BREAKING NEWS from the US

[CelticMuscle]

[COLOR=Black]Ex-President Ronald Reagan dies[/COLOR]

Former US President Ronald Reagan has died, aged 93, after reports in recent days that his health had taken a turn for the worse. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and had not been seen in public for several years.

He died at his home in California, according to a friend quoted anonymously by Reuters news agency.

He was US president from 1981 to 1989 and had lived longer than any other holder of the post.

Mr Reagan revealed in November 1994 that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which destroys brain cells and causes memory loss.

Since then, he retreated to his home in Los Angeles, where he had been nursed by close members of his family

[brent]

I know that Alzheimer's is horrible, and that I should be sad about anyone going through that. However, we are talking about an engineer of the Iran-Contra scandal (millions of peasants and catholics dead), the war with Grenada, bombing Libya, going to war with Panama, selling weapons to Iraq, our crippling national debt, and destroying America's education system. So I have very little guilt.

PS: Party at my house tonight!

[glammaman2000]

...&i will.who ever dreamed that we would one day have a president that could make ronald reagan look intelligent?his one great accomplishment was breaking the unions in this country during the air traffic controllers strike(&,as with all movements,the pendulum must swing back!)this was a part of his pattern;as he sold out SAG WHILE HE WAS PRESIDENT OF THE UNION!(mca bought him his ranch!)in East Berlin;they believe they tore down the wall!i think Gobachev also deserves a lot of the credit.RR talked fiscal responsibility while running up the biggest deficit in history(only to be exceeded by Bush,sr.&now by Bush,jr.who blew the Clinton surplus in a mad vote-buying scheme)& worst of all.there was a huge go-slow during the early years of tha AIDS crisis,because he&the republican party had their heads shoved all the way up the collective butts of the fascisti-christi!(in spite of his family connections&friends;ron,MAUREEN,etc)it will never be forgiven.

[middleman]

Ever hear of the Soviet Union, brent? If not, thank Ronald Reagan, who did more than any other world leader to destroy that affront to human freedom. Unlike your Michael Moore-style delusion that there were "millions of dead" in Nicaragua (even Michael Kinsley puts the number at 30,000, which should be laid at the feet of the Communists the Contra rebels overthrew), Soviet totalitarianism actually DID kill millions. Josef Stalin ruthlessly, intentionally killed over 7 million souls during his collectivization of the Ukraine between 1932 and 1939, not to mention the unknowable number of political prisoners killed in the Siberian Gulag up until 1990. If you are ignorant of that well-documented history, thank Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times correspondent William Duranty. Many have followed in Duranty's footsteps whitewashing murderous dictators, like CNN news chief Eason Jordan, who admitted last year to covering up stories of Saddam Hussein's ghastly atrocities so that he could keep his reporters in Baghdad. Former New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal points out how "truly embarrassing" the unfair, unbalanced distortion of the truth has become in our media with the coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal (see http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/ge.../18&ID=Ar00903 ). Go ahead and dis' freedom fighters like Ronald Reagan, along with big fat idiots like Al Franken and stupid white men like Michael Moore. Were it not for the likes of Reagan, critics of government, like Moore and Franken, would be rotting in Gulags rather than raking in multi-million dollar media deals.

[BigSteve6ft3]

middleman,

You're right about the millions murdered by Stalin. But your understanding of history looks pretty shaky after that.

The Soviet Union fell because it was a hodge-podge of disparate states with little in common, the old Russian Empire of the Czars, held together by military force and political repression, and hamstrung by an unworkable economic system. It was already on its last legs when Reagan stepped into the White House, as many experts on Russia at the time publicly pointed out. (hell, I even remember learning about that in school) It also fell because of a fifty-year unbroken commitment by American leaders of both parties to oppose communism wherever and whenever it posed a threat. Ever hear of the Berlin Airlift? (Harry Truman, Democrat, 1948), the Korean War? (Eisenhower, Republican); the Cuban Missle Crisis? (JFK, Democrat) ; the Vietnam War? (Kennedy, Johnson, democrats; Nixon, republican). Reagan's anti-Soviet policies were just the last in that long tradition. Reagan just had the dumb luck to be the guy in the White House when the Soviet house of cards finally began to crumble. He gets far too much credit for the fall of the Soviet Union.

I will grant that he did scare the hell out of the Soviet leaders. We now know that, because of Reagan's irresponsibly provocative comments about the supposed capabilities of the "Star Wars" program, Soviet military leaders urged the launch of a nuclear first strike against the US. Fortunately for the world, Gorbachev was wiser than his generals.

What I remember most about Reagan was his amazing short-sightedness on pretty much every issue except communism. He gutted alternative energy research funding; we could have been totaly independent of Middle East oil by now had it not been for Reagan. As mentioned by glammaman2000, he treated AIDS as an opportunity to gay-bash, rather than the public health crisis that it was, with the result that nothing was done to halt its spread in those crucial early years when we could have stopped it. So if you're nervous about having sex, you can thank Ronnie for that as well. He sold arms to Islamic extremists, helping to prop up the movement that, fifteen years later, would murder thousands of Americans on our own soil. And of course there were the budget deficits. The bulk of your tax dollars go to paying interest on the national debt, and most of that (prior to our current fiscal loose cannon) was racked up by Reagan.

I see from your profile, Middleman, that you were only 12 years old when Reagan took office, and just 20 when he left. If you were a few years older (I'm 43), you would probably remember the Reagan years with a more adult perspective, as his policies would have impacted you personally. For instance, in 1983, I had won a National Science Foundation fellowship to go to graduate school. Immediately after receiving my award letter, Reagan drastically cut the NSF, and I lost my fellowship. I often wonder how my life might have been different had that not happened. Of course that's small potatoes compared to all the people who lost loved ones to AIDS.

I'm not going celebrate Reagan's passing. I'm sure his familiy will miss him. But I'm not going to make up false eulogies either. He stood firm against communism, as did all his predecessors from 1945 on. In all other respects he was a mediocre to poor president whose short-sighted policies produced enormous damage that we are paying for to this day.

[Luxury]

Why do you people hate him so much? So he made some mistakes hasn't every president? He did bring the economy back, he cared about this country and brought down communism. What is the big deal about national debt? Go ask people about it, I bet no one cares. Anyways Ronald you will be missed, thank you.

[middleman]

Thanks for the thoughtful perspective, BigSteve. You fairly point out that Reagan's successful fight against Communism depended on support from many on both sides of the aisle for many decades, Henry "Scoop" Jackson coming to mind as a Democrat visionary in Congress, and of course JFK, who brought the world to the brink of Armageddon in October 1963 to prevent Fidel Castro from getting WMD.

Much of your post underlines the main thrust of my argument, which is that for decades well-respected US media turned a blind eye to the horrific carnage perpetrated by totalitarian dictators while appropriately muckraking but inappropriately exaggerating our own pecadillos, producing a fatally distorted world view and making it harder for freedom fighters to win. When you see the Abu Ghraib torture in the context of the beheading of Nick Berg, the My Lai massacre in the context of the killing fields in Cambodia and the boat people of Vietnam, it becomes obvious that the sins of the U.S., while real, must not deter us from fighting against tyrannical butchers, which we (even the unfairly maligned "W") decidedly are not.

The canard that Reagan killed gays by suppressing AIDS research also shows the power of editors (and Hollywood directors) to suppress some aspects of the truth and overstate others. In 1981 we didn't even know what AIDS was, it was just a CDC case report that 3 gay men in LA oddly all had pneumocystitis. At that time we thought AIDS might come from being Haitian, for goodness sake! By 1985, we not only identified HIV but had readily avaialable commercial blood tests. In 1987 we had effective therapy (AZT) and had discovered the miraculous protease inhibitors that have turned AIDS from death sentence into chronic disease, all of this on Reagan's watch. There has never been a scientific triumph this quick, this effective, against a scourge this deadly, in the history of mankind. And you'll never hear that fact celebrated in the New York Times or on CNN. As I'm sure you will rightly point out, Reagan didn't do the research himself, nor was it anywhere near his top priority. But if Reagan's final solution was to kill as many gays as possible by suppressing AIDS research, he was amazingly incompetent in that regard. Of a piece with the near-slanderous media treatment of Reagan on AIDS is the "gay uncle Tom" status conferred on Randy Shilts for pointing out in his more even handed book, "And the Band Played On," that gay activists, by protecting bath houses and promoting blood drives for gay men when they KNEW that AIDS was blood-borne, demonstrably killed thousands of people both gay and straight, causing at least as many AIDS victims as can be credibly laid at the feet of Reagan.

Another place I am quite in agreement with you is the ethical problem with paying for today's problems with our childrens and grandchildren's money, as both Reagan and "W" have done. I'm willing to contemplate that my grandchildren might forgive me for spending their money without their permission if the alternative was that they would live under Taliban rule, but I agree it's a very big problem.

[arpeejay]

I grew up in a Republican household. My father was a 1964 Goldwater convert and when I was a kid I read National Review and rooted for Bill Buckley when he took on Gore Vidal at the 1968 Democratic (Republican? I forget which one now) Presidential Convention.

I grew up thinking that the Republican party was about (1) responsible, fiscally prudent government, (2) keeping the government's nose out of people's individual lives, and (3) a strong national defense.

I voted for Ronald Reagan TWICE.

By the second election I was having doubts. They started when I was heading to the beach one day (probably spring of 1982) and I saw a man, a woman, and 2-3 kids standing by the road. I was at a stoplight, waiting to get on the bridge, and I sat their watching them, trying to figure out what they were doing.

And then it HIT me: They're hitchhiking!

I'd never seen a family hitchhiking before -- what in the world was that about?

And then the other thing hit me:

They're hitchhiking because they have no place to live!

"Putting families on the street is not what it's supposed to be about," I thought. Most of you guys are young enough that you don't remember that there was a time in this country (between the end of WWII and the 1980s) when homeless people were a rarity. You largely have Ronald Reagan to thank for the fact that that's no longer the case.

By the time 1988 rolled around I'd seen what Ronald Reagan's party had become:

(1) Fiscally irresponsible government that created the largest deficits in the nation's history, deficits that resulted (in Bush I's administration) the worst recession since the Great Depression and record high interest rates (the kind that make it impossible for a normal family to buy a home...)

(2) Willingness to give the Defense Industry *anything* it wanted, no matter how useless or expensive it was. (Funny how that same willingness didn't extend to soldiers and their families; things haven't changed in that regard.)

(3) Opening the door to the Religious Right's takeover of the Republican Party.

So, no, I don't hate Ronald Reagan, I don't even much dislike him. I could even forgiven his kneejerk bigotry against gays if it hadn't been so much in place at a time when so much depended on a compassionate imagination. And I even share a good deal of his worldview -- the United States IS a beacon to the world, the Soviet Union WAS an evil empire.

But what counted wasn't Reagan's personality or his worldview. What counted was what he did or didn't do. Whether through inattention or lack of imagination or bad personnel decisions he did too many wrong things and failed to do too many right things.

He did NOT save the world and his would-be apotheosis by GWB and company is wildly inappropriate.

Richard Jasper
Ann Arbor, Michigan

[brent]

Is this the invasion of the righties that I always hear about? I have no idea who half of you people are, you only post to comment on Reagan, but not so much about gay muscle growth. I am as anti-communist (well the Stalinist version of it that swept the Eastern hemisphere--the version that Marx laid out in the Manifesto sounds good, but it's a far cry from what took place in Asia/Europe in the 20th Century) as the next person. Now some questions for our new-found trolls:
? How anti-communist are you? Do you buy US flags that are made in communist China? Have you thought of that impact? Or are you only anti-Communist when it serves your own needs?
? Do you remember watching TV when Reagan said that all gay men deserved to die, because we don't vote Republican?
? Do you remember when Reagan broke our military agreements with New Zealand, simply because they were anti-nuke? Even after New Zealand followed the US into Korea and Vietnam.
? Do you remember him defending the French government for hiring Terrorist, to carry out the Rainbow Warrior bombing.

I do remember, and I can't forget any of them.

[middleman]

brent: Not that it matters, but to answer your question, who am I, well, not a troll, just a human being who values truth and fairness like yourself. The things I say are either true or not, and you can do your own research and arrive at your own conclusions as to whether they are true or not, all name calling aside. I really enjoy male muscle growth stories and images, and don't have the kind of creativity nor the library of images that would be worth posting here, so I'm usually a lurker. I happen to feel strongly about issues on this thread, and, like the guy in the Monty Python skit, am almost willing to pay for a good argument. Again, I don't see how that matters. This thread clearly is designated "Off Topic," so where's the beef that there's no beefcake in my posts?

Your memory of Reagan saying on TV that all gays should die because they don't vote Republican might have come from Barbara Streisand's fantasy slanderfest TV show, "The Reagans", containing a number of fabricated lines that Reagan never spoke, but Jimmy Broslin (Streisand's husband) did in fact comb his hair like Reagan and say them on TV ( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35509 ). Reagan himself never said any such thing on TV. I'd be surprised if he said it anywhere else, but I doubt you or I could ever now that for sure.

This again is my point: Hollywood and certain unethical journalists in positions of power have helped you and others arrive at distorted perceptions of Reagan that have little or no basis in reality.

[BigSteve6ft3]

I'm really sorry my first post on this board had to be a political diatribe on the "off topic" thread, but I was so shocked to see a PRO-Reagan comment here, of all places, that I had to respond.

Economic and anti-communist aspects aside, what every gay has to remember (and most do, I thought) is that Reagan was man who turned the Repuplican party over to the homophobic religious right. He may not have ever said that all gays should die, but he consistently did the bidding of those who did say such things. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and their ilk had enormous influence in the Reagan white house, as they do now in the Bush administration. Since Reagan, the GOP has been the party of gay-bashing as national policy, tirelessly working to restrict, and eventually eliminate, gay rights. We've now reached the point where we have a GOP president calling for a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. No one would have dreamed of such a thing being politically tenable before Reagan.

Gays for Reagan makes about as much sense as Jews for Hitler.

Marie Antoinette probably never actually said "Let them eat cake" (it probably came from a play that was popular at the time), but it correctly captured her attitude towards the starving masses. Similarly for Reagan; those Hollywood parodies might be innaccurate in their details, but they correctly captured the (mean) spirit of man.

Anyway, I'm going to bow out of this debate, and go back to building muscle.

[brent]

Originally Posted by middleman

...
Your memory of Reagan saying on TV that all gays should die because they don't vote Republican might have come from Barbara Streisand's fantasy slanderfest TV show, "The Reagans", containing a number of fabricated lines that Reagan never spoke, but Jimmy Broslin (Streisand's husband) did in fact comb his hair like Reagan and say them on TV ( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35509 ). Reagan himself never said any such thing on TV. I'd be surprised if he said it anywhere else, but I doubt you or I could ever now that for sure.

Excuse me? I remember him saying that when I was a kid. They kept running it on the news. I don't let Barbara Streisand, or any-other personality do my thinking for me. I don't care how you try to revise history, some of us will still remember.

[glammaman2000]

luckily this is off-topic.anyone who wants to argue my points about the AIDS crisis during the Reagan years;tell it to somebody who wasn't there.i lost 87 friends,including the only lover i ever had.i remember the 1st article about AIDS in a gay newspaper.&the 2nd.&the 40th.all the information came from the CDC.1600 cases,400 deaths,2yrs.later;the government addressed the crisis for the 1st.time.1987,6yrs.into the crisis,Reagan said the word publicly for the 1st.time.AZT was developed as a cancer therapy by Burroughs-Wellcome long before AIDS came along.5yrs.after gay people said it was killing people FASTER;the World Aids Conference finally agreed with us.(Burroughs-Wellcome had been a major contributor to the NIH)protease inhibitors came a LONG time after Reagan was out of office.during his term;the government repeatedly tried to shut down the Community Research Initiatives.the NY chapter;along with San Francisco;developed the first effective tretment against pneumocystis pneumonia.after the value of CRI's was estabished,the governent began forming&funding tem.except for NY.there were 11 cases of Legionnaires disease in Philadelphia.it was front page news the next day.Robert Gallo claimed to have found the virus that caused AIDS.it was the same virus that the French Dr.Luc Montaignier had found 1yr.earlier.the rights to a test kit are very lucrative.for 6yrs.the French would not share research info with the U.S.when the issue was finally resolved;Reagan&the French president(Mitterrand?)signed the patent agreement together.(of course!heads of state sign medical patent contracts all the time!)for years;the Reagan administration presented the COST of AIDS(passive)through Social Security,Medicaid,etc.as"what we are spending on AIDS".there was no significant treatment research being done before'87.Reagan wasn't evil.he wasn't the president either;any more than Dubya is now.he was just a likable host.&if he said"i wasn't there,i wasn't told,i don't recall",you believed him.&if Robert Viguerie told him it was more important NOT to appear to be helping homosexuals than to stop an epidemic?heck,Viguerie got him the job!

[Corwin]

i lost 87 friends,including the only lover i ever had.i remember the 1st article about AIDS in a gay newspaper.&the 2nd.&the 40th.all the information came from the CDC.1600 cases,400 deaths,2yrs.later;the government addressed the crisis for the 1st.time.1987,6yrs.into the crisis,Reagan said the word publicly for the 1st.time.

LONG TIME COMPANION is playing on IFC or Sundance this month. Also, people who don't know this history should watch AND THE BAND PLAYED ON.

I'm sorry for your loss(es).

Three years ago, I lost a good friend to HIV. Many people consider HIV to be a chronic illness, something even sex-columinist Dan Savage claimed a couple weeks after my friend's death. My friend had graphic pictures taken of his ravaged body a week before he passed on. Upon seeing these photos, Mr. Savage apologized to us for our loss, acknowledging that HIV was still a disease that takes far too many human lives.

Ronald Reagan, George Bush and the current idiot in the white house have never acknowledged this, and did far too little to prevent it.

Scott

[glammaman2000]

thank you.while you are immersed in a confusing crisis;where others are suffering far more than you are;you have to be the one who is pulled together.they say that present trauma can trigger past trauma.i'm a New Yorker.after 9/11,i had to listen to people who heard about someone who had a friend who lost a loved one or relative in the World Trade Tower attack.&now they were afraid to ride the subway.&there was an army of social workers assembled to say"oh,you poor thing!"i have a lesbian friend who was working as a grief counsellor at that time.her thoughts were the same as mine..."if there was ever any illusion as to how alone we were during the AIDS crisis..."at one point,i signed up for a study by the National Insitute for Mental Health.they wanted to know how gay men were dealing with AIDS.i thought it would be about how to deal with having so many friends die.they wanted to know the last time i stuck it where,with whom.i'm proud to say;i reamed them a new asshole.when we were dropping like flies;the fascisti-christi were saying"serves you right for existing in the first place!"now they are saying"condoms don't always work!"they don't.neither do seat belts.but if someone were to say that because seat belts don't work all the time;you should either not wear them or not drive;they would be called ignorant.&evil.this is a battle against stupid-power in America.the Republican party is a coalition of the stupid&the greedy.&half of the American people are of average intelligence or less.

[middleman]

I think I see where you're coming from now, BigSteve, and am sorry that you're bowing out. You've been clear, cogent, and civil, not to mention the fact that having even an argumentative cyber-relationship with such a big guy is something of a turn-on . Falwell and Robertson et al have said absolutely crazy things about the HIV epidemic, like their god strikes down gays in retribution for their sins. They seem to worship some primitive, human sacrifice-demanding god, not much resembling the God of Abraham and Jesus of Nazereth. It is true that Reagan and Bush did not distance themselves from that bizarre form of religiosity, which does not reflect well on either. That doesn't have much to do with AIDS research per se, but I can see your point. The marriage situation is yet a different, huge issue that developed after Reagan's time, but which merits an off off topic thread.

I too am very sorry for your losses, Scott and Glammaman. Like most of us, I have lost many friends and acquaintances to the epidemic, and of course fear to lose more or be affected myself. I also know many who are doing reasonably well who would almost certainly have died by now wthout modern HIV treatment, and for that I am very grateful. The success medicine has had against AIDS really is almost unprecedented, when you look at viruses like smallpox, which took almost 300 years to get rid of. Now to think of it, Salk may have done a better job at polio, which took a generation or so to control; we do need to get cracking on the HIV vaccine. But really, retroviruses are so much more nefariously tricky than even the polio virus, the research effort does deserve kudos, and a lot the basic research happened during the Reagan years. True, protease inhibitors were not FDA-approved for general use until the mid '90's, but like AZT, the basic research protease inhibitors occured many years before FDA approval, as it always does. One of my fears is that if we do socialize medicine and destroy the profit that motivates huge pharmas like Burroughs-Wellcome to spend the billions it takes to develop new drugs, we probably can kiss any hope of an AIDS cure goodbye. Or we can leave it to the French to find the cure, maybe after they figure out how to air condition the homes of their senior citizens so they don't die by the thousands whenever the weather gets hot. Or perhaps the French are counting on "The Day after Tomorrow" being a documentary, in which case the air conditioning would be a bit redundant.

Scott, I'm sorry if I seemd to imply that HIV is harmless by saying that it is now more a chronic disease than the automatic death sentence it was in the 80's. Most would agree that diabetes is a chronic disease, but it still kills many thousands each year, far more than AIDS, sometimes quickly with diabetic coma, sometimes horribly slowly with gangrene and successive amputations and dialysis and such. But for many, if not most, competent treatment of both diabetes and AIDS can stave off death and disability for many years, and sometimes indefinitely. That seems a reasonably well-accepted definition of a chronic disease.

Anyway, before this becomes "not an argument, but just simple contradiction... 'Tis... No, 'tisn't...." I'm bowing out too, I think I've typed quite enough. Peace

[Mdlftr]

Quite an impressive thread here:

Cogent, well-marshalled arguments, butressed with facts and personal knowledge.

I'm no fan of Reagan either, and my reasons were more economic. I graduated from school, right at the start of the biggest recession in 50 years. Then, when I went to get student loans for post-baccalaureate education, RR changed the rules so that students couldn't apply for loans (even the "guaranteed student loans with the (then) low rates of 7-9%) unless they were "independent". That meant I couldn't be covered on my parent's health insurance any more, so, I had to either pay for health insurance out of my own pocket (with what money?) or go without and hope I didn't get sick. [Making it harder to get an education and harder to get medical insurance coverage--what policy is that furthering??]

Secondly, RR removed the interest deduction for student loans when I was paying mine back, so I never got to deduct a dime of interest. Then, he ran up the national debt so that economy had an even harder time recovering! Every time I saw pictures of him smiling the "avuncular" smile, I notice how dead his eyes were. I'll give him credit for "remaking" the country and the Republican party in his own value system, but I'm not convinced it was a totally good thing.

When I look at the recent Republican residents of the White House (RR, #41, #43) and the Democrats (Slick Willy) I have to say that the Dems ran a much more fiscally responsible, even-handed ship.

Who'd a thunk it?!!

Guess who I'm voting for in November....?


Mdlftr

[brent]

I will admit that on the subject of Ronald Reagan, I tend to be a little emotional/irrational. I think that we also tend to be affected by where we live as well. Here in Oregon, there is a deep, long standing hatred of Ronald Reagan. As governor of California, he continually tied to steal our water for California's growth, no matter what the environmental impact would be. Then as president, he allowed cheap, Canadian lumber to severely undercut Oregon & Washington's lumber. Growing up in a community that saw him as the antichrist, or worse, may have colored my view of him. When I lived down south for a while, in San Francisco, people were much more positive about him. However, I tend to be an ultraliberal northerner, and SF is not only a Southern city that tends to be far more conservative than I am used to, but it's also in the home state of Mr. Teflon himself! So it probably has a lot to do with your perspective, and form my perspective, we are batter off with him in his current state.

[glammaman2000]

one night i was up watching C-SPAN,about 3:am.Sen.Lowell Weicker was interviewing a Burroughs-Wellcome exec about the high cost of AIDS drugs.the rep said that it took 140 million dollars to take a drug from research to the market(this figure has been endlessly repeated;the figure is now up to 180 million)Sen.Weicker asked if they could see his books.the rep said no.THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE VERIFICATION of the pharmaceutical houses figures.(contact Rep.Henry Waxman if you don't believe me)i know people that work in medical research.they don't make that much money.(if you secure a valid patent;you can clean up!)so,what are we talking about?rat food?advertising?promotional parties?freebies?lobbyists?political contributions?do you know one of the ways you get"time off for good behavior"in prison?you volunteer for medical trials.btw,it is now clear that AIDS was spreading in the IV drug community at least 6 yrs.before it showed up in gay men.

Originally Posted by brent

... we are batter off with him in his current state.

Oh? Perhaps the state he was in (and I don't mean California) for the last 10 years wasn't far enough removed for his evil influence to be ignored? May we all have such kind words when we begin to finish our rotting.

Don't get me wrong. I despise the Republican's flagrent misuse of resources, the constant attention to the bottom line of their own pockets, the fuck the little guy, and the "more powerful than thou" attitude.

Of course the answer is to live in the woods in teepee's and fish and hunt but we'll will wipe ourselves out first and in 20,000 years after the next ice age is over we'll try again this time with no oil. The sun is only going to live another four billion years or so. Think civilization will ever make it to real widespread wisdom? Not if it keeps developing along a Republican model.

GF Bush was eh, OK... but perhaps when GW Bush, the current Grand Rebooblican dies I'll take another good long pee on his picture and flush twice but I'd never begrudge the family their moment. At least not till after the funeral.

[middleman]

Tammy Bruce, former Director, National Organization of Women:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=13678

[arpeejay]

Uh, make that:

Tammy Bruce, former president, *Los Angeles* *chapter*, National Organization of Women.

And *currently* a regular opinion contributor to the Fox News Network, official mouthpiece of the Rupertblican Party.

rpj

[omelissokomos]

Originally Posted by middleman

Tammy Bruce, former Director, National Organization of Women

The article also says that...

Tammy Bruce is a Fox News Channel Contributor

Yes, I'm being a snarky a**hole, but please, all this crocodile tear sentimentality for the "most popular president" is starting to make me cry.

Personally, I find this a much more meaningful tribute to the Gipper than all the exploitative crap that's being spewed everywhere these days, especially from right-wing rags like FrontPage and NewsMax.

[brent]

One positive thing that come of all of this is that people will now start thinking about stem-cell research.

[glammaman2000]

just another pinhead who figured out that you can make a heck of a lot more money defending the rich than you can defending the poor.it's a wonder that there ever was a liberal movement in this country.i have tried to criticise the Reagan years without gloating over his death.i know how hard it is to watch someone die.&then do it again.&again.unlike Nancy,i know what it is to live in a ghost town.NYC.&start over.being a caretaker is horribly difficult.i spent my 30's doing it.in my 50's,i&my friends are doing it for our parents.by the time that's over;it'll be time for me&my friends.i understand,Nancy.Tammy,i don't understand.

[brent]

My good friends and I refer to tacky women as tacky Tammies, and her tired tirade makes her seem pretty tacky to me. Although I am a little ashamed of gloating over the death of another human being, Reagan didn't seem that upset with the deaths of others (think Iran Contra scandal). He didn't act like I expect a human being to act like (referring to genocide being carried out in his name as, "...mistakes were made...") This is just another Tammy looking to make some extra scratch writing whatever Rupert Murdoch pays her to write. Notice she refers to people on the left as Left Elite. What are the capitol letters about?

[glammaman2000]

liberal elite...what are these people worried about?not enough Jerry Springer?Howard Stern?World Wrestling Entertainment?(although it has it's moments)did you know that Jerry Springer is seen WORLDWIDE?i wish there was a liberal elite.

[brent]

If there is a Left Elite, can I join? I can like read and stuff.

BTW Jerry Springer has quit making his show, and is working to get a Democratic majority in the House.

[glammaman2000]

WELL STOP IT THIS INSTANT!you'ld never catch our edjimication president doing that!...with friends like jerry springer...TRUE STORY!i have a very good friend who is a c-level television personality.very funny,EXCELLENT interviewer.happens to be black.he was up for a hosting job but was turned down because he was.....TOO INTELLIGENT!!&he can't hide it!how will he ever live this down?!i don't even want to be seen in public with him anymore!

[brent]

Originally Posted by glammaman2000

WELL STOP IT THIS INSTANT!you'ld never catch our edjimication president doing that!...with friends like jerry springer...TRUE STORY!i have a very good friend who is a c-level television personality.very funny,EXCELLENT interviewer.happens to be black.he was up for a hosting job but was turned down because he was.....TOO INTELLIGENT!!&he can't hide it!how will he ever live this down?!i don't even want to be seen in public with him anymore!

<SARCASM>
I know exactly what you are saying. Intelligent people are terrible people. They generally say things that force the rest of us to think! I mean, I don't care if you think, but please don't involve me!
</SARCASM>

[glammaman2000]

i think we have an exceptionally sharp bunch of kids,here.PLEASE don't tell me we have to start labelling the jokes&sarcasm!don't destroy the illusion.(if it's a post from me,just assume it's jokes&sarcasm)

[brent]

I just try to label the bits I think will really piss-off a few of the people here. Most of my posts should be considered as sarcasm in general, as well. However, I do tend to say what I think, and I don't filter much.

Perhaps the one thing that "smilies" have been good at is identifying basic emotions in an attempt to avoid misunderstanding. (hmm... I guess that's why they're called "emoticons" also). The 10 or 11 that we have in this forum are almost too many and don't work as well as some of the animated ones (e.g. rolling eyes, yawns,...) for some situations.

I try to stick with happy, sad, mad, etc. I think sarcasm is beyond an emoticon's ability to identify well enough.

Point being that I try not to hide my sarcasm too deeply. It's right out front and if necessary I'll use something like "yeah, right!" at the end to dispel the doubt. Well constructed scarcasm should be noticed and stand on its own, kind of like grungy encrusted jeans.

Like puns, sarcasm seems to flow easily from people who communicate a lot and have a wide grasp of various aspects of a situation. The trick is to know when to stop before permanently damaging a worthy relationship.

One of the quotations on my web page is. "The art of converstation is not only knowing the right thing to say at the right moment, but also knowing the wrong thing to NOT say at a tempting moment. -anon-?"

I try to recognize my "out of control" point and stop before I get there. However like good sex or SM activities, keeping the partner right on the edge of climax or the threshold of pain is the thrill of the engagement. :-)

[brent]

Maybe I should try to focus on my writing skills, but when I post, it is usually a spur of the moment thing. I'm not creating great essays, so I generally tag the emotion somehow. I do use emoticons when I feel like it, but I hate animated emoticons. I find the animated emoticons to be far too tacky for me. Sorry LG.

No need to apologize to me. I'm just describing in far too much detail how I feel about my own writing. I can't do spur of the moment writing. If I have more than one sentence I agonize for an hour over trying to make sure I said enough without saying too much. It's way to easy to be misinterpreted or miss the critical point or even obscure it.

To get this thread back on topic. I've noticed that newspaper reports are including a heavy dose of anti-Reagan sentiment today. Which is about the right timing. A few days of respect (carried I think too far with non-stop TV coverage) then the telling of both sides of the story. And of course Bush is just fanning the flames of the Reagan memory to take the pressure off his own administration's boobery.

As a side note. One of the finest moments of this spectacle was the singing of "America The Beautiful" in the Capitol rotunda. I hope that I'm not the only person who noticed the miraculous way that the choral director played the unholy resonances of that great dome like a church organ. One could hear the singers start a phrase and hear the dome begin to resonate but the director timed the rise and fall of sound to the acoustics of the chamber. It was the most beautiful performance of that song I've ever heard. Yet I've heard nothing mentioned by any reporter about what was accomplished for those 5 minutes. If I had any doubt about what had actually happened it was dispelled when the military band played the next song and as expected (and as I've experienced in person), the terrible, cross resonances in that hall tore the music apart into clashing echoes of muddy dissonance.