NEW YORK –December 13th, 2008
A month after protesters picketed its annual dinner for inducting Focus on the Family’s James Dobson into its Radio Hall of Fame, the Chicago-based Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) announced today that it was selling its half-finished building.
"Pandering to extremists doesn't pay and the Museum of Broadcast Communications suffered a catastrophic blow to its reputation by honoring Focus on the Family's James Dobson," said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out (TWO). "Bruce DuMont hoped to cash in by catering to the deep pockets of the religious right, but his prayers weren't answered.
When the nomination of Dobson was announced, TWO teamed up with the Gay Liberation Network and launched http://www.dumpdobson.com/ to keep Dobson out of the Radio Hall of Fame. These robust efforts culminated with a full-page "Dump Dobson" ad in the Chicago Tribune, signature ads in the GLBT media and a large demonstration outside of the awards dinner at Chicago's Renaissance Hotel.
DuMont blamed his woes on alleged broken promises by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the economic downturn. He did not point out that his project lost momentum after it became mired in controversy by cozying up to Dobson, says TWO.
"I can understand the temptation to pin the blame on Blagojevich, as he is not too popular these days," said Besen. "But, DuMont should take responsibility and admit that his project lost its luster and foundered after he chose to bronze the bigotry of James Dobson."
Washington -December 18
It would seem that another protest may be on the way. It was reported this morning that President-Elect Obama has chosen Rick Warren, the celebrity preacher at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., to give the invocation at Obama's swearing-in ceremony.
Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion. The Swamp
Well, it sounds as though Warren has his own "social gospel." Considering the effect TWO and The Gay Liberation Network had on the Dobson controversy, I'm waiting to see what they do with this. Pandering to extremists may not pay, but it is not "extremism" that is the problem. America's Founders were extremists. Ben Franklin himself must have been an extremist, to become America's first millionaire.
Or are we only talking about religious extremists? Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammad were extremists.
Warren's ideas are not "extreme." They are outrageous, insulting, and in the sense that such widely popular theists can effect public policy and law, thus breaking down the wall of separation between church and state, not to mention influencing other citizens to become homophobes by wrongful moral comparison to child molesters makes such men as Warren unfit to "invocate" the swearing-in of any American President.
Study Guide to Ludwig Von Mises "Human Action" Available Free
"It has been a work years in the making, but finally the Study Guide to the Scholar's Edition of Ludwig von Mises's "Human Action", is available. You can order the handsome volume here, and — as we've come to expect — the Mises Institute is generously providing the entire book free for download here."
I have already downloaded mine, to a thumbdrive. The study guide is 318 pages and I have yet to read page one because I have had my copy for only 2 minutes now! But I am looking forward to reading it side by side with "Human Action."
The Study Guide's author, Robert P. Murphy, wrote in the Daily Articles of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute:
"Once you realize that Mises has a definite plan for the book — it is certainly not a Joycean stream-of-consciousness riff — then its 881 pages are not as daunting. You realize with each chapter, 'Yes, now I see why Mises couldn't really get on to Important Topic X until he first dealt with the material he just covered.'"
And if you are a free-market naturalist, (which you are if you are a metaphysical naturalist,) you just might want to check out The Gold Standard: An Austrian Perspective YouTube video from the Mises Institute's first conference, November 16-17, 1983; Washington, DC.
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