of the four aforementioned hammers to pound them until Israel became all ears.

This is, at least to me, a plain prophetic pattern within the Scripture. The $64,000 question you gotta ask yourself is this: If there is a God, and if the Bible isn’t a bunch of fairy tales written by a stack of whack jobs, then does God still roll today like He did with Old Testament Israel as He interfaces with 21st century nations that spurn His values to His face?

I’m guessin’ God hasn’t had an extreme makeover and that He is the same yesterday, today and forever, which could mean in our current culture—where evil is good and good is evil—that we might be in line for grave negative sanctions because, apparently, America’s new favorite pastime is whizzing on that which is holy, just and good.

WRITTEN by Doug Giles for TownHall.com and published there on May 10th, 2009

Kemp

Jack Kemp died this weekend, but the ideas he fostered with unbounded energy deserve another look. Kemp was more than an adherent of supply-side economic theory. He was a zealot. But he was just as vocal about his support for minorities and the need for the GOP to connect with them.

The NY Times' Adam Clymer, who wrote the paper's obituary on Kemp which appeared Sunday morning, said yesterday that Kemp:

"was one of the strongest and most consistent voices within the Party of Lincoln for the need to listen to, and heed, the views and needs of people who would not necessarily be viewed as the base of the GOP."

In the obit, Clymer pointed out that Kemp had

"campaigned in New York for Nelson A. Rockefeller and in California for Ronald Reagan in their gubernatorial races; and for Richard M. Nixon and Barry Goldwater in their presidential bids."

Imagine the howling from talk radio hosts, and cable news hosts if a card-carrying member of the Conservative wing of the Republican Party dared to campaign for someone like Nelson Rockefeller today.

No one ever worked with, around, or for Jack Kemp and didn't have an opinion. Jack Kemp was a force of nature. No matter what the venue, he was fully capable of taking over the room.

During a holiday visit to the White House a few years ago, Kemp waited in the line to have his photo taken with the President and Mrs. Bush. The line went down a hallway then around the walls of a holding room before we got to the room where the photos were actually being taken.

On that occasion, when he got to the holding room, Kemp picked a chair in the middle of the room and held court, chatting happily with those of us inching our way through the line.

Jack Kemp was a fighter from beginning to end. He was anything but a shoo-in to be a professional quarterback. According to the Associated Press:

The Detroit Lions picked Kemp in the 17th round of the 1957 NFL draft, but he was cut before the season began. After being released by three more NFL teams and the Canadian Football League over the next three years, he joined the AFL's Los Angeles Chargers as a free agent in 1960. A waiver foul-up two years later would land him with the Bills, who got him at the bargain price of $100.

Kemp led the Bills to two American Football League championships and was voted the AFL's Most Valuable Player. Not bad for a guy drafted 203rd in the 1957 NFL draft.

Newt Gingrich said Sunday:


Jack had an enormous heart and an unquenchable spirit for staying on offense. He lived life as a quarterback always seeking the next touchdown.
His greatest contributions in the 1970s were teaching the Republican Party to be idea oriented optimistic and committed to economic growth instead of devoted to austerity.

Only Ronald Reagan was more important in shaping modern conservatism.

As a Congressman from Buffalo, New York from 1971 to 1989 Kemp's devotion to the idea that lower taxes would generate economic growth was put into practice by a Democrat-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate during Ronald Reagan's first term when tax rates were rolled back about 25 percent across-the-board.

In spite of dire predictions from the Left, inflation which, under Jimmy Carter had exploded to over 13 percent a year, collapsed to about four percent. Not only that, but the proportion of income taxes paid by middle class wage-earners decreased by about 32 percent while the proportion of income taxes paid by the wealthiest tax payers increased by about 20 percent.

According to a Joint Economic Committee of Congress report in 1996 looking back at what was known as the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut, the reason was "Lower top marginal tax rates had encouraged these taxpayers to generate more taxable income."

Even President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers in wrote in a 1994 report: "It is undeniable that the sharp reduction in taxes in the early 1980s was a strong impetus to economic growth."

Jack Kemp: Professional quarterback. Congressman. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Defender of minority rights. American.

WRITTEN by Rich Galen and published today by TownHall.com