Adrienne's Corner

Coloring History
by Rita Kramer

*****"This is Black History Month, perhaps an appropriate time to call attention to an aspect of black history that has been papered over and all but forgotten in the official accounts and in what is taught in schools.

*****How many people today, black or white, know that the National Association for Colored People was founded by three white folks, two WASPS and a Jew, and that it was led and funded until well into the last century by whites, many of them Jews? It is understandable that after a hundred years some degree of historical Alzheimer's may appear in the memory of the organization-as it does on its web-site-but perhaps it is time to remember the truth about how it all happened. read more

I remember my family always donated money to the NAACP when I was growing up, but this article provides some history I really wasn't aware of. Well worth the read.

Socialism

*****While in the thrift shop a week ago, I stumbled upon a book by Michael Harrington, perhaps one of the best known socialists in the United States, aptly entitled Socialism. I am also re-reading George Orwell's famous book; 1984. When the two are read together, the effect is not real uplifting. Perfect pre-Lenten reading and guaranteed to put you in the right mood for the upcoming penitential season.

*****It doesn't take long to see that the real reason socialism will never work is that it completely disregards man's humanity. If we were all machines, without thought or emotion, socialism would work wonderfully. In George Orwell's book, we see the attempt to turn people into parts of a well-oiled machine incapable of independent thought.

*****I first read 1984 in the early 1960's, before most of my readers were even born. I even wrote a high school paper on Newspeak (I received an A). When comparing what is happening in our world today with both Harrington's book on Socialism and Orwell's look at the future, it is not hard to see in which direction we are free falling.

Which brings me to the Oscar's.....................

Oscar Party

*****Our family loved to watch the Academy Award program on TV when I was growing up. Sometimes we even had parties and invited the neighbors. I admit more than a passing interest in what the women will be wearing.

*****But that was a vastly different world. It was a time of the "studio system", with the peccadillo's and transgressions of the stars being swept under the carpet and hidden from the public. It was important for the stars to maintain a squeaky clean image. Stars who became too public with their aberrations were banished.

*****Now we have a star system that glorifies immorality and derangement. Drugs, drunkenness, babies born out of wedlock, homosexuality, and multiple divorces and re-marriages are the norm. They have turned these things into something that elicits no more than a yawn from it's adoring public. They campaign tirelessly and pour money into the very things, such as abortion, that we abhor.

*****Most of the movies made these days are an indirect or direct attack on the family and on Christianity. They have polluted our children and affected the adults with secular thinking that permeates every aspect of their lives.

*****And yet, tonight we will turn on our TV's and cheer for our favorites. In order to bring about change in the public arena, our values must be acted upon even when our human nature would rather do otherwise. We may not continue to say one thing and then throw support, in the manner of money and attention, in the direction of the very people who scorn the "fly over zone."

*****I admit to feeling a pang at not seeing the red carpet dresses and hairstyles. I even admit to missing the possibility that one of these loons will do something untoward during their acceptance speech. But in good conscience, I will have to find something else to do during this year's Academy Awards.