Some differences between Barack Obama, the Resident with the Messiah complex and Jesus Christ, the true Messiah.
Jesus received repentant sinners, and ate with them. Barack Obama receives unrepentant terrorists and writes glowing reviews of their books.
Jesus took five loaves of bread and two fishes and fed five thousand people with the leftover crumbs. Barack Obama will take your lunch and give back crumbs, too, but they'll just be regular crumbs.
Jesus allowed himself to be crucified. Obama won't even allow anyone to criticize him.
Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Obama said his daughter "shouldn't have to be punished with a child" should she get pregnant as a teen.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Why doesn't Obama like Winston Churchill?
Obama raised eyebrows a few years ago when he declined the honor extended to him by our ally Great Britain in offering to let him keep the bust of Churchill they lent to the Oval Office while President Bush was occupying it. And he also raised a question: why doesn't Obama like Winston Churchill?
My guess is that it was something Churchill said. And it could have been one of any number of things. Here are a few possibilities:
"There is no such thing as a good tax."
"Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon."
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
"We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last."
"The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult."
"If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law."
My guess is that it was something Churchill said. And it could have been one of any number of things. Here are a few possibilities:
"There is no such thing as a good tax."
"Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon."
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
"We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last."
"The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult."
"If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law."
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Monday, September 14, 2009
Five Loaves, Two Fishes, and a Cup of Lousy Coffee
As I write this, I have just located an item I have been searching for for years - a Golden Thread Newsletter article that made a deeply profound point that I have never forgotten. I searched through piles of printouts and googled to no avail, and am ashamed to say it only ten minutes ago occurred to me to search the folder in my older email account where I used to keep such things. I typed the phrase "crappy coffee" in the "search your email" bar and it turned up immediately. So here it is:
"Forget the Latte Factor
You need to know right now that you can't get rich by
simply saving money, pinching pennies by denying
yourself your daily latte, for example, and depending on
compound interest to make your money.
Unless, of course, you can wait 40 years to get rich. I
don't know that I'll be around in 40 years...especially
if I have to drink crappy coffee the whole time. I like
my lattes."
I italicized that part about drinking crappy coffee the whole time because face it, it's great.
Remember the Bible story about how Jesus fed the five thousand with two fishes and five loaves of bread?
The disciples went around picking up crumbs and dropped bits of the food, and from that materialized the abundance to feed five thousand hungry followers of Jesus.
The point of that story was that it was a miracle. It was something that could never have happened in a million years without supernatural help. It was not a matter of a surprising amount of food being gleaned from meticulous economizing. It was not a lesson on how ordinary human beings can meet a great need just by diligently gathering the crumbs of their resources. It was a MIRACLE.
Yet too often people proceed as though this story was not a miraculous account of the impossible, but a Biblical lesson on finance.
Too many people spend too much time with their noses in the grass gathering crumbs and expecting all their needs to be met by it.
Economizing does have its place of course, and resourcefulness itself can be a valuable resource.
But the most valuable resources given us are our time and our talent, and time spent gathering crumbs after a point is time wasted. And time wasted in that way is time in which rich talent doesn't get used.
Crumb-gathering in moderation is a respectable supplement to money earned by using your ability. But it is no replacement for it.
The next time you set yourself to a crumb-gathering, penny-pinching task, note the time it takes, and try to estimate how much money it is saving or earning. Is it anywhere near the minimum wage earned by a hired worker where you live? Is there something else you could do with those minutes, something with lasting value that may or may not have anything to do with money?
Everything in life is an investment. Time is valuable. A mean pittance gained from excessive economizing is a crappy return on the investment of valuable time.
I leave you with the moral of the Parable of the Crappy Coffee.
"....the way to get rich sooner
rather than later is to earn much more than you spend.
Simple, right? Make more so you can save more (and
spend some, too). Enjoy life while you're at it.
There's no reason to deny yourself the insignificant but
thoroughly enjoyable things in life...once you can
afford them.
If you want to keep drinking your latte, just make sure
you make an extra $4 a day."
© 2009
Excerpts taken from the introduction to the 10/06/05 issue of the Golden Thread Newsletter, written by David Morgan, an AWAI Freelance Copywriter.
"Forget the Latte Factor
You need to know right now that you can't get rich by
simply saving money, pinching pennies by denying
yourself your daily latte, for example, and depending on
compound interest to make your money.
Unless, of course, you can wait 40 years to get rich. I
don't know that I'll be around in 40 years...especially
if I have to drink crappy coffee the whole time. I like
my lattes."
I italicized that part about drinking crappy coffee the whole time because face it, it's great.
Remember the Bible story about how Jesus fed the five thousand with two fishes and five loaves of bread?
The disciples went around picking up crumbs and dropped bits of the food, and from that materialized the abundance to feed five thousand hungry followers of Jesus.
The point of that story was that it was a miracle. It was something that could never have happened in a million years without supernatural help. It was not a matter of a surprising amount of food being gleaned from meticulous economizing. It was not a lesson on how ordinary human beings can meet a great need just by diligently gathering the crumbs of their resources. It was a MIRACLE.
Yet too often people proceed as though this story was not a miraculous account of the impossible, but a Biblical lesson on finance.
Too many people spend too much time with their noses in the grass gathering crumbs and expecting all their needs to be met by it.
Economizing does have its place of course, and resourcefulness itself can be a valuable resource.
But the most valuable resources given us are our time and our talent, and time spent gathering crumbs after a point is time wasted. And time wasted in that way is time in which rich talent doesn't get used.
Crumb-gathering in moderation is a respectable supplement to money earned by using your ability. But it is no replacement for it.
The next time you set yourself to a crumb-gathering, penny-pinching task, note the time it takes, and try to estimate how much money it is saving or earning. Is it anywhere near the minimum wage earned by a hired worker where you live? Is there something else you could do with those minutes, something with lasting value that may or may not have anything to do with money?
Everything in life is an investment. Time is valuable. A mean pittance gained from excessive economizing is a crappy return on the investment of valuable time.
I leave you with the moral of the Parable of the Crappy Coffee.
"....the way to get rich sooner
rather than later is to earn much more than you spend.
Simple, right? Make more so you can save more (and
spend some, too). Enjoy life while you're at it.
There's no reason to deny yourself the insignificant but
thoroughly enjoyable things in life...once you can
afford them.
If you want to keep drinking your latte, just make sure
you make an extra $4 a day."
© 2009
Excerpts taken from the introduction to the 10/06/05 issue of the Golden Thread Newsletter, written by David Morgan, an AWAI Freelance Copywriter.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A solution I can live with.
I think I may have hit on a solution for a painful problem we've been having.
Are you having the same problem?
Having trouble knowing how to refer to Obama in a formal context?
Does your gag reflex kick into high gear when you try to form the words "President Obama?"
I think I have found a solution I can live with.
I am now going to refer to Obama in the aforementioned formal contexts as "Resident Obama."
He has taken up residence in the White House, but that is all, in my book.
Therefore, "Resident Obama" it is.
© 2009
Are you having the same problem?
Having trouble knowing how to refer to Obama in a formal context?
Does your gag reflex kick into high gear when you try to form the words "President Obama?"
I think I have found a solution I can live with.
I am now going to refer to Obama in the aforementioned formal contexts as "Resident Obama."
He has taken up residence in the White House, but that is all, in my book.
Therefore, "Resident Obama" it is.
© 2009
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Response to Steve Buttry
This is my response to an Editorial in the Cedar Rapids Gazette:
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008711099940
I agree that our founding fathers did begin a tradition of country first.
Country first is a duty and a calling that I take seriously, more seriously today than I have ever had to do before.
My loyalty, my patriotism is to my country first, and not to any one man. Barack Obama was elected president, but his philosophy, his ideology, his policies and even his promises are counterintuitive to what this country needs and has stood for all through its history.
The vast majority of those who voted for Obama were not voting Country First. Many voted Race First, because he was the first black candidate, blacks to see a black president, whites to purge inappropriate "white guilt" over past racism. Many voted "Me First" because the things he promised to do, though not in the interests of the entire population, would give them things they would then be excused from striving for.
The writer is correct in saying that opposition to Obama was not all about race. In fact, opposition to Obama was much less about race than support of Obama was. I have said several times over the past week and I will continue to say, that in this election there were those who voted on the basis of colour of skin, and those who voted based on content of character.
The Content of Character Contingent was outvoted, and the Colour of Skin component won.
My patriotism now demands that I serve my country by being part of a conscious effort to oppose the dangerous policies he has threatened to enact, by informing and inspiring others to join in that effort, too. Not in some sort of vigilante action, but in using the avenues provided within the constructs of the system for citizens to preserve their rights against a leader with a sinister agenda.
I might point out that this editorial is not unpartisan itself, given the cheap and invalid shot at the current President, in the third to last paragraph, and that Obama can - and left to his own devices almost certainly will - do spectacularly worse than President Bush, who may have had his failings but never any motive but to do what he thought best for this country - a motive I am afraid cannot be attributed to Obama.
Obama has given us a clear indication through his campaign rhetoric of how he intends to address the challenges he will face. Of the wars, he would choose defeat as his victory strategy, leaving the world more dangerous than ever before, and us less protected against it. Of the financial markets in turmoil - well, the markets themselves gave us a preview the day after the election - and no, it was no coincidence that so many stocks were sold off after the election results were known. His punish-success approach to taxes will send the markets plummeting much farther over the next year.
Of the national debt? His proposed spending on new and existing programs isn't going to bring us into the black any time soon.
International dilemmas? Look for those to get worse and more numerous. Think the world was cheering at Obama's win because they were happy for us? Nope. They cheered because they knew in their jealous hearts that this was the pushoff event on a downhill slide that they have wanted us to experience for a long time. They were cheering with the gusto of a pack of street kids who just found out the candy store is wide open and the only person minding it is a narcoleptic senior citizen who walks with two canes.
Climate change? What's he going to do about that, reinforce the duct tape over the mouths of the myriad brilliant respected scientists who doubt the influence of man on planet temperature? Impose carbon taxes and other foolish policies designed to fight a problem that is less urgent than preparing for an army of killer hamsters to attack the White House? Take away citizens' Right to Choose their own home lighting options, forcing everyone to buy CFL lightbulbs that endanger their health and well-being?
His plans for the health care system are on track to have people on multi-year waiting lists for lifesaving surgery, and people waiting in hospital hallways for available beds, no matter how he tries to spin them.
Are we to believe he is going to embark on the only immediately practical solution to our dependence on foreign oil, drilling for our own sources here? (And please spare me the 10-year-wait talking point, since it's bogus and usually comes from the same mouths that tell us we have to sacrifice the quality of our lives today to prepare for environmental disasters that might come around in 100 years or so.) Because he has been against it so far. And even he can't power more than 100 windmills per speech or blow air into more than 800 tires a day with his mouth.
And seeing as how he'll be dipping into Social Security to give "tax breaks" to people who don't pay any, I'm as eager as anybody to see how he's going to fix that.
There is nothing to celebrate about this. I do not see it as a legitimate milestone. Had Hillary Clinton secured her party's nomination and the White House, I as a woman would not have celebrated a milestone, because I would not feel that her election was the best thing for the country.
Country first. That is my priority. Country first. Not race first. Not gender first.
If the writer believes, as he wants us to think by the opening lines of this article, that patriotism is about a tradition of "country first," then why does he advocate my celebrating an event that I believe is a bad thing for the country under the guise of patriotism?
I don't happen to think that Barack Obama is the best presidential material the black community has to offer. I happen to feel it's a gross insult to blacks everywhere to act as though the ill-advised election of a second-rate, unqualified, ungenuine man is a triumph for them all.
When you think of it, what this amounts to is the biggest example of affirmative action hiring America has ever seen. If I were black I would feel insulted, condescended-to, ill-represented.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008711099940
I agree that our founding fathers did begin a tradition of country first.
Country first is a duty and a calling that I take seriously, more seriously today than I have ever had to do before.
My loyalty, my patriotism is to my country first, and not to any one man. Barack Obama was elected president, but his philosophy, his ideology, his policies and even his promises are counterintuitive to what this country needs and has stood for all through its history.
The vast majority of those who voted for Obama were not voting Country First. Many voted Race First, because he was the first black candidate, blacks to see a black president, whites to purge inappropriate "white guilt" over past racism. Many voted "Me First" because the things he promised to do, though not in the interests of the entire population, would give them things they would then be excused from striving for.
The writer is correct in saying that opposition to Obama was not all about race. In fact, opposition to Obama was much less about race than support of Obama was. I have said several times over the past week and I will continue to say, that in this election there were those who voted on the basis of colour of skin, and those who voted based on content of character.
The Content of Character Contingent was outvoted, and the Colour of Skin component won.
My patriotism now demands that I serve my country by being part of a conscious effort to oppose the dangerous policies he has threatened to enact, by informing and inspiring others to join in that effort, too. Not in some sort of vigilante action, but in using the avenues provided within the constructs of the system for citizens to preserve their rights against a leader with a sinister agenda.
I might point out that this editorial is not unpartisan itself, given the cheap and invalid shot at the current President, in the third to last paragraph, and that Obama can - and left to his own devices almost certainly will - do spectacularly worse than President Bush, who may have had his failings but never any motive but to do what he thought best for this country - a motive I am afraid cannot be attributed to Obama.
Obama has given us a clear indication through his campaign rhetoric of how he intends to address the challenges he will face. Of the wars, he would choose defeat as his victory strategy, leaving the world more dangerous than ever before, and us less protected against it. Of the financial markets in turmoil - well, the markets themselves gave us a preview the day after the election - and no, it was no coincidence that so many stocks were sold off after the election results were known. His punish-success approach to taxes will send the markets plummeting much farther over the next year.
Of the national debt? His proposed spending on new and existing programs isn't going to bring us into the black any time soon.
International dilemmas? Look for those to get worse and more numerous. Think the world was cheering at Obama's win because they were happy for us? Nope. They cheered because they knew in their jealous hearts that this was the pushoff event on a downhill slide that they have wanted us to experience for a long time. They were cheering with the gusto of a pack of street kids who just found out the candy store is wide open and the only person minding it is a narcoleptic senior citizen who walks with two canes.
Climate change? What's he going to do about that, reinforce the duct tape over the mouths of the myriad brilliant respected scientists who doubt the influence of man on planet temperature? Impose carbon taxes and other foolish policies designed to fight a problem that is less urgent than preparing for an army of killer hamsters to attack the White House? Take away citizens' Right to Choose their own home lighting options, forcing everyone to buy CFL lightbulbs that endanger their health and well-being?
His plans for the health care system are on track to have people on multi-year waiting lists for lifesaving surgery, and people waiting in hospital hallways for available beds, no matter how he tries to spin them.
Are we to believe he is going to embark on the only immediately practical solution to our dependence on foreign oil, drilling for our own sources here? (And please spare me the 10-year-wait talking point, since it's bogus and usually comes from the same mouths that tell us we have to sacrifice the quality of our lives today to prepare for environmental disasters that might come around in 100 years or so.) Because he has been against it so far. And even he can't power more than 100 windmills per speech or blow air into more than 800 tires a day with his mouth.
And seeing as how he'll be dipping into Social Security to give "tax breaks" to people who don't pay any, I'm as eager as anybody to see how he's going to fix that.
There is nothing to celebrate about this. I do not see it as a legitimate milestone. Had Hillary Clinton secured her party's nomination and the White House, I as a woman would not have celebrated a milestone, because I would not feel that her election was the best thing for the country.
Country first. That is my priority. Country first. Not race first. Not gender first.
If the writer believes, as he wants us to think by the opening lines of this article, that patriotism is about a tradition of "country first," then why does he advocate my celebrating an event that I believe is a bad thing for the country under the guise of patriotism?
I don't happen to think that Barack Obama is the best presidential material the black community has to offer. I happen to feel it's a gross insult to blacks everywhere to act as though the ill-advised election of a second-rate, unqualified, ungenuine man is a triumph for them all.
When you think of it, what this amounts to is the biggest example of affirmative action hiring America has ever seen. If I were black I would feel insulted, condescended-to, ill-represented.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Are You an Esau?
I was thinking today about the story of Esau in the Bible. For my readers whose remembrance of Bible stories may be sketchy, Esau and Jacob were brothers, the sons of Isaac and grandsons of Abraham. Esau was a hunter, and one day he came back from a hunting trip after Jacob had made what the Bible calls "a mess of pottage," probably what we might call a hearty stew or casserole.
When Esau smelled the pottage cooking, he was so hungry that when Jacob offered to give him some in exchange for Esau's birthright, all that the law entitled him to as the oldest son of Isaac, he agreed and sold Jacob his birthright.
I don't know what the trigger was that brought this to my mind, but it reminded me of the current situation the country faces in regard to the upcoming election.
Conventional wisdom and punditry tells us that when the economy is perceived to be in bad shape, that gives the Democratic party an edge among the voters, because in what could only be a degree of blind panic they reach out for "change" as a straw, a possible panacea to their immediate want.
Leaving aside for now the ironic truth that the Democratic Party is responsible for much of what does ail the current economy and the fact that if they are elected into power their big-government, success-punishing tactics will drive the economy into a state that will make the current situation seem like an economic boom; and even supposing there would be some short-term relief after a Democrat was voted into office, let me ask you: what are you willing to give for the tasty illusion of pottage Barack Obama and the Democratic party are selling?
Freedom is our birthright as American citizens. Freedom to prosper through our own hard work and talent and ingenuity without being punished for crossing the line into too much success. Freedom to choose the kind of education our children will have. Freedom to protect ourselves and our homes and families against violence, with responsibly owned firearms. Freedom to choose our own health care.
I am not willing to sell my birthright for what really only amounts to a long-shot lottery ticket that might win me a bowl of consomme.
Are you?
For all we know, Esau didn't even feel that ravenous until the smell of that food hit his nostrils. And we have politicians telling us how bad we have it because they have to make us feel like we want what they're cooking before they tell us they're the ones that can give it to us.
Barack Obama has to fill his speeches with word pictures illustrating misery, because you have to feel like you're miserable and desperate before what he's selling looks good enough to buy.
Pollsters and pundits tell us that the economy is the most important issue in this year's election. Let me ask you: what is most people's gut reaction to people who sell out, who put money before all else that should be valued in life, be it love, family, honesty and integrity, the well-being of themselves and others, and so on?
We tend to look on those people with disgust and contempt, don't we?
But isn't that what we will be doing in the voting booth, if we let the spectre of recession and the empty promises of an empty-suit politician drive us to vote against our values and interests?
So let me ask you: are you an Esau?
I'm not.
When Esau smelled the pottage cooking, he was so hungry that when Jacob offered to give him some in exchange for Esau's birthright, all that the law entitled him to as the oldest son of Isaac, he agreed and sold Jacob his birthright.
I don't know what the trigger was that brought this to my mind, but it reminded me of the current situation the country faces in regard to the upcoming election.
Conventional wisdom and punditry tells us that when the economy is perceived to be in bad shape, that gives the Democratic party an edge among the voters, because in what could only be a degree of blind panic they reach out for "change" as a straw, a possible panacea to their immediate want.
Leaving aside for now the ironic truth that the Democratic Party is responsible for much of what does ail the current economy and the fact that if they are elected into power their big-government, success-punishing tactics will drive the economy into a state that will make the current situation seem like an economic boom; and even supposing there would be some short-term relief after a Democrat was voted into office, let me ask you: what are you willing to give for the tasty illusion of pottage Barack Obama and the Democratic party are selling?
Freedom is our birthright as American citizens. Freedom to prosper through our own hard work and talent and ingenuity without being punished for crossing the line into too much success. Freedom to choose the kind of education our children will have. Freedom to protect ourselves and our homes and families against violence, with responsibly owned firearms. Freedom to choose our own health care.
I am not willing to sell my birthright for what really only amounts to a long-shot lottery ticket that might win me a bowl of consomme.
Are you?
For all we know, Esau didn't even feel that ravenous until the smell of that food hit his nostrils. And we have politicians telling us how bad we have it because they have to make us feel like we want what they're cooking before they tell us they're the ones that can give it to us.
Barack Obama has to fill his speeches with word pictures illustrating misery, because you have to feel like you're miserable and desperate before what he's selling looks good enough to buy.
Pollsters and pundits tell us that the economy is the most important issue in this year's election. Let me ask you: what is most people's gut reaction to people who sell out, who put money before all else that should be valued in life, be it love, family, honesty and integrity, the well-being of themselves and others, and so on?
We tend to look on those people with disgust and contempt, don't we?
But isn't that what we will be doing in the voting booth, if we let the spectre of recession and the empty promises of an empty-suit politician drive us to vote against our values and interests?
So let me ask you: are you an Esau?
I'm not.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Crying Out For Change
This is what I keep hearing to explain the popularity of Barack Obama. People are crying out for change.
So I was thinking the other day. Who is crying out for change?
I thought about it and here is a general sampling of the kind of people who beg for change.
People who are chronically short of cash because they'd a lot rather get a handout from somebody are always asking for change.
Among those in this category are people who hang out on the street, people who hit up wealthier friends who put out because they feel guilty about their own success, addicts who spend everything they get on substance, people who had money but wasted it and now want somebody to feel sorry for them, people who want to get something to eat but didn't budget for food again.
Kids who don't want to deliver papers or mow lawns for spending money cry out for change everytime their mother opens her purse or the ice cream wagon goes by.
People whine for change when they don't want to put in the effort to succeed under the system that they have. These are the people who would rather keep buying new socks and underwear than wash the ones they've been wearing.
Then there are people who change their significant others every time they hit a rough patch. Or change the decor of their living rooms every six months having never sat down on the sofa to read a book and enjoy the surroundings before switching them again.
People crying out for change are people who have convinced themselves or have been convinced by others that things need changing that in actuality don't particularly.
These are people who have never really become involved or invested in anything, so they bore easily and don't really think about or care what may be lost in an undefined quest for "change."
These are the people who want the channel changed, but would not get up off the couch to change it themselves if they couldn't find the remote.
Do we really want these people influencing the nation? Or worse, do we really want the kind of person that panders to them at the helm of the free world?
Just some thoughts.
Next entry I'll change the subject.
So I was thinking the other day. Who is crying out for change?
I thought about it and here is a general sampling of the kind of people who beg for change.
People who are chronically short of cash because they'd a lot rather get a handout from somebody are always asking for change.
Among those in this category are people who hang out on the street, people who hit up wealthier friends who put out because they feel guilty about their own success, addicts who spend everything they get on substance, people who had money but wasted it and now want somebody to feel sorry for them, people who want to get something to eat but didn't budget for food again.
Kids who don't want to deliver papers or mow lawns for spending money cry out for change everytime their mother opens her purse or the ice cream wagon goes by.
People whine for change when they don't want to put in the effort to succeed under the system that they have. These are the people who would rather keep buying new socks and underwear than wash the ones they've been wearing.
Then there are people who change their significant others every time they hit a rough patch. Or change the decor of their living rooms every six months having never sat down on the sofa to read a book and enjoy the surroundings before switching them again.
People crying out for change are people who have convinced themselves or have been convinced by others that things need changing that in actuality don't particularly.
These are people who have never really become involved or invested in anything, so they bore easily and don't really think about or care what may be lost in an undefined quest for "change."
These are the people who want the channel changed, but would not get up off the couch to change it themselves if they couldn't find the remote.
Do we really want these people influencing the nation? Or worse, do we really want the kind of person that panders to them at the helm of the free world?
Just some thoughts.
Next entry I'll change the subject.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Irony of Hope
I knew Obama was a gifted speaker. I was aware that he had a rare knack for sweeping rhetoric that could catch the most unsuspecting bystanders in its grandeur. I have acknowledged more than once that he has a persuasive tongue.
But I didn't know just how persuasive he could be until I watched the live broadcast of his speech last night (Feb. 12) in Madison, Wisconsin.
And as I listened to him, he gave me hope that I have not felt for some time. He made me feel something that a week ago I thought I might never feel.
What he made me feel was a lot more optimistic about Senator John McCain being my party's presumed presidential nominee. As Obama pompously warned about America's future under a McCain administration, a seed of hope was born - the hope that perhaps Senator McCain will rise to the occasion and really become the leader that his would-be challenger was darkly portending that he will be. The man who still continue to wage the war on terror as long as it takes - a hundred years if necessary! The man who will continue the so-called "tax cuts for the rich" that in reality benefited the entire nation.
OK, so I may have a way to go before I can boost McCain with the kind of passion and fire I felt for President Bush in 2004. He's got some work to do to prove he's serious about earning the respect and trust of conservatives. (One of the things he needs to do, incidentally, is to show that he cares more for the esteem of conservatives than the praise of liberals like Senator Obama.) I'm not kidding myself that he's going to win me over overnight. I'm too good a judge of character for that and my BS detection mechanism is state-of-the-art.
Cautiousness keeps my imagination from running ahead to a day when, before the votes are casts, McCain has finally morphed into the Reagan conservative he claims to be and I can cast my vote for him with no reservations.
But for one shining, glorious moment, Barack Obama took me there with his soaring eloquence.
But I didn't know just how persuasive he could be until I watched the live broadcast of his speech last night (Feb. 12) in Madison, Wisconsin.
And as I listened to him, he gave me hope that I have not felt for some time. He made me feel something that a week ago I thought I might never feel.
What he made me feel was a lot more optimistic about Senator John McCain being my party's presumed presidential nominee. As Obama pompously warned about America's future under a McCain administration, a seed of hope was born - the hope that perhaps Senator McCain will rise to the occasion and really become the leader that his would-be challenger was darkly portending that he will be. The man who still continue to wage the war on terror as long as it takes - a hundred years if necessary! The man who will continue the so-called "tax cuts for the rich" that in reality benefited the entire nation.
OK, so I may have a way to go before I can boost McCain with the kind of passion and fire I felt for President Bush in 2004. He's got some work to do to prove he's serious about earning the respect and trust of conservatives. (One of the things he needs to do, incidentally, is to show that he cares more for the esteem of conservatives than the praise of liberals like Senator Obama.) I'm not kidding myself that he's going to win me over overnight. I'm too good a judge of character for that and my BS detection mechanism is state-of-the-art.
Cautiousness keeps my imagination from running ahead to a day when, before the votes are casts, McCain has finally morphed into the Reagan conservative he claims to be and I can cast my vote for him with no reservations.
But for one shining, glorious moment, Barack Obama took me there with his soaring eloquence.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Maverick John McCain? Not.
The term "maverick" has been thrown around a lot lately, mostly because John McCain is currently seen as the Republican front-runner in the Presidential nomination race, and because the label is mistakenly slapped on him often.
Well, I know what a maverick is. I know what it is to be a maverick. And John McCain is no maverick.
A maverick may be a dissenter, a lone voice, one who declines to adhere to the dictates of a group, but in spirit, a maverick is somebody who differs from the pack on principle, and not to gain the hollow acclaim of a different pack while undermining his own pack of origin.
A maverick is somebody who is who he is because he is wired differently, simply marching to the beat of a different drum. A maverick may wander from the beaten path, but not to spite his fellow travelers. He's simply drawn from the path by the possibilities or the vision of a different path to the same destination.
Who are true conservative mavericks? They are people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, who say what nobody else has the guts to, who see what other people miss, who make bold predictions outside of the box and turn out to be right. One of the reasons people like Rush, Ann, and yes, yours truly are so irritated by McCain's claim to be a maverick is that true mavericks are offended by wanna-be ones. A maverick is an honorable thing to be. When somebody is called a maverick on the basis of dishonorable behaviour simply because it's "different," it is a gross insult to real mavericks everywhere.
George W. Bush has been a maverick at various points in his presidency. He stood his ground, eschewed the notion of compromising for the sake of popularity and the preservation of his legacy, in favour of his principles and the good of the country.
Mavericks are true-blue beneath their sore-thumb exterior. A maverick may shuck traditions that are more ritual than substance, because they have not the time or energy to waste on micromanaging the small stuff, but they are often more traditional at their core than their conformist cohorts.
A maverick does not fail to conform for the purpose of scorning his own. He simply is what he is, and if what that is does not fit the mold, he simply accepts that, and hopes more than anything that his own will see his value and accept it too. It is shallow protocol that a maverick flouts, conventional wisdom that is no more than commonly held misconceptions that he contradicts. He doesn't lightly toss away or turn up his nose at the dearly held, deeply rooted values instilled within him that are timeless and priceless.
John McCain is no more a maverick than is a teenager who dons odd clothing and undergoes body piercings to be "different" rather than standing out by virtue of his character and outstanding inner qualities and achievements. John McCain has gone off the beaten path of his party, but not to accomplish great things that proved him a visionary. He has collaborated with people whose ideology given power and left unchecked would cause incalculable damage to this nation, simply because it got him kudos from a razor-thin sliver of the population who happen to have TV cameras in their faces or by-lines in national newspapers.
A maverick is a maverick when it is difficult to be nonconforming. When it would simply be easier to be "normal" and do what everyone else is doing. When somebody like John McCain does what he does that gets him labelled a maverick, he does it because it's easier and gets him praise from the media. There's nothing of the maverick in that.
A maverick may be a leader, but he's not a follower. He may not follow a hard straight line, but he's not inconsistent.
Above all, a maverick does not pretend to be what he's not. John McCain does. Now that he needs to be a conservative to win his party's nomination, he's billing himself as a conservative. When he wanted to be seen as All-Round Nice Guy, he jettisoned major conservative principles like he was throwing Whopper wrappers out the window of a moving car. Some of those he is scrambling to fetch and flatten out again. Other bad decisions he refuses to repudiate, showing a lingering disregard for the principles of those whose votes he wishes to win.
If a maverick does not conform to his own people entirely because he simply can't, then he sure as heck doesn't try to conform to please those who seek the downfall of his people.
I am sure that there was a point when the British press lauded Benedict Arnold as the eighteenth-century synonym for "maverick" (the word wasn't coined until the 1880's). The comparison of Senator McCain to Benedict Arnold may be a trifle strong, but not without merit. After all, Arnold was a spectacular war hero who accomplished great military feats for his country before he switched loyalties to gain money and a prestigious job.
And - word to the wise - once he gained that job, he never did have a grasp on the respect and approval that should have come with it.
He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose - and he is no maverick who gives up what must not be lost to gain what he can't keep - the approval of the media and spineless "moderates."
McCain may cling to claim of the maverick label on the basis of his support for the War on Terror and in Iraq and that certainly does deserve credit. But when he hasn't supported action that would keep terrorists from coming in unchecked through the back door from Mexico, and when he has let his own experience cloud his judgment regarding interrogation of enemies, which is absolutely essential to stopping attacks and winning the war, then I have to wonder how deep his committment is. He's loudly reminding us all that he supported the surge - a bold,risky move now that the New York Times and John Murtha have reported its success.
Like I said, John McCain is no maverick.
As of now, he's the mean little boy nobody really likes but they think they have to elect him club president because his daddy is going to buy the land the clubhouse sits on. He's saying, "You have to nominate me, because now I have something you want." (the perceived ability to beat Hillary Clinton in the general election.)
Well, I would rather take my chances. It doesn't really follow that the only way to defeat Hillary Clinton is to run "Hillary Lite" in the body of an old man, rather than to present a real alternative. The real conservative pickin's may have grown slim by now, but of those still in the race, Mitt Romney is our last best chance to salvage this election.
I deeply resent the attempt to strong-arm conservatives into betraying their principles to present a candidate who is little more than a lesser evil. I have already had my chance to place my vote, and now my future is in the hands of those in later voting states, and I have deeply resented that, too, when South Carolina and Florida caved and pulled what was manifestly the wrong lever. And I will resent it again if not enough Republicans have the courage to stride into the voting booth to mark their ballots for the best candidate rather than slink in to darken the bubble beside McCain's name because we have let the media and the political talking heads resign us to the "fact" that he is our best chance to beat Hillary or Obama.
If that happens, we will have lost before November even gets here.
I beg of my conservative compatriots in key states to have the courage I just mentioned. To vote YOUR voice and ignore those coming out of your TV or radio speakers. To place your faith in the ability of the American people to choose wisely (they have done it before).
To do the right thing. Because if we can't do the right thing at this stage, what does that say for the future?
Well, I know what a maverick is. I know what it is to be a maverick. And John McCain is no maverick.
A maverick may be a dissenter, a lone voice, one who declines to adhere to the dictates of a group, but in spirit, a maverick is somebody who differs from the pack on principle, and not to gain the hollow acclaim of a different pack while undermining his own pack of origin.
A maverick is somebody who is who he is because he is wired differently, simply marching to the beat of a different drum. A maverick may wander from the beaten path, but not to spite his fellow travelers. He's simply drawn from the path by the possibilities or the vision of a different path to the same destination.
Who are true conservative mavericks? They are people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, who say what nobody else has the guts to, who see what other people miss, who make bold predictions outside of the box and turn out to be right. One of the reasons people like Rush, Ann, and yes, yours truly are so irritated by McCain's claim to be a maverick is that true mavericks are offended by wanna-be ones. A maverick is an honorable thing to be. When somebody is called a maverick on the basis of dishonorable behaviour simply because it's "different," it is a gross insult to real mavericks everywhere.
George W. Bush has been a maverick at various points in his presidency. He stood his ground, eschewed the notion of compromising for the sake of popularity and the preservation of his legacy, in favour of his principles and the good of the country.
Mavericks are true-blue beneath their sore-thumb exterior. A maverick may shuck traditions that are more ritual than substance, because they have not the time or energy to waste on micromanaging the small stuff, but they are often more traditional at their core than their conformist cohorts.
A maverick does not fail to conform for the purpose of scorning his own. He simply is what he is, and if what that is does not fit the mold, he simply accepts that, and hopes more than anything that his own will see his value and accept it too. It is shallow protocol that a maverick flouts, conventional wisdom that is no more than commonly held misconceptions that he contradicts. He doesn't lightly toss away or turn up his nose at the dearly held, deeply rooted values instilled within him that are timeless and priceless.
John McCain is no more a maverick than is a teenager who dons odd clothing and undergoes body piercings to be "different" rather than standing out by virtue of his character and outstanding inner qualities and achievements. John McCain has gone off the beaten path of his party, but not to accomplish great things that proved him a visionary. He has collaborated with people whose ideology given power and left unchecked would cause incalculable damage to this nation, simply because it got him kudos from a razor-thin sliver of the population who happen to have TV cameras in their faces or by-lines in national newspapers.
A maverick is a maverick when it is difficult to be nonconforming. When it would simply be easier to be "normal" and do what everyone else is doing. When somebody like John McCain does what he does that gets him labelled a maverick, he does it because it's easier and gets him praise from the media. There's nothing of the maverick in that.
A maverick may be a leader, but he's not a follower. He may not follow a hard straight line, but he's not inconsistent.
Above all, a maverick does not pretend to be what he's not. John McCain does. Now that he needs to be a conservative to win his party's nomination, he's billing himself as a conservative. When he wanted to be seen as All-Round Nice Guy, he jettisoned major conservative principles like he was throwing Whopper wrappers out the window of a moving car. Some of those he is scrambling to fetch and flatten out again. Other bad decisions he refuses to repudiate, showing a lingering disregard for the principles of those whose votes he wishes to win.
If a maverick does not conform to his own people entirely because he simply can't, then he sure as heck doesn't try to conform to please those who seek the downfall of his people.
I am sure that there was a point when the British press lauded Benedict Arnold as the eighteenth-century synonym for "maverick" (the word wasn't coined until the 1880's). The comparison of Senator McCain to Benedict Arnold may be a trifle strong, but not without merit. After all, Arnold was a spectacular war hero who accomplished great military feats for his country before he switched loyalties to gain money and a prestigious job.
And - word to the wise - once he gained that job, he never did have a grasp on the respect and approval that should have come with it.
He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose - and he is no maverick who gives up what must not be lost to gain what he can't keep - the approval of the media and spineless "moderates."
McCain may cling to claim of the maverick label on the basis of his support for the War on Terror and in Iraq and that certainly does deserve credit. But when he hasn't supported action that would keep terrorists from coming in unchecked through the back door from Mexico, and when he has let his own experience cloud his judgment regarding interrogation of enemies, which is absolutely essential to stopping attacks and winning the war, then I have to wonder how deep his committment is. He's loudly reminding us all that he supported the surge - a bold,risky move now that the New York Times and John Murtha have reported its success.
Like I said, John McCain is no maverick.
As of now, he's the mean little boy nobody really likes but they think they have to elect him club president because his daddy is going to buy the land the clubhouse sits on. He's saying, "You have to nominate me, because now I have something you want." (the perceived ability to beat Hillary Clinton in the general election.)
Well, I would rather take my chances. It doesn't really follow that the only way to defeat Hillary Clinton is to run "Hillary Lite" in the body of an old man, rather than to present a real alternative. The real conservative pickin's may have grown slim by now, but of those still in the race, Mitt Romney is our last best chance to salvage this election.
I deeply resent the attempt to strong-arm conservatives into betraying their principles to present a candidate who is little more than a lesser evil. I have already had my chance to place my vote, and now my future is in the hands of those in later voting states, and I have deeply resented that, too, when South Carolina and Florida caved and pulled what was manifestly the wrong lever. And I will resent it again if not enough Republicans have the courage to stride into the voting booth to mark their ballots for the best candidate rather than slink in to darken the bubble beside McCain's name because we have let the media and the political talking heads resign us to the "fact" that he is our best chance to beat Hillary or Obama.
If that happens, we will have lost before November even gets here.
I beg of my conservative compatriots in key states to have the courage I just mentioned. To vote YOUR voice and ignore those coming out of your TV or radio speakers. To place your faith in the ability of the American people to choose wisely (they have done it before).
To do the right thing. Because if we can't do the right thing at this stage, what does that say for the future?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
My Brush With Greatness
I almost had a heart attack today.
While re-reading a printout I had of an Ann Coulter column, I saw something I had evidently skipped over upon the first perusal.
This is how the column began:
"When I wrote a ferocious defense of Sen. Joe McCarthy in Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism , liberals chose not to argue with me. Instead they posted a scrolling series of reasons not to read my book, such as that I wear short skirts, date boys, and that "Treason" was not a scholarly tome."
What I didn't really absorb the first time is that she was talking about online reviewers panning the book with personal attacks rather than debating its claims. That part about the scholarly tome suddenly made me recall that, while on Amazon some time ago, I checked out some discussions about Ann, and that one of them was a ridiculous essay meant to prove that Ann's book was not scholarly. And, suddenly short of breath I recalled that I had posted a scathing response to the poster. The idea that Ann herself had read this discussion and maybe also my rebuttal was absolutely paralyzing.
Then I noticed the date of the column - November 7th. I had posted my response after Thanksgiving. Too bad. For a moment there, I had felt pretty incredible.
But I looked up the discussion a few minutes ago, to see if what I wrote was something I would be embarrassed to have The Ann read, or something I could have been proud of.
And I don't think it was too bad. So I think I'll repost the whole exchange here. First, the post by one calling himself Christopher K. Halbower:
"I'm of the opinion that they[Coulter's books] are not scholarly. I'll make my case below. However, I will preface this topic by saying that I am open minded. If a stronger case exists that proves Miss Coulter's books are scholarly, I'll certainly adopt that argument.
{Please note: Miss Coulter's political views are not really relevant as to whether her works are scholarly.}It is easy to dismiss Miss Coulter's literature on the basis of scholarly research.
For example, her book "Treason" is 368 pages long, has a relatively large font size and covers 60 years of history. She publishes a book almost every year.
Now, compare that with, say, Seymour Hersh's "Price of Power". This book is over 800 pages long, has a relatively small font size and covers 4 to 5 years of history. Hersh spent over 10 years researching this book.
Coulter's book is not cited in a single scholarly work. Hersh's book is cited in 92 other books.
"Treason" cannot be found in univserity libraries and therefore isn't being studied by tomorrow's historians. "Price of Power" is the definitive work on Kissinger's role as National Security Advisor; tomorrow's historians are almost certainly studying it.
And this is just one example. I could take any other scholarly work and compare it to Coulter's literature and arrive at the same conclusions: a)William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"; Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"; Josephus Flavius' "The Jewish Antiquities" and so on.
Coulter's works will not survive this generation because
1. they are not scholarly (see my above arguments)
2. the scholars of tomorrow are not studying them today
3. they are comtemporaneous without being scholarly and thus are not "timeless".
-Chris
Well, there's nothing more annoying than an earnest boob trying to prove his own scholarliness by name-dropping and liberal usage of words he doesn't really know his way around, so I felt compelled to research and respond.
Here's my post:
Does "scholarly" mean "full of crap?" Because if it does, your assertion that Seymour Hersh's works are scholarly while Ann's are not is certainly dead-on.
Here are some definitions of "scholarly" (Did you REALLY imagine you could post a credible discourse on the scholarliness or lack thereof of an author's works without beginning with an established, accurate definition of the word "scholarly"? REALLY? Wow.)
1. of, like, or befitting a scholar: scholarly habits.
2. having the qualities of a scholar: a scholarly person.
3. concerned with academic learning and research. -adverb
4. like a scholar.
"ˈscholarly - adjective: having or showing knowledge
Example: a scholarly person; a scholarly book"
Which certainly applies to Ann and her works - and how.
Doesn't say anything about said knowledge coming from unverifiably anonymous sources, or sources that are professional crooks, or sources that are reputable but misquoted, or slander, innuendo and outright lies, so I'm not sure whether that particular definition can be applied to Hersh's work or not.
Oh, wait, nope. This definition of the root word, scholar, precludes Mr. Hersh:
1. a learned or erudite person, esp. one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject.
Knowledge based on crap can hardly be called profound, now, can it?
There are some notable omissions in these definitions. I see no mention of the standards of number of pages or font size which are evidently essential factors in judging the scholarliness of a work.
I am surprised to discover that Shakespeare cannot be considered "scholarly." But apparently, it's true - he wrote 37 plays in a lifetime of 52 years, not even counting his poetry - and if Ann's writing 6 books in 10 years precludes her from scholarliness, than poor William has no chance.
He's certainly no Seymour Hersh.
"the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered."
"..best understood as the Geraldo of print investigative reporters."
"there is hardly anything [in the book] that shouldn't be suspect."
"Hersh and his article lack integrity."
"Hersh used [supposedly authentic documents he discovered] to get NBC to sign a $2.5 million contract to make a Kennedy documentary, and when the network pulled out Hersh signed with ABC for the same amount. But when ABC had the documents tested, they turned out to be phony." (say, is Dan Rather scholarly?)
"a little fast and loose with the facts."
"Particularly arguable are the innuendoes in which he indulges and the conclusions to which he jumps on the basis of his raw material."
"If the standard for being fired was being wrong on a story, I would have been fired long ago."
If that's scholarly, the adjective is completely unworthy of being attached to Ann. Most of those quotes, all describing Hersh, came from liberals. The last was spoken by Hersh himself.
"almost every episode or statement on Kissinger ascribed to him by Hersh [was] a distortion, an exaggeration, a misinterpretation, or an expletive-deleted lie."
This quote is from a man cited by Hersh as a major source for his book.
I tremble to contemplate the stellar quality and unimpeachable credibity that must mark the 92 works that cited this guy.
And again, the scholarly thing to do would have been to open your thesis with a definition of the word scholarly. Just for next time.
While re-reading a printout I had of an Ann Coulter column, I saw something I had evidently skipped over upon the first perusal.
This is how the column began:
"When I wrote a ferocious defense of Sen. Joe McCarthy in Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism , liberals chose not to argue with me. Instead they posted a scrolling series of reasons not to read my book, such as that I wear short skirts, date boys, and that "Treason" was not a scholarly tome."
What I didn't really absorb the first time is that she was talking about online reviewers panning the book with personal attacks rather than debating its claims. That part about the scholarly tome suddenly made me recall that, while on Amazon some time ago, I checked out some discussions about Ann, and that one of them was a ridiculous essay meant to prove that Ann's book was not scholarly. And, suddenly short of breath I recalled that I had posted a scathing response to the poster. The idea that Ann herself had read this discussion and maybe also my rebuttal was absolutely paralyzing.
Then I noticed the date of the column - November 7th. I had posted my response after Thanksgiving. Too bad. For a moment there, I had felt pretty incredible.
But I looked up the discussion a few minutes ago, to see if what I wrote was something I would be embarrassed to have The Ann read, or something I could have been proud of.
And I don't think it was too bad. So I think I'll repost the whole exchange here. First, the post by one calling himself Christopher K. Halbower:
"I'm of the opinion that they[Coulter's books] are not scholarly. I'll make my case below. However, I will preface this topic by saying that I am open minded. If a stronger case exists that proves Miss Coulter's books are scholarly, I'll certainly adopt that argument.
{Please note: Miss Coulter's political views are not really relevant as to whether her works are scholarly.}It is easy to dismiss Miss Coulter's literature on the basis of scholarly research.
For example, her book "Treason" is 368 pages long, has a relatively large font size and covers 60 years of history. She publishes a book almost every year.
Now, compare that with, say, Seymour Hersh's "Price of Power". This book is over 800 pages long, has a relatively small font size and covers 4 to 5 years of history. Hersh spent over 10 years researching this book.
Coulter's book is not cited in a single scholarly work. Hersh's book is cited in 92 other books.
"Treason" cannot be found in univserity libraries and therefore isn't being studied by tomorrow's historians. "Price of Power" is the definitive work on Kissinger's role as National Security Advisor; tomorrow's historians are almost certainly studying it.
And this is just one example. I could take any other scholarly work and compare it to Coulter's literature and arrive at the same conclusions: a)William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"; Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"; Josephus Flavius' "The Jewish Antiquities" and so on.
Coulter's works will not survive this generation because
1. they are not scholarly (see my above arguments)
2. the scholars of tomorrow are not studying them today
3. they are comtemporaneous without being scholarly and thus are not "timeless".
-Chris
Well, there's nothing more annoying than an earnest boob trying to prove his own scholarliness by name-dropping and liberal usage of words he doesn't really know his way around, so I felt compelled to research and respond.
Here's my post:
Does "scholarly" mean "full of crap?" Because if it does, your assertion that Seymour Hersh's works are scholarly while Ann's are not is certainly dead-on.
Here are some definitions of "scholarly" (Did you REALLY imagine you could post a credible discourse on the scholarliness or lack thereof of an author's works without beginning with an established, accurate definition of the word "scholarly"? REALLY? Wow.)
1. of, like, or befitting a scholar: scholarly habits.
2. having the qualities of a scholar: a scholarly person.
3. concerned with academic learning and research. -adverb
4. like a scholar.
"ˈscholarly - adjective: having or showing knowledge
Example: a scholarly person; a scholarly book"
Which certainly applies to Ann and her works - and how.
Doesn't say anything about said knowledge coming from unverifiably anonymous sources, or sources that are professional crooks, or sources that are reputable but misquoted, or slander, innuendo and outright lies, so I'm not sure whether that particular definition can be applied to Hersh's work or not.
Oh, wait, nope. This definition of the root word, scholar, precludes Mr. Hersh:
1. a learned or erudite person, esp. one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject.
Knowledge based on crap can hardly be called profound, now, can it?
There are some notable omissions in these definitions. I see no mention of the standards of number of pages or font size which are evidently essential factors in judging the scholarliness of a work.
I am surprised to discover that Shakespeare cannot be considered "scholarly." But apparently, it's true - he wrote 37 plays in a lifetime of 52 years, not even counting his poetry - and if Ann's writing 6 books in 10 years precludes her from scholarliness, than poor William has no chance.
He's certainly no Seymour Hersh.
"the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered."
"..best understood as the Geraldo of print investigative reporters."
"there is hardly anything [in the book] that shouldn't be suspect."
"Hersh and his article lack integrity."
"Hersh used [supposedly authentic documents he discovered] to get NBC to sign a $2.5 million contract to make a Kennedy documentary, and when the network pulled out Hersh signed with ABC for the same amount. But when ABC had the documents tested, they turned out to be phony." (say, is Dan Rather scholarly?)
"a little fast and loose with the facts."
"Particularly arguable are the innuendoes in which he indulges and the conclusions to which he jumps on the basis of his raw material."
"If the standard for being fired was being wrong on a story, I would have been fired long ago."
If that's scholarly, the adjective is completely unworthy of being attached to Ann. Most of those quotes, all describing Hersh, came from liberals. The last was spoken by Hersh himself.
"almost every episode or statement on Kissinger ascribed to him by Hersh [was] a distortion, an exaggeration, a misinterpretation, or an expletive-deleted lie."
This quote is from a man cited by Hersh as a major source for his book.
I tremble to contemplate the stellar quality and unimpeachable credibity that must mark the 92 works that cited this guy.
And again, the scholarly thing to do would have been to open your thesis with a definition of the word scholarly. Just for next time.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
He's back!!
Well, he's back.
Like the proverbial bad penny that keeps turning up, the guy is all over my TV screen again.
Even almost a decade after the travesty of a trial that brought no satisfactory justice and left him a free man despite the preponderence of evidence against him, he just couldn't stay under his rock.
He's sat for interviews in which he showed no remorse whatsoever, instead portraying himself as a victim and railing against the "real" wrongdoers.
He's written a book about his fantasy version of real events and got back on the public radar with that.
Now he's back again. And unbelievably, there are still people who defend him, even those who believe he was innocent of the crimes he was accused of, which is what sticks in one's craw more than anything else.
..........................................
You know, it occurs to me that the above description of former president Bill Clinton could also be about OJ Simpson. He's been back in the news lately, too, I've noticed.
Come to think of it, the similarities between the two are myriad.
They both have that supreme, sociopathic arrogance that makes them believe they are above the law - perhaps even a pathological belief that they are actually innocent, so often have they insisted on it.
They are both guilty of crimes against women for which they have not been justly punished.
OJ has a girlfriend, proving he must still be attractive to at least some women, despite the fact that he brutally murdered his wife. Bill Clinton is still out having affairs and ordinary workaday women still assume the conduct of giggling Beatles groupies when the subject of him comes up (which is utterly unfathomable to me. Who finds this guy attractive?) despite the fact that he has been credibly accused of raping at least one woman and sexually harassing several others(that we know of.)
Clinton was president during the OJ ordeal, which seems terribly appropriate in retrospect.
Of course, as many similarities as there are between OJ and Clinton, there are some important differences.
I have not heard many people say that Simpson was a great football player who just happened to have some moral flaws, but he was still a good football player!! Nor have I heard people say that even though they didn't agree with everything he's done, "you just can't help liking the guy."
And despite the existence of kooks who believe OJ to be innocent, they are the fringe minority. Everybody knows the details in technicolor of what Simpson did, but so many people haven't glimpsed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Clinton's crimes. So many haven't even heard of Juanita Broaddrick, for example. So many actually BELIEVE the colossal myth that the Clinton impeachment episode was only about sex, when it was nothing of the kind.
In fact, despite the lack of justice obtained through the system for both men, perhaps it's OJ who has come closer to getting what he deserved. After all, he is still by and large a pariah. There are restaurants that refuse to serve him. Even the liberal media doesn't give him any kind of free pass. And with these latest shenanigans, he has become even more pathetic, and will very likely go to prison at last.
Clinton, on the other hand, is still a rock star. He has never had to pay for the wicked things he has done in any significant way, not in damage to his public image and certainly not monetarily, the way Simpson has. In fact, it's believed by most that Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign will actually be boosted by the involvement of the brazenly unrepentant perjurer and rapist she is married to.
There has been justice in the Simpson case, even if only in the court of public opinion. But not for Bill Clinton.
Honestly, which is the biggest travesty?
Like the proverbial bad penny that keeps turning up, the guy is all over my TV screen again.
Even almost a decade after the travesty of a trial that brought no satisfactory justice and left him a free man despite the preponderence of evidence against him, he just couldn't stay under his rock.
He's sat for interviews in which he showed no remorse whatsoever, instead portraying himself as a victim and railing against the "real" wrongdoers.
He's written a book about his fantasy version of real events and got back on the public radar with that.
Now he's back again. And unbelievably, there are still people who defend him, even those who believe he was innocent of the crimes he was accused of, which is what sticks in one's craw more than anything else.
..........................................
You know, it occurs to me that the above description of former president Bill Clinton could also be about OJ Simpson. He's been back in the news lately, too, I've noticed.
Come to think of it, the similarities between the two are myriad.
They both have that supreme, sociopathic arrogance that makes them believe they are above the law - perhaps even a pathological belief that they are actually innocent, so often have they insisted on it.
They are both guilty of crimes against women for which they have not been justly punished.
OJ has a girlfriend, proving he must still be attractive to at least some women, despite the fact that he brutally murdered his wife. Bill Clinton is still out having affairs and ordinary workaday women still assume the conduct of giggling Beatles groupies when the subject of him comes up (which is utterly unfathomable to me. Who finds this guy attractive?) despite the fact that he has been credibly accused of raping at least one woman and sexually harassing several others(that we know of.)
Clinton was president during the OJ ordeal, which seems terribly appropriate in retrospect.
Of course, as many similarities as there are between OJ and Clinton, there are some important differences.
I have not heard many people say that Simpson was a great football player who just happened to have some moral flaws, but he was still a good football player!! Nor have I heard people say that even though they didn't agree with everything he's done, "you just can't help liking the guy."
And despite the existence of kooks who believe OJ to be innocent, they are the fringe minority. Everybody knows the details in technicolor of what Simpson did, but so many people haven't glimpsed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Clinton's crimes. So many haven't even heard of Juanita Broaddrick, for example. So many actually BELIEVE the colossal myth that the Clinton impeachment episode was only about sex, when it was nothing of the kind.
In fact, despite the lack of justice obtained through the system for both men, perhaps it's OJ who has come closer to getting what he deserved. After all, he is still by and large a pariah. There are restaurants that refuse to serve him. Even the liberal media doesn't give him any kind of free pass. And with these latest shenanigans, he has become even more pathetic, and will very likely go to prison at last.
Clinton, on the other hand, is still a rock star. He has never had to pay for the wicked things he has done in any significant way, not in damage to his public image and certainly not monetarily, the way Simpson has. In fact, it's believed by most that Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign will actually be boosted by the involvement of the brazenly unrepentant perjurer and rapist she is married to.
There has been justice in the Simpson case, even if only in the court of public opinion. But not for Bill Clinton.
Honestly, which is the biggest travesty?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Driving home Monday afternoon and listening to the radio I heard that another entertainer has joined the ranks of the Hollywood Wackocracy. If I'd heard the story before I heard who it was, and I had to guess, I would not have said Barry Manilow. But I guess it's true.
Manilow reportedly cancelled an appearance on the View to promote his new CD. His reason? He disagrees with the views of one of the regular panelists and doesn't want to be on the same stage as her. Actually, I believe the words were that he finds her views "dangerous" and "offensive."
Now, Rosie being history, who is it that he finds so objectionable? Joy Behar, who so wittily remarked a few months ago that it delighted her heart to learn that the Vice President of the United States was having potentially life-threatening health problems? Or the panel's newest addition, Whoopi Goldberg, who at a Democratic fundraiser in 2004 employed cutting-edge and avant-garde humour in interchanging the last name of the President of the United States with crass slang for private anatomical areas?
No. No, it's neither of these two. Nor is it Barbara Walters. It's Elizabeth Hasselbeck. That's right. All-American, vanilla Elizabeth Hasselbeck, with all the abrasive temperament of Mister Rogers, whose fatal flaw evidently is that she has the effrontery to odiously lace her speech with patriotism and take America's side against Islamic terrorists and other tyrannical regimes. Why, rumor has it she doesn't even have plans to go to Venezuela and kiss the ring of Hugo Chavez!! Oh, the humanity!! Barbie's using polysyllabic words and they're not DailyKos-approved!!
The obvious question here is how Barry can be so stupid and self-destructive? I mean, I'll grant you that, say, Eminem's career mnight not be adversely affected by such a stunt. But Barry Manilow is a different story. He's an artist with cross-generational appeal whose fanbase spreads across the ideological spectrum. He's got a lot to lose by labelling as "dangerous" and "offensive" the notion that America, her military, and its Commander-in-Chief are a force for good and worthy of honor and respect, which as I understand is the general thrust of Elizabeth's contributions to panel discussions. (I don't know, maybe I missed the episode where she advocated mandatory lobotomies for all American children on their 3rd birthdays.)
Barry might as well take out a full-page ad in the New York Times reading - "To Half My Loyal Fans - Screw You!" (He could probably get a $100,000 discount if he played his cards right.)
This is where I insert the standard disclaimer that it's a free country and that means people are free to be as stupid as they want as publicly as they want - that celebrities are entitled to have political views and speak their minds. In a free country, what's good for the goose has to be good for the gander, and I'm not about to suggest imposing a law, unwritten or not, that would keep me from enjoying the brilliance of the Dennis Millers, the class and dignity of the Jon Voights and Ron Silvers, and the rollicking good times with the Toby Keiths of the entertainment world, even if it meant I would never have to hear about another foul, inane Chevy Chase rant.
But I will always exercise my own freedom to look on in slack-jawed astonishment that unfailingly renews itself every time a celebritard pops off another idiotic sound bite, even though I should have long ago ceased to feel any surprise at all.
There are now more Hollyweirdos shooting themselves in the foot than there are clips in the America's Funniest Home Videos archives of men being hit in the groin with common household objects. They aren't biting the hand that feeds them - they're ripping the arm clean off. And for what? So they can fancy themselves heroes of free speech, boundlessly courageous in the face of latter-day McCarthyism - except that the only real parallel is Hollywood's affinity for communist dictators, and there are no latter-day McCarthys.
I'm not a Fanilow, but like everyone else I enjoyed his appearances working with the contestants on American Idol. I got the impression that he was apolitical, reaching out to fans across the board. I respected him then. I can't now.
The thing that these celebrities don't realize is that their art is tainted by their idiocy. I can't get lost in a Julia Roberts movie, because her acting is just not good enough to make me forget that she is a moron who has insinuated that half of Americans are repugnant reptiles, two words between which she imagines "Republican" is sandwiched in the dictionary. I never realized what an immature, not-terribly-funny-after-all ass Robin Williams was until he referred to the President as a dictator.
Along with the myriad other overnight changes visited on America after 9-11, was the way the attacks separated Hollywood's sheep from its goats. Or perhaps I should modify that timeworn metaphor to say the attacks separated the lions from the donkeys.
I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago a few Hollywood heroes who fit the lion category. I think these people deserve more recognition than their asinine counterparts.
Dennis Miller, who has said publicly more than once that if President Bush turned his back on the war tomorrow, he would still support it.
Jon Voight, who told Alan Colmes decisively, "I admit I was against the Vietnam war back then. I was wrong." (may be slight paraphrasing, can't find a transcript) Proving that not all Hollywooders refuse to mature with a virulence that would have bugged Peter Pan. He went on to say what everybody seems to have forgotten, that withdrawing from Vietnam resulted in a bloodbath and we never should have done it.
Ron Silver, who was a card-carrying liberal, but after 9-11, reconnected with reality, as he recounted at the 2004 Republican National Convention:
"I think there are September 10 people and there are September 11 people. I'm one of the latter. Everything changed for me. Since then I see everything through the prism of what happened that day. For me this election is about one issue and that is the response to 9/11. In that sense I think the president is doing exactly the right thing. If 9/11 hadn't happened then I'd be firmly in the Democratic camp."
Like Miller, Silver is still a social liberal. It's possible that they hold some views that, if disclosed, I would find somewhat offensive. But I wouldn't refuse to speak with them, far from it. I'd be proud to shake their hands.
But let's look on the bright side. Perhaps, after all, Barry Manilow shows a progression in the maturity of out-there liberals. They've done the thing where they try to hold their hands over the mouths of anybody with a differing view (a la the "Fairness Doctrine" and attacking Fox every chance they get in a vain attempt to plug the hole in the liberal media dike.) They've done the thing where they call anybody who disagrees with them stupid ca-ca-heads. Now, perhaps they're moving on to that phase where they stick their fingers in their ears and sing "La la la la la la la I can't hear you!! La la la la la la la I'm not listening!!"
How soon they grow up.
Manilow reportedly cancelled an appearance on the View to promote his new CD. His reason? He disagrees with the views of one of the regular panelists and doesn't want to be on the same stage as her. Actually, I believe the words were that he finds her views "dangerous" and "offensive."
Now, Rosie being history, who is it that he finds so objectionable? Joy Behar, who so wittily remarked a few months ago that it delighted her heart to learn that the Vice President of the United States was having potentially life-threatening health problems? Or the panel's newest addition, Whoopi Goldberg, who at a Democratic fundraiser in 2004 employed cutting-edge and avant-garde humour in interchanging the last name of the President of the United States with crass slang for private anatomical areas?
No. No, it's neither of these two. Nor is it Barbara Walters. It's Elizabeth Hasselbeck. That's right. All-American, vanilla Elizabeth Hasselbeck, with all the abrasive temperament of Mister Rogers, whose fatal flaw evidently is that she has the effrontery to odiously lace her speech with patriotism and take America's side against Islamic terrorists and other tyrannical regimes. Why, rumor has it she doesn't even have plans to go to Venezuela and kiss the ring of Hugo Chavez!! Oh, the humanity!! Barbie's using polysyllabic words and they're not DailyKos-approved!!
The obvious question here is how Barry can be so stupid and self-destructive? I mean, I'll grant you that, say, Eminem's career mnight not be adversely affected by such a stunt. But Barry Manilow is a different story. He's an artist with cross-generational appeal whose fanbase spreads across the ideological spectrum. He's got a lot to lose by labelling as "dangerous" and "offensive" the notion that America, her military, and its Commander-in-Chief are a force for good and worthy of honor and respect, which as I understand is the general thrust of Elizabeth's contributions to panel discussions. (I don't know, maybe I missed the episode where she advocated mandatory lobotomies for all American children on their 3rd birthdays.)
Barry might as well take out a full-page ad in the New York Times reading - "To Half My Loyal Fans - Screw You!" (He could probably get a $100,000 discount if he played his cards right.)
This is where I insert the standard disclaimer that it's a free country and that means people are free to be as stupid as they want as publicly as they want - that celebrities are entitled to have political views and speak their minds. In a free country, what's good for the goose has to be good for the gander, and I'm not about to suggest imposing a law, unwritten or not, that would keep me from enjoying the brilliance of the Dennis Millers, the class and dignity of the Jon Voights and Ron Silvers, and the rollicking good times with the Toby Keiths of the entertainment world, even if it meant I would never have to hear about another foul, inane Chevy Chase rant.
But I will always exercise my own freedom to look on in slack-jawed astonishment that unfailingly renews itself every time a celebritard pops off another idiotic sound bite, even though I should have long ago ceased to feel any surprise at all.
There are now more Hollyweirdos shooting themselves in the foot than there are clips in the America's Funniest Home Videos archives of men being hit in the groin with common household objects. They aren't biting the hand that feeds them - they're ripping the arm clean off. And for what? So they can fancy themselves heroes of free speech, boundlessly courageous in the face of latter-day McCarthyism - except that the only real parallel is Hollywood's affinity for communist dictators, and there are no latter-day McCarthys.
I'm not a Fanilow, but like everyone else I enjoyed his appearances working with the contestants on American Idol. I got the impression that he was apolitical, reaching out to fans across the board. I respected him then. I can't now.
The thing that these celebrities don't realize is that their art is tainted by their idiocy. I can't get lost in a Julia Roberts movie, because her acting is just not good enough to make me forget that she is a moron who has insinuated that half of Americans are repugnant reptiles, two words between which she imagines "Republican" is sandwiched in the dictionary. I never realized what an immature, not-terribly-funny-after-all ass Robin Williams was until he referred to the President as a dictator.
Along with the myriad other overnight changes visited on America after 9-11, was the way the attacks separated Hollywood's sheep from its goats. Or perhaps I should modify that timeworn metaphor to say the attacks separated the lions from the donkeys.
I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago a few Hollywood heroes who fit the lion category. I think these people deserve more recognition than their asinine counterparts.
Dennis Miller, who has said publicly more than once that if President Bush turned his back on the war tomorrow, he would still support it.
Jon Voight, who told Alan Colmes decisively, "I admit I was against the Vietnam war back then. I was wrong." (may be slight paraphrasing, can't find a transcript) Proving that not all Hollywooders refuse to mature with a virulence that would have bugged Peter Pan. He went on to say what everybody seems to have forgotten, that withdrawing from Vietnam resulted in a bloodbath and we never should have done it.
Ron Silver, who was a card-carrying liberal, but after 9-11, reconnected with reality, as he recounted at the 2004 Republican National Convention:
"I think there are September 10 people and there are September 11 people. I'm one of the latter. Everything changed for me. Since then I see everything through the prism of what happened that day. For me this election is about one issue and that is the response to 9/11. In that sense I think the president is doing exactly the right thing. If 9/11 hadn't happened then I'd be firmly in the Democratic camp."
Like Miller, Silver is still a social liberal. It's possible that they hold some views that, if disclosed, I would find somewhat offensive. But I wouldn't refuse to speak with them, far from it. I'd be proud to shake their hands.
But let's look on the bright side. Perhaps, after all, Barry Manilow shows a progression in the maturity of out-there liberals. They've done the thing where they try to hold their hands over the mouths of anybody with a differing view (a la the "Fairness Doctrine" and attacking Fox every chance they get in a vain attempt to plug the hole in the liberal media dike.) They've done the thing where they call anybody who disagrees with them stupid ca-ca-heads. Now, perhaps they're moving on to that phase where they stick their fingers in their ears and sing "La la la la la la la I can't hear you!! La la la la la la la I'm not listening!!"
How soon they grow up.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
On Having a Sense of Humour
What does it mean to have a sense of humour?
It's one of those phrases everybody uses but I'm not sure everybody has really considered.
I ask because I am getting tired of being accused of having no sense of humour when I fail to be amused by something that isn't funny.
A lot of people seem to think that having a sense of humour means laughing at anything that was meant as a joke.
The same people seem to think that not laughing at just anything that was meant as a "joke" means that you don't have a sense of humour.
I submit that the opposite is true.
Having a "sense of" something means having an intuitive or even a learned sense of discernment in a particular area, meaning you have the ability to judge quality within that area.
Let's just say, hypothethically, that I'm known for my fashion sense. What does that mean?
Does it mean that when I sit on a bench in the mall, watching people walk by, I think that every outfit every shopper is wearing is stylish?
If a friend came over to me wearing a tea-length cocktail dress with a Bedazzl'd trucker cap, John Deere knee socks and rainbow clogs, and I asked her what she was thinking when she got dressed, would it make sense for her to accuse me of having no fashion sense?
No, of course not. It would BE my very fashion sense that would tell me that what she was wearing was not stylish.
My recognizing that her outfit was hideous and refraining from complimenting her on it would only underscore and reaffirm my fashion sense.
On the other hand, if I were to gush over her ensemble and ask her to put together something similar for me for an upcoming wedding date, it would be a clear signal to anybody watching us that I didn't have any fashion sense.
My having a good fashion sense means that I have the ability to discern between style and, well, non-style. I am a good judge of how stylish an outfit is and if there is any style in it at all. (Please remember that this is a hypothetical )
By the same token, then, if somebody says something to me that they mean as a "joke" and I don't laugh, or I tell them it wasn't funny, because it WASN'T FUNNY, it makes no sense for them to accuse me of having no sense of humour.
Having a sense of humour, or a good or great sense of humour means precisely that I have an attuned sense of what is humourous and what isn't.
If somebody tells me a joke that is cruel, derogatory, stupid, tacky, dirty, tired and hackneyed or, almost worst of all, just plain not funny, then my not laughing doesn't indicate my not having a sense of humour.
In fact, if somebody tells me an unfunny joke and I do laugh, then that shows a lack of a sense of humour. Because laughing at what isn't funny shows that I don't have a clear sense of what really is funny.
And also, if I go about laughing indiscriminately at every ostensible joke, it also shows that I lack sense in the area of humourousness. (I didn't think of it until just now, but I personally experienced this from a young age, as the laughee. I was very early on given the label of "funny," especially as an identifier among my extended family. Having given this pronouncement, my relatives laughed at just about everything I said - even when I wasn't joking. Not only was it frustrating if I was really being serious - and being a child made it more difficult to deal with - but it also caused me to lose a little respect for the person's sense of humour, though I'd not have worded it that way then and didn't realize it in those words until just now.)
Here's a quotable, original to myself as far as I know:
A person with a keen sense of humour is one who knows when something isn't funny, and doesn't laugh.
The better "sense of" something a person has, the more discerning they are on that subject.
The better my fashion sense, the more offended my eyes will be by what's unstylish.
The better my sense of propriety, the more sensitive I will be to what's improper.
The better my sense of timing, the more aware I will be of lousily timed events.
The better my sense of humour, the less I'll laugh at what isn't funny.
It's one of those phrases everybody uses but I'm not sure everybody has really considered.
I ask because I am getting tired of being accused of having no sense of humour when I fail to be amused by something that isn't funny.
A lot of people seem to think that having a sense of humour means laughing at anything that was meant as a joke.
The same people seem to think that not laughing at just anything that was meant as a "joke" means that you don't have a sense of humour.
I submit that the opposite is true.
Having a "sense of" something means having an intuitive or even a learned sense of discernment in a particular area, meaning you have the ability to judge quality within that area.
Let's just say, hypothethically, that I'm known for my fashion sense. What does that mean?
Does it mean that when I sit on a bench in the mall, watching people walk by, I think that every outfit every shopper is wearing is stylish?
If a friend came over to me wearing a tea-length cocktail dress with a Bedazzl'd trucker cap, John Deere knee socks and rainbow clogs, and I asked her what she was thinking when she got dressed, would it make sense for her to accuse me of having no fashion sense?
No, of course not. It would BE my very fashion sense that would tell me that what she was wearing was not stylish.
My recognizing that her outfit was hideous and refraining from complimenting her on it would only underscore and reaffirm my fashion sense.
On the other hand, if I were to gush over her ensemble and ask her to put together something similar for me for an upcoming wedding date, it would be a clear signal to anybody watching us that I didn't have any fashion sense.
My having a good fashion sense means that I have the ability to discern between style and, well, non-style. I am a good judge of how stylish an outfit is and if there is any style in it at all. (Please remember that this is a hypothetical )
By the same token, then, if somebody says something to me that they mean as a "joke" and I don't laugh, or I tell them it wasn't funny, because it WASN'T FUNNY, it makes no sense for them to accuse me of having no sense of humour.
Having a sense of humour, or a good or great sense of humour means precisely that I have an attuned sense of what is humourous and what isn't.
If somebody tells me a joke that is cruel, derogatory, stupid, tacky, dirty, tired and hackneyed or, almost worst of all, just plain not funny, then my not laughing doesn't indicate my not having a sense of humour.
In fact, if somebody tells me an unfunny joke and I do laugh, then that shows a lack of a sense of humour. Because laughing at what isn't funny shows that I don't have a clear sense of what really is funny.
And also, if I go about laughing indiscriminately at every ostensible joke, it also shows that I lack sense in the area of humourousness. (I didn't think of it until just now, but I personally experienced this from a young age, as the laughee. I was very early on given the label of "funny," especially as an identifier among my extended family. Having given this pronouncement, my relatives laughed at just about everything I said - even when I wasn't joking. Not only was it frustrating if I was really being serious - and being a child made it more difficult to deal with - but it also caused me to lose a little respect for the person's sense of humour, though I'd not have worded it that way then and didn't realize it in those words until just now.)
Here's a quotable, original to myself as far as I know:
A person with a keen sense of humour is one who knows when something isn't funny, and doesn't laugh.
The better "sense of" something a person has, the more discerning they are on that subject.
The better my fashion sense, the more offended my eyes will be by what's unstylish.
The better my sense of propriety, the more sensitive I will be to what's improper.
The better my sense of timing, the more aware I will be of lousily timed events.
The better my sense of humour, the less I'll laugh at what isn't funny.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
I found this article on the Democratic Underground blog and thought it would be fun to refute it point by ignorant point.
In italics, excerpts from the original article, which I have not cleaned up or spell-edited, so as to preserve the authentic flavor of the vitriol stew. In bold are my point-by-point rebuttals. "SI" is meant to stand for Selective Ignorance.
Selective Ignorance is the technique invented by, and now practiced widely, by republicans everywhere.SI is what allows them...no, ENCOURAGES them to simultaneously embrace two opposing philosophies , and to bifurcate their thinking processes.
Progressive Ignorance is a disease, like a progressive cancer of the brain that eats away at the mind's capacity for rational thought.
SI is what causes them to march in parades, carrying woefully misspelled signs, as they protest abortion, while at home, their 14 year old granddaughter recovers from a "D&C" performed by the family doctor...for "female troubles".. Her "troubles" started when Uncle Fred took her camping with his family.
Progressive Ignorance is what causes sufferers to continually use illogical arguments, like promoting abortion as a cure for incest, when in fact it is the best thing that ever happened to incestuous abusers, because it contiunally obliterates the most concrete proof possible that the abuse occurred.
SI is what causes them to repeatedly vote against school levies, and then to complain loudly at school board meetings about the deplorable state of their schools, and the threatened demise of their beloved football program...
The eventual solution has to be to de-fund the public school, fire the union teachers, and start up a voucher program. Of course, the vouchers are probably only worth enough for a storefront-Jesus school or a co-op quasi home-school system. These same people will now demand that their children still be welcomed into the athletic programs , and the extra-curricular programs of the shcools they left behind. (yes, he actually wrote "shcools)
Progressive Ignorance is what causes victims to keep calling for further funds to be poured down the public education rathole, regardless of the consistent failure rate of this strategy. It causes them to screech like howler monkeys in abject fear that some child, somewhere may actually be learning something in an alternative system.
SI is what allows them to send in their hard-earned money to support candidates who promise to close those borders, but when it comes time to vote, they always come up short on delivering.
Progressive Ignorance is what causes them to call in to NPR during call-in straw polls and announce that they are voting for the Democratic Candidate Du Jour because upon taking office their guy will immediately end war, make the world fall in love with us, make everybody prosperous, save the planet, make every schoolchild smart and save us all from the dangers of Ten Commandment displays.
It's a moot point anyway, since SI devotees often have no qualms about "getting themselves a Mexican" from Home Depot, if they need some hard landscaping done....or their car waxed cheaply...or their garage cleaned out..or their roof repaired..
Progressive Ignorance is what makes them think that everybody is as work-averse as they are, therefore speculating that prosperous conservatives must hire illegals in order to shirk the increased responsibilities that come with a hard-earned higher income.
SI makes it possible for them to repeatedly elect gay congressmen and senators, while these same voters feel perfectly okay about getting drunk and bashing a few "gays" when the opportunity arises.
The same SI allows those elected gay officials to portray themselves as NOT GAY..NO WAY , in order to get elected, and then live unhappy, closeted lives..always one "incident" away from being exposed. They spend their time in office pretending to be the "confirmed bachelor", or worse yet, find some desperate woman willing to play the part of devoted wife.
Progressive Ignorance is what allows them to creatively invent non-existent trends like widespread gay-bashing. It causes them to pretend to be tolerant of homosexuality, while the worst weapon and most heinous accusation they consistently use to hurl at their ideological opponents is to call them gay - saying loud and clear that being gay is the worst thing there is.
SI is also what causes them to sacrifice their long-held beliefs , and to be willing to support multiply divorced, lifestyle-challenged candidates, when no other republican is available.
Progressive Ignorance is what allows them to assume everybody, including their ideological opponents, is as deficient in integrity as they are, and that Republicans will automatically nominate Rudy Guiliani for their next Presidential candidate without considering another choice.
SI allows them to praise big business and to pretend to follow the intricacies of the stock market because they have a 401-k, and it will somehow make them rich. It allows them to demonize unions, because they might have to pay those "damned union dues", and lord-knows , they don't want some union boss telling them how to vote.
Progressive Ignorance causes them to blindly support unions even though their strong-arm tactics result in fewer jobs, more company closings and the very problems that they like to blame the President for.
Update: The post was indeed deleted in record time, as was my account with that forum.
In italics, excerpts from the original article, which I have not cleaned up or spell-edited, so as to preserve the authentic flavor of the vitriol stew. In bold are my point-by-point rebuttals. "SI" is meant to stand for Selective Ignorance.
Selective Ignorance is the technique invented by, and now practiced widely, by republicans everywhere.SI is what allows them...no, ENCOURAGES them to simultaneously embrace two opposing philosophies , and to bifurcate their thinking processes.
Progressive Ignorance is a disease, like a progressive cancer of the brain that eats away at the mind's capacity for rational thought.
SI is what causes them to march in parades, carrying woefully misspelled signs, as they protest abortion, while at home, their 14 year old granddaughter recovers from a "D&C" performed by the family doctor...for "female troubles".. Her "troubles" started when Uncle Fred took her camping with his family.
Progressive Ignorance is what causes sufferers to continually use illogical arguments, like promoting abortion as a cure for incest, when in fact it is the best thing that ever happened to incestuous abusers, because it contiunally obliterates the most concrete proof possible that the abuse occurred.
SI is what causes them to repeatedly vote against school levies, and then to complain loudly at school board meetings about the deplorable state of their schools, and the threatened demise of their beloved football program...
The eventual solution has to be to de-fund the public school, fire the union teachers, and start up a voucher program. Of course, the vouchers are probably only worth enough for a storefront-Jesus school or a co-op quasi home-school system. These same people will now demand that their children still be welcomed into the athletic programs , and the extra-curricular programs of the shcools they left behind. (yes, he actually wrote "shcools)
Progressive Ignorance is what causes victims to keep calling for further funds to be poured down the public education rathole, regardless of the consistent failure rate of this strategy. It causes them to screech like howler monkeys in abject fear that some child, somewhere may actually be learning something in an alternative system.
SI is what allows them to send in their hard-earned money to support candidates who promise to close those borders, but when it comes time to vote, they always come up short on delivering.
Progressive Ignorance is what causes them to call in to NPR during call-in straw polls and announce that they are voting for the Democratic Candidate Du Jour because upon taking office their guy will immediately end war, make the world fall in love with us, make everybody prosperous, save the planet, make every schoolchild smart and save us all from the dangers of Ten Commandment displays.
It's a moot point anyway, since SI devotees often have no qualms about "getting themselves a Mexican" from Home Depot, if they need some hard landscaping done....or their car waxed cheaply...or their garage cleaned out..or their roof repaired..
Progressive Ignorance is what makes them think that everybody is as work-averse as they are, therefore speculating that prosperous conservatives must hire illegals in order to shirk the increased responsibilities that come with a hard-earned higher income.
SI makes it possible for them to repeatedly elect gay congressmen and senators, while these same voters feel perfectly okay about getting drunk and bashing a few "gays" when the opportunity arises.
The same SI allows those elected gay officials to portray themselves as NOT GAY..NO WAY , in order to get elected, and then live unhappy, closeted lives..always one "incident" away from being exposed. They spend their time in office pretending to be the "confirmed bachelor", or worse yet, find some desperate woman willing to play the part of devoted wife.
Progressive Ignorance is what allows them to creatively invent non-existent trends like widespread gay-bashing. It causes them to pretend to be tolerant of homosexuality, while the worst weapon and most heinous accusation they consistently use to hurl at their ideological opponents is to call them gay - saying loud and clear that being gay is the worst thing there is.
SI is also what causes them to sacrifice their long-held beliefs , and to be willing to support multiply divorced, lifestyle-challenged candidates, when no other republican is available.
Progressive Ignorance is what allows them to assume everybody, including their ideological opponents, is as deficient in integrity as they are, and that Republicans will automatically nominate Rudy Guiliani for their next Presidential candidate without considering another choice.
SI allows them to praise big business and to pretend to follow the intricacies of the stock market because they have a 401-k, and it will somehow make them rich. It allows them to demonize unions, because they might have to pay those "damned union dues", and lord-knows , they don't want some union boss telling them how to vote.
Progressive Ignorance causes them to blindly support unions even though their strong-arm tactics result in fewer jobs, more company closings and the very problems that they like to blame the President for.
Little do they know that their beloved 401-k's are morphing into 001-k's. SI tells them that as long as Maria & Erin are smiling and flirting with them, everything's gonna be okay.SI lets them love their guns, and still be worried when they send their young 'uns off to college . Of course the solution they come up with , is to arm the teachers AND students.SI can turn a campus into a shooting gallery, but at least their son/daughter is locked & loaded.SI allows them to love their God, while actively hating other people for not loving the same God.
Progressive Ignorance allows them to viscerally hate and fear anybody who dares suggest there is a being higher themselves and government. It allows them to despise and portray as hateful those who believe in a just and loving God, while insisting on tolerance for a religion centering around a God who tells its followers to murder anybody who doesn't agree with its teachings.
SI allows them to think at, as Christians, they are the favored ones, while at the same time, believing that God created everyone, and everything.SI allows them to feel free to destroy nature, and still find enough animals to hunt, and fish to catch.
Progressive Ignorance allows them to consider a tree a sacred being while insisting that annihililating human children is a sacred right.
SI allows them to eschew evolution, yet accept the fear of evolving mutations of Bird Flu and other pandemic possibilities.
Progressive ignorance allows them to make patently untrue generalizations, such as it is conservatives who are afraid of pandemic diseases.
It allows them avoid science, and then run to science to cure what ails them.
Progressive Ignorance allows them to claim devotion to "science" while citing principles like "consensus" which are diametrically opposed to any remotely scientific methodology. It allows them to cling fanatically to a primitive theory of evolution which has never been conclusively proven and has indeed been refuted many times in over a hundred years, whose every major "find" has been proven to be a not even very elaborate hoax, even though the rest of science changes so consistently that last semester's science textbooks are already outdated in places.
SI allows them to fight like maniacs to deprive already-born children of food, shelter & a decent education, while claiming to want to preserve pregnancies of women they don't know, will never meet, and never plan on supporting.
It allows them to believe that they are big-hearted humanitarians because they would rather see children brutally murdered before birth rather than face the possibility of a life where they might have to eat Kraft Dinner a few times a week or wear second-hand clothes.
SI makes it possible for them to value huge tax cuts for rich people, and meekly accept pay cuts for themselves.
Progressive Ignorance is what makes them oppose tax cuts that help everybody and support tax hikes, which hurt the lower classes more than anybody.
It makes them happy to HAVE a job..any job, even if it means that the profits of the company they work for, are never distributed to them and their families.
Progressive Ignorance makes them rail against anybody who is successful and self-made. It makes them insist on a raise on the minimum wage as the cure to all society's ills, when in reality it only hurts business and workers alike. It makes them espouse policies that keep workers from having more employment choices. It makes them happy to not have a job....ANY job if they can get welfare instead.
SI makes them crave the biggest baddest car/SUV/truck, and gives them license to bad-mouth people who choose smaller, safer, cleaner forms of transportation.
Progressive Ignorance allows them to preach the evils of prosperity, while insisting from the other side of their mouths that the right and noble thing to do is spend exorbitant sums on alternative cars that will take many years to pay for themselves. They want to keep Joe Public on minimum wage while castigating him for driving a $900 used Buick.
SI allows them to feel superior, even if they have to choose between braces for their kids, and gas for the cars.
Progressive ignorance lets them feel as if they are somehow better than everybody else - smarter, more sophisticated, certainly much more high-minded than the average Joe who is not able to tie his shoes without liberals insisting he ensure they are equipped with "fair trade" laces.
It leads them to the belief that rather than having a child grow up with the eventual hardship of someday needing braces, it is better to dismember it before birth and toss its remains in a hospital dumpster.
SI gives them a euphoric lift when they deliver a crushing blow to an opponent, even if the opponent was right.
Progressive Ignorance is what allows them to entertain the notion that "progressives" are ever right about anything.
SI is what makes them savor pyrrhic victories, as they watch their own world crumbling around them.
Progressive Ignorance is what allows them to pooh-pooh the most dangerous and eminent threat of our times, terrorism, while dedicating all their energies to combating the imaginary spectre of "global warming" - and insisting we all do the same.
SI is also what creates the illusion that they are the majority, instead of a cacophonous minority, hurling insults and epithets at the rest of civilization.
Progressive Ignorance is what creates the illusion that the so-called "religious right" is a force far more powerful than it actually is, and reacts in fear of fundamentalist Christians taking over the country.
Finally, Progressive Ignorance is what will cause this post to be obliterated in record time because they don't have the guts and can't afford to allow their locksteppers to be exposed to any opposing viewpoint. Fortunately, it's been preserved on my own blog.
Update: The post was indeed deleted in record time, as was my account with that forum.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Checking in....and feeling guilty
because I see that my last post was over 1 month ago!! And I haven't had much contact with any of my online friends lately, mainly because I have been working long hours which leave precious little time to go to the library and log on.
It's the same old story that all my ADD readers would recognize. If I had any ADD readers, I'm not sure that I do. You have so many ideas, you don't know where to start, so often, you just don't. And because my original vision for this blog was more of an editorial column format than an online diary one, that makes it even more "fussy."
I need one of those voice memo recorders - "note to self---" - think Norm McDonald. And in about 15 seconds from now as I buzz over to the ADD forums to find out how I can get one of these and any number of other nifty devices I'd like to know about, I will totally forget I am in the middle of this post. So I'll just hit "publish" now.....
It's the same old story that all my ADD readers would recognize. If I had any ADD readers, I'm not sure that I do. You have so many ideas, you don't know where to start, so often, you just don't. And because my original vision for this blog was more of an editorial column format than an online diary one, that makes it even more "fussy."
I need one of those voice memo recorders - "note to self---" - think Norm McDonald. And in about 15 seconds from now as I buzz over to the ADD forums to find out how I can get one of these and any number of other nifty devices I'd like to know about, I will totally forget I am in the middle of this post. So I'll just hit "publish" now.....
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
A Quick Check-In
Just popping in as the library closes down around me to let folks know that I have not yet forgotten this project.
Just saw a moronic bumper sticker on a car in the parking lot, reading "The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth."
Yeah, not enough time to discuss the things wrong with that.
See you all later.
Just saw a moronic bumper sticker on a car in the parking lot, reading "The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth."
Yeah, not enough time to discuss the things wrong with that.
See you all later.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Filth-Free Zone
I will not be posting any obscene commentary on this blog. I don't want to be inundated with job offers by John Edwards' campaign.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Welcome to the Spunkyard Blog!!!
After establishing the Spunky brand on, er, another forum whose moderator(s) have all the fairness and balance of an episode of "Hardball," I am creating this blog for my fans and friends who can't go on forever waiting to catch me between stints at "banned camp."
Enjoy!!!
Enjoy!!!
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