Scene from a Canadian bookstore
Update: I just noticed that another of the books on the “Jerks” table is How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, a parody of the famous (in the ’40s and ’50s) Dale Carnegie book How to Win Friends and Influence People. My fifth-grade teacher read excerpts from the parody aloud to us. We thought it was pretty funny, if I recall correctly.
This is the same teacher who was gravely offended when The Beatles stormed the shores of America. He put a newspaper photo of the “moptops” on the bulletin board and sneered mightily at the name “Ringo Starr” – but I suspect he knew the battle was lost already. Ol’ Mr. Cowen was a Goldwater Republican, but this particular class of American pop kids went totally potty for The Beatles, and I suspect most of us turned out to be liberals, if not libertines.
Yessssssssssssssss!!!
Ann Coulter is an ugly, chain-smoking, right-wing-puppet, gun-toting, insensitive, over-rated, irrelevant, non-intellectual-even-though-she-thinks-she-is, plain-old-horrible person.
If I had even the remotest of right-leaning tendencies, I would be embarrassed by her. As it is, I don’t, so I feel badly for my friends who are right-leaning, and who have to put up with the fact that she “speaks” for them.
Right on, DG.
Any truth the the rumour that Ann Coulter is a Deadhead. It makes me sick to think that Tucker Carlson’s one, but Ann too? What’s the world coming to?
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who likes Grateful Dead music can call himself or herself a Deadhead. That’s the sole criterion. I know plenty of Deadheads with whom I disagree about lots of things – although I am hard pressed to think of any American more disagreeable than Ann Coulter. Well, there’s Bill O’Reilly and that other vicious right-wing head case, Michael the Savage Weiner.
That said, I’m afraid the rumors are true: Ann Coulter was, at one time, a Deadhead. I know a guy who dated her and went to shows with her.
How anyone could spend time in a liberating, spiritually nourishing place like a GD show and wind up as twisted as Ms Coulter is a great mystery.
“I know plenty of Deadheads with whom I disagree about lots of things”
Never a truer word was spoken, especially if you’ve read anything on my site besides my Dead posts.
The trouble is not that people disagree. It’s that in the act of disagreeing, they shut themselves off completely from ANYTHING someone has to say when they disagree on one or two points.
The Left is just as intolerant, insulting and pig-headed as the right. The problem is that there is no middle ground anymore, and we are too quick to pass judgement and shut down.
The Left keeps stating that they support diversity, but I’m not buying it.
>How anyone could spend time in a liberating, spiritually nourishing place like a GD show and wind up as twisted as Ms Coulter is a great mystery.
It does explain her willingness to divorce herself from reality for extended periods. She unfortunately found herself in a very dark place and never looked back.
Right vs. Left
A comment by Jonathan over at David Gans’ blog started me thinking about just exactly what are Left- or Right-leaning tendencies? Who decides? Why do we need to label them as such? I have both, if we want to label…
I think Coulter started off in that dark place (her father’s a real pip, from all accounts) and just went with it.
As per being attracted to GD shows: I’m thinking that she probably got off on the thrill of surrounding herself with so many people of the sort that she “loved to hate” more than the music, simply because that’s her M.O. now. She thrives on conflict. She’s a purebred troll.
I’ve known other people like that; they start early. Clearest example that leaps immediately to mind: a boy I went to high school with. He was very bright and a sort of enfant terrible; his favorite thing to do was to throw a remark like “At least Hitler did what he said he was going to do, which is more than you can say for the Left” into a classroom discussion. He was a little proto-freeper and the yearbook has photos of him holding forth at a debate lectern, looking quite the baby blackshirt, what with the shirt and the sneer and the hand gesture. Where does he end up going to college? UC Santa Cruz. He would’ve been miserable going somewhere where he didn’t have vast seas of earnest liberals to poke at; that was his whole raison d’etre. Well, that and pot, as it later turned out. Lots and lots and lots of it, too, among other things, to the point where he managed to do his life some damage, or so I later heard. Not a happy guy.
Hi David
Not my first time here, but my first time leaving a comment. You may know me from the GDH mailing list.
Yanyway, I just wanted to drop a line saying that I totally agree with you. The sanctity of the music is assured, it cannot be appropriated and defined to suit our own prejudices. It exists outside of this whole universe of propositions and conclusions.
Its what makes it so great.
Cheers
Deep
I’ve always felt that whatever went on in the revolving world around us and our opinions on it was irrelevant when it came to the music and the joy that it brings us. And while I don’t agree with her politics, or maybe yours, or Mark’s (hey Mark!) if I saw you at a show, I hope we would dance.
This picture is FABULOUS! I really got a good chuckle out of it. Thanks for posting it.
Peace……………..
“The sanctity of the music is assured, it cannot be appropriated and defined to suit our own prejudices. It exists outside of this whole universe of propositions and conclusions.”
What a great way of putting it!
Thanks for stopping by with your two cents, David.
“The sanctity of the music is assured, it cannot be appropriated and defined to suit our own prejudices. It exists outside of this whole universe of propositions and conclusions.”
That really does say it well. Thank you, Indadeep, for joining us here!
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/photo.cgi?image=ann_berlin.jpg
*Insert joke about whether it was better to be stuck behind Bill Walton or Ann Coulter at a show…*
I’ll take Ann Coulter anyday – she’s easier on the eyes than Walton. Also, wat the fuck – Here’s a post I did about Coulter being a Deadhead a while back. I was withholding it, but you all might as well see it and then call me Satan incarnate, and we can move on (LOL):
http://knockinonthegoldendoor.mu.nu/archives/125582.php
Here’s a new thought on this post, David.
I find the bookstore’s censure of certain books distasteful in that it clearly runs against a liberal concept:
Freedom of expression.
My parents, being liberal (and I use the term to describe anyone who is a free-thinking individual, not in the Limbaugh/Savage sense of the word) individuals never prohibited me or my siblings from reading anything. They trusted that we would be able to ascertain what, ultimately, was worthwhile. This was in the early sixties and not in an era that was more permissive where children are concerned.
To censure certain books is to condemn those books, the ideas contained therein, and their authors across the board.
I don’t agree with everything Ann Coulter writes. I don’t agree with everything you write. I figure it is each individuals right and privelege to read anything and everything and reduce it down to what fits his/her POV.
I’d be hard-pressed to put together a blog post labeled “Jerks” listing every blog that espoused an anti-war, anti-Bush or anti-Israeli point of view, for instance.
Not that I am saying yours is any or all of the above anymore than I am “pro-Bush”. It’s just a “for example” staement.
Jeeziz, man. THE BOOK IS FOR SALE. No one in that bookstore is censuring, nor censoring, poor dear Ann.
Actually, David, you are wrong. And I didn’t say “censor”. The definition of “censure” is “an expression of blame or disapproval.” (American Heritage Dictionary). And I did not say Coulter specifically.
By setting ANY books out on a table with a sign that says “JERKS” the bookstore is most definitely censuring those publications. And the hell of it is that they are hypocrites for doing so while making a buck at it as well.
Just an observation. And I find it interesting that those who claim to be tolerant and decry the alleged loss of freedoms from the Patriot Act find it acceptable that a store devoted to the written word censures ANY material at all.
Here’s a pretty scary interview with her.
http://www.jambands.com/Features/content_2006_06_23.06.phtml