Interview with Publisher of Movieguide, The Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment

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I often hear from parents that it’s difficult to find movies or TV shows that the family can enjoy together.  Ted Baehr, publisher of Movieguide.org was my guest recently and discussed that issue as well as the results of his research into the kind of movies that do best at the box office.  You may be surprised: Interview with Ted Baehr

Stop Being A Wuss! Just Say It!

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Family members seem to have a hard time when it comes to being firm with those closest to them.  Case in point:  today’s letter from a grandma who doesn’t want to offend her granddaughter.

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

I Made the AP List for 2010 News Events

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The Associated Press just recently released its “Chronology of News Events in 2010.”  It includes such momentous occasions as the Obama administration filing a lawsuit in Phoenix to block Arizona’s toughest-in-the-nation immigration law (leaving out that it is an anti-illegal immigration law), actress Lindsay Lohan beginning a 14 day jail sentence (reduced from 90 days due to overcrowding) for violating probation in a 2007 drug case, Wikileaks posting 90,000 leaked U.S. military records from the war in Afghanistan, and…..

August 10
Talk radio host Laura Schlessinger uses N-word 11 times on-air while discussing interracial marriage, later apologizing.

• What the AP does not mention:
• That I used the word to discuss its meaning and appropriateness in our society.
• That I questioned why our society allows blacks to call each other that name but does not allow whites to discuss the issues raised by that word.
• That I realized immediately the mere use of the word offended many of my listeners.
• That I “self-policed” myself, pulled myself off the air, and apologized the very next morning.
• That it wasn’t until 48 hours later that the liberal so-called news media at CNN teamed up with Media Matters, the Urban League and the NAACP to demand that I be silenced and taken off the air.
• That I NEVER called ANYONE that word.  Instead, I was pointing out how that word is used ubiquitously in the black culture and community.

 
I am not a victim.  We choose to be victims, and I do not choose that label for me.  This event in my life – which I am responsible for – has led me to realize how precious free speech is in our country, and that there are forces gathering to restrict that fundamental First Amendment right.

In the few months since August 10, we’ve seen Rick Sanchez fired by CNN for expressing his opinion about Jon Stewart.  We’ve seen NPR fire Juan Williams for expressing his opinion on Muslims and airport security.  We’ve heard Al Sharpton (who called for me to be silenced from radio) call for the censorship of Rush Limbaugh and other talk show hosts who whom he disagrees. 

We’ve heard a U.S. Senator – Jay Rockefeller – on the floor of the U.S. Senate ask that the FCC shut down Fox News.  We’ve heard an FCC commissioner – one of 5 men who decide what can air on our radio and television stations – call for the monitoring and regulation of news.  All of this to support an alleged right that is NOT in the Constitution – the right not to be offended.

So, I am committing myself to supporting free speech in any way I can, beginning with moving my program to a venue which reveres free speech.  Check my website at www.drlaura.com to learn more about my move.  I will use my new format to continue to help people be and do better in their lives as well as provide a forum of open discussion on such controversial topics as racism, abortion, religion, the destructive influence of feminism, and on and on.

I am energized by all that has happened to me, not only recently but over the three decades of my career.

In January, my new book Surviving a Shark Attack (On Land), deals with betrayals and revenge.  I have some surprising things to say and to reveal. 

Video War Games – Useful or Disrespectful?

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A lot of the most popular video games on the market are war games.  Are they good or bad for teenage boys?

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

Read the transcript.

YouTube Pulls Anti-Abortion Ad

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Missy Smith is running for Washington D.C. delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.  She is running against incumbent Eleanor Holmes Norton and claims to have the backing of the Tea Party movement.
 
What is most interesting about this candidacy?  She is running largely as an anti-abortion candidate.  She runs a 30 second ad which will air 24 times on local broadcast network affiliates across the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, preceded by a 15 second warning that was added by the station’s administrators.
 
Her 30 second ad was pulled from YouTube, posting a notice that it amounted to a “violation of YouTube’s policy on shocking and disgusting content.”

What is the ad?  It’s 30 seconds of still photos of aborted babies.  Missy Smith’s voiceover admits to her having had two abortions:

“I was told it’s not a baby.  They lied to me. They exploited me.  Then I learned the truth and I’ve suffered for years.  And believe me, I am angry.  My heart has been ripped out.  Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Norton…they all support the murder of babies and the abuse of women by abortion.  It’s time to make child-killing illegal again.”

I’ve been rolling around in my mind YouTube’s comment on “shocking and disgusting.”  Yes, the murder of innocent babies in the womb is shocking and disgusting in a civilized society.  Dead babies ripped apart aren’t really pretty.  But it is the truth.
 
If it’s really that gruesome, should it be a “right?”

We can have daily abortions by the thousands.  Why can’t we look at what it is exactly that’s happening?

I went on YouTube and explored by using words like “shocking,” “disgusting,” “vulgar,” “mean,” and others.  And what happened?  Videos appeared with subjects like atrocious sexual exploits with links to sites with “more more more,” fart compilations, squeezing pus from boils, and a snake eating a hamster.

I agree with YouTube that using stills of aborted children amounts to “shocking and disgusting content.”  I challenge every single Planned [un]Parenthood clinic to show women coming in for abortions these photos, and THEN let them choose.  I challenge every high school to show photos of aborted babies the same way they show horrible shots of car accidents to alert young people to the dangers of drunk driving.

It is shocking and disgusting to me and many others that people find it just fine to murder babies in their bodies without seeing the sonograms of their babies moving in their womb, without looking at photos of the baby at the level of development of theirs, and without seeing the final result of the abortion.
 
Choosing without being totally informed is not really make a choice. It is hiding from actually making a choice.

Unwanted babies are wanted by some other family.

If a continuation of a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, abortion would be reasonable in self-defense.  If a continuation of a pregnancy will result in a baby that will certainly die shortly after birth, in compassion, an abortion would be reasonable.  But to waste a perfectly good baby over disinterest, inconvenience, embarrassment, and even economics is really shocking and disgusting.

You can find Missy Smith’s website at www.missysmith2010.com.  Check it out.

Sometimes truth hurts.

More Than A Hate Crime at Rutgers University

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I am unbelievably furious!  I have a new book coming out in January, entitled “Surviving Shark Attacks on Land.”  It has to do with betrayal and revenge.  18 year old Tyler Clementi didn’t survive his recent shark attack on land.  He killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge in New York.  He posted a goodbye on his Facebook page just eight minutes before he ended his life.

The media has made a fuss over this story because he was gay.  That is not the story. The story is that he was betrayed in the most disgusting and egregious way by his own roommate and the roommate’s girlfriend.  They sneaked a camera into the dorm room and secretly taped Tyler Clementi having sex.  They callously “shared” (as it’s lovingly called) this tape with the Internet universe on the roommate’s network of “friends” (as they’re lovingly called).

The roommate bragged about his spying in a Twitter post.

The piece of garbage known as his roommate and his piece of garbage of a girlfriend have been arrested for invasion of privacy.  They intentionally betrayed the friendship between roommates and intentionally humiliated this young man in public.  There ought to be (and there may be) a more serious charge.

For those of you old enough to remember the original movie “M*A*S*H,” an audio version of this humiliation was perpetrated on “Hotlips” Houlihan as a “joke.”  She was devastated, and the audience and actors laughed.  Mainstreaming cruelty.

One 16 year old junior at Rutgers (the same school) defended the perpetrators:  “I’m really shocked.”  About what? “I wouldn’t expect Molly to do something like that.  Dharan was very friendly, open and social.”  And here it comes:  “They’re not like that.  It was probably a practical joke gone wrong.”

Bull.  They are exactly like that.  They intended to humiliate Tyler.  They intended to have a laugh at his expense.  They intended to gain notoriety by having produced this film for all to see for their “entertainment.”  They intended  to be cruel.  They were sharks, attacking by betraying a friend on the Internet.

Could Tyler have survived this attack?  Was suicide his only out? 

The problem is that if he reported them to the school (whether or not they got in trouble for it), it’s on the Internet, seen and downloaded again and again and again for all eternity. 

I know something about this sort of betrayal.  Made up, as well as real, photos of me are on the Internet for all eternity also.  I know personally the feeling of wanting to die…vanish…evaporate.  The pain of that humiliation was extraordinary.  Why did I survive and Tyler not?  Tyler was just 18 years old and did not have decades of adult life experiences, accomplishments, a network of support or perhaps just pure grit.  When someone so vulnerable is betrayed (and the word is betrayed), then life seems totally hopeless.  When people you expect to have some kindness use you to further their fun-loving reputation by humiliating you for all time, and you’re only a teenager, you feel you will never be able to show your face or trust anybody again.  Everything is magnified, including pain, when you’re a teenager.

Tyler would have survived had he believed he could live through this humiliation and hold up his head again.  That he was gay is not the issue.  Had he been straight, we’d be having the same conversation.  This is not about sexual orientation.  This is about the awful inhumanity that is mainstreamed most horrendously via the Internet.

My heart goes out to this boy…I know what he felt, and I wish I had been there to tell him so.

The Thought Police Are Coming For You

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I’ve been sitting “shiva” for the past four weeks after I issued my apology for using a word on this radio program that I should not have used.

I’ve let the hounds of fury misinterpret and misrepresent my apology, as well as my decision to end my syndicated radio program at the end of the year.  I’ve been asked why didn’t I strike back?  Frankly, with folks like Al Sharpton and Howard Stern and Wanda Sykes and organizations like Media Matters, the NAACP, and the Urban League (to name only a few) pelting me with insults, calling me a racist, saying “good riddance”…..it was hard to get a word in edgewise.

But after my vacation, I’m all refreshed, and now it’s time to start putting a little civility back into this debate and clear up a couple of misconceptions.

First:  I am not leaving my radio program to be free to say the “N word.”  A lot of folks out there have reported that that is my intent!  That when I said I wanted my First Amendment rights back, it was for the right to say that word.  Can you believe that?  That’s wrong!  You won’t hear that word out of my mouth.

Second:  While I said something that offended some people, I took ownership of it.  I apologized (as you folks who listen to me every day know) and accepted responsibility – something others who are now attacking me have not done in their own lives, or don’t do until their PR agency tells them “You better!” so they go into rehab and all is forgiven.

Just this past week, Wanda Sykes was on Larry King.  Wanda Sykes (I call her an “offensive comedienne”) was the one who last year “joked” in front of President Obama that she hoped Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys would fail.  I find that incredibly offensive – i.e., to wish someone sickness and death.  She never apologized for that, and she was never asked to apologize for that.  She referred to Rush Limbaugh as the “20th hijacker” – again, I find that offensive and she never apologized.

Well, on Larry King, Larry asked her to “weigh in” about me.  I don’t know why Larry would do this, or why Wanda is an expert on me, but that’s TV.  It’s all about ratings.  So Larry asked Wanda about me, and this is what Wanda said (I’m quoting):

“I didn’t know that black people ever called her show or even listened to her show.  Black people don’t listen to Dr. Laura.  That’s a white people thing.  That’s a white people thing.”

Personally, I find that an offensive comment, and perhaps even a racist one.  It makes an assumption about a group of people, and that’s what racism is.  More importantly, it’s an inaccurate comment.  Contrary to Wanda’s uninformed opinion, I get calls and letters every day from people of all colors.

Now, I don’t see the Urban League, NAACP and Media Matters trying to shut down Wanda Sykes, who represents blacks badly, and I don’t see them demanding advertisers boycott her TV shows or asking stations and networks to punish her.  But you do see those organizations mobilizing to shut me down, shut down Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Andrew Breitbart – shut us all down, because we say something that apparently offends them.  No, it’s really about disagreeing with them.

I was very pleased to see this posting on the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications website.  This was put there by UNC Professor of Journalism Leroy Towns, a professor and research fellow.  On August 19 – two days after I appeared on Larry King – Professor Towns wrote this:

Make Sure Your Attitude is Politically Correct

Here’s further evidence the right of free speech is being replaced by The Right Not to Be Offended.

Talk show host Laura Schlessinger used the N-word (that’s the media-inspired euphemism for the real word) several times in her radio show. She immediately came under attack from the ultra-liberal group Media Matters and from critics in the media.  So she apologized and quit her radio show.

[Now even Professor Towns got the facts slightly wrong.  I apologized.  Then I was attacked, and then I announced I am leaving my radio show.  Now back to Professor Towns.]

That wasn’t good enough for Media Matters, according to the Associated Press:

”Media Matters’ Ari Rabin-Havt said the apology wasn’t accepted because his group was concerned about Schlessinger’s overall attitudes toward race, more than just the N-word.  And those attitudes weren’t addressed in the apology, he said.

There you have it.  Got attitude?  The thought police are coming for you.  Posted by Leroy Towns.

“The right of free speech is being replaced by the right not to be offended.”  That’s pretty serious stuff.  And it doesn’t start with the government.  It starts when small interest groups – groups that are supported and aided by political parties – decide they are the guardians of what is “politically correct.”  That’s how it started in Germany.  That’s how it started in Communist China.  That’s how it is right now in Iran.

So when I speak about leaving syndicated radio at the end of the year to regain my ability to speak freely, it is so I can speak freely without worry of saying something that will offend or disagree with some group of people (disagreement is offensive to some groups of people) and then having the collateral damage of advertisers, agencies and radio stations being threatened and attacked for supporting me.
 
So, I will stand on my own, ready for the slings and arrows, because I’m committed to helping you folks do and be better in your lives.

I want to emphasize one more time that what I’ve been dealing with for the past 30 years in the public arena are activist groups and politically motivated individuals taking exception to my differing point of view, who reframe it as “she’s offensive.”  Whether it’s my opinion on abortion, day care, “shack-ups,” intentionally having babies out-of-wedlock, time and again, people pretend to take offense at my opinion, but, in reality, merely want to shut down an opposing point of view.
 
And I promise you, I may be standing on my own, but I won’t be shut down.

George Stephanopoulos Got It Wrong

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I know there are some people listening right now who are tuning into my show for the first time because maybe you’ve heard some things about me in the past couple of weeks.  I’d like to correct some myths you might have heard.  First of all, I am not now… nor have I ever been… related to the vampires of Transylvania.  I only bite when asked.

If you watched Larry King last Tuesday, then you heard I’ll be ending my national radio show in December after 17 years.  Seventeen years.  Well, I never got the criticism I couldn’t hold down a job.
 
Oh, I’m sorry. Actually, I’m wrong.  Because last Wednesday – the morning after I was on Larry King… George Stephanopoulos… does everyone know who he is?  He used to work for the government?  George Stephanopoulos?  Well, he now has a full-time job on “Good Morning America.”  And last Wednesday he had this to say about me leaving radio.  Benjamin….roll tape.

SFX:  “Well, she had no choice.  She was fired, right?”  (gunshot sound)

I’m sorry, could you say that again, George?

SFX:  “Well, she had no choice.  She was fired, right?”  (gunshot sound)

I’d like to make it clear for the record and for those of you who are …. Confused.  I own my own company.  I own me. The only person who can fire me… is me.  And I didn’t fire me….  (pause)

I just gave myself 4 months notice.

Honestly, I didn’t hear about George’s little SNAFU until this morning.  But my staff heard about his gaffe last week.  So they called ABC and - the network George is on… they called ABC and asked “Did we hear that right?”  And “Would you mind issuing a correction?”
 
And the producer at ABC was very nice.  She seemed to understand George had made an error… a factual mistake on a news show… and she would see what George and ABC would do about it.  So here it is, a  whole week later.  Can I tell you what they’ve done about it? 

SFX:  (Sound of crickets)

Nothing!!

Let me get this straight.  You make a factual mistake.  You know it’s a factual mistake.  You are asked to correct your factual mistake…  And a week later…

SFX:  (Sound of crickets)
 
Hmmmmm…
 
My guess is they think nobody heard it, so therefore… it doesn’t matter.
 
You know… if a tree falls in the woods and no-one’s around?  If a newscaster makes a mistake and he has no ratings???

Well, you know I am a believer in free speech and debate.  I just prefer to pontificate myself, but that’s just me. So I figured I would let a larger audience hear George’s opinion and play it on my show today.  Could you play George again, please? 

SFX:  “Well, she had no choice.  She was fired, right?”  (gunshot sound)

One more time – George’s opinion as to why I am leaving radio…

SFX:  “Well, she had no choice.  She was fired, right?”  (gunshot sound)

Now that’s George’s opinion.  I was going to be fired.  My opinion is I was NOT about to fire myself…  It would hurt my feelings.
 
Now, we’re going to play a little game here.  If you think ABC and George Stephanopoulos should be accountable and correct their factual error, I want you to let them know since they’re a news show.  Go to my website:  www.drlaura.com.  You’ll see a link to a page where you can send George and Good Morning America an email telling them… George Got it Wrong about Dr. Laura.  Dr. Laura did not fire herself…

SFX:  “Well, she had no choice.  She was fired, right?”  (gunshot sound)

Okay.  I am having a little fun here.  But I do have a serious point to make.  And that is news sources are supposed to be coming forward about facts and not someone’s OPINION, AGENDA, GUESS, OR WISHFUL THINKING.  The reason most of you (and enough polls have shown this) don’t trust news reporting much is because you’ve realized much of what passes for NEWS these days is IN FACT opinion, agenda, guesses, wishful thinking,  or in this case… just wrong.