People in the News
Hunter S. Thompson – Over the weekend the father of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson, blew his brains out with a shotgun. Like another American literary icon, Ernest Hemingway, Hunter seemed to have lived past his time, sensed it and killed himself before aging into an embarrassing anachronism such as Norman Mailer or Gore Vidal.
Thompson’s style of first person, opinion filled journalism influenced a whole generation of journalists and commentators. Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Howard Stern, Don Imus, all took their cue from Thompson on some level. Thompson’s writings on the 1972 Presidential campaign collected as “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” 1972 can be said to be the first blog thirty years before the term was invented.
Hunter himself was one of the few figures of the 1960s counterculture who didn’t sell out and morph into a nerdy latte-drinking busy-body practicing Taoist meditation and picketing for animal rights. Instead, like a lot of Americans he lived a sort of cowboy fantasy moving into a 40 acre ranch in Colorado, playing with guns and hanging around at the local saloon.
Eventually Hunter shot himself probably because he was in bad health, and would soon have to move into town. My guess is that we’ll see a lot of people here in the West follow Hunter’s example and blow their brains out as they approach seventy or eighty because their fantasy is no longer tenable. If the gasoline shortage or economy makes rural fantasy lifestyles like that of Hunter S. Thompson unviable we’ll see quite a few people shoot themselves like Hunter did.
Bill Moyers – The grand old man of public television has been going around the country spreading what amounts to Anti-Christian bigotry. News reports indicate that Moyers warned an audience at Harvard that the Bush administration is dangerous because it is influenced by apocalyptic Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity.
In other words Moyers called Bush and his administration and all the Christians who voted for them a pack of ignorant Bible thumpers. There is no evidence that this is true, as far as I know no high-ranking member of the Bush administration has publicly expressed a belief that the End Times or Second Coming as predicted by the book of Revelation is imminent. Nor is there any evidence that Bush is any more religious than say Bill Clinton (who belongs to an Evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptists, and attended church every week with a Bible in his hands) or Jimmy Carter (a Southern Baptist who taught Sunday School).
Far from being apocalyptic, Bush’s policies have been extremely forward looking. He has talked about expanding the space program, returning to the Moon and mounting a Mars expedition. On Earth he has engaged in nation building efforts to build new democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has also talked of shoring Social Security up for the future. These are hardly the actions of an ignorant boob who believes that the rapture is about to occur next week. They are the work of a man who believes that America has a long future ahead of it.
Moyers should be criticized for this ignorant bigotry instead the media is ignoring his cheap hatemongering. Unfortunately, Moyers can get away with such bigotry because he is attacking Christians or more precisely working and middle class Christians in the heartland. Just imagine the criticism Moyers would get if he accused the Bush administration of being controlled by an evil Jewish conspiracy.
George W. Bush – In remarks to thirty young German leaders reported by CNN on Feb. 23, our president let the cat out of the bag so to speak. He told the leaders that America should lessen its dependence upon imported oil by taking advantage of “safe nuclear power.”
This means that Bush is going to start promoting rail as an alternative to the automobile in America. Nuclear reactors can generate lots of power in the form of electricity but there is no practical way to use that power in cars or trucks. It is very easy, on the other hand to use that electricity to power trains and trolleys which can be connected directly to the power system through third rail or cantilevers or trolleys.
My guess is that Bush will soon announce a major initiative to build new nuclear power plants, another initiative to greatly expand rail based mass transit in America’s cities (light rail and subways), a plan to electrify the mainline railroads and possibly a major high speed rail proposal. The Republican Congress will get behind these plans because the business community will be for them, manufacturers and importers will want to get their goods to market, retailers want their shelves filled, travelers will need to get to hotels and resorts and people will have to get to work. This will make Bush the target of criticism from the anti-rail libertarians and highway fanatics who voted for him in the first place.
Yes folks we live in very interesting times indeed.
Thompson’s style of first person, opinion filled journalism influenced a whole generation of journalists and commentators. Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Howard Stern, Don Imus, all took their cue from Thompson on some level. Thompson’s writings on the 1972 Presidential campaign collected as “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” 1972 can be said to be the first blog thirty years before the term was invented.
Hunter himself was one of the few figures of the 1960s counterculture who didn’t sell out and morph into a nerdy latte-drinking busy-body practicing Taoist meditation and picketing for animal rights. Instead, like a lot of Americans he lived a sort of cowboy fantasy moving into a 40 acre ranch in Colorado, playing with guns and hanging around at the local saloon.
Eventually Hunter shot himself probably because he was in bad health, and would soon have to move into town. My guess is that we’ll see a lot of people here in the West follow Hunter’s example and blow their brains out as they approach seventy or eighty because their fantasy is no longer tenable. If the gasoline shortage or economy makes rural fantasy lifestyles like that of Hunter S. Thompson unviable we’ll see quite a few people shoot themselves like Hunter did.
Bill Moyers – The grand old man of public television has been going around the country spreading what amounts to Anti-Christian bigotry. News reports indicate that Moyers warned an audience at Harvard that the Bush administration is dangerous because it is influenced by apocalyptic Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity.
In other words Moyers called Bush and his administration and all the Christians who voted for them a pack of ignorant Bible thumpers. There is no evidence that this is true, as far as I know no high-ranking member of the Bush administration has publicly expressed a belief that the End Times or Second Coming as predicted by the book of Revelation is imminent. Nor is there any evidence that Bush is any more religious than say Bill Clinton (who belongs to an Evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptists, and attended church every week with a Bible in his hands) or Jimmy Carter (a Southern Baptist who taught Sunday School).
Far from being apocalyptic, Bush’s policies have been extremely forward looking. He has talked about expanding the space program, returning to the Moon and mounting a Mars expedition. On Earth he has engaged in nation building efforts to build new democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has also talked of shoring Social Security up for the future. These are hardly the actions of an ignorant boob who believes that the rapture is about to occur next week. They are the work of a man who believes that America has a long future ahead of it.
Moyers should be criticized for this ignorant bigotry instead the media is ignoring his cheap hatemongering. Unfortunately, Moyers can get away with such bigotry because he is attacking Christians or more precisely working and middle class Christians in the heartland. Just imagine the criticism Moyers would get if he accused the Bush administration of being controlled by an evil Jewish conspiracy.
George W. Bush – In remarks to thirty young German leaders reported by CNN on Feb. 23, our president let the cat out of the bag so to speak. He told the leaders that America should lessen its dependence upon imported oil by taking advantage of “safe nuclear power.”
This means that Bush is going to start promoting rail as an alternative to the automobile in America. Nuclear reactors can generate lots of power in the form of electricity but there is no practical way to use that power in cars or trucks. It is very easy, on the other hand to use that electricity to power trains and trolleys which can be connected directly to the power system through third rail or cantilevers or trolleys.
My guess is that Bush will soon announce a major initiative to build new nuclear power plants, another initiative to greatly expand rail based mass transit in America’s cities (light rail and subways), a plan to electrify the mainline railroads and possibly a major high speed rail proposal. The Republican Congress will get behind these plans because the business community will be for them, manufacturers and importers will want to get their goods to market, retailers want their shelves filled, travelers will need to get to hotels and resorts and people will have to get to work. This will make Bush the target of criticism from the anti-rail libertarians and highway fanatics who voted for him in the first place.
Yes folks we live in very interesting times indeed.
posted by great one at 8:03 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home