Night moves
Gerard Vanderleun provides the cultural geographical backdrop to CNN Anchor Richard Quest's arrest in Central Park. He provides, among other things, an explanation into the various recreational uses of rope in secluded streets after dark. Noting the tendency of self-destructive bad habits to eventually take over their hosts, Gerard notes that "once the needle goes in it never comes out."
Which is almost to say that if you give some things a foothold they just won't stay where you locked them. They rail against the bars even your sleep. They howl incessantly in weird voices only you can hear and one day, when you're tired, down, or just plain careless, the Thing breaks its bonds and drags you into the dark.
For different people the key to the door which holds the thing back lies in different objects. A bottle stashed behind the sofa. A needle in a drawer. For those poor souls addicted to various disgusting varieties of visual stimulation, there is the cool, blinking, almost inviting Internet modem connection. People know where the key to the secret door is, but won't get rid of it. Because they want the monster around; thrill to the idea it's there. They know the dangers but have convinced themselves they can live with this beast and keep it in its bounds.
And so It stays out of sight. But there is always the howling.
That it tore up an anchor in CNN, "The Most Trusted Name in News" is really an argument for the necessity of individual judgment. Part of the lure of hero worship, part of the attraction of the cult of celebrity is that it allows us to delegate the formation of our opinions to others. And there is no shortage of organizations offering to relieve us of the burden of choice. Are we looking for a book? Well there's the New York Times list of bestsellers. Or Oprah. And if we're looking for a window on the world, why there's Richard Quest from CNN, with his manic, toothsome smile. But the truth is that while NYT lists, talk show hosts and networks can do some things, they are in the end compiled by people who -- not to put too fine a point on it -- are very much like us. The opinions of the experts and famous are often worthwhile, but often they are no more meritorious than Joe down at the barbershop.
For this reason most conversations in life are between equals. It's a fundamental mistake to think there's some stratum of wise men upon whom the masses can rely. The real problem with the conviction that there is an enlightened class who can help people who are "bitter ... cling to guns or religion" to "rise on the steps of their dead selves to higher things" is that the enlightened class has never existed.
With any luck, Mr. Quest is going to pick himself up, as we all do from time to time. You can do worse than 'cling' to guns and religion.
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49 Comments:
The English may not know how to make a sandwich, but the have always excelled at fruits.
Can you inform me as to why I can never get on to Vanderleun's site?
"For those poor souls addicted to various disgusting varieties of visual stimulation, there is the cool, blinking, almost inviting Internet modem connection. "
---
Which is why I was offended by your reference to my post about another posters Child Porn as an "ad hominem" attack.
I was simply reporting the truth about the poster.
I am offended by the pornification, esp CHILD pornification, of our culture.
Off thread, but still TRUE.
Can you inform me as to why I can never get on to Vanderleun's site?
Probably a routing problem caused by the ISP. Try connecting through another ISP and see if it resolves the issue.
Which is why I was offended by your reference to my post about another posters Child Porn as an "ad hominem" attack.
Sorry about that Doug. I didn't follow the comment threads as closely as I might have. Woke up to find a big brouhaha over the troll and saw he was making some references to porn and stuff. If I had understood thing better I would have been more careful, but I made the decision to total the trolls comments based on a scan of what they contained on a very superficial reading.
I almost posted a comment referencing everything you just said:
I understand that keeping up with things when a thread gets out of hand is not worthwhile.
Hope the new site makes things easier.
No harm, no foul.
Didn't mean to give offense. Just trying to keep the site clean.
Indeed!
...and a great site it is!
I think the thrill of getting caught or getting away with it also enters into this behavior. Nowadays you got to go pretty far to get that sort of stimulation. In fact you got too pretty much beg the cops to arrest you.
Working for CNN, Mr Quest should have just been a Secret Conservative. At first he could sneak a peek at NRO. Then he could let himself get caught and extract himself by sneering at the contents. Sneak. Peek. Sneer. And then...but perhaps that would have been too much auto-stimulation for him.
Speaking of auto-stimulation, one of the problems I had with the Clintons was that they loved to get themselves in political trouble and then use their immense political skills to get themselves back out. I used to say, "Bill feels our pain, and he enjoys it." Fortunately he was no where near suicidal. He was more like the NASCAR driver whose race is run as a kind of controlled crash that hopefully doesn't happen to him (only to those around him).
Of course if the NASCAR driver takes the school bus full of kids around the route in "a controlled crash" you don't put him back behind the wheel of the school bus -- no matter how much the kids plead for him to stay. So I won't be voting for Hillary.
Sen Obama has benefited from the Clinton need to keep things interesting. He has also been its victim. I think he was amazed to find himself suddenly out front and in control. Only maybe not so much in control as he thought. What the Clintons do now is tap his car with their car and have him spin out. I think he'll enjoy it, weee! (he's in the game himself -- as good, maybe better, than the Clintons) but will the Democratic Party enjoy it? I mean, the chain reaction wreck that follows. Well, where do the Democrats (or the rest of us) enter into it?
Well, we do. But only in our ability to slap them down hard. Which we are less and less inclined to do. So they will have to drive faster and harder toward the edge. Because the nation needs auto-stimulation, too, and we don't all get it by watching NASCAR.
Doug: Which is why I was offended by your reference to my post about another posters Child Porn as an "ad hominem" attack. I was simply reporting the truth about the poster.
No it was off-topic, ad hom, and there's no evidence so you were just making shi'ite up.
It's a fundamental mistake to think there's some stratum of wise men upon whom the masses can rely. The real problem with the conviction that there is an enlightened class who can help people who are "bitter ... cling to guns or religion" to "rise on the steps of their dead selves to higher things" is that the enlightened class has never existed.
When you think about it, our modern worship of celebrity and undue deference to the meritocratic elites is not much different than the ancient Egyptian murals and paintings. The Pharaoh is huge, the servant tiny, and the courtier somewhere in between.
You cure this sickness; you fix a lot.
el baboso: The Pharaoh is huge, the servant tiny, and the courtier somewhere in between. You cure this sickness; you fix a lot.
The tallest tree in the forest invites the treefeller. In America we shed the deference to nobility. You say we substituted celebrity worship in its place. Yet the most popular show in this country is "American Idol" where celebrities are manufactured through a democratic filtering process that selects by merit. And the tabloids are filled with stories of purported "celebrities" getting their fourth divorce or getting out of their limo in a miniskirt without their knickers on. It's not so much worship as the fascination of watching a slow motion train wreck.
It's amazing that a public "personality" can be so busy in Central Park in the early morning and be initially charged with violating Park curfew.
What would Olmsted think of Dick's multitasking performance, when he designed the Park?
Little did Olmsted know what the rambles would contribute to the Big Apple!
American Digest also has a post on Obama "flipping Hillary the Bird(?)" which shows Sen. Obama as a political risk taker. The thrill of getting away with it.
Now if you call Obama an elitist you are said to be using a racist dog whistle (don't ask me to explain how that works: the word "convoluted" fails to do the reasoning justice). So-o-o. Is flipping Hill the bird as if you are in the lunch room at boarding school -- yucking it up with your pals at a teachers expense -- a "sexist bird dog whistle?"
But seriously, could this sort of "political thrill seeking" lead to the disaggregation of the Democratic party? Or merely its deconstruction.
It's a fundamental mistake to think there's some stratum of wise men upon whom the masses can rely.
Amen! But don't tell the lefties...
I fear the recent spate of troll attacks will continue, and I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done to stop it. Comments can be deleted, and IP addresses blocked, but the trolls will not stop. This blog is now on "the list." It appears,sadly, that the haven of sanity in an increasingly troubled world that was the Belmont Club is in peril.
I love this site mostly because Wretchard and most posters share the belief in Western civilization as the best hope of the world, but also because it's fascinating to see progressives spin convoluted webs of logic to fit everything neatly into their orthodoxy. The best of both sides, you might say. Now we're getting the worst.
Let's just ignore trolls like Daisey and 6132. I made the mistake of confrontation a few days ago, and it was nothing but a waste. Ignore!!!
In the weeks after 9/11, they rolled Mohammed Ali out to prove to Americans that not all Muslims are evil. Because then, I respected Ali, that caught my attention.
During the race riots of the 70's, they rolled James Brown out. Because he was respected in the black community, they stopped and listened.
Sometimes a public person *can* be on a pedestal enough to make a difference. But I think they have to be tapped to do so by others, rather than self-declare or have their employer declare their importance.
Oprah has been such a figure, too, in the past. I get the feeling that now that she's stood for Obama and hasn't commented on his hateful past, her "idol" sheen may not be as lustrous as it once was.
Edward R. Murrow was a hero, and to me at that time, so was Uncle Walter Cronkite. I just can't imagine Uncle Walter wandering around Central Park in the middle of the night with sex toys in his pocket ... but I can imagine Dan Rather doing that.
Daisy: Cronkite got weak knees and proclaimed the Vietnam war couldn't be won.
That's true, and he was right. He realized we were the Redcoats in somebody else's Revolutionary War. And in 2003 we went around that block again. Those who choose to repeat history (Iraq) must control the memory of it.
Thanks Richard
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
Tennyson In Memorium
"Which is almost to say that if you give some things a foothold they just won't stay where you locked them. They rail against the bars even your sleep. They howl incessantly in weird voices only you can hear and one day, when you're tired, down, or just plain careless, the Thing breaks its bonds and drags you into the dark."
Here is a somewhat long but very interesting article regarding the seductive nature of sexual sin. The article is from a former homosexual who reflects upon how some are draw into homosexuality. Those who are easily offended and consider homosexuality harmless may not want to read this article.
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4761
I would imagine the myriad failures of the elites to deliver, and the real knowledge of the real agenda, makes them meaningless.
People enjoy watching their humiliation. It's part of what makes VH1 a profitable business, with "Behind the Music" and particularly "Surreal Life."
The agenda of the elites is to prevent the economic rise of others, so that they may be the "Landless gentry" or as HGTV had recently, "a hip and exotic urban couple" regarding some loft-dwelling trendoid's kitchen renovation.
There is something deep in human nature that wants to rule over others. This is particularly rampant among Democrats and Liberals. Hence Obama going to Billionaires Row in San Francisco, declaring how revolting the peasants really are!
[As a side note, I don't care and don't want to know about any poster's personal life. I am more interested in discussing ideas.]
Wretchard: Thanks for eliminating the troll. If you come to Chicago, I'll buy you an Italian beef sandwich from Al's. It's delectable.
Teresita:
The constitution is not a suicide pact. It is subject to interpretation and amendment, by design. One could ban Islamic Supremacy just like the CPUSA got banned as an agent of enemy foreign powers. The free exercise clause does not excuse sedition just because it is done in the name of a religion. Banned Islam itself would require an amendment, as it is well recognized as a religion.
The problem with the troll is that they are all the contemptible, Habu. His current alias is of course, "I'm your daisy".
One of the eliminated posts to Nahncee used the term
"kleig lights". It is an unsual use. He meant Klieg lights. Habu used the term and misspelled it over at maggies farm.
Omegapaladin: One could ban Islamic Supremacy just like the CPUSA got banned as an agent of enemy foreign powers.
For a party that got banned, they do pretty good. They have a website at http://www.cpusa.org/
and I never fail to see their candidates on the ballot for President every four years. But then again I live in the Soviet of Washington State.
Daisycutter: Exactly when was the CPUSA outlawed in the United States?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954
Which was like banning terrorism or alcohol or internet gambling. Nice sentiment, but unenforceable.
Thanks Daisey,
Ok folks the hits just keep com'in..the topic..pervert in Central Park who work for CNN..
Let me say I'm against it.
Perverts should be over at the local affiliates of the other major networks.
teresita regarding Walter Cronkite's undermining of America in the Vietnam War:
"That's true, and he was right. He realized we were the Redcoats in somebody else's Revolutionary War. And in 2003 we went around that block again. Those who choose to repeat history (Iraq) must control the memory of it."
The Vietnam War, along with the Korean War, was part of the Cold War which was in fact World War III.
World War III was a just war on our side, as it was in defense of life and liberty (ours and that of others), and conversely it was unjust on the side of the Communists as it was their aggression against life and liberty.
We are now engaged in World War IV, and once again America is defending life and liberty - we are engaged in just war.
We were then and are now the Minutemen, they (Communists) were then, and they (Islamists) are now the Redcoats.
God bless America and our Divine Liberty.
storm-rider,
Ok that's a thread violation. The thread is perverts at CNN who are doing up Central Park at night...are you saying Walter Cronkite was in Central Park too? Not a word about perverts at CNN.
One more outburst and W will yank you down like a pair of cheap thongs.
I noticed you bio is covered. Are you Habu?
BREAKING NEWS
"If you state a moral case to a plowman and a professor, the farmer will decide it as well, and often better, because he has not been led astray by any artificial rules." Thomas Jefferson
ratboy,
Funny how you would choose only some off-topic comments and leave others - particularly the initial off-topic comment.
storm-rider: We were then and are now the Minutemen, they (Communists) were then, and they (Islamists) are now the Redcoats.
If you say so that doesn't make it so. When I refer to "redcoats" I'm talking about counter-revolutionaries. Its not a code word for "the side we don't like". America will forment revolution in some countries (1953 Iran, 1980's El Salvador, post-Castro Cuba) and fight revolution in other places. When you place the moral authority for the Vietnam War, for example, on the same plane as World War II, you go against the consensus of the American people, who rose up against the war proponents of both parties in the 60's and 70s to bring it to an end.
Please, no more troll threads. I don't have the time to judge east post carefully. In the future all posts by a perceived troll and all replies to the same may deleted.
"Not a word about perverts at CNN."
Since when are perverts at CNN news? Beyond that, I cannot imagine that life is possible without the need to resist temptation. Mr. Quest's problem is beyond common. It is only his "celebrity" which makes it news, though I am not sure the reason.
Begging Whiskey's pardon, I'm away 3 weeks (Wife in ICU/dead dear friend in NYC; Wife now home, friend still dead) and there's all this moanin' about troll attacks and talk of a new site. From what I can see so far, "flower" and "numbers idiot" do not hold a candle to C4 and I'm a little concerned about Teresita's drift, but all seems the norm, though I may have a higher troll tolerance than most.
...all seems the norm, though I may have a higher troll tolerance than most ...
When you have two trolls and an idiot involved in a huge percentage of the posts on a website, it seems to me that there's cause for concern. In this particular thread, for example, at least one/third of the posts revolve around one entity who is not known for the amount of huzzah's received in the past for deep thinking or intelligent perception. If you go to some of the other recent threads, the percentage is even higher. I know, ignore the trolls and don't feed them ... but then, haven't the terrorists won by shutting everyone else up?
RE: Banning political movements (Islamist parties) in the U.S.
A very interesting idea, but probably a futile exercise. Given the current Supreme Court interpretation of the 1st Amendment, it is very difficult to punish and/or outlaw political speech, even speech that advocates "death to unbelievers," overthrow of the the govt, etc. These kinds of speech can be punished only if there is a close enough nexus to "incitement" of immediate action, kind of a clear and present danger sort of thing. So that means leftist stooges are free to advocate and preach, in public even, for the overthrow of the U.S. govt, because a distinction is made on the basis of mere "advocacy" as opposed to a call for immediate violent action.
Similarly, punishing someone for the groups they are associated with is extremely difficult. The 1st Amendment gives wide latitude to the freedom of association, even to violent and revolutionary-oriented groups, and the govt has a heavy burden of proof in prosecutions of this kind.
However, during the early Cold War years, when people still saw the Communist Party as a serious threat, the Supreme Court did uphold a law that criminalized CPUSA membership and advocacy. This is a fairly unique case in U.S. law; here, mere advocacy of Communist ideas was enough to punish someone criminally, because of the worldwide reach, extremely organized, and dangerous nature of the conspiracy. This case has never been overruled, and I can't help but wonder if Islamist parties could eventually be banned under this rationale (once the threat is taken seriously enough).
If anyone is interested, the case is Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951)
Buckets, you're basing your comments on the Supreme Court, which is well and good, but only one-third of our government. If both Congress and the Presidency desire a Constitutional amendment, then can the Supreme Court really deny it?
Secondly, without researching it, I'm remembering that the President at the time, FDR, is the one who issued the edict to round up Japanese into internment camps after Pearl Harbor. One man making one decision, essentially like what Bush did with Gitmo.
I see no reason why one President couldn't make a similar decision in our nation at this time, if there is another Islam-inspired attack on American soil. If Japanese internment camps were ever officially declared illegal, I would be interested in hearing about that. If not, then I think that option remains on the table, over and above whatever the Supreme Court might have to say about this , that or the other thing.
Internment camps or get the hell out -- their choice. (At that point, I would not even give them the choice of denouncing Islam and converting to Christianity in order to remain here.)
Teresita: "When you place the moral authority for the Vietnam War, for example, on the same plane as World War II, you go against the consensus of the American people, who rose up against the war proponents of both parties in the 60's and 70s to bring it to an end."
Without apology I make the moral case for American just war against the mass-murdering and liberty-destroying tyranny of International Communism - and the same now against the mass-murdering and liberty-destroying tyranny of totalitarian Islam. There is no difference morally in these struggles, i.e.: World War III and World War IV as compared to the mass-murdering and liberty-destroying Nazis of World War II.
Thomas Jefferson said it best, and he speaks for me: "I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
There was no consensus of the American people against the justice of the Vietnam aspect of World War III, there was only a consensus of Democrats and American Leftists/Socialists/Communists against it.
Teresita, you no doubt have an intelligent mind, but you are a moral fool.
Wretchard - you be the judge of these off-topic but important comments.
Storm-Rider
You are certainly correct, and the court is only one of three purportedly co-equal branches. The Supreme Court did OK the internment camps in the Korematsu case, but the decision the Supremes made has been widely regarded as a complete disaster, both in a moral and legal sense. Even in the midst of an all-out Islamist blitz on the U.S., I just don't see anything of that scale ever happening again.
While the President and Congress could bring alot of pressure to bear on the Court, I feel like the public outcry over it would be enormous; enough to bring people to the streets, even. FDR did threaten the Supreme Court justices to approve his New Deal programs "or else," and he was successful, but... I highly doubt, especially given the divided nature of the country these days, that anything like that will happen in the near future.
Teresita:
I tend to see things as more of a spectrum than a pair of poles. If one end of the spectrum is the God King and the other is the President waiting in line just like the rest of us, then I think that we can safely say that we are pretty far from the God King end. I personally still know people that seem to put their personal opinions into limbo whenever their favorite pundit speaks (As in, "Did you hear what Krugman said?"). Rock stars still have groupies and girls still swoon at Obama rallies. Let's hope that the progress continues.
In his 2003 letter to the New York Times --- in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq invasion ---- Eason Jordan admitted that since 1990 he had approved CNN's depraved deal with Saddam Hussein to suppress news of the manifold Ba'athist atrocities against the people of Iraq in exchange for continuing access. Saddam and his family --- confessed Mr. Jordan, former Chief News Executive for CNN --- were also given many gifts to maintain this arrangement, by which CNN was guaranteed a front-row seat to the impending invasion.
(My attorney advises that I not use the descriptive but highly insulting pejorative terms I'd carefully researched to describe a treacherous greedy utterly craven sell-his-own-mother lowlife. So I won't. But you can be sure they would've singed your earlobes.)
The U.S. bombardment of the First Gulf War had already clearly established the accuracy of U.S. armaments, and the priority that the United States UNIQUELY IN THE HISTORY OF WARFARE assigned to minimizing collateral damage. So Mr. Eason could be certain that the only danger his staff would face amid the spectacular fireworks --- the reporting of which would surely garner a few more Emmys and Pulitzer Prizes --- would be from the wildly haphazard anti-aircraft shells fired by the Iraqis themselves.
So this miserable piece of garbage --- so highly trained in journalism and the ethics of that noble craft --- was intentionally presenting a picture to its United States audience of Saddam Hussein and his band of murdering, raping, torturing thugs, as just a bunch of decent guys being bullied about by the mean old U.S. So millions of loyal CNN viewers were trained for a dozen years to regard the assertions by our government as lies and distortions, because "CNN wouldn't LIE! They're professional journalists. With Journalistic Ethics!"
Funny how many people don't seem to have registered that confession by Eason Jordan. Or the implication that it's very likely that every accredited "news" organization was coerced into making the same sort of concessions.
Oh, Well. I suppose it's to Jordan's credit that he 'fessed up. Wonder what he's doing now.
...especially given the divided nature of the country these days...
In your pink optimism, you're also ruling out street justice and vigilantes chasing progressive liberals (who will be viewed as overt traitors at that point) through their 'burbs.
By the way, anyone claiming that the majority of the U.S. population had given up on the war has a vast burden of proving that assertion.
The Imperial Press, along with a very radical and vicious group of folks on the LEFT managed to get a lot of attention, and make it appear that there was a much greater portion of the public opposed to the war.
Look at how the press reports gatherings of radicals whose goals they prefer --- they will frame their photographs and videos to get the greatest mass of humans possible in the frame, and claim a total attendance that no one else can confirm.
However much the government mis-represented things, the press did its damnedest to tell lies that served ITS agenda, and they had all the access to the public's eyes and ears. Even the government had to reach the public through the left-wing media.
“What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could on the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won.!” General Giap, Commander, North Viet Nam Forces.
Here are two excellent essays regarding the morality and just cause of our struggle against Communist tyranny during the Vietnamese aspect of World War III. A case can certainly be made, and is made, that mistakes were made in the war; but that is also true of every war fought in American history. The real question is whether or not it was a just war - war in defense of sacred life and liberty.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/010/765hkvip.asp?pg=1
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/boomers_and_the_vietnam_shrug.html
El baboso: Rock stars still have groupies and girls still swoon at Obama rallies. Let's hope that the progress continues.
I wonder if this is the sort of progress you have in mind:
PHILADELPHIA -- Chelsea Clinton stopped traffic Friday night as she wandered the streets of Philadelphia on a gay bar crawl, winning rave reviews for both her politics and her appearance.
“I grabbed her ass,” one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter.
It's a fundamental mistake to think there's some stratum of wise men upon whom the masses can rely.
And conversely, we all know someone who is truly wise, but has a very limited scope of authority. This is usually due to an excess of sanity rather than vanity.
storm-rider, of your two VN links, the second doesn't work -- wonder if you could re-try to post it?
Thanks!
buddy larsen,
Try highlighting the entire URL - it is a two line URL - then paste it into the URL address line of your brouser and then hit enter.
That works on my brouser, but if it fails on yours, just go to American Thinker and search for articles by Frank Dudley Berry, Jr. The article is entitled: "Boomers and the Vietnam Shrug."
Thanks -- got it. "Boomers and the Vietnam Shrug" -- what a title. And it's not just VN that gets the shrug -- it's also the world-catastrophic five years that followed in every corner of the globe. Five years the free world is STILL laboring mightily--and at great cost--to repair.
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