snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 15:31:32 GMT -5
Post by snizz on Jun 15, 2004 15:31:32 GMT -5
Ooops...I did it again!! ;D ;D Boys and girls, have we been behaving badly again? Yes Red you did. ;D But you know what? That's ok. That's the way it's supposed to be. Now more than ever. It's exactly that sort of bulls--t going on at the Sony site that scares the living hell out of me. They claim they're voicing their opinions, but most of those opinions are based on wrong facts, soundbites taken out of context, incorrect history or holy bejeezus what Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy or Al Franken says! Other people point out the mistakes in their facts and they dive into denial, resorting to nothing better than vile namecalling. Red, I tease you about being a pissed off American white chick. ;D You are pissed off and you are an American. So am I and so are a lot of other people. But it's with the system and I'm sick and tired of bithering idiots who reduce it to liberals vs. neocons or democrats vs. republicans. Most pissed off Americans are neither. They're pissed off with them all. We've gotten into more conversations on this subject than I can count. We don't see eye to eye on everything, but you know your sh-t and I'll always respect an informed opinion. From what I can tell, so does everyone else who's involved in this discussion. Too many people are afraid of speaking their minds, and that's what's causing the great divide. Diversions to escape the real issues weighing on everyone helps keep people from going insane. That's cool. But the elephant's still in the room and it isn't going to disappear by ignoring it.
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 15:42:00 GMT -5
Post by snizz on Jun 15, 2004 15:42:00 GMT -5
Just doing my civic duty. ;D And it's fun. Masochistic. Very fitting and not to nitpick with you man ;D but that one wasn't on the album.
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 15:57:06 GMT -5
Post by snizz on Jun 15, 2004 15:57:06 GMT -5
Yes you are right. When I went into the service my intentions were pure, serve my country, defend the constitution, and the people. Then after serving you understand it is like the law all smoke and mirrors. You're not defending anything except the interests of the rich and powerful. I can not beleive how cynical I have become. Travelinman, one thing I've learned. It sucks growing up. The older you get the more you figure out most of what we're taught as kids are lies. Smoke and mirrors as you say. Take Reagan. No matter what people think of his adminstration, he was a President and entitled to the honor of a state funeral and a day of mourning. A day of mourning, not a week. I'm with those who thought the wall to wall media circus was inappropriate to the extreme. And I've had it with being treated like a 'shroom. The present administration's feeble attempts to rewrite history as recent as 3 years ago or even yesterday is gag inducing enough. What galled me most is the proclaimation that history has vindicated Reagan. I sure as hell don't agree, we're still living with a lot of the damage. I've got plenty of memories of the Reagan years and I come up short on good ones. Now he's being credited with singlehandedly bringing down the Berlin Wall and ending communism. He had nothing to do with it. It was already coming down before his first term started. Through people like Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement. Reagan refused any dialogue with the USSR his entire first term. Gorbachev didn't make his first visit to Germany until May of 1989, after Reagan was out of office. The Wall didn't fall until months after that. During that time a lot of other events took place in Europe that sealed it. The Wall began being physically removed the following year and the job wasn't completed until two years after that. In the non-fiction version of history, the Berlin Wall and the fall of communism didn't happened until Bush HWs term. Some spinmeister pulls a soundbite from a Reagan speech and in an instant the course of history is changed forever? If anyone bothers reading through the history of those events, Reagan's name isn't mentioned once.
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 22:18:06 GMT -5
Post by LS on Jun 15, 2004 22:18:06 GMT -5
Somebody neglected to tell somebody this part. Gee- coulda sworn somebody mentioned that part... ;D
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 22:27:57 GMT -5
Post by LS on Jun 15, 2004 22:27:57 GMT -5
snizzster...was it the heat or were ya hitting the Carta Blanca a little early today?? ;D That was almost downright...inspirational!! ;D Much truth there indeed... I rarely agree with his viewpoint- but this one really drives home what you're saying... Instead Of Arguments, We Get Shouts & Insultsby John Leo Something has happened to debate in this country. As many reporters reminded us last week, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan fought sharply during the day but enjoyed having the occasional drink or two together after work. In the old days, William F. Buckley Jr. would hold public debates with all comers, then go out to dinner with his opponent. Nowadays, Buckley or his adversary probably would be required to take umbrage, hurl some insult, then stomp out in a snit. In the current Atlantic Monthly, P.J. O'Rourke says that, "Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, seems to have gone out of fashion with everyone." O'Rourke doesn't pay much attention, he says, to talk radio, Ann Coulter, Al Franken or Michael Moore because they just shout things at partisan audiences that already agree with their chosen shouter. Technology reinforces the decline of serious argument - now we can all go to a TV channel, a radio show or a Web site that will protect us from those aliens across the moat who disagree with us. It's true that we have more semi-structured "Crossfire"-style debates than ever before. But much of this is rigidly pre-programmed sniping. (I was once chastised by a TV producer for not interrupting other speakers more. What a failure!) Even when the sniping is played down, TV demands sharp sound bites, which push all talking heads toward more vehemence and simplemindedness. Instant certainty becomes mandatory. Where's the real debate? Arguing is crucial to education. It's a kind of intellectual roughhouse that lets students try out new ideas. E.J. Dionne, Jr., columnist for The Washington Post, sometimes tells his class at Georgetown University that he intends to support the argument of whichever group in the class is in the minority. He does this because he wants his students to argue as passionately as possible without fear of intimidation by a dominant group. In his book "The Revolt of the Elites," the late Christopher Lasch wrote that only in the course of argument do "we come to understand what we know and what we still need to learn. ... We come to know our own minds only by explaining ourselves to others." If we wish to be engaged in serious argument, Lasch explained, we must enter into another person's mental universe and put our own ideas at risk. Exactly. When a friend launches an argument and your rebuttal sounds tinny to your own ears, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out that something's wrong - usually, that you don't really agree with the words coming out of your own mouth. Arguing can rescue us from our own half-formed opinions.[/b]
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 22:29:51 GMT -5
Post by Roughneck on Jun 15, 2004 22:29:51 GMT -5
Ooops...I did it again!! ;D ;D Totally Roughneck...listen to old blues songs- tons of 'em were majorly political. Besides...not like anyone but a few of us read or post this board anyway...It's an important topic that needs to be talked about- and looks like there's some here who want to talk about it. It's outta the way here...so anyone not interested can easily avoid it. I was just mentioning the irony. ;D Since when have we cared about formality or decor around here?
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 22:33:50 GMT -5
Post by LS on Jun 15, 2004 22:33:50 GMT -5
Masochistic. Why else would he hang with me?? ;D Since at the moment he's in his usual <prone> position ...in his defense- he's not totally wrong. ;D Nope it's not on the original vinyl version...but since it was originally only released as a single- they stuck it on the CD re-issue.
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UNCLE!
Jun 15, 2004 22:37:19 GMT -5
Post by LS on Jun 15, 2004 22:37:19 GMT -5
I was just mentioning the irony. ;D Since when have we cared about formality or decor around here? Ah- well then in that case...that would be like- ummm... NEVER !! ;D ;D
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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UNCLE!
Jun 17, 2004 14:16:43 GMT -5
Post by snizz on Jun 17, 2004 14:16:43 GMT -5
snizzster...was it the heat or were ya hitting the Carta Blanca a little early today?? ;D That was almost downright...inspirational!! ;D Steer it up, little darlin', steer it up. ;D A little of both Red ;D and a lot of pissed off. The mercury's been hovering near 90. snizz had the day off. Perfect. Hit the beach, right? Wrong! Funding cutbacks. Beaches and parks are only open on weekends until the end of June. So I grabbed a beer and parked my chair in some shade in the yard. After five minutes the stench is enough to make me puke. Anybody know what a street worth of decaying bags packed with three month old decaying leaves in the heat and humidity, smells like? Pick up was supposed to be every day of every week since March. Half a dozen phone calls later and there they still sit. Should be no surprise after a rough winter where zero snowplows cleared zero roads. Then the thought crosses the snizzster's mind to head into town to toss back a couple at the nice air conditioned local pub, shoot the sh-t, knock a few balls around the table. The thought passes. I remember I can't do that either. Smoking ban. So I wound up rattling around inside the house with the air conditioner on, screwing around on the computer to pass the time while listening to the thieving electric company screaming at us to conserve energy because there's not going to be enough to make it while the politicans keep green lighting new construction. The feds and the state already skim close to a third of what I make annually. On top of that I pay $6800 in property taxes on a small unassuming cape in a working class neighborhood. For what? I'm fed up to my eyeballs of paying over and beyond for shi-t my tax dollars are supposed to be paying for and we never get.
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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UNCLE!
Jun 17, 2004 22:03:25 GMT -5
Post by snizz on Jun 17, 2004 22:03:25 GMT -5
Why else would he hang with me?? ;D Nah, that's one of his few good points. ;D I was rudely interrupted by those storms this afternoon I didn't know that I thought it was only on the Greatest Hits CD. I must have taken a leak when they reissued it on CD because I missed it. So you've got a copy of the CD version? ;D
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UNCLE!
Jun 17, 2004 22:12:37 GMT -5
Post by LS on Jun 17, 2004 22:12:37 GMT -5
Nah, that's one of his few good points. ;D LOL!! I'm not so sure he'd agree with ya there... Yeah that was some pretty wicked stuff... So's that a not so subtle hint?? I'm gonna get busted yet... ;D Ah so snizz was in cantankerous mode huh?? I hear ya...same boat here. And I thought things were bad when they started shutting 'em down at night. Things have gotten massively out of control...
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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UNCLE!
Jun 17, 2004 22:23:31 GMT -5
Post by snizz on Jun 17, 2004 22:23:31 GMT -5
Yeah that was some pretty wicked stuff... So's that a not so subtle hint?? I'm gonna get busted yet... ;D You read snizz so well. ;D
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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UNCLE!
Jun 28, 2004 0:56:01 GMT -5
Post by snizz on Jun 28, 2004 0:56:01 GMT -5
THE POMP OF REAGAN'S BURIAL Americans Bury A Tradition Modesty once marked presidential funerals, so what happened to move us so far from our roots?
BY SUSAN JACOBY June 24, 2004
American taxpayers recently spent at least $400 million to bury a private citizen who died of Alzheimer's disease at age 93.
That statement would boggle the mind of anyone who did not know that the deceased was former President Ronald W. Reagan - and it should disturb Americans regardless of their views of Reagan's presidency. Amid all the press bloviating about tradition and pageantry, almost no one raised the simple question of why, in what is supposed to be a democracy, we stage extravagant state funerals that confer quasi-royal status on men who once had the good fortune to be elected to their country's highest office.
Presidents, former presidents and presidents-elect are entitled to state funerals, but this "tradition" is not a mandate. It is a choice that has been eschewed by many sensible former presidents and their families, beginning with George Washington in 1799.
The country's four living ex-presidents - Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush - are in a position to do their country a real final service by rejecting an overblown state funeral and reflecting on the fact that they are not kings but citizens. (The total cost for Reagan's funeral is expected to far exceed $400 million, which only covers the cost of the holiday President George W. Bush ordered for federal workers.)
Washington, who could probably have been elected president for life had he not been so sensitive to the danger that the young republic might elevate the president to the status of monarch, was buried in private ceremonies at his home in Mount Vernon, Va.
No president of the revolutionary generation had a state funeral, and there is something profoundly moving about the explicit modesty surrounding the founders' burial arrangements. The inscription on John Adams' tomb in the United First Parish (Unitarian) Church of Quincy, Mass., reads in part: "He pledged his Life, Fortune and sacred Honor/To the Independence of his Country/On the fourth of July 1826/He was summoned to the Independence of Immortality/And the Judgement of His God."
What has happened to move Americans so far from the democratic modesty of the nation's origins? One factor is confusion between what is appropriate to memorialize a president who dies in office - whether through assassination or of natural causes - and what is appropriate for a former president. Abraham Lincoln's 1865 assassination, with the work of repairing a war-shattered nation barely begun, was a traumatic event for all Americans, as was John F. Kennedy's assassination a century later.
In such circumstances, it is necessary that national shock and mourning be expressed, and assuaged, by public funeral services. The details of Kennedy's funeral, supervised by his widow and his brother Robert, were famously modeled after Lincoln's. But the burials of Lincoln and Kennedy should not become a template for aging ex-presidents who die in the fullness of their years.
Ford, Carter, Clinton and Bush Sr. would do better to follow the model of Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Roosevelt died of natural causes in April 1945, the public - which had no knowledge of his advanced heart disease - was as stunned and bereaved as if he had been assassinated. Thousands of ordinary people, in an outpouring of grief for the president who had led them through the Depression and World War II, lined the railroad tracks as his body was moved from Warm Springs, Ga., where he died, to the nation's capital.
But there was no overblown pomp, no "lying in state," for FDR. "That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt," a memoir of the Roosevelt years based on a recently discovered manuscript by Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson, captures the simplicity of the ceremonies. Jackson noted tersely, "The funeral service was at 4:00 and we returned to the White House for it. The ceremony was simple, short." The private service was not broadcast over the radio - as powerful a medium at that time as television is today.
By late evening, Roosevelt's body was en route for burial at his beloved home in Hyde Park, N.Y. Again, thousands lined the tracks in the darkness and privacy of the pre-television era.
There are those who argue that drawn-out televised ceremonies are the only way to allow people a way to express their grief for a fallen leader. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that the style of funeral dating from the Kennedy assassination is more a creature of television's relentless invasion of privacy than of a desire to mourn. Here's a thought. Our living ex-presidents might announce that, in lieu of an expensive Washington funeral, their estates will make a major contribution to charity. If members of the public wish to honor their favorite president, why not volunteer for an organization that seeks to carry on his ideals? That would be a better way than clogging the streets of Washington to respect both the memory of dead presidents and the ideals of American democracy.
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UNCLE!
Jul 1, 2004 22:39:39 GMT -5
Post by LS on Jul 1, 2004 22:39:39 GMT -5
You read snizz so well. ;D Gotcha covered. THE POMP OF REAGAN'S BURIAL Americans Bury A Tradition Modesty once marked presidential funerals, so what happened to move us so far from our roots? Yep...some of my thoughts exactly.
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