Villainous Company

i posted my list over at my site. it contained: Michael Savage, Pat Buchanan, Dr. Dobson, Santorum, Fallwell, Tucker Carlson, Bob Novak, Pat Robertson and Paul Harvey.

I haven't read the links yet. Let me say the following:

Savage. Easy choice. I can't stand listening to his show.

Buchanan. Also pretty easy.

Judge Roy Moore.

I'll agree to Fallwell and Robertson, but I don't think Dobson belongs in that same list. He is a target, and is hit unfairly sometimes.

That movie reviewer guy who has a radio show. Michael Medville or something like that. He can be pretty annoying (he is a big believer in bigfoot of all things), though he is alright sometimes.

I'll go read the link for ideas now.

After looking at the lists, I would add Arlen Specter. Coulter can be annoying, but she is darned funny in a mean sort of way.

Oh wow, you've got to take Sen. Santorum off that list. He is just standing up and showing backbone, saying many things outloud that conservatives say in hushed tones. More than that, he really believes what he is saying and those things are not bad.

Testing to figure out what's objectionable...

Heh. I *still* don't know what I typed that your software objects to.

I did not respond to the email, as I know I'm a clueless naif.

I like your's and John's lists.

I think he over-values Savage. I put Savage in the same bin as Art Bell.

email me the text - usually spammers have gotten me to ban some meaningless text string.

Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell top my list followed closely by that utter moron Savage. These guys are an embarrassment.

John, it was "on..."

I removed it from the blacklist.

You mean Michael Medved? He took over for another commentator in Seattle when we lived at Lewis.

I worry about him too, although he does get a really terrific rabbi to sit in for him sometimes.

He could almost write Liberal Larry's blog.

He was a movie critic, and I supposedly thought he did all right with some movies, but when he raved about 'Titanic' I lost it.

It was not accurate historically and it preyed on the so called class warfare when nothing of the kind happened...in a full rant over that.

Art Bell is loopy.
Savage and Hannity
Rush Limbaugh

Yeah. Medved. That's it.

He breaks before every commercial with "... in this greatest country on God's green Earth." I have gotten dopier in my old age, but his delivery of that line is so freaking dopey sounding. And why is the Earth green, anyway? Most of it is water, and that looks more blue from space.

KJ,
You're such a fuddy-duddy :). Most of us don't live in the ocean, ya know, even though you're right about how Earth looks like from space. When in doubt, ask Bob (that's Robert Heinlein to you kids out there). See below.

Dobson, Falwell, and that bowtie-on-too-tight dweeb Carlson (never heard Michael Savage on radio!); Ann Coulter has nice legs and pretty eyes, but she rants a little too much; plus Mary Matalin (who could be married to Carville? Yechhh! They both drive me nuts!)

Green Hills of Earth
Words by Robert A Heinlein and Jacob Sommer
music by Jacob Sommer

We rot in the molds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

Chorus:
We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

The harsh bright soil of Luna,
It shines for all to view.
Her cold and sterile craters
All lack the morning dew.

(Chorus)

Saturn's rainbow rings are precious,
A guide in the depths of space.
Her dust and rocks form colors bright,
Unique chromatic grace.

(Chorus)

In the frozen night of Titan,
We shiver in empty cold.
Her frozen shrouded cloudbanks
Hide mysteries yet untold.

(Chorus)

The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
All hands! Stand by! Free falling!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps the race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet.

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.

copyright Robert A Heinlein, 1947
Additional words Jacob Sommer, March 20 2001

I missed you :)

Ah! Recriminations and rancor! My kind of list. ;)

10) Bill Frist - Grow a backbone, will you?
9) Dennis Hastert - The most invisible Speaker of the House 've ever seen.
8) Michael Savage - Man, did he lose it somewhere along the line. Can ranting about liberals actually drive someone insane?
7) George Voinovich - If there's anything I hate worse than a squish, it's a crybaby.
6) Andrew Sullivan - Flip one day. Flop the next. Can we grant him a one-time exemption to marry whoever or whatever the hell he wants so he'll JUST SHUT UP?
5) Colin Powell - Never met a leak he didn't like. Sold our foreign policy for cheap, especially in Iran.
4) Lindsey Graham - Way to hand the Democrats a big ol' steaming pile of victories, you dope. I nearly wretched when I saw you chumming with your newest Guantanamo=Nazis buddies on the other side of the aisle.
3) Chuck Hagel - Dude, just become a Democrat and get it over with, would you? Oh yeah, and stop hacking your own party on Meet the Press every freaking chance you get, okay?
2) Pat Buchanan - Okay. We get it. You're an isolationist. Join that militia you've been eyeing out in the west and leave us alone.
2) John McCain - You spent how many years being tortured in a POW camp in Vietnam and you couldn't muster one minute of righteous indignation to combat the Guantanamo BS? Not one minute? Some patriot you are. Oh yeah, when the MSM calls you a "maverick" they really mean "the guy we'll back until it looks like he's pummeled all the other Republicans, then we'll stab in the back so our Demcorat can win". They don't love you, John, no matter how much they tell you they do. They're just using you. Just about any woman alive knows that play. How dumb do you have to be not to notice it yourself?

You wouldn't be our own long lost and well liked and side splittingly funny Jimmy-the-leg, would you? If ya aren't, loved the list. Good call on McCain.

KJ, Medved doesn't get enough sunshine up there in the Pacific Northwet. When it DOES come shining through, he goes batty. And he says it is 'God's green earth' because he is based in emissions-free Seattle where on a non rainy day one can see the Space Needle and Washington is known as the Evergreen State. The ONLY thing I miss about that batty climate is that the residents on the coast
don't need AC. I hate air conditioning but need it here in Humid Hell so I can feel like I am not sprouting gills.

John McCain is #1 on my list, all others are Posers.

I don't know Joat - I rather liked Annika's take on McCain. I left him off my list because John said "people on the RIGHT"...

Heh.

McCain is an embarassment to all us Arizonans. He's definitely top of the dungheap.

Yes but it`s just a matter of semantics(sp)
Mc Cain is a RINO because he doesn`t want to bite the hand that feeds him but he`ll also take scraps from the Dems.
If I were a betting man I`d bet that his politics would change the instant the Democrats could guarentee a steady cash flow equal to or better than what the Republicans give him.

And another thing...Andrew Sullivan is not on the right.
He`s a fiscal conservative only and that just ain't good enough.
A conservative is, for lack of a better word, Conservative.
Not liberal. Not Moderate. Not Libertarian. And certainly not wishy-washy thinking like his.
Now if you want a real Conservative in the Oval Office by 2008 start campaigning for me now.

Joatmoaf in '08. it`s the right choice.

Joatmoaf: a woman in every kitchen... err...

Heh.

Michael Savage should have been an easy #1 ... Pat Buchanon makes sense, though I think he's more a populist then a conservative (isolationist, protectionist) ... Mary Matlin just cause I hate her whiny voice and lets be honest, to marry snake head James Carville there must be something wrong with this woman!!! G Gordon Liddy is one missing from the group. John McCain??? Is he conservative?

Well, labeling is always tough. I didn't think to include the northeast liberal Republicans b/c they never claimed to be conservative.

McCain votes conservative a high percentage of the time. He qualifies.

As for Joat's comment, I guess, apparently, a conservative also has to be against gay civil unions. I don't pay attention to Sullivan really, so I don't what else he thinks.

That said - I would really like a fiscal conservative in the white house. I'm sorry, but being pro-life isn't enough (actually, it isn't high on my list at all, but it certainly isn't enough).

I'm tired of the big spending Republicans. The focus has too long been on electing social-cons, which often is where I part ranks and makes me neo-librarian. Our deficit and spending and social programs and pork just grow and grow and grow.

I'll sacrifice a little for a social con IF he has the balls to actually cut spending. Until then, I don't need to hear speeches about how "fiscal conservatives" aren't enough. Hell, even fiscal conservatives can't be found in the Republican party unless they are libertarians pretending to be Republians (e.g., Ron Paul). We have Reps controlling Congress and the White House. Anyone notice a govt. program getting slashed? Eliminated? A govt. agency?

If it weren't for the WOT, Bush would be on my list. Because he is a big government near-liberal on spending, and it is not doing us any good at all. He cuts taxes and thinks his job is done. How about vetoing a pork filled spending bill W? Where are your conservative creditials here at home?

Frodo, you know what happens to the Carville/Gollum in the end.

I still have issues with the Patriot Act.

Cricket,
Nope, I'm not that side-splittingly funny Jimmy. I'm an entirely different side-splittingly funny Jimmie who, incidentally, has his own blog (hint hint) and comes here because Cassandra is one of his few true blogging role models.
That and you never know what you'll find here. For instance, I'm pretty sure I read an admission a day or so ago from Cassandra that she digs porn. See, that's just the kind of blogging we need more of!

Oh dear, Jimmie...

I think what you read was my admission that I get just as turned on by some of it as anyone else does, so I suppose that statement is accurate. I think that is a function of the fact that I am a normal, red-blooded woman.

I have to be honest though. I find most porn a bit offputting - my own imagination works far better :) I have never seen any of the hard core stuff and never want to.

I have been trying, for several months, to sort out my feelings about it, which are admittedly very strong - to decide what is reasonable on my part and whether I am overreacting in some of my objections. It's hard to know whether they are emotional, visceral, or rational, or a bit of all three.

I think that last is probably the real answer.

I will admit here to my shame (not) that I looked at a couple of girlie magazines and a couple of copies of Playgirl.

That was over twenty years ago. I howled with laughter over the so called 'models' or 'actresses.'

My reasons for disliking it are on several layers.
First of all, I don't see its existence as 'speech.'
I also don't see it as necessary for a healthy sex life. Admittedly, I have a religious bias against it because I see it as a mockery of a sacred binding relationship that should only exist in marriage.

Yes, I know people shack up, live together, yadda Back to porn: It has also been linked to sex crimes from harrassment to rape and murder.

I can't justify it except to say that while it can titillate, it can't satisfy.

*dusting off my soapbox*

Dang I hate when a screed gets erased. What I meant to say about live in relationships is that even some states recognize common law marriage and I have known a few couples in my time who are common law
husband and wife, and have been faithful.

Okay, done.

1. On the matter of conservatives I don't like. To me, this is a foolish exercise. I don't like many conservatives. The ugly truth is that in my day-to-day real life, on average I like liberals (i.e., people who probably voted for Kerry) rather than conservatives (i.e., people who probably voted for Bush). I was at least 40 before I realized this, but it has struck me moving from one affluent bedroom community that is not a major center of learning (Ridgewood, New Jersey) to an affluent town that has several academic institutions (Princeton, New Jersey). The ugly, awful, truth is that I much prefer the people here. They are, on average, fascinating. Most of the probable Bush voters in Republican old Ridgewood were -- how to put it -- boring.

2. In the world of blogs and media, however, I much prefer conservatives, but that is probably because I don't know them. I'm guessing that as people -- friends, neighbors, dinner companions -- the liberals out there are much more pleasant than the conservatives. Hannity v. Combs? I vote with Hannity, but I'd much prefer to have Combs over for dinner.

3. I'm not sure how this thread morphed into a discussion of porn, but I might as well confess that I rather enjoy porn. I appreciate that it is uncool to say so, but I do. Nothing weird, nothing in excess, but I am afraid that I do like it. And I'm not the only one. Most of the pay-per-view movie revenues in $250/night business hotels comes from porn.

The ugly truth is that we men are porn-watching pigs.

1. Have you considered that you may have gotten a skewed picture of liberals/conseratives? (i.e., you moved from an area that "was not a major center of learning" - and where the vast majority of people you met would therefore bore you and were also more likely to be conservative - to an "affluent area with academic institutions" where people are much more likely to be liberal). In other words, it may not be so much the liberal/conservative divide you are reacting to as the educated/non-educated divide, n'est pas my friend?

When I was going to school, my friends were all college professors (every one) and they were for the most part conservatives: as it happened they didn't wear their politics on their sleeves - you couldn't tell in class, but people with similar values tend to get along. And I have plenty of friends who are Dems too. The common thread tends to be that my long-time friends are all highly educated and well-read. Also open-minded - that is a must or I won't have anything to do with them.

2. Hannity v. Combs? Boy that's a tossup. Both IMO are bitter, close-minded partisans. I wouldn't have either to dinner.

3. Don't know where you get the 'uncool to say so' from :) If anything, I'm the one who is in the minority here, TH, and I always have been, to the extent that I am uncomfortable/afraid to express my opinion about it on my own blog (which in a way I think is sad - when have I ever been uncomfortable expressing my opinion about anything?). And as I stated earlier, I am well aware that it is mainstream.

All jokes aside, the 'pigs' thing has always come from you guys. I have never seriously called anyone that. There are many things I do not understand about men, and a few that distress me at times. But I have never tried to remake them in my own mold - I accept them the way they are.

And that said, let me say this:

That doesn't mean that on occasion I won't try to express a feminine viewpoint (not that there's only one - because some women like porn) across, if I can. It strikes me that very often men and women don't talk about a lot of important things. And if they do, the conversation degenerates into an emotionally-charged or whiny diatribe, loaded with recriminations.

That is mainly why I'm afraid to say, what I wish I could say, here.

I have a lot of thoughts on this subject. On how it makes a lot of women feel, that I think would be very enlightening to a lot of men. I think they might help men to understand some of our objections to pornography, just as I have come to understand, through talking to men, that it is not as big a threat as I thought it was (in other words, though I still have some objections to it, some of my notions about why men like porn were wrong).

But I don't know how to say what I want to say without it coming out wrong. I'm not sure there is any "right" way, and the subject is too emotionally-laden.

If you say you're "for" or "against" something, people jump to all sorts of conclusions about you. But the truth is really somewhere in the middle. Like John Kerry, my position on this issue is highly-nuanced.

I certainly understand why people are offended by porn. Heck, I'm offended by porn. But I like it. This is the trouble with vice -- we can object with one part of our brain and enjoy with another.

At one level, there are few institutions more degrading to people than casinos. Have you ever stood around in one and just watched the people? Casinos reduce people to jackasses, just like Pleasure Isle in Pinnochio. But I find them very entertaining, in small doses, nonetheless.

As for the conservative/liberal thing, I was, of course, speaking in sweeping generalities. However, the people in Ridgewood were exceedingly well-educated in the traditional sense -- top schools, mentally challenging jobs, etc. They were just shallow.

Let me take a shot at expressing this differently -- as is obvious to any reader of TigerHawk, I'm interested in lots of things. In addition to politics, social criticism (or snarking) and international affairs, I post on biology, technology, humor, numismatics, legal affairs, health care policy, corporate governance (Bainbridge and I are blog friends), sports, etc. I read novels and a huge variety of non-fiction, from medieval history to pop science to geeky corporate governance stuff. Unfortunately, it is my sad experience that -- bloggers aside -- most people who have such similarly broad interests are liberals. If I stay away from politics, on average I prefer them in conversation.

Oh dear. As far as I'm willing to go on this subject is to say that (and I have absolutely no idea whether Cricket would agree with me on this) I am darned hard to offend :) I'm really not overly fastidious, TH. I like sex, very much. Always have, and at my age there's really not too much that is going to shock me. Women are far more down to earth than most men give them credit for, and I'm more down to earth than most women. I'll admit I don't like overt crudity, but other than that, I don't shock easily.

And so in the end, I am not so much offended by porn as I am hurt by it. That is the heart and soul of my objection, I fear. And there is probably no way to explain that to a man. I don't really understand it, and... oh, it is time for me to shut up :)

Men and women look at things *so* differently. Men separate love and sex in the mind, and we... well, we don't. It is a very painful contradiction.

TH, ever notice the test for obsenity according to the Supreme Court? Let me give the long version and the short version -- it is a 3 part test:

1. Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and
3. @hether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

In other words,

1. It turns you on; and
2. It repulses you (that's right, it isn't porn if doesn't turn you on and repulse you at the same time); and
3. Other than the sex, it sucks.

Nice summing up, counselor. It either gets you going or it repulses you.

Cass, I have met women who find it earthy and appealing. The old classic Playboys were art compared to the garbage that is around now.

Even Playgirl had some good stuff, but I don't
have it around for aforementioned reasons. I don't sit in judgement on those who enjoy it.

In another post your defined your limits as to what you didn't like about it.

Just so you know the type of man I married (I hear the oinkers starting up)here is one that had our home health nurse just about expiring:

I am in my hospital bed and she is taking notes on my history.

Nurse: So, Mrs R, do you have any problems with
heavy breathing or shortness of breath?

Engineer in background: Only when I am on top of
her.

She looked like she had swallowed a gallon of prune juice laced with lemons. It hurt so bad to laugh but I just roared.

What a sancitmonious old prude.

I love that story :)

You can get through anything in life if you can laugh together.

And I definitely think too much. That is my biggest problem in life.

You are so right about the former, and you think fine.

Otherwise we wouldn't have your blog to provoke us
and make us think.

And that story is true. We have been through some really rough times and laughter has helped us cope.

If I may share: I wonder what would happen if Carville ever went to to toe with his wife?

I would have an agreement to not discuss work.

"And I definitely think too much. That is my biggest problem in life."

That is the basic advantage we have. We have two heads with which to think. Although, admittedly, one does more of the thinking than the other, and the other does more of the hat wearing.

So, does this mean that men are descended from those dinosaurs that had two brains?

*ducking and running*