Swastikas on the Wall: This is Your Town

I read a report recently that most mainstream media stories come from AP or the other larger news organizations. Well here's a story directly impacting the culturegiest of our nation that you're not going to see on mainstream media sources.

The Beth Israel synagogue on 1406 Mound street in Madison, Wisconsin boasts a membership of approximately 300 families and was founded in 1949. The Wisconsin State Journal reports that an unknown group or individual has targeted their place of worship twice since April with anti-Semitic graffiti.

On Monday morning May 5th a member of the synagogue found a swastika and the words "Die Jew" were written on a wall in black magic marker. Back on April 25th two large swastikas were found on the front door of Beth Israel. Even though the doors have since been cleaned and repainted, it doesn't cover up the pain and outrage of seeing the place of worship defaced with such offensive symbols and words.

Madison Police have assigned a hate crimes detective to the case. In the picture above, Beth Israel Rabbi Katz shows the Torah to a group of visiting elementary school students.

Anti-Semitic acts like this are on the rise across the United States: Why don't we see these stories on mainstream network television broadcasts and Websites?

Fox News 'Rachel Ray Scarf-Gate': Arab-Bashing?

Is TV host and cook Rachel Ray in cahoots with a donut maker to inflame Islamic extremists?

Michelle Malkin and Fox News think so!

This morning AdAge.com reported that flavored-coffee and pastry behemoth Dunkin' Donuts removed an online ad (pictured above) featuring spokeswoman Rachel Ray, in response to claims generated by conservative bloggers and Fox News commentators that the scarf she is wearing in the photo looked like a kefiyeh.

Fox News commentator and frequently-creepy syndicated conservative news columnist Michelle Malkin brazenly suggested in her blog that the grayish-colored scarf was anti -American and could send a potentially dangerous message to Islamic extremists.

The kefiyeh, or keffiyeh is a Arab headdress for men comprised of a diagonally folded cloth secured to the head by an agal band.

It is worn in a variety of styles for, among other reasons, keeping the desert heat off the head and keeping sand away from the eyes and mouth.

Regardless of the fact that the scarf Ms. Ray was wearing was a paisley pattern and in fact, not a kefiyeh, nor was the scarf even made of the same material as a kefiyeh or even being worn in the style of the kefiyeh (or that it is Arab MEN who wear it) Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin suggested that the grayish-colored scarf was anti -American and could send a potentially dangerous message to Islamic extremists.

In response to Ms. Malkin's bizarre right-wing, Neo Con hysteria Dunkin' Donuts pulled the ad rather than face a firestorm of irrational backlash from outraged, misinformed Fox News watchers and conservative paranoid conspiracy theorists terrified at the thought of someone having the nerve to wear a scarf that reminded them of a kefiyeh in a coffee ad.

I read the reader comments to the Ad Age article and blogged a response.

The Boston Globe and LA Times picked up the story too. I steeled myself and read a sampling of the reader comments on Malkin's blog and many of them went easy on her, as it seems quite a few watch or have watched Rachel Ray and seemed rather puzzled at Malkin's out of left field observation.

Frankly, Malkin has been on a tirade about Dunkin' Donuts violating her views on immigration so the scarf thing seems much less about ideology or fact, than Malkin's own need to self-righteously pander to conservatives.

Oil is moving past $130 a barrel, there are food shortages around the world and President Bush and his inner circle are being confronted with former press secretary Scott McClellan's revelations that they lied to the American people about the Iraqi invasion - all Malkin can come up with is an Arab-Bashing link to a scarf?

She's Fox material all right, through and through.

Liz Trotta's Obama Gaff on Fox News Spark Debate

As if the mainstream media being all over Hillary Clinton for shooting herself in the foot yet again after invoking Senator Robert Kennedy's June 1968 assassination before the Democratic primary as justification for her continuing to stay in the race wasn't low enough, she takes the bizarre step of blaming the Obama campaign for fanning the flames in reaction to her own comments.

If THAT wasn't enough Hillary is probably relieved that the media focus on her controversial assassination comment was (temporarily at least) turned onto former Washington Times New York bureau chief Liz Trotta (pictured at left).

Trotta smugly jokes about Obama being assassinated. Look at the tape yourself, it's all over youtube.

Commenting on the implications of Hillary's Kennedy comment, she begins a somewhat typically pontificating inside-media-pundit answer, then clearly says, "...what we have here are people suggesting she wants to knock off Osama, (she recognizes she mistakingly said "Osama" instead of "Obama") then shakes her head and corrects herself, joking, "...uh, Obama, or both if we could." She laughs and the Fox commentator eggs her on suggesting: "Tell us what you really think!"

Typical fare for Fox News.

I'm not really familiar with anything Trotta has written, but you can get a glimpse of her sometimes right-wing leaning ideology from this Webpage from the Media Matters site.

Not surprising that she snidely let her take on Obama slip out on Fox, if the Media Matters page is any indication, she's just another entrenched Bill O'Reilly-like blowhard conservative spouting off and offering up muddled opinion with real facts.

Different Strokes for Different Folks?

When I was growing up there were a couple of popular mainstream half-hour television comedies that centered on cute black boys living with adopted white families.

There was Webster, starring Emanuelle Lewis but the most popular of the two by far was NBC's "Different Strokes" which aired from 1978 to 1985 and starred Gary Coleman as Arnold; he and his older brother Willis (played by Todd Bridges) were adopted by the wealthy Manhattan resident Mr. Drummond played by Conrad Bain. It was a funny show produced by Norman Lear that dealt with a range of complex racial themes and topics.

Recently there has been some media attention on transracial adoptions. The 1994 Multi-Ethnic Placement Act reflects an attempt by our government to lay out Federal standards and guidelines for the adoption of children from the foster care system.

On Tuesday the CNN.com Website reported that a group of leading adoption agency advocate groups urged changes in the Federal guidelines that specifically govern transracial adoptions in this country. The changes stem from a report released by the Evan B. Donaldson adoption institute, a group that lobbies to improve adoption laws and practices.

These groups are concerned that there hasn't been sufficient enforcement of amendments that strongly suggest proactive recruiting efforts to encourage "same race" parents to adopt African-American kids in order to more positively impact their cultural identity.

On average, black kids represent a higher percentage than white kids and also stay in the foster care system longer than their white counterparts - so I am led to wonder; what's more important?

A foster child having a parent, or a foster child having a parent of the same race and ethnicity? Should love be "color blind"?

Kudos to CNN for taking the lead in fostering dialogs about issues related to race and ethnicity in America.

McCain Parts Ways With Pastor Hagee

Back on April 25th I blogged about the mainstream media's analysis and treatment of Barack Obama's former Reverend Wright versus their examination of Pastor John Hagee; an early supporter of GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

McCain was never a member of Hagee's church in Houston, Texas but the Arizona Senator was content to tout his endorsement to score points with the millions of registered voters from "Bible Belt" regions who tend to align themselves with the Christian Coalition at election time.

Hagee is living proof that fundamentalist and evangelists Christians do not hold a monopoly on moral authority, logic or a reasoned interpretation of the Bible.

What a difference a month makes. The hornets in the nest of mainstream media were stirred up after Sam Stein penned a revealing piece on the Huffington Post Website detailing disturbing statements Hagee made in a sermon that seem to ascribe a biblical reasoning for Adolph Hitler's extermination of millions of European Jews during WWII.

Bruce Wilson first posted an audio recording of Hagee's sermon on his Talk To Action Website of the opinionated Pastor asserting that Hitler's Holocaust was a divinely inspired fulfillment of scripture.

The effect of the statements and their content were sufficient for McCain to finally cut the tether between his campaign and Hagee - and Pastor Hagee, insisting that his statements were taken out of context also withdrew his endorsement of McCain.

In the end this episode points to the power of the media to link a presidential candidate to statements made by religious leaders associated with them. Obama had nothing to do with Reverend Wright's bizarre ramblings nor did McCain have anything to do with Pastor Hagee's.

The more interesting question is the media's use of material made in the pulpit on Sunday mornings to paint a presidential candidate in a different light - even if it's not their own.

Many in the Blogosphere have all questioned why the media remained relatively hands-off on Hagee when he suggested the residents of New Orleans brought destruction upon themselves because of sin; or that the Old Testament foretold a US invasion of Iran.

Did the media storm kick in only after Hagee's bizarre assertion that the Holocaust and Hitler were fulfilling Biblical prophecy? Did the mainstream media lend equal analysis to the statements made by Wright and Hagee?