I Didn’t Quit Drinking to Get High On Hope and Change

With the holidays fast approaching, I thought it might be a good time to jot down some thoughts on drinking.  Or, more specifically, not drinking – booze or Kool Aid.

Recently, I celebrated my eighth year of sobriety.  I have 9/11 to thank for that; it was shortly after the attacks that I began attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous with regularity.  I’d been to AA once before, at 25, when a DUI arrest landed me in “the rooms.”  But at the time, I still had 15+ years of drinking to get out of my system, plus a mid-life crisis to go through that sent me flying out to La-La Land (which is where I was when the towers fell back in my home town).

I’m proud I haven’t had a drink since 2001.  After spending decades trying to flee my “issues” like an adolescent hamster on an existential wheel, the fog gradually lifted from my brain and I stopped running.

They say when you drink, you stop growing emotionally, that you’re almost in a state of suspended animation – normal on the outside, stunted on the inside.  Sobriety gets the spiritual gears moving again.  Suddenly, years of pent-up, delayed maturation caught up with me – real fast. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, Alcoholics Anonymous, BDS, Big Book, Bill Wilson
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 at 5:03 am in Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 21587839 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/11/23/i-didnt-quit-drinking-to-get-high-on-hope-and-change/I+Didn%27t+Quit+Drinking+to+Get+High+On+Hope+and+Change2009-11-23+13%3A03%3A43Charles+Winecoff

Britain to America: ‘Don’t Let This Happen to You!’

When I was a kid, American Idol wasn’t even a twinkle in Simon Cowell’s eye.  No, instead of Adam Lambert’s girly warbling, we listened to wrinkled pacifist Walter Cronkite rattle off the US body count as we ate our TV dinners.  (Thank God for I Love Lucy re-runs.)

But Vietnam wasn’t the only war raging.  There was a culture clash going on too, right in the privacy of our own home: the ’60s counterculture – seen in everything from Easy Rider to The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour - versus our deeply ingrained Anglophilia.  In other words, a tug of war between “social justice” and the Social Register.

Decades before it became cool to diss the Queen with an iPod, the Royals represented everything Americans were not, and never could be: educated, sophisticated, multi-lingual, above carrying cash – and worldly enough to know one doesn’t clean one’s antiques (think no housework).  Growing up in our comfy, middle class, anti-war household, I never knew if I was supposed to say “burn, baby, burn!” or “sod off, yank.”

This dichotomy took a psychic toll, which came to a head when I did my part for the revolution by proudly shoplifting a ballpoint pen from our local Lamston’s (”the establishment”).  To my amazement, my parents were not pleased.  Instead of a gold star, I received a verbal barrage of uncharacteristic cliches (”Do you think we send you to the best schools so you can steal?” ) that left me even more confused. (more…)

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Tags: "fitna", 30 rock, 9/11, Adam Lambert, Alexander Stoddart
Posted Jun 12th 2009 at 5:03 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, Media Criticism, Politics | 1487026 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/06/12/britain-to-america-dont-let-this-happen-to-you/Britain+to+America%3A+%27Don%27t+Let+This+Happen+to+You%21%272009-06-12+12%3A03%3A42Charles+Winecoff

No More Apologies from Sotomayor

This week’s Washington Times column:

With Barack Obama, many Americans had hoped to get a post-racial president. With Mr. Obama’s pick of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace David H. Souter on the Supreme Court, it looks less and less like they got one.

President Obama – a man we still hardly know – clearly subscribes to the notion that we should judge each other not just on the content of our character, but also by the color of our skin.

We’ve had warning signs before. Remember the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.?

As for the outrage du jour, the call for Sotomayor to apologize for making a racist comment in a 2001 speech is silly. She said what she meant, and she meant what she said: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” (more…)

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Tags: Academia, Alberto Gonzalez, Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice
Posted May 31st 2009 at 8:04 pm in News, Politics | 148470No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/05/31/no-more-apologies-from-sotomayor/No+More+Apologies+from+Sotomayor2009-06-01+03%3A04%3A59Andrew+Breitbart

Play That Funky Gay Card, White Boy

I’ll never forget a dinner party I attended in the early ’80s, where I first heard the term “African-American.”  I got a big laugh at the table when I declared, “Oh, that’ll never catch on.”  It was way too much of a tongue-twister for everyday use.

Today, “African-American” is as ubiquitous as “the” (and used to describe all US blacks, no matter where they come from).

Flash forward to 2002: Halle Berry pulls out all the stops, dedicating her Oscar win to “every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance” (as the camera cuts to her white mom sitting in the audience).  The next morning, I’m in the office of a TV honcho when I overhear a curious voice mail on his speakerphone. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, AA, AIDS, Barack Obama, cultural marxism
Posted Apr 2nd 2009 at 5:05 am in Featured Story, Politics, Religion | 8849895 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/04/02/play-that-funky-gay-card-white-boy/Play+That+Funky+Gay+Card%2C+White+Boy2009-04-02+12%3A05%3A44Charles+Winecoff

Obama’s War on English

In an age when a waiter is a server, an actress is a female actor, and a dubiously-competent socialist cult leader is an American president, it was only a matter of time before the “Global War on Terror” became an “Overseas Contingency Operation” (OCO).  Thus Spoke Zarathustra this week via a memo sent to the Pentagon and select speech writers, officially establishing Team Obama’s redesigned terminology.  The War is over, long live the Operation! This should show the road-side bombers, suicide bombers, bombers-in-burqas, snipers-for-Allah, and other assorted, blood-thirsty, Jihadist savages that the US really means business now.  Victory through euphemism!

The unveiling of OCO capped-off a terror euphemism trifecta for the administration.  Previously, the Justice Department scrapped the ghastly “enemy combatant” to describe war prisoners in favor of the much more uplifting, “detainee.”  Additionally, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano─who may be the only member of the administration more intellectually troubled than Tim Geitner─rebranded terrorism as “man-caused disaster.” (To review:  mail carrier; police officer; business person; but man-caused disaster… maybe the errant sexism has something to do with Ms. Napolitano’s romantic leanings.)   (more…)

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Tags: Add new tag, Barack Obama, constitution, cultural marxism, doublespeak
Posted Mar 27th 2009 at 11:13 am in Featured Story, Politics | 897103 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rhunter/2009/03/27/obama%e2%80%99s-war-on-english/Obama%E2%80%99s+War+on+English2009-03-27+18%3A13%3A23Riley+Hunter

‘Political Correctness Is Cultural Marxism’

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Tags: breitbart, cultural marxism, Enemy Combatants, Hannity, Hannity's America
Posted Mar 26th 2009 at 9:36 am in Politics, Video | 89450No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/03/26/political-correctness-is-cultural-marxism/%27Political+Correctness+Is+Cultural+Marxism%272009-03-26+16%3A36%3A27Big+Hollywood