Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Just one of many cases of political in-correctness gone mad in the wake of 9/11. Not to mention the Dixe chicks told to Shut Up And Sing, and the stonewalling of Fahrenheit 9/11, among others.
Yeah, OK… political point made. Personally, I can’t get too outraged about decision that was made to pull after 9/11 the initial teaser poster, and a specially shot teaser trailer for the first Spider-Man movie. Both prominently included the WTC towers.
I guess you can call it “political incorrectness gone mad”, if you like. Others might just call it good taste.
For that matter, I can disagree with – but understand – the decision not to broadcast this episode of Buffy a week after the Columbine massacre. Considering recent events, I’m fairly sure the producers of The Event are glad that 1) the show is on hiatus until next month, and, 2) the plotline involving an elaborate conspiracy to assassinate the liberal President (who happens to be played by a black actor) is done.
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And here’s a really perfect way to sum up how totally fraked the American right has been about the Giffords shooting: I can say PAT BUCHANAN is the grown-up in the room with a straight face.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
“it would be really nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn’t actually represent how we talk to one another on TV.”
I’ve watching that clip a dozen times and finally figured out what really really annoys me about Stewart there.
Nobody asked him one very simple question: “Dude, ever watch you own fucking show?”
Seriously, the whole raison d’être of The Daily Show/Colbert Report is to turn those “crazy people” into an elaborate and breathtakingly cynical gag. Would it be entirely unfair to say Stewart and Colbert need American political discourse to be a toxic waste dump, even if they can't quite admit it to themselves?
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Mental illness expert: We should be asking whether political climate helped trigger shooting.
Money quote:
Dr. Marvin Swartz [psychiatry professor at Duke University who specializes in how environment impacts the behavior of the mentally ill] cautioned that there’s still much we don’t know about Loughner or more generally about the impact of the political climate on the mentally ill. But he asserted that asking how our politics might have impacted Loughner’s behavior was an entirely natural line of questioning.
“We know the manifestation of mental illness is affected by cultural factors,” Dr. Swartz said. “One’s cultural context does effect people’s thinking and particularly their delusions. It gives some content and shape to their delusions. While we don know whether there was a specific relationship between the political climate that he was exposed to and his thinking, it’s a reasonable line of inquiry to explore.”
I think David Brooks just got powned by someone who actually knows what he’s talking about.
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Professor Reynolds doubles down on the stupid with this fragrant piece of macho posturing (h/t @dailydish via Twitter): TIM PAWLENTY DEMONSTRATES THAT HE’S NOT MAN ENOUGH TO BE PRESIDENT
Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s act of gross effeminacy? Going off script, of course.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty used three media appearances in the past 24 hours to offer a careful criticism of potential 2012 rival Sarah Palin.
“It would not have been my style,” Pawlenty said Tuesday on “Good Morning America,” referring to a map like the one posted last year on the Sarah PAC website showing crosshairs on the district of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other Democratic lawmakers who supported health care reform.
He was quick to add that he sees no link between Palin’s imagery and the shootings Saturday in Tucson that claimed six lives and critically injured Giffords.
But this is what the current GOP and its enablers have become -- no longer a political party but a cult. And like all cults, the heretic must be crushed with even more rigour than the infidel.
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Meanwhile, NYT columnist David Brooks caps off an epic "move along, nothing to see here" concern troll with a rather unfortunate turn of phrase:
If the evidence continues as it has, the obvious questions are these: How can we more aggressively treat mentally ill people who are becoming increasingly disruptive? How can we prevent them from getting guns? Do we need to make involuntary treatment easier for authorities to invoke?
I have an obvious question for Mr Brooks: Do do think those questions should be asked by someone who can resist calling people he disagrees with "hysterics"?
Does he think labeling someone a paranoid schizophrenic on the basis of a Google search (and no psychiatric expertese I'm aware of) is "a humane mental health policy" or the very "political opportunism" he pretends to disdain?
But hey, just lock up all the scary crazy people - mission accomplished!
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Veteran wingnut-watcher Roy Edroso is great value as usual in noting that the response of quite a few people on the political right to Giffords being shot has been to declare they they are the real victims.
And it would be kind of amusing how many of these "despicable leftists" are only any such thing in the right-o-sphere's Bizarro World. I don't know if Matthew Yglesias would appreciate the compliment, but he's more of a conservative in many ways than The Walking Brain-Dead.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Good grief, Neil. The actual line that you had to read right down to the bottom of a long blog post to find is: “Not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bulls eye on their district.” That’s it.
Now, Neil, I've got a really tough assignment for you. Please find something in the work of some prominent media liberal you can use to excuse this vileness from Rush Limbaugh:
"What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that...the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America...this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder - but something lesser."
Ugh...
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Have I ever told you I love yer work, Craig?
I'm sure you have, but don't let me stop you stroking my ego until it starts kicking its legs in the air...
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Oh, and don’t forget any criticism of Palin or the Tea Party is the politics of blood libel. Yup, Glenn Reynolds (whose day job is being a tenured law professor at the University of Tennessee law school) did a drive-by equation of criticism of a public figure with poisonous anti-Semitism.
Where do I get the silly idea that the American right is impossible to take seriously?
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