Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Decency, Dignity and the Religious Wrong


This is an open question to Ann Coulter. Paraphrasing Joseph Welch, Have you no sense of decency?

What is that thing around your neck? What does it stand for? Dictionary.com defines Christian as someone "decent; respectable." Ted Kennedy hadn't been dead for 12 hours when Ann railed on about Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick on the Lars Larsen show. She went on to talk about how much damage Ted had caused the country. She nor any of her followers should use "religious" as a prefix to right. They are neither. They are despicable. There will be time enough to badmouth Senator Kennedy, but, my God, let his mortal body cool first.

Perhaps Sarah Palin's Death Panels are a good idea after all. Let Coultergeist go before them first. She needs to be put out of my misery.

Oh, and who airbrushed your Adam's apple out of the picture?

And, speaking of Lars Larsen (what kind of a name is that? Have you no imagination? Did your parents name you that? Are you a Scandinavian inbred mistake? Oh, I could go on). I call him a clown visually, but that is being kind. He is as evil as the rest of the right wing-nut talk-show hosts, who host nothing but hate. After Coultergeist signed off, Lars took calls from his rabid audience. One of them called to label Ted Kennedy a murderer. Lars warned the caller off that by talking out of both sides of his mouth. In essence, he agreed. He asked his listeners to think of the Kopechne family. What was it... 47 years in the senate, and all they can come up with is bile about Mary Jo Kopechne? No one will argue the point that that was a dark moment in Teddy's life and he did not man up. By the same token, he just died. You are dancing on a grave that has yet to be dug! The next caller demanded the impeachment of President Obama and Vice-President Biden... oh, and while I'm on a roll, throw in the Speaker of the House.

Where do you go from here? To paraphrase another great American, put some bleachers out in the sun and have it all out on Highway 61...



This one's for Ann...

Fat man lookin' in a blade of steel
Thin man lookin' at his last meal
Hollow man lookin' in a cottonfield
For dignity

Wise man lookin' in a blade of grass
Young man lookin' in the shadows that pass
Poor man lookin' through painted glass
For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year's Eve
Somebody said dignity was the first to leave
I went into the city, went into the town
Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin' high, searchin' low
Searchin' everywhere I know
Askin' the cops wherever I go
Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breakin' out of a trance
Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance
Hopin' to find one circumstance
Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary-lou
She said "I don't want nobody see me talkin' to you"
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would've got deeper, but there wasn't any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn't any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity?

Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears
In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors
Lookin' into the lost forgotten years
For dignity

Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues
Said he'd give me information if his name wasn't used
He wanted money up front, said he was abused
By dignity

Footprints runnin' cross the silver sand
Steps goin' down into tattoo land
I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
In the bordertowns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat
I'm on the rollin' river in a jerkin' boat
Tryin' to read a note somebody wrote
About dignity

Sick man lookin' for the doctor's cure
Lookin' at his hands for the lines that were
And into every masterpiece of literature
for dignity

Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind
Combin' his hair back, his future looks thin
Bites the bullet and he looks within
For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
I went into the red, went into the black
Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake
So many dead ends, I'm at the edge of the lake
Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take
To find dignity


Oh, and David-- thank you for getting this far. But don't bother. There is no other side to this. It's not about right or left anymore. It's about decent and indecent. Nero is rosining up his bow. It's getting uglier out there...

5 comments:

Davaudian said...

What did you expect....civility among enemies. It's not over by a long shot. I kinda like my seat in the bleachers, front row just right of center. I get a good view and don't have any money on this game. It's all in BofA stock and others...doing quite nicely. I'm not part of the herd mentality so I'll need you to help keep score.

barryshap said...

I get it. I'm heroin and you need to plunge that spike. Well, like I paraphrased Zimmerman, the bleachers have been put out in the sun, along Highway 61. And no, not even civility... again, from Zimmerman: Dignity. When did it get that the blue team and the red team became such despised enemies? It scares me more than a little bit. It's like that crocodile-teared woman who stood up at a town-hall meeting and pleaded for America to return. I agree with the sentiment but not the specifics. America hasn't been white since the first slave ship pulled up in New Orleans. America has never been so ugly and void of common respect for one another and-- yes, dignity-- in a long, long time. I just threw a quarter in the mental juke and hit play for an old Gene Pitney song-- but in this case, it's more than a town... it's a country without pity. Methinks it might be time for another installment of Jukebox Jury...

Davaudian said...

"Clown without pity"

It's not about being white at all. It's about the fed...the bloated, insatiable, reckless, irritating fed. Being a registered Libertarian for 22 years hasn't gotten my vote to count at all but i still do. Look, my people fought the fucking fed and we lost....everybody lost So now we have this huge pig gobbling up everything and pissing people off....really pissed. Bush attacked the wrong country...dumb ass. obama's an idiot with a degree in sabotage. There's plenty of pissed off to go around. My little sister gets so pissed at me because I don't like the messiah!! She's a huge demoncrat...really, 250 lbs!!

Now, I'm too wealthy to care anymore...let 'em eat cake. I watch from my seat in the stands, vote Libertarian, and work on guitars. I take pictures for fun and screw my girlfriend. I drive a nice German sports car and play a 335. I might even get the band back together. I enjoy playing devil's advocate with you, but i'm too happy to be pissed about anything. I make people happy here and I'm like a kid again. When i hear about Rush or Savage or Oberman or any talking head selling a book, I don't take sides. ...they're all clowns and that means your guy too...whoever that is.

You must watch a lot of tv/radio.....i don't.....everybody's pissed..... and they're losing their cool. Oil, mexicans, war, taxes,credit bubbles, on and on....looks like Belushi over there smashing guitars....pissed.

barryshap said...

Sounds to me like you've become too successful to be libertarian, which more often than not is synonymous with fence-sitting. You've joined the Bourgeoisie, God love ya. Like I've said before, I wish we had these heated conversations when I brought my guitars in and chewed the fat with you. Then again, I would have had to find another luthier and good ones are hard to come by, even in LA.

Truth be told, I don't watch a lot of TV-- usually Olbermann, old B&W movies on Turner Classics and a music documentary or two on Ovation. As for the radio-- only when I'm in the car, especially now since my first generation iPod died.

Be easy on your sister-- not because she's a big Democrat, but because you don't like the Messiah. Me? I'm still waiting...

Davaudian said...

Heated?? Are you talking about the latest round of fires here in town?? I can see the smoke this morning. Bourgeoisie is not in my vocabulary so much as Bohemian. I'm a lone wolf and I'm not part of any herd. Fences are for cattle....you want to control them better, give them a bigger fence.
My poor little sister is just a little thin skinned, that's all....harmless enough. She works for the State Department in the American Embasy in Guatemala. probably my next vacation spot...Mayan ruins and such with my Nikon.
Back to the decency aspect....the gloves are coming off soon and very soon....elections in 2010. Barry, flag down the guy with the beer and hot dogs.