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?

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.

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.

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.

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.