Krauthammer hates the Berenstain bears. Fuck 'em, I say.
He sustained the injury during his first year of medical school (Harvard, natch), but I can't seem to unearth the specifics of the accident.
This post strikes me as a desperate cry for attention. I believe ogged is angling to be denounced by leading Democrats and, if he's lucky, get his own censure resolution.
I'm tired of Bay Area opinion leaders like Ogged and Pete Stark angling for denouncement like this. Also, "Angling for Denouncement" will be the title of my first chapbook of poems.
"Angling for Denouncement" will be the title of my first chapbook of poems.
This is so simultaneously pathetic and hilarious and, at a meta level, pathetic and hilarious that I don't know what to do with myself.
leading Democrats
Pardon my oxymoron.
7: Masturbation is probably indicated, unless you want to try some weird "New Age" therapy like an herbal enema or a crystal insertion.
This commenter on Pat Lang's blog says he dove into an empty pool. Sounds good to me!
I ran into Miss Congeniality Minnesota 2006 again today. People don't realize the importance of this. Minnesota is the most congenial state, except sometimes for Iowa.
So in other words, Miss Schmidt was goddamn fucking congenial.
Either that's what happened, or else ogged has been seeding blogs with these comments saying that it did.
Did he do something particularly odious of late?
You're not threatened, B. You're still #1 in the wholesomeness category.
If it was a diving accident, Krauthammer's lucky he isn't a quadriplegic. When I worked with mobility-impaired people, most of the quadriplegia I saw was the result of diving accidents. Getting drunk and deciding to go swimming was the usual story, followed by auto accidents and falling out of trees.
17: But way way down on the congenial list.
Hey, B. You're not on fire! How's PK holding up?
Where do you keep running into Miss Congeniality Schmidt?
I had a student in Lubbock who took several classes from me who was paralyzed in the same sort of accident. Its really common, and not a very good reason to mock people. Better to stick with making fun of him for being belligerent and foolish.
The bobdevo guy who said Krauthammer dove into a literally empty pool is a founding member of Devo. So he would know, surely.
Forget PK, what about my stuff?!?
Also: B, I'm glad to hear that you are not on fire.
20: Thanks, he's way up in Stockton with my dad. Miles from the fires. I'm supposed to drive up and join him tomorrow but I didn't get shit done today, so...
He sees her every time he goes to the Schmidt house.
27: I'm fine, but the smoke smell in my backyard seems to have given way to a "something died" smell, which I really don't want to investigate.
I'm going to have to start charging for these set ups...
Glad you're ok B.
not a very good reason to mock people
But an excellent reason to mock Charles Krauthammer. Don't think of the innocents when you mock him, for crying out loud.
My primary experience with Charles Krauthammer is reading essays in which freshmen quote him as a neutral source. Infuriating.
Did he do something particularly odious of late?
Only every word he has written or spoken in the last fifteen years.
Miss Congeniality goes to the same bar I do. Marcus has been there and can confirm that going to that bar definitively proves that Miss Schmidt is not al all stuck up, believe me.
Speaking of douchebaggery, I don't think this guy's attempt keeping it real quite gets there:
Local television overnight had fixed on the image of a large house, a 10,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style hilltop jewel, burning to the ground in Rancho Santa Fe, a wealthy area. It belonged to Bob Jaffe, a venture capitalist, who visited the wreck on Tuesday. His Porsche somehow survived."Yes, they managed to save my Porsche," Mr. Jaffe said. "But I'd much rather they had saved my daughter's stuffed animals."
Should have put them in the trunk of the Porsche.
One of his ex-wives was in the trunk.
6 is awesome. 36 is awesome in a completely different way that lesser mortals might mistake for the exact opposite of awesomeness.
I former roommate of mine was a teenager when her mother escaped from a mental institution and burned her house down. My roommate occasionally said that it was a very good experience for her, because she was never again attached to material possessions. To this day, as I sit in a large house with nearly 2,000 books, I aspire to be as unmaterialistic as she was.
If you want someone to burn your house down, just give the word, rh-c. You said you had moved into the wrong neighborhood anyway, right?
41: We've had a handful of burglaries over the years, one of which got a number of items I was sentimental about. That had kind of the same impact on me. I like my stuff and all, but there's nothing I'd be heartbroken to lose.
But... but... I like my stuff! I want to see my dear, sweet little records again.
I lost some tapes of my 3-year-old son. Can't remember the other stuff.
44: I'm totally on board with "but it would be a total pain in the ass to replace!"
Wow, even thinking of Southern California like totally screws up whatever's left of my vocabulary. Totally.
I would be very bummed if my clock got burned. Or my cedar trees. Most everything else? Just stuff.
I always assumed it was diving as in SCUBA - an embolism or something - which grieved me, because I know a lot of SCUBA divers and none of them are belligerent assholes. But now I learn he just jumped in head first without looking on the assumption that he would be greeted with flowers and candy (or at least water) - that's just such a Krauthammer accident.
Books aren't materialism. Anyway, I recall when crazy rightwing acquaintance (thinks Tariq Ramadan is the hereditary leader of the global jihad, which he coordinates from a secret headquarters in Geneva with the assistance of Sandy Berger, and rather worryingly works at SOUTHCOM) got his house trashed by a hurricane; the worst thing was that about two-thirds of his books were ruined.
Losing books? That's horrible,
I promised the last time I took ogged to task that the next time I would revert to my customary posture of defending him, but I can't do it.
This is over the top.
The man routinely expresses loathesome views, but to wish such suffering and pain on someone (and their family) like this is unworthy of you. It's time to step back a minute and think about the humanity you have in common. Part of the loathesomeness of Krauthammer is that he can't do this with, say, Palestinian children. Don't sink to his level.
Don't sink to his level.
To sink to Krauthammer's level, It's not enough to merely say "he deserved it" or whatever the nit we're picking is. Someone who had sunk to Krauthammer's level would also advocate, to a national audience, emptying more pools before people dive into them because swimmers are inherently untrustworthy or something.
to wish such suffering and pain on someone (and their family)
I don't see any such wish.
Don't sink to his level.
But if you must, check first to make sure there's water in the pool.
The man routinely expresses loathesome views, but to wish such suffering and pain on someone (and their family) like this is unworthy of you.
Cue mcmanus.
Someone who had sunk to Krauthammer's level would also advocate, to a national audience, emptying more pools before people dive into them because swimmers are inherently untrustworthy or something.
Secretly emptying. Otherwise the tricksy bastards might not dive in.
48 is obviously a cry for attention, people.
Your clock, Charley?
There. Was that so hard?
Your clock, Charley?
Probably keeps his weed in there.
Personally, I'm done with taking the high grounds: fuckers like Krauthammer should die a painful and horrible death, as they have made the world a worse place to be in, and not because they say nasty shit, but because they've helped enact policies that have killed and maimed thousands, if not millions. These aren't minor political differences which can be dealt with in a civil matter. So go for the Argentine solution I say.
When people get that way about clocks, I just back out of the room. Roth is a brave man or person.
Cox News Service, 2/16/2005:
During the summer of his first year in medical school at Harvard University, Krauthammer was diving off a springboard at a swimming pool. He hit his head on the bottom, breaking his neck and damaging his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.According to a profile in 1984 in The Washington Post, Krauthammer has partial use of his arms and hands, but it took a lot of practice to be able to write again.
Might have been a full pool, just too shallow for the dive.
The link in 58 is positively heartwarming.
Aaand here's the relevant parts of that profile:
[He] dove off a springboard at an outdoor swimming pool and hit his head on the bottom, breaking his neck and injuring his spinal cord. He lay in the water, legs paralyzed, unable to swim to the top."I knew exactly what had happened," he says now. "And I knew I was going to die, because I couldn't swim. And at a certain point, when that happens, you don't panic anymore. And it was at that point that they pulled me out."
...
Krauthammer sued the builders of the pool and waited five years before settling out of court for about $1 million. By that time, he was a psychiatrist treating patients and not in dire need of the money -- not that he had ever been. "My family's never needed money," he says. He's used the settlement money for living expenses and investments. "It does cover all the extra costs in my life," he says. "Like my van. Instead of spending $8,000 on a car, I spend $40,000."
Krauthammer hates the Berenstain bears
Ah. That solves the mystery of who ghosted this one.
Krauthammer is a psychiatrist! I've gotten help from some very good psychiatrists, but some of the ones I've known socially have been total pricks. Of course, this is true of people in any profession, but there's something particularly awful about the judgmentalism of of a judgmental shrink. The worst offender was someone I knew who graduated from med school in '58 and had been head of the psychoanalytic institute in Boston. He was also a total misogynist and joined a fringe continuing-Anglican church when his Anglo-Catholic Episcopal parish went in a direction that he didn't like.
One gay man I know called him a self-hating fag.
I had an appointment with a psychiatrist yesterday. He was okay, but I wasn't all that impressed.
I don't see any such wish.
To argue that suffering is someone's just dessert is morally in the same category as wishing it on them. Even if you accept the twin premises that Krauthammer's advocacy is causally connected to the suffering and death and that paralyzing trauma is the just reward for said advocacy, remember that the man has a mother and father who, if they were living at the time, had to watch their young son turned into a cripple. Was that a just outcome?
I won't say it is inhuman to take find satisfaction in the suffering of others, because it is all too human. Broken vessels that we are, we are prone to such feelings of vindictiveness. It is a mark of civilization that we suppress them in ourselves and abhor them in others. I'm abhorring it in ogged right now.
remember that the man has a mother and father who, if they were living at the time, had to watch their young son turned into a cripple. Was that a just outcome?
I would think that depends how much you think they contributed to him becoming the evil son of bitch he is today.
These aren't minor political differences which can be dealt with in a civil matter. So go for the Argentine solution I say.
Oddly enough, I knew a girl (high school exchange student) whose father was the chief of police in Buenos Aires until he "went into early retirement" around 1987. Sweetest girl you would ever want to know, and the father was probably guilty of unspeakable atrocities. It weirded me out even then.
I would think that depends how much you think they contributed to him becoming the evil son of bitch he is today.
Y'all are fucked. Switch out the name of the object of your hatred and you could be posting at the Free Republic.
70: Unless you subscribe to the belief that anger, retribution, and hate are in all ways and at all times wrong--a philosophy with much to recommend it, but a hard one--the object's pretty important.
suffering is someone's just dessert
I think Apo is right here, that's not what the post says. It suggests it would be nice to think that he had brought this suffering on himself through stupidity.
Yeah, if you want real nastiness about Krauthammer, Ogged isn't your go-to guy, KR.
We're just looking retroactively at soething that's already happened asn saying it couldn't have happened to a nicer person.
Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, and the Freepers have had a tremendous run of success because they've been able to tap into anger and use it. Liberals have been saying "I'd rather lose than win that way" as long as I can remember. And lo! they lost.
"Changing the objects of your anger" is not a trivial change.
How does he sue the pool manufacturer over that? Did they advertise that it was impossible to hit your head on the bottom?
Unsafe design. There are tested configurations where some manufacturer says you can put X kind of diving board on a pool that's Y deep out to Z feet in front of the board. If they advertise a configuration as safe, but they knew or should have known of a substantial risk of injury, they're properly liable.
Liberals have been saying "I'd rather lose than win that way" as long as I can remember.
I've got nothing against winning. I'm even very much in favor or winning dirty, if need be. But smirking in satisfaction at someone's paralysis makes no contribution to our side winning, and conceivably could do the opposite..
Unless you subscribe to the belief that anger, retribution, and hate are in all ways and at all times wrong
I don't subscribe to that belief, either. I think that anger, retribution, and hate are at all times something humans are susceptible to. They probably play an important role in forming our sense of justice, and therefore might well be indispensable to civilization. And yet, given free rein, they have the potential to cause great anguish, so we need to control them carefully. The instrument of that control is the convention of decency, and ogged violated that convention.
The instrument of that control is the convention of decency, and ogged violated that convention.
An instrument. Another conventional control--one that I'd argue is traditionally the important one--is "appropriate object." Ogged didn't violate that convention.
Unfortunately, my problem is that our schadenfreude does not cause Krauthammer great anguish.
"appropriate object"
Krauthammer writes op-eds and bloviates on television. He holds a lot of odious views, and some people who share his opinions have done some outrageous things. So tee-hee, he crushed his spinal cord, snicker snicker?
As the kid on Fat Albert used to say, "No class."
I don't understand going after his disabilities (self inflicted or otherwise). Isn't it more to point to just notethat he is a lousy human being?
If we nasty liberals mock him for his misfortune, at least we accept it.
I will further elucidate my personal sense of the permissible boundaries of Schadenfreude
Newt Gingrich called out on ethics charges: OK!
Bob Ney goes to jail: OK!
Limbaugh arrested for smuggling boner pills: OK!
Hagee exposed as a gay whoremonger: OK!
Bill Bennett exposed as a compulsive gambler: borderline
Reagan loses his mind from Alzheimers: not OK
Lee Atwater gets a brain tumor and dies: not OK
Karl Rove (hypothetically) gets cancer of the testicles and has to have a painful surgical castration: I'm struggling against my baser instincts here, but still not OK
Yeah, that business about "class" is exactly what I can't stand. We Are Better Than That. Kerry campaigned that way, on the advice of Mary Beth Cahill. What a fucking chump.
I don't claim that saying nasty things about Krauthammer will actually accomplish anything. It's just sort of a casual amusement. But we really are in a gutter fight now. We rally have no choice about that. No particular reason to try to be nice.
Perhaps I subscribe to an obsolete notion of honor, but there is a difference between the knight who runs a man through in the heat of battle and the brute who knocks over the beggar's bowl for casual amusement.
I'm all for going for the jugular in politics: if HRC wins in '08 by whispering that Mitt Romney is a heretic polygamist, more power to her. But to rejoice (and don't deny it, that's what y'all were doing) in the physical suffering of another is to align yourself with brutes and sadists.
Further to 84:
Scooter Libby goes to jail: Schadenfreude OK! (if only!)
Scooter Libby goes to jail and gets ass-raped: not OK
if HRC wins in '08 by whispering that Mitt Romney is a heretic polygamist, more power to her.
Oh hey now...
85: Saying nasty things about Krauthammer is all good, I just don't know why anyone would go for a physical disability when the guy is open to so many more pointed attacks.
You mean we should poke him with sharpened sticks?
As usual, ogged farts and leaves the room.
You mean we should poke him with sharpened sticks?
He does make a nice, stationary target.
Krauthammer writes op-eds and bloviates on television. He holds a lot of odious views
Krauthammer is the most openly hateful, well-known and well-regarded voice of which I'm aware. I can't think of anyone else who is close. The dehumanized and contemptuous description of Arabs--a people we're killing at present, and from whom he pretty clearly wants a greater bloody payment--implicit in his work is well beyond obscene and has been at work for decades. If that's not apparent on reading his work, I don't know what to tell you. I can't even chide you: to my great shame, I missed it or ignored it until pretty recently.
If Father Coughlin had died of a vicious cancer, I would have been OK with that. What can I say? I think worrying about bad things happening to very bad people is the last jump on the way to goodness, and I'm well back on the course. God willing, there's time for me to learn (which I mean sincerely). But I'm not there yet.
92: He's going to ban you when he gets back.
dehumanized and contemptuous description of Arabs
And he's a psychiatrist who uses his op-ed column to make half-assed diagnoses of mental illness in any Democrat who looks like they might stand a chance of winning.
98: pleats? can you see anything with pleats getting by an apple design review? might as well add a bustle.
Hmmm, I probably should have waited ten or so minutes to post 102 if I'd wanted it to be at all convincing.
Crap.
If that's not apparent on reading his work, I don't know what to tell you.
Let my protestations not be interpreted as a substantive defense of Krauthammer! The man makes Marty Peretz look like T.E. Lawrence.
I console myself with the thought that most of you, if not all of you, would rediscover your humanity if you were confronted with the object of your hatred directly. Let's say, Krauthammer has fallen off of his wheelchair and is lying unconscious in a pool of blood. There's no one else around. You could totally leave him there, or even give him a swift kick in the head, and no one would be the wiser.
I suspect that even Apo, who talks tough about rolling Krauthammer off of a pier, would be moved to help in this situation.
I'm suggesting that everyone who is giving voice to depersonalized hatred should think a moment about what suffering means before joking about it in a cavalier fashion.
I attended a funeral mass this morning for a former colleague who died suddenly of liver cancer. She was loved by everyone, and the church was full to capacity. I'm not Catholic, and I have a lot of problems with the church of Rome, but I got to thinking during the mass about the Catholic doctrine of human dignity. It was far from inevitable that this particular concept should be elevated to such a central role in Catholic doctrine (and indeed, that elevation is a fairly recent phenomenon).
And what a powerful concept it is! It's perhaps the most ecumenical doctrine the church holds; notions of justice may vary, certainly definitions of piety vary, but the equation of human body = dignity = inviolability has a good claim to universality. We all know pain, and fear it. We understand that we all have this in common as humans. Both religious and secular people can agree that indifference to suffering belongs to the dark side of humanity.
even Apo, who talks tough about rolling Krauthammer off of a pier, would be moved to help in this situation.
I talk jokingly about rolling him off a pier. Yes, I would help him back into his wheelchair. And then I would spend the rest of my life devoured by self-loathing and regret.
If we save him, does he have to grant us three wishes?
Apo - I would acknowledge your regret, but still be angry at you for your wrongdoing.
Knecht, you've got to be kidding
Kidding about what? I think my more-earnest-than-usual tone conveys that I'm not.
Ogged has a hate on for Krauthammer. He was feeling especially peevish for some reason and expressed his hatred in a way that conveys indifference to suffering. Others jumped on the bandwagon. I protested that, while many things are all in good fun, it's a good thing to maintain a taboo about celebrating an individual's physical suffering.
Does that make me humorless? I hope not. Go ahead and tell a cripple joke, I'm down with that. Does that make me a Krauthammer fellow traveller? Certainly not. A weak-kneed liberal loser? I think there is a fair defense to be made on my behalf on that score as well.
I still like y'all, I'm just arguing for a particular personal view of the boundaries of decency on this blog, much as B. occasionally does.
Kidding about what? ... my more-earnest-than-usual tone
Yes, that.
I still like y'all, I'm just arguing for a particular personal view of the boundaries of decency on this blog, much as B. occasionally does.
Remember that B was banned here for a long while, and it's a struggle every day not to do it again.
And really, I have issues, so the more you protest about celebrating suffering posts, the more celebrations of physical suffering you're going to get.
104: I think I'd help him, but I'd try to find some way to twist the (metaphorical, don't hyperventilate) knife. Like, I don't know, if he wasn't actually unconscious maybe I'd try to convince him I was an Arab. Ooo, my first name's Persian, that's close enough for him. Or when I visited him at the hospital later and he said thanks, I'd cite some passage from the Koran about charity and helping others. Something like that.
111: or just use the resulting 15 minutes of media time to point out that even a reprehensible human being deserves to be helped out sometimes, and even the fact that he'd probably go on spewing his poisonous, malicious, idiotic invective every chance he gets didn't --- quite --- allow you to ignore that.
110: And really, I have issues, so the more you protest about celebrating suffering posts, the more celebrations of physical suffering you're going to get.
Ogged it is truly utterly disgusting when you post about baseball. I can't believe you would even begin to consider doing that.
Or when I visited him at the hospital later and he said thanks
What makes you think he'd thank you, you nearly-persian bastard? He'd probably sue you.
Safest all round to leave him where he is, and let nature take its course.
And those effusive posts about how feminism has made life better for everyone, men and women alike, really tick me off. They're so patently insincere.
You know what we should do? Give Krauthammer a five second head start and then bean him with baseballs.
113: I think being subjected to baseball is a bit more physical suffering than anyone had in mind, don't you?
Remember that B was banned here for a long while, and it's a struggle every day not to do it again.
Well, I can certainly sympathize with that. But in fairness, any chilling effect of my particular proposed boundary is pretty minor compared to the cocktail of caprice that is B's sensitivities.
I appreciate the "nothing is sacred" aspect of this blog as much as anyone. Incest? Analingus? Incestuous analingus? All in good fun.
But all of us have a personal sense of where the boundary of decency lies (Quick, try this: "I hope Laura Bush gets breast cancer"), and my sense is that not rejoicing in the physical suffering of others is a pretty serviceable bright line rule.
Where have you been when I've done my "I hope X gets hit by a bus" posts? Anyway, you've been misreading the post, since I never said that I was glad he was paralyzed, just that I hope it was his own stupid fault.
Yeah, I mean, rejoicing in the physical suffering of others describes probably 60% of posts on this site in one way or other.
I'm totally down with 111, by the way. It would be even better if he could be helped by stem cell therapy, but the stem cells had to come from an Arab.
The other 40% rejoice in their mental anguish.
and my sense is that not rejoicing in the physical suffering of others is a pretty serviceable bright line rule.
Clearly not a materialist.
"I hope X gets hit by a bus" is hyperbole, and pretty unobjectionable. "X got hit by a bus; serves the stupid fucker right" is closer to the case at hand.
"the cocktail of caprice that is B's sensitivities." It's a shame that B's blog doesn't have a mouseover text (does it?).
125: See, to a consequentialist, the former is worse, since it's hoping for more harm than there is already. Schadenfreude doesn't increase harm.
Imagine a runaway bus which must go down track A or track B. On track A is Krauthammer stalled in his wheelchair. On track B is a resurrected Mother Theresa and several other resurrected saints. The engineer chooses track A, and even Krauthammer could not criticize his choice unless one of the saints were an Arab or a Palestinian sympathizer.
So the question is, when he hears the crunch of Krathammer's wheelchair under his wheels, should the engineer smile quietly to himself or not?
B was banned here for a long while, and it's a struggle every day not to do it again.
This getting-together-with-PK thing is going to be a real blast, isn't it?
Point out to PK what an admirably strong individual ogged is, facing up to such a daily struggle.
And really, I have issues
Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?
If I ever teach an ethics course I'm using the case in 127.
Schadenfreude doesn't increase harm.
It doesn't harm Mr. Krauthammer, but it harms the engineer. Hatred is an acid that corrodes the vessel that contains it, as they used to teach us in Sunday School.
SCMT is wrong that "worrying about bad things happening to very bad people is the last jump on the way to goodness". To be indifferent to suffering, even the suffering of bad people, puts you on a different plane, from which it is a short step to being indifferent to suffering of non-bad people. The idea of a "hardened heart" is as old as literature itself.
To be indifferent to suffering
I didn't think indifference was the issue at hand.
I'm totally down with 111, by the way.
Ah crap, you weren't supposed to agree with me. OK, how about this -- I'd try to convince him I'm Muslim, and if he expressed revulsion or mistrust, I'd leave him there. Ha!
Gawd, I should have just stuck with the cat's anus thread.
I should have just stuck with the cat's anus ATM.
Most of us are already pretty harmed already, KR.
I didn't think indifference was the issue at hand.
I was being charitable. Anyway, shouldn't you be getting your ass to Cambridge Common? That's where I'm heading.
Express a cat's anus on him, then help him back into the wheelchair.
The idea of a "hardened heart" is as old as literature itself.
So is heliocentrism.
Am I the only one familiar with the expression "Clean as a cat's ass"?
But cat's asses really *aren't* all that clean.
I'm not saying it's accurate, just that there is a cliche to that effect, probably derived from the amount of time cats invest in personal hygiene.
Okay, not all that common, but clearly not just me.
Well, they lick a lot, but you know, the little pieces of poop get stuck in the little puckers.
No one recognizes "honey, bring me the cat's ass," either, do they?
Google doesn't, so it must not ever have been said before.
It's from an old SNL skit about a family that liked terrible smells. It wasn't the greatest skit in the world, but that one line became a standard in our house. I think it might've been Phil Hartman saying it, even.
See? And my wife always says I'm "wasting my time" here.
It's like University all over again.
IA is Canadian, they're like that except when they get a little Screech in them.
I think it might've been Phil Hartman
Or maybe Kelsey Grammer.
I'm with KR on this one.
In that case, two people are being absurd. You're both responding to a self-consciously mean joke with "that's mean." Maybe we should all go read a pretty book.
153 is exactly wrong. Get some proper screetch in them, and it's angry ape.
or i just misread 153. never mind
Isn't KR expressing a sense of poetic justice as fairness, in which proportionality of karmic retribution is required?
(get enough screetch in them, and they'll burn the white house)
Isn't KR expressing a sense of poetic justice as fairness, in which proportionality of karmic retribution is required?
Maybe he is, but I still don't know what that has to do with the post.
155: I don't think the joke is over the line, but of course there's a line -- saying it's a purposefully mean joke doesn't make criticizing it for excess meanness absurd.
Oh wait, the comment threads are supposed to have something to do with the posts?
doesn't make criticizing it for excess meanness absurd
No, but it would have to be quite far over the line to justify criticizing a joke that the person telling it knows is mean. And it would have to result in dozens of real-world deaths to justify the disquisition we've gotten from Knecht.
Or maybe Kelsey Grammer.
Yes! What can I say, tall, blondish, guy-looking-guys all look alike to me.
Not really, but it does cut down on cross-posting between threads.
One thing I know for certain, proportionality of karmic retribution is the last thing Krauthammer wants.
Maybe Krauthammer took his retribution in advance and figure that he got a license to be shitty forever.
167: No, he hasn't suffered severe enough retribution, given the continual augmentation of his already-impressive wealth during his lifetime.
If he uses a cilice or a whip to produce physical suffering sufficient to even out the harm he causes to others, I will let him slide.
Hatred is an acid that corrodes the vessel that contains it, as they used to teach us in Sunday School.
I prefer to think of hate as the fire that tempers the steel.
In that case, two people are being absurd.
Fair enough. It may be absurd of me, but I think mocking someone (even someone as thoroughly vile and loathsome as Krauthammer) for an infirmity or disability is way over the line. I'm not inclined to moralize at length on the topic...but I did want to note that I basically agree with KR.
170--
yeah, me too.
but turning a deaf ear to some of ogged's occasional puerilities is the price for hanging out here.
and mostly he's good company.
I'm just arguing for a particular personal view of the boundaries of decency on this blog, much as B. occasionally does.
Much as B occasionally does when she's not stretching the boundaries of personal decency.
I prefer to think of hate as the fire that tempers the steel.
GSWIFT! WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE?
Gswift, there really isn't much of the Mormon left in you, is there. It's all that living among them that does it, I tell you.
All those Mormons in the CIA are assigned to global pretty flower distribution duty.
Mormons really fuck up my ability to distinguish between "kind and decent" and "smarmy bastard."
GSWIFT! WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE?
To crush your enemies, see their wheelchairs rolled off a pier, and to hear the lamentations of the Freepers.
OK, from here on I'll sincerely hope that a revolutionary new medical procedure makes Krauthammer whole again, right before someone necklaces him.
Gswift, there really isn't much of the Mormon left in you, is there.
I was never very good at the Mormon thing. Probably didn't help that only my mom is Mormon. Dad's an agnostic/atheist.
All the contradictions are resoluble. Mormons are decent and smarmy, humble (in spirit) and superior to everyone who is living wrong, obedient and loyal. This means that they're really easy to deceive. Apparently Salt Lake City has a huge population of con-artists, highest percentage in the nation, I heard.
I still think that Mormons are the pleasantest of the insane religious fanatics, at least if there's nothing serious going on. By now I've decided that my ex-mother-in-law (a Mormon convert married to a non-Mormon) was an incarnation of Satan and not typical of anything non-Satanic.
Salt Lake City has a huge population of con-artists
Someone has to work in the Tabernacle.
Converts are weird. I don't get people---particularly American citizens---who choose to become Mormon.
Probably the finest person I know is Mormon. I love and respect him enormously (my brother-in-law). But I've met a couple who seem to be working the moral superiority and marketing angles pretty hard, too (marketing themselves, that is, not the church; there's good money to be made providing services to other church members and the church's own entities). And then there are a whole lot who are somewhere on the spectrum between those positions but I can't figure out where.
My ex-Mormom-in-law converted during WWII when she was at home alone with two kids under the age of 4. I suspect that she was nearly destitute.
For the record, I agree with Kid Bitzer in 172. That is my final comment on this topic.
"I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to you all day long and I assume you deserve it." --Dogbert
190--
you can't agree with me, dammit.
i was agreeing with you.
now you're just agreeing with yourself.
stop being so agreeable.
but turning a deaf ear to some of ogged's occasional puerilities is the price for hanging out here.
I think this is kind of just a little bit really awfully silly. Is Ogged's ego truly so fragile that he can't bear to hear people say that they didn't find his mean joke funny, regardless of how self-conscious he was about the meanness?
193: Pretty much that's how the blog works, yes. The fragility of Ogged's ego is the massive furnace we all stoke with abuse to keep the blog running. It's a pilot project -- if we could scale it up, we could power San Diego (or whatever's left of it by now.)
if i had known anyone was going to read it, i would have revised "price for" hanging out here to "part of" hanging out here.
it's really not that extortionate.
Is Ogged's ego truly so fragile that he can't bear to hear people say that they didn't find his mean joke funny, regardless of how self-conscious he was about the meanness?
See 163, 155 and 120.
In fairness to Ogged, putting stuff out there for this crowd to kick around every day can't be all that easy, and resisting the idea that a post is not just wrong but a sign of questionable character doesn't necessarily suggest an unusually thin skin. Not that that's what KR was doing, but most of the more unpleasant arguments around here seem to look worse from the inside than they do from the outside.
In fairness to Ogged, putting stuff out there for this crowd to kick around every day can't be all that easy
Especially with 5 of his 8 so-called cobloggers never posting anything, yet the audience continuing to expect 10 bloggers' worth of material. Good point. We should remember this.
What I can't stand is scolding, either of me or of anyone else who posts or comments here. If something is way, waaay over the line, it might be ok to say something, preferably funny, to note one's disagreement, but straightforward scolding just pisses me off.
Other than that, as I think is pretty clear, I don't care what you say about me.
Eh, 197 wasn't the tone I was after at all. Mostly what I wanted to say was the last bit. Most of this stuff doesn't look nearly as rough from the cheap seats as it does when you're in the middle of it, or at least that's been my experience.
I don't care what you say about me.
ogged is, uh... ogged likes, um... ogged frolics, uh, well... fuck!
So easy it's hard.
What I can't stand is scolding, either of me or of anyone else who posts or comments here. If something is way, waaay over the line, it might be ok to say something, preferably funny, to note one's disagreement, but straightforward scolding just pisses me off.
Dry your tears, sunshine. I thought the post was too kind.
We should remember this.
If there's anything ogged hates worse than scolding, it's commiseration. He doesn't need your pity!
Let's say, Krauthammer has fallen off of his wheelchair and is lying unconscious in a pool of blood. There's no one else around. You could totally leave him there, or even give him a swift kick in the head, and no one would be the wiser.
This is a tricky one. What does he have in his pockets?
Christ. Count me with KR, IA, kb, and DK, apparently. Ogged, if you don't want your poor widdle feewings scolded, be less of a dick.
OK, that came out a little harsh. I plead headache.
if i had known anyone was going to read it
This is the blog equivalent of "Oh, did I say that out loud?".
Here's a pretty serviceable bright line rule: if you find yourself worrying about whether people make overly mean jokes about apologists for genocide, you need something better to do with your day.
