† Americans Tea’d Off Over National Debt: With Gov. Sarah Palin’s Big Announcement vying with Michael Jackson’s death, it seems to The Stiletto that the second round of Tea Party tax protests that took place on Independence Day got even less TV (and cable) coverage. The Washington Times examines whether media apathy (or censorship, depending on your point of view) is slowing the growth of the nascent grassroots movement:

The April 15 demonstrations drew an estimated 600,000 people to more than 600 events throughout the country, organizers said. Since then, the movement has remained localized, resisting efforts to turn itself into a national organization, and spawning hundreds of local, citizen-led groups that shun professional politicians at their meetings and public events.

While little media attention has been paid to the movement since then and some have suggested that its numbers were eroding, Tea Party leaders who have been monitoring the groups and this weekend's activities dispute that.

"I don't think this movement's eroding," said Adam Bitely, director of new media at Americans for Limited Government. …

"Most of these people don't want to be connected to any one group. They are trying to run their own local political organizations and don't need one national organization to do that," he said.

† Empire State Repubs Rise Again: NY’s hapless governor, David Paterson, called another special session of the gridlocked state Senate on Sunday, only to find the warring factions adjourn after just three minutes because neither side had a quorum.

† Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech: National Post (Ontario) columnist Barbara Kay puts the lie to President Barack Hussein Obama’s belief that wearing a burqa or hijab is a form of religious and cultural freedom by pointing out that “there are now places in France and Scandinavia where non-Muslim women are covering their heads in order to protect themselves from aggression.” Kay might have noted that for the same reason, Christian women in Muslim countries have been forced to adopt Muslim dress for years.  Kay adds:

[T]o assume that the burka would be freely chosen by any woman is crazy.

Liberals are so hellbent on fitting the burka into their pretty multicultural template that they would turn their eyes away from what is effectively ongoing torture. They pretend that the burka is simply an article of clothing, rather than an animated prison that has been imposed, not chosen.

So I offer a challenge to these liberals: I suggest that they wait for the hottest day of the summer, and then put on a parade in downtown Toronto--let's call it "Burka Pride."

In this parade should march - be forced to march - every single feminist and media commentator who has argued for the right of women to wear burkas. Naturally all of them will be wearing a burka themselves - men and women both. Let them march and march as the sun beats down on them, as the humidity drenches them in sweat so that they are sure they will suffocate.

Then, when they are released from these hellish, dehumanizing cells, we'll see if they are still so determined to uphold our great liberal tradition of "wear what you want."

The Stiletto - who has already suggested (fourth item) that Obama impose this “freedom” on the females in his own family - heartily endorses this exercise in consciousness-raising.

† The New York Times Can Keep A Secret. Who Knew?: The paper’s ombudsman, Clark Hoyt, acknowledges Bill Keller’s - and the MSM’s - double standard regarding newsworthiness and “the public’s right to know” when one of his reporters is in harm’s way as opposed to his SOP when it comes to U.S. soldiers and intelligence personnel who are in harm’s way:

Keller said The Times listens to appeals to keep kidnappings quiet for the safety of the victims, and “our tendency is to go along with that.” He said: “I would apply the same policy to a journalist, to a non-journalist, to a civilian or to the military. We don’t take life and death situations lightly.” But in practice, journalists seem to fare better. “Journalists all know one another, and they know how the media works,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “They know how to make the request.” …

Mike Ackerman of Miami, whose firm, the Ackerman Group, helps retrieve kidnap victims, said he’d never requested a news blackout because “we’ve always assumed they wouldn’t do it.” [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]

Last fall, around the time Rohde was abducted, The Times and other news organizations sat for a month on the story of Mellissa Fung, a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation who was kidnapped in Kabul. While she was in captivity, The Times published an article about the kidnapping of a French aid worker in Kabul. Susan Chira, the foreign editor, said nobody made a request to hold that story. The Frenchman’s small nongovernmental organization had told its people not to speak to reporters. He was freed a month later. …

The Times went to extra lengths Thursday, when it reported a terse announcement by the United States military that an American soldier had been taken hostage by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. With Rohde’s case fresh in mind, the paper said it was assured by military officials that the details it was reporting would not increase the danger to the soldier, and that it had agreed not to name him if it learned his identity.

But Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military made its announcement only because it believed a foreign news organization was going to run the story. Commanders in Afghanistan had hoped for a news blackout while they tried to recover the soldier, he said. [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]

The brouhaha over Keller’s hypocrisy may have finally forced him into a belated soul-searching: Hoyt reports that Keller is considering “trying to build in a pause so that news organizations can reach out to families or employers - rather than expecting them to ask - to find out what harm might be caused by reporting a kidnapping.” If the families to which Keller is referring include U.S. service members and intelligence operatives (whether U.S. citizens or local recruits), Ackerman and Whitman - and countless other Americans - would no doubt welcome Keller’s change of heart.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Protected Class Warfare): Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, MD, and other black ministers wanted a voter referendum on legislation recently passed by the D.C. Council recognizing gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, had their hopes quashed by D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin. The ministers will now try to get a voter initiative on the 2010 ballot that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, reports The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes.

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on how people around the country banded together to rebuild a tropical fish store in Coralville, IA, after a levee on the Iowa River broke and left his business awash. The New York Times reports:

[T]he Flood of 2008 rolled in and left Ed and his neighbors under several feet of water. …

He was unable to enter the building for two weeks. Without electricity to pump oxygen, most of his stock perished, including a tank of Amazonian discus fish valued at almost $2,000. Like many local business owners, Ed had no flood insurance. …

Ed applied for emergency food stamps, which kept him going through the worst weeks. Friends as well as strangers heard the story of his bad luck. They sent small sums of money in the mail, no strings attached. Ed’s sister’s church took up a collection and sent him $1,500. The Iowa Chamber of Commerce gave him $2,500.

And then, around Thanksgiving, Ed found help that surpassed his imaginings. A United Way worker, Mark Martin, took Ed under his wing and asked what he needed to build a new store. The answer was human labor. Mark called in volunteers for a “barn-raising.”

“They came from everywhere,” Ed said. “Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Indiana. The first group was a bunch of college girls. The first day they didn’t know one end of a hammer from another and by the end of the week they were like, ‘You want this wall down? O.K.’ It just lifted your spirits.”

A few weeks ago, he began to stock fish in the new store. “We’ve been ringing the register. We’re seeing old customers, through word of mouth.”