Friday Apr 20, 2007

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Deep down, I'm an optimist about human beings. We do lots of annoying stuff, like you know sometimes marginalizing the pain of our fellow human beings, but really our capacity to live together and cooperate is generally astounding. Last night, I was flipping channels and stopped on Wildboyz for a second (seriously - stick with me here for a second), which is the Jackass spin-off where Steve-O gets mauled by various animals in exotic locales. So, they were in the Phillipines doing some dance ritual.... that involved getting smacked with a big stick. These guys are totally hamming it up, and I'll admit to cracking up about it. What was amazing was they showed footage of the villagers where they were at - and they were *dying* with laughther. Even the old dudes. And it was kind of a beautiful thing. Sure, we could be cynical and say they were paid to laugh or something. But I don't think that sounds plausible. I just find it really *sublime* that I can sit on my Ikea couch watching digital cable and laugh at Steve-O's big welts just as easily as a 75 year old Filipino woman can. There is such a thing as universalism, and it's kinda wonderful really.

Similarly, this morning in The New York Times there was an article that mentioned Amish men and women coming out to show their support for folks at Virginia Tech. They were motivated, in part, by the outpouring of support they received from when those girls were killed last year at an Amish school house. There's bittersweet beauty to that.

Then, of course, I moved over a page and read about doucebag conservative talk radio hosts exploiting the event, which quickly evaporated my budding good vibe.

Here's a nice selection:


Mr. [Michael] Savage, whose harsh comments about homosexuality resulted in his dismissal from MSNBC in 2003, sneered audibly as he referred to Mr. Cho as "a senior in English," drawing out the word for emphasis, and as "Comandante Cho." (Mr. Cho, who was born in South Korea, had come to the United States with his family in 1992, when he was 8.)

"This kid was brainwashed over there," Mr. Savage said. Later he added that "the only reason" Mr. Cho "was walking the streets was because liberal scum have for 30 years handcuffed the police and the people of this country and made us hostages in their drama."

At one point Mr. Savage suggested that Mr. Cho "uses the rhetoric of Al Qaeda when he rails against rich kids, debauchery and alcohol" _ as he apparently did in a note found in his dorm room _ though, after taking several calls, Mr. Savage began to back-pedal from any possible terrorist connection in Virginia.



Yea for intelligent discourse! Yea for obfuscating the real issues of mental health and the tragedy of not being able to predict and prevent all tragedies!

People are welcome to their own opinions, but this kind of vomit - more about anger and ratings than real commentary - just makes real deliberation that much harder.

VIEW 21 of 21 COMMENTS
emilygee:
Super!

I'm doing research in the R.R. Donnelley archive this quarter and over the summer -- it's housed in Special Collections at the Reg. Of late, I've been down in HP on Wednesdays and Fridays -- I could meet up for coffee (starting the following week as I'm dirt broke right now) in the morning or after 5PM. Let me know what would work best for you.

Hope to finally meet IRL.
ckdexterhaven:
Well, i think it's either one of two things. Now that he has his own show (which is really good, by the way), where he isn't required to be the token conservative (like he was on Crossfire), he's much more comfortable expressing his independent views. Or it could be that he's just a fucking hypocrite, who is taking advantage of an unpopular war and an unpopular President to bash the Republican party to make himself look better. After all, when the war propaganda machine was in full strength, Tucker wasn't exactly looking at it with a critical eye (as Pat Buchanan was, for example). I'm leaning towards the former.

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