“How long did it take you to qualify as a sharpshooter in the IDF?”

“Not too long. I had a natural aptitude with the rifle. I started out at 15 meters, then moved up to 30, 50, 100, 400 then all the way up to,” she hesitates, “classified meters.”

Israeli soldiers are famously and appropriately tight-lipped regarding training and operational details.

Yael—not her real name—is an unbelievably beautiful young Israeli woman. Her moca skin—flawless, like dark glass—testifies to a Bukharin father and Yemenite mother, a genetic mix I strongly recommend. She looks like the American supermodel Tyra Banks, only slimmer, more beautiful — and far more lethal.

Yael sits ram-rod straight. Her neck is swan-like, and her fingernails—lacquered red as a Chinese vase—are sharp as switchblades. Melting over her head is raven hair with a sprinkling of bronze highlights that give her the look of a post-punk goddess.

It’s Friday night, Shabbos in Israel, my wife Karen and I are visiting our childhood friend Deborah. We all went to the Yeshiva of Flatbush together. Deborah married an Israeli and has been living in Israel ever since. Yael is Deborah’s daughter-in-law.

“Are you also proficient with a pistol?” I ask

“Sure, I qualify with the polymer Jericho.”

“I understand you’re also a black belt in Karate.”

“Yes.”

I look at Yael’s husband, an unassuming and bookish young man.

“What happens when you guys have an argument?”

“She wins,” he deadpans.

“When you shoot do you have such long fingernails?”

She glances fondly at her dagger-like tips, shakes her head side to side.

“No, of course not. When I shoot, these are off.”

She folds her hands in her lap. Yael’s fingers are long and tapered, perfect little animals for trigger-pulling. I notice that she has the ability to stay still as a pilaster. Her stillness is taut, like a coiled steel spring, stillness that reminds me of a cobra.

Welcome to Israel, where men and men and women are, um, beautifully lethal.

“The Mossad tried to recruit me to go to foreign countries to train special units in counterterrorist tactics,” Yael says.

“What countries?”

“Tsk, tsk, I cannot say.”

“Fair enough.”

“We know how to operate in urban environments, three-dimensional warfare. We have lots of experience,” she adds.

Hmm, I have heard rumors that the U.S. has quietly brought over Israeli soldiers, consultants to help train our troops for the rigors and complexities of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, warfare against the Islamist enemy.

“They were paying so much money,” she sighs.

“What happened?”

“I decided to stay home. Take care of my man.”

“Lucky guy.”

“Yes, he is.”

Yael’s husband cheerfully nods.

“Tell me something, what was your motivation?”

“Moti-what?”

“Your reasons for becoming a sharpshooter?”

She shrugs, ponders a moment: “It was a challenge. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. That I’ve got the talent.”

Talent.

“That’s it?”

“What, there has to be more?”

I’m just a dopey screenwriter. I expect grand speeches about patriotism, fighting the Arab Muslim terrorists, protecting the Jewish state.

But Yael is a tough Israeli woman. She lives in a dangerous neighborhood and that’s something she takes for granted. Thus, her motivation boils down to a somewhat casual, but down to earth approach to her craft.

“What about the future,” I probe.

“Children. I want to be a mother.”

Yael glances at her husband. He offers a crisp salute.

Like a little girl, the sharpshooter giggles.

Deborah’s husband, Yael’s father-in-law, fought with General Ariel Sharon’s brigade in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the unit that crossed the Suez and enveloped the Egyptian Third Army, Operation Gazelle. He promises to sit down with me and record his memories of that legendary maneuver.

Karen and I walk back to our hotel.

We pass the Cafe Hillel.

A tiny gasp bobs from Karen’s throat.

We remember Dr. David Applebaum, his daughter, Nava and seven innocents who were butchered by an Arab Muslim homicide bomber.

Further down the block we pass another cafe that has twice been targeted by homicide bombers, but each time brave security guards blocked the terrorist’s path.

How long will it be before these homicide bombers explode themselves in cafes in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. I have no doubt it will happen, for Israel is the testing ground for all murderous jihadist tactics. And when the world excuses their Jew killing, when the world willingly accepts their lies and their grievances as legitimate, well, the terrorists are emboldened, and they realize that any dumb, half-baked grievance will do, because grievances are a dime a dozen — thus the Islamist fascists are given the green light to kill anyone, anywhere.

The latest fashion in makeup for female Israeli soldiers.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

Once upon a time Hollywood had no problem distinguishing our enemies from our allies. Now our allies are often shown to be feckless and evil while our enemies are either ignored or made out to be mere puppets of our evil leaders.

For example, last season of “24″ had an African dictator’s troops invading the country and trying to unleash a deadly virus, but of course, they were working for an evil Blackwater type military contractor run by a right-wing “patriot.” Patriot is Hollywoodese for crazy nut job. The same kind of villains were used in this year’s “State of Play” which had evil government contractors murdering people to cover up their evil conspiracy. Or last year’s “Body of Lies,” also starring Russell Crowe, which showed the CIA as a bunch of lying killers who have Arabs picked off with abandon for the aims of US policy. And let’s not forget 2007’s “Valley of Elah” in which American soldiers are portrayed as soulless killers made that way because they were exposed to combat. Or how about “Syriana”, in which a fat George Clooney wanders around the Arabian desert learning how evil the US is while boring the audience with an obscure plot.

And now we have the upcoming “Green Zone” with Maaaatt Daaaamonnnn. The villains appear to be evil American contractors again. Sheesh, are they done with Nazis now as the cliched Hollywood villain? Oh, I forgot, they’re busy making Nazis more sympathetic now.

Hollywood seems to have it in their head that Americans are the bad guys.

Meanwhile, Muslim fanatics of the Al Qaeda variety don’t exist in Hollywood movies anymore. You have to go back to 1994’s “True Lies.” Yet James Cameron’s movie didn’t exactly take the threat of Muslim terrorists seriously. It treated them more like typical goofy movie villains for the hero to punch out. And now, when Islamo-fascists are referenced at all, they are usually shown to be tools of evil Americans (with the exception of a handful of art films, mostly foreign, like 2007’s the “Kite Runner” in which the Taliban were shown to be the murderous thugs they are.)

Hollywood once had no trouble showing us the villains of the world. The Nazis were an easy target. After all, they were vanquished. Yet they took on the Soviets on occasion. They also had no problem coming up with all kinds of diverse antagonists of every nationality. Not anymore. Now they can’t even deal with the most clear cut bad guys around, the Islamo-Fascists.

Not Muslims, Islamo-Fascists. There’s a difference.

The fact is, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda are not loved in the Muslim world despite what some would tell you. They’ve killed more innocent Muslims than any combatants in recent wars. The Taliban are oppressors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US, on the other hand, has done a lot to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure both in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Hollywood makes our contractors as sinister villains. Both TV and film are knocking out one hack script after another. And our troops are often shown badly as well, despite the fact that we have the most disciplined armed forces in the world.

Once upon a time Hollywood used to make films for the war effort showing the free people of the world what we’re fighting for and why. Now they make movies that do the opposite. They question our motives and make us out to be the villains.

So whose side are you on, Hollywood? If your goal is to make money, you keep failing. The movies I listed above, that made us the villains, were all failures. Movies that make us heroes tend to be successful. Are you using Obama math now?

To paraphrase your favorite president, George W. Bush, either you’re with us or you’re against us. We’re not feeling the love right now.

In case you don’t get it, Islamo-fascists shut down all media when they get into power. They kill gays, lefties, intellectuals first. Are you telling us you approve? Because there’s no point in attacking your own side otherwise. Not unless you want us to lose.

Oh, I know, you don’t think these terrorists are any real threat. That’s why all those lefty “comedians” aren’t afraid to mock Islam and terrorists, right? Oh, yeah… they don’t do that. They mock Christians instead. Because they know Christians won’t kill them.

If you’re afraid of fatwas, Salman Rushdie is still picking up hot women and hanging around parties. All those Danish cartoonists threatened with death are still around years later.

So in other words, are you a bunch of spineless cowards? A pack of gutless, cringing eunuchs? Are you are letting the world know this by attacking your own side, hoping the bad guys will treat you better if they win? Like those Jews who worked for the Nazis in Poland as ghetto cops, thinking they would be spared the cattle car treatment?

I think you better get your priorities straight. Pronto.

You need not work in Hollywood to understand that this is the single most intolerant industry in America today — just watch their product. I wasn’t surprised to learn from Christian Toto that ”The Blind Side” filmmakers couldn’t control themselves. Unless it’s outside the mainstream Hollywood system, a film marketed to traditional American conservatives — much less, Southern Christians! — has to hit us with a leftist sucker punch one way or another. It’s an unwritten rule… 

Hollywood is high school and if you want to sit at the cool kids’ table (i.e. work) you better fit in, and if you’ve been involved in the writing, directing or producing of a film sympathetic towards the most hated demographic (yes, even more hated than terrorists — again, watch the product) in the 9-0 zip code, you had better inoculate yourself.

And that’s what the gratuitous, unnecessary, jarring, take-you-out-of-the-movie shot at Bush is: an inoculation. The filmmakers want to work again; they want to be invited to all the right parties. But if you’re remembered as the person involved in bringing to life a movie only Glenn Beck could love, no matter how big of a hit, that’s not a good thing on the ole’ resume’.

There are notable exceptions, but working in Hollywood — an industry built on social interaction — means getting along with Leftists, and Leftists are religious, regional and ideological bigots of the worst order. The smart people involved in the making of “The Blind Side” knew the Bush shot was bad storytelling — was what what John Boot described as ”a non-sequitur nonpareil” — they just felt, for whatever reason (their own bigotry or career survival), that it was worth it. 

Hollywood is not money or profit-driven. This is an industry engaged in an ideological war with traditional conservative America that doesn’t mind making a profit, but never will at the expense of the cause. Everyone involved in the making of “Blind Side” knew an unnecessary partisan shot at Bush would turn people off. They all knew they were insulting the very audience the film was marketed at for no reason other than to insult them. But there was absolutely no way in hell this thing was going to see the light of day without something for the Hollywood bigots to snicker over.

This is their sandbox, and there’s a ring to kiss if you want to play.

Apparently, this makes me a racist.

You see, Michael Oher happens to be black, and the Tuohys happen to be white. I actually think that’s pretty cool, especially because they live in Tennessee, and what gets us farther from the evil days of segregation than an increased number of mixed-race families? One would assume that liberals especially would be excited about that, right?

Not so fast. The other day, after we saw the trailer again (we get choked up every single time), I casually mentioned that it wouldn’t shock me if some critics complained that the movie was a “typical white person saves a black person” story. Call it a hunch. I emailed a smart writer friend and mentioned that I’d like to write an article predicting the coming backlash, and he said I might want to reconsider because I could look “strident” if I was wrong. My immediate reaction was one of indignance as I thought angrily to myself, “What does ’strident’ mean?”

Not wanting to look “harsh, grating, or discordant,” I did some quick research and found that my article could no longer be a prediction, as the backlash has already started. I did a search for The Blind Side, criticism,” and five of the first ten items were blogs or articles about the racist undertones of the TRAILER. I saw the terms “racist” and “paternalistic” in nearly every article. In the Huffington Post, Mark Blankenship (whose bio mentions the NY Times, Variety, and Village Voice as outlets for his writing–shocking) wrote “The song (in the trailer) is called ‘How to Save a Life,’ a title that suggests the trailer’s breathtaking paternalism.”

Here is the definition of paternalistic: A policy or practice of treating or governing people in a fatherly manner, especially by providing for their needs without giving them rights or responsibilities. (emphasis added)

Wow.

Seeing as how these critics no doubt would consider health care, food, clothing, and shelter to be RIGHTS, and the trailer shows the Tuohys providing these for Michael, calling it “paternalistic” would seem to be a contradiction, hm? They also provided him with a top-notch private high school education and helped him go from having a GPA under 1.0 to making the dean’s list at a Division I college. He’s now a millionaire because of their efforts. No rights or responsibilities? Really?

Of course, if a movie came out showing white people in the government providing all this for Michael, it’d be a triumph of social justice, but a movie showing rich white people doing it on their own is “paternalistic” or a reinforcement of racist undertones in film. Food stamps? Good. Praying over a massive Thanksgiving meal in a huge dining room? Paternalistic.

The title of Blankenship’s piece is, “Should We Want Movies Like The Blind Side?” Think about that question. My first response would be:

It’s. A. True. Story.

Because art is supposed to reflect life, and life is supposed to be inspired by art, the question is basically, “should we want stories like this?” Do we want to see stories about homeless kids being adopted by strong nuclear families and steered towards success? Gee, I don’t know.

If you want to make the issue about race, let’s consider that a disproportionate number of black children are poor, in foster care, living with neither biological parent; supervised by a child welfare agency; or living with a single parent. Over 70% of black kids are born out of wedlock. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that we would want some of those kids adopted? Who cares what color the adoptive parents are, and if you do care, as critics of the film obviously do, doesn’t that make YOU the racist?

With “The Blind Side,” one cannot separate art from life. It’s a true story. Michael Oher was black, the Tuohys were white. Michael Oher was poor and homeless, the Tuohys were rich and lived in a huge house. Michael Oher repeated 1st and 2nd grade and attended 11 different schools in nine years; the Tuohy kids attended private schools their whole lives. Michael Oher’s mom was a crack addict, his father absentee, ultimately murdered when Michael was a high school senior. Now he has a mother and a father who not only didn’t abandon him, but who cared enough about him to take him into their home and family when he was a 16-year old, 6 ft. 4 in, 300 pound stranger. It’s all true. If the movie is racist or paternalistic or stereotypical or cliched or sappy for depicting it, then so is the story itself.

Would it have been a better, less paternalistic story if a family from his black neighborhood had taken him in? We’ll never know. Would it have been better if Gil Netter and 20th-Century Fox, in an effort to avoid racism or paternalism, resisted making this film because the Tuohys happened to be white, or perhaps changed the story to make it a white kid?

Thankfully, we’ll never know that either.

George Clooney in 2005’s  Syriana

Meanwhile the national discussion has segued to our own collective insanity, political correctness, which we are now discovering paved the very way for the massacre. It is this cultural and mental straightjacket that forced a U.S. Army general to say diversity is more important than losing American lives; that compelled our Homeland Security Secretary to reassure the Arab world that we’re doing everything we can to protect against a mythical Muslim backlash; that prevented people from speaking out about red flags that could have saved the lives of everyone murdered at Ft. Hood; and that prevents our officials from even naming the enemy. No such ailment afflicts the jihadists, however, who are celebrating Hasan as a hero, who have no problem acknowledging his ideological intent, and who recognize our political correctness as a self-inflicted fatal wound. Unlike our leaders and media elites, they don’t sap their wartime focus with hand-wringing and navel-gazing.

Also unlike us, they have no problem asserting their values in the war’s crucial cultural front, either, a theater of operations where we are weakest. A burgeoning Arab film industry, for example, in partnership with Hollywood, is set to make unapologetic and positive cinematic portrayals of Islam as important an export as oil. Abu Dhabi is investing $1 billion in movie productions over the next few years. Crash and In the Valley of Elah screenwriter Paul Haggis recently taught a screenwriting master class in Dubai to fifty promising and “socially and politically astute” writers. A Qatari media company is pairing with Lord of the Rings producer Barrie Osborne on a $150 million biopic of the Muslim prophet Mohammed – “a profound genius,” says Osborne, ”who founded a religion whose name in Islam signifies peace and reconciliation. This is what our film will aspire to do.”

Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

Very high-minded, if misinformed. But what’s wrong, you ask, with such multicultural bridge-building in this time of conflict between Islam and the West? Well, here’s an eyebrow-raiser for you about the Mohammed biopic: its “technical consultant” is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the vastly influential spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni movement whose aim is the imposition of Sharia worldwide and “the destruction of Western civilization from within.” Al-Qaradawi has issued fatwas in support of suicide bombings in Israel, attacks on coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the execution of Jews and gays. With him guiding the project, it’s starting to sound less like an effort to promote ”peace and reconciliation” and more like a propagandistic Trojan horse. Certainly not every film in the forthcoming cinematic wave out of the Middle East will have a dark design; but do not doubt that the Islamists recognize the cultural impact of cinema, or that the seemingly benign partnership is useful to their agenda.

And does the cultural exchange run both ways? Is Hollywood equally as eager to export Western values and a positive portrayal of America? I think we all know the answer to that. And why should we expect otherwise? For decades Americans have been conditioned and intimidated by political correctness, and indoctrinated by its handmaiden multiculturalism, to believe that all cultural values and practices are equally valid – except Western culture, which we’re taught is the domain of white male imperialists, racists, and slavers. And Hollywood continues to be at the forefront of the dissemination of that world view, too often denigrating America and whitewashing radical Islam.

 Hollywood may be out of touch with the “flyover” Americans between L.A. and New York, resulting in war-on-terror box office flops like Rendition and Lions for Lambs, but don’t underestimate the influence of its persistently blame-America-first propaganda on young audiences, on coastal elites, and on those countries that hungrily absorb the culture we export. Every time Hollywood makes a Syriana, which has been used as a recruitment tool to radicalize young Muslims; or a Redacted, which has also been used to inflame Muslim opinion against the raping, murdering American occupiers; or a Body of Lies, whose opening quote – “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return” – asserts that Islamic terrorism is just America’s chickens coming home to roost; or a Flightplan, in which you are manipulated into suspecting that the Muslims aboard an airplane are terrorists (Hitchcockian twist: they’re not!); every time Hollywood makes such thinly-veiled agitprop, the PC message is reinforced here and abroad that we are the bad guys, that America’s geopolitical meddling, not global jihad, is the genesis of Islamic terrorism. And therefore we can only end the Big Overseas Misunderstanding, or however President Obama is euphemizing the war on terror these days, by groveling and making amends – which is indeed his strategy for resolving it (resolving, not winning – remember, he’s not comfortable with the word victory).

Our President, who considers it his duty to combat “negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” is openly pursuing a globalist future in which America abdicates as a superpower. Leftist Hollywood marches in lockstep with that post-American agenda (”It’s an Obama world,” said the director of GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, a movie scrupulously scrubbed of pro-American symbolism and real-world enemies – like jihadists). This subversive alliance is a prescription for cultural implosion, and an ascendant Islam is positioning itself to fill the void.

One-way multiculturalism in England

Think this is all alarmist, Islamophobic nonsense? It could never happen here, you say? Well it won’t if we do something about it. But if you want to see what a country looks like that has been gutted by multiculturalism, political correctness, and tolerance of the intolerant, and yet which continues to think “it can’t happen here,” see what has become of England. A hundred years ago the sun did not set on its empire; more recently it still stood tall under Churchill and then Thatcher. Now, harboring radical imams and embracing Sharia, it is teetering on the brink of cultural – and even literal – civil war with an unassimilated, radicalized Muslim population that is aggressively uni-cultural. Who could have imagined that this would be England’s future? Only the Islamists could. Back on our shores, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs believes that the maddeningly tentative official response to the Ft. Hood assault is indicative not just of political correctness, but of de facto Sharia, and that we are already ”witnessing an Islamized America.”

The PC multiculturalist agenda, which Hollywood has often taken the lead in pushing, is a cancer that kills people and corrodes countries. It is the insidious source of all our misplaced “Why do they hate us?” agonizing. Not only is it undermining us in this clash of civilization versus barbarism, but it could prove to be the single most critical factor that will result in America’s defeat. But a Hollywood that unashamedly celebrates the American values that this country and the world hunger for can also take the lead in reversing that agenda’s damage; indeed, I believe such a cinematic wave is coming – but that’s a topic for another day.

* The media report thirteen dead, but one of his victims was three months pregnant, which in my book raises the count to fourteen.

Shabbat in the Israeli town of Efrat is a deeply spiritual experience.

The sun falls, gently folding itself into the surrounding hills and valleys. The same Judean hills where Jews have lived, worked and fought since Biblical times.

The unearthly light makes a final golden splash.

My wife Karen and I are visiting Karen’s brother David, his wife Elana, and their four children, residents of Efrat.

Attending Sabbath services in an Efrat synagogue, out of the corner of my eye, I spot “Larry.”

Security requires that I do not use his real name.

We’re both from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a tough neighborhood even by Brooklyn standards. Together, we attended high school, Brooklyn Talmudic Academy, a tough Yeshiva even by San Quentin standards.

We have been friends forever.

Larry’s parents are Holocaust survivors and as Larry often tells me, his father is obsessed over the fact that so many Jews were unprepared, mentally and physically, to fight the Nazis.

“He’s written thousands of pages about this,” Larry confides.

Thus, it is only fitting and somewhat ironic that several years ago, in an Efrat supermarket, Larry bravely confronted an Arab Muslim homicide bomber and deleted the terrorist.

Larry and I discuss the killing which probably saved dozens of innocent lives, men, women, children and infants.

“How’d you know he was a terrorist?”

“I didn’t. I mean I knew him. He worked on a construction crew here in Efrat. For years.”

“So what made you suspect that he was dangerous?”

Larry is no John Wayne. He’s middle-aged, doughy around the mid-section, has an infectious smile, and wears a yarmulke. Larry is, well, just a regular guy from Brooklyn.

“Look,” says Larry, “he was an Arab worker, we got along just fine. But the day I saw him wasn’t one of the days he was supposed to be here. Also, he was heading into the supermarket, a place he never ever went to. And he was wearing an overcoat on a very hot day. It was all wrong.”

“What did you do?”

“I was outside when I spotted him. I followed him into the supermarket and I looked at his face and he looked, I dunno, spacey, all drugged up.”

Hamas—a proudly Jew-hating and genocidal yearning terrorist organization— often medicate their homicide bombers. Drugs dull the edge of fear.

“How did you know you weren’t shooting an innocent man?”

“He sizzled.”

“Excuse me?”

“He tried to self-detonate. There was a malfunction. I saw smoke. But homicide bombers are almost always armed with redundancy, a second detonator. I didn’t want to take a chance on him hitting the backup trigger. We were in a supermarket. Women and children all around. I drew and and shot him in the chest.”

“You shot to kill.”

Larry nods.

“How did you feel when you saw him go down?”

My buddy ponders for a long moment: “Scared, relieved. I dunno. You do what you gotta do.”

“Not everybody would have had the presence of mind.”

Larry shrugs and half smiles: “Hey, us Bensonhurst kids had to grow up tough, right?”

“I guess.”

We study each others’ faces. We are older, middle-aged, we have children and grandchildren, but we are still our impish and dopey childhood selves.

“Nobody lives in the old neighborhood anymore,” Larry sighs.

“Yup, they’re all gone.”

We step outside where men and women gather before heading home for the Sabbath meal. Friends make plans to visit, share coffee, dessert and lively conversation.

Jeremy, David and Elana’s son is home, on leave from active duty somewhere quite dangerous in the land of Israel.

Meet my nephew Jeremy. Again, for reasons of security I can’t reveal his face, but he looks like Paul Newman in Exodus. Seriously.

A fresh, evening breeze dances through the winding streets of Efrat.

Together, Larry and I stroll along. I press my friend for more information. Details are all important in counter-terrorism. And Americans better get wise to the details in order to effectively deal with the emerging grassroots Islamist terrorist threat. The United States is, after Israel, ground zero for the Caliphate Islamists.

“The Glock is a good weapon when every millisecond counts,” says Larry. “There’s no safety, which can take precious time away from shooting. You can keep a round in the chamber, then just draw and fire.”

Larry totes his Glock in a Fobus speed holster.

“What kind of rounds did you use?”

“I keep hollow points in the Glock, but my spare magazine has full metal jackets. The day I killed the terrorist, I put him down with the hollow points. Don’t want to use full metal jackets in a crowded supermarket, they’ll go right through and kill an innocent bystander.”

“The supermarket was crowded?”

“At that time of day, sure. That’s why it was chosen as the target. Look, the terrorist was here,” Larry demonstrates using his body and mine, “and behind him were several women and children.”

“How close were you to the the terrorist?”

“About fourteen feet.”

I shiver.

Most gunfights, contrary to popular mythology, take place within seven feet. Fourteen feet can seem like a yawning chasm when the adrenalin is pumping, innocent bystanders are all around, and a determined terrorist has his finger on the detonator.

“The full metal slugs would have gone right through him and there’s no telling…”

Larry’s voice trails off.

My childhood buddy is a sweet man, a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. There is no bravado in Larry. He’s fine with killing the terrorist, but it does not define who he is.

Me, I’d script a self-glorifying movie, get all aw’ shucks on talk shows, try and cash in, big time.

It’s time to go home and enjoy the evening meal. It’s time to enjoy the miracle of the Jewish Sabbath.

There is an entire culture and religion bent on eradicating Israel and Jews.

We are so few, and we are so vulnerable.

But there are, thank G-d, many men and women like Larry in the Jewish state, the land of Israel.

Larry and I hug.

I say: “You’re my hero.”

Larry chuckles.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

The other girls began to react to what had transpired between Perez and me as soon as the lights went down. Miss Vermont later told FOX News, “A lot of people were  shocked. We were all kind of giving each other those eyes. We couldn’t believe it.”

As soon as I got back to the tent behind the stage to change, someone shouted, “California, Access Hollywood wants to interview you.”

“Why me? I didn’t win.”

As I walked back and put my flowers down, I felt all eyes on me, which was strange because I wasn’t the winner, but there was this sort of buzz in the air, and it seemed to be buzzing around me. Part of it was that many of the house moms, who looked after the girls at the pageant, were coming up to me and whispering that I did the right thing in standing up for traditional marriage; they told me they were proud of me. I appreciated their kind words, but really my primary thought, after the letdown of losing, was to get out of this tight gown, take off all my makeup, eat a cheeseburger, and just go home and recover from the stress and strain of the last three weeks—weeks in which I had not seen my family, except in the audience.

I also wanted to get to a private room, turn on a computer or TV, and see what I had said. When you give a response under so much pressure, your memory of your own words isn’t terribly reliable. I really couldn’t remember my full answer. While I thought I had answered honestly and well, I no longer felt sure, and I wanted to see the tape and judge my performance. Given the reaction from the judges, I worried that I might have said something that I had not meant to say. Was it possible that I had said something truly awful?

Billy Bush had come up to me and said, “I just want to thank you for standing up and giving an answer. . . you’re the only one of the final five I thought who gave an answer.” He told me he was on his twitter account, tweeting his support for me.

 I thanked him.

Then I heard someone shout a warning at me.

“Watch out!” one of the studio aides yelled, “Someone’s here to hurt you!” Several girls bunched up protectively around me. I was told a fight had broken out in the lobby after someone ripped a picture of me from one of my supporters and tore it to pieces.

As the fear from that moment subsided, I started to get angry at fate for letting me get that question of all questions. My confusion over my answer deepened, because I still couldn’t really remember it. Had I gone on and rambled like a former contestant once did, earning herself eternal YouTube stardom?

I looked around the tent. None of the production staff from NBC—people who had joked around with me before—said a word to me or even looked my way. Keith and Shanna were nowhere to be seen. People started packing up their things and leaving.

The evening, however, was far from over. After the televised event,  Paula Shugart of the Miss Universe organization always holds a coronation ball. It is meant to be a celebration for all the contestants, not just a celebration for the winner; it’s a way to mark this special evening in one’s life, to say goodbye to friends, to get past the contest. As first runner- up, I also felt I needed to go to show my respect for the winner, Kristen Dalton of North Carolina. I wanted to go to say goodbye to the girls I had lived with for three weeks, especially Aureana. I didn’t want anyone to imagine I was a sore loser. My parents were with me, tickets in hand, when I received a text from Keith telling me not to come—a lot of people are mad at you, I’m afraid of what might happen to you. You really shouldn’t come.

I later heard from a friend who had seen Keith and Shanna in the lobby. Just before they angrily stormed out of the building, Shanna announced, “We told her not to talk about God! We told her not to talk about her faith!” This astonished me. I suppose my faith informed my answer, but what else could I have said? And shouldn’t my pageant directors have been defending me?

 I asked again. “Is that what Shanna really said?” My friend said, “Yes.”

Excluded from the final event of the evening, my parents and I wandered around the empty corridors of Planet Hollywood. Exiled from the coronation ball, we found our way to a fast food café in the hotel. While everyone else was partying and celebrating, the first runner-up was in a little plastic chair eating greasy hamburgers with her family and friends.

Looking back now, I realize I had been too timid. I had the tickets. I should have gone to the ball, head held high. I should never have let Keith talk me out of going. But I was still in shock. And again, I couldn’t remember exactly what I had said. For about the millionth time that evening, I winced at the possibility that I had misspoken and said something so awful I wasn’t welcome at the coronation ball. How else to explain the widespread reaction against me?

I needed to get away from all this drama and hear my answer. I went up to my room. Miss Hawaii had already packed up and gone. I searched YouTube and saw my name instantly pop up—all over the internet. With apprehension, I clicked on the video and listened to myself over and over again.

I weighed my words, I analyzed them from every angle I could imagine—and then I decided I hadn’t said anything wrong. I had tried to give a balanced, fair, and honest answer. I had done nothing to offend, I had merely (and I thought politely) upheld the traditional definition of marriage agreed to by the majority of my fellow Californians, and certainly the majority of Americans. What, then, was all the fuss about?

“Still Standing” is published by Regnery Press and available at Amazon.com, and elsewhere.

The aliens are called “visitors,” shortened to “Vs,” thus the title of the program. They appear over major cities in large hovering spaceships that project messages in the local language. More than just the classic we-come-in-peace message, the messages say, “We’re here to help you.”

The opening episode makes it very clear, however, that they are not here to help. It turns out the Vs have planted many of their kind, who look human, prior to their dramatic arrival in spaceships. The alien plants have done their best to foul up life on earth in order to encourage a hunger for “change” (salvation). The Chicago Tribune draws a parallel to the Obama administration but, while many believe President Obama was not born in the United States, it’s unlikely he was born on another planet. Even so, it’s interesting that the evil aliens offer “universal health care” to all people. Thus, the first episode clearly seems to be saying that President Obama’s health care proposals, now making their way through the U.S. Congress, are a false hope that will lead to tyranny and slavery.

The initial episode does a good job of setting up several threads to keep audiences interested. A young priest bucks the judgment of the Vatican that the Vs were sent by God to help. He warns his congregation to be wary. An FBI agent uncovers the truth about the planted V cell groups even while her son signs up to be a stooge for the Vs. A news anchorman compromises and is used by the Vs for propaganda purposes. Finally, a V plant turns out to be a renegade V opposing the V leadership’s plans.

The production quality here is high for television, and the acting is excellent. There is moderate violence in a battle between the Vs and an underground resistance. However, unlike “Flash-Forward,” “V” is not tainted by babysitters sleeping with their boyfriends and the threat of a family falling apart due to infidelity. The potential exists for this program to be truly outstanding, but, as with many other series, it’s difficult to say if it will stray into murky waters down the road.

The theme of being wary of false saviors is very biblical as well as politically and culturally astute (see my book co-written with legendary entertainer Pat Boone, “The Culture-Wise Family”). Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

This is a message Americans really need to consider, not just in regard to big government but also such things as environmentalism and the humanism so prevalent in our government-run public schools. All the isms claiming to save you from belief in a “repressive” God promise freedom but often lead to bondage instead. Real freedom is freedom from sin. That can only be provided by the world’s true Savior, Jesus Christ.

“V” could actually go in that direction, but will it? We shall see.

“New Muhammad biopic drives the anti-Hollywood crowd nuts” 

You know, sometimes you just have to put politics aside and take a moment to admire the tactics of your opponents, because no matter how you slice it, that is one gorgeous humdinger of a headline.

At a glance, the headline intentionally furthers the whole “conservatives are intolerant” narrative with the inference that I somehow have a problem with a big-budget biopic about the prophet Muhammad. Later in his piece, Goldstein doubles down on that smear with this:

But as usual, the news has aroused a storm of derision from conservative bloggers, who always find a way to be offended by any high-minded Hollywood project.

Odd… Especially when the very first sentence – the opening line — of my piece says the exact opposite:

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a respectful, big-budget biopic of the prophet Muhammad[.]

Nowhere in Goldstein’s 650-plus worder does he quote that. But you have to remember that Goldstein’s not a journalist. He’s an ideological warrior who writes about movies (so am I … but I admit it), and so I tip my hat in admiration to his headline — a well-executed opening salvo.

The headline, however, is not just about smearing me. He’s after the whole “anti-Hollywood crowd” (i.e., conservatives). If you read Goldstein’s entire piece you’ll see that only yours truly is referenced or quoted. But that’s inconvenient, so one guy magically becomes a “crowd” and a “storm of derision from conservative bloggers.”

Don’t get mad, it’s the L.A. Times… I’m lucky every reference doesn’t read, “Small-Child-Hater John Nolte.”

The rest of Goldstein’s post just tries to make the same lame point that I (i.e., a “crowd” of “bloggers”) have some kind of issue with the Muhammad movie — blah, blah, blah — mentions a film that portrays Christians in a positive light (“a” film — as in “one” – as in I wouldn’t have bothered) — but here’s my second favorite quote:

Nolte conveniently forgets that the prime reason why Hollywood studios kept their distance from “Passion of the Christ” was because the film was viewed by many as offering an anti-Semitic portrayal of Jews, not because anyone had a lack of regard for Christians.

Good grief, where to begin? I know … let’s take Goldstein at his word:

First off, every single Hollywood studio interpreting a faithful retelling of the Gospels as “anti-Semitic” is its own form of ignorance and anti-Christian bigotry. Secondly, if those same studios were just as eager to “keep their distance” from films “many view” as bigoted portrayals of Christians, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

To hear Goldstein tell it, Hollywood studios wouldn’t go near a film “many view” as anti-Semitic, but as we now know throwing a little urine on Christ and stereotyping Christians as falling for a drop of piss as a divine sign is perfectly okay.

To hear Goldstein tell it, Hollywood studios won’t go near a film “many view” as anti-Semitic, but this was okay. And so was this. And this. And this. And a confession. And this. And this. And…

Look what I did. I listed a whole bunch of  high-profile studio films that “many view” as anti-Christian released by the very same studios who refused to release a film “many view” as anti-Semitic.

I’d list the independent films and television episodes “many view” as anti-Christian but the Internet only holds so much data.

I admire Nolte’s passion, but I can’t say that he’s made much of a case.

Then I thank you for making it for me.

Yeah, sure, every once in a while something that treats Christians fairly pops out of an industry that considers the very foundation of the Christian faith — the Gospels — anti-Semitic. And while these films are appreciated, they’re also notable exceptions. But when it comes to the serial offense of denigrating, ridiculing, stereotyping and marginalizing — anyone with one good eye and a shred of intellectual honesty knows full well that Christians stand alone.

So please don’t piss on my God and tell me it’s raining.