John McCain Says Something Smart! (Stop the Presses!)

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

John McCain, the ex-POW and war hero who married his way into money and a political future, can be inspiring. He was a beacon to political outsiders in 2000 when he tried to block the Bush juggernaut with his "straight talk" express. But Karl Rove, who was driving the Bush juggernaut, rammed right into McCain's bus in a place called South Carolina by convincing the Republican primary voters of that state that the Arizona Senator might be just a tad too open minded on the subject of race to carry the GOP's Klan robes, much less its banner.

So McCain lost that nomination and went slinking back to the Senate with his tail tucked militarily between his hind legs - where he licked his wounds and waited for another try when Bush left office. This time Johnny Boy wasn't going to take any chances with the bigots and morons who run the Republican Party machinery. In a bold, though stupid, move, he made a pilgrimage to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he planted a big wet kiss on Jerry Falwell's flabby ass. From there he quickly spiraled downhill until he was left with almost no integrity - which made him a shoe-in for the Republican nomination. He frosted the cake by selecting completely incompetent and vacuous Sarah Palin as his running mate. It was a match made in Heaven - on a day when God was off fishing someplace else!

The principled John McCain of 2000 could have run a tough race against Obama, but that John McCain would have never gotten the nomination from his angry white party. The new McCain was offensive to enough people to secure the Republican nomination, but found it impossible to get enough ordinary Joe's to hold their noses and vote for him. He couldn't get the nomination being a human being, and he couldn't win the election being a moralistic cretin.

What's a John to do?

McCain is too old to run for President again, (Please, Lord, let it be so!), but he still has to pander to the know-nothings who run the Republican Party because he has a Senate primary opponent in 2010 who is well to the right of most of humanity. That is why he came out earlier this week and said that he would vote against confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. (McCain has spoken passionately in the past about the need to incorporate Hispanics into American culture and government.)

But even with McCain's continuous sucking up to people he knows in his heart are illogical and dangerous kooks, he did manage to say something bright today on Twitter. Here is his most recent tweet - I was quite impressed:

"Town hall meetings are an American tradition - we should allow everyone to express their views without disruption - even if we disagree!"

As reported for the past several nights on several television networks, these "spontaneous" crowds showing up to heckle Congressmen and public officials are not spontaneous at all. They are being recruited, provided with scripts of how to disrupt and rattle the speakers, and are even being bussed from event to event. Kudos to Senator McCain for having the cajones to speak out against these mindless agitators!

Senator, I don't know what you put on your Fruit Loops this morning, but whatever it was - keep pouring it on! America is a better place when the real John McCain actually does some straight talking. Please consider doing it more often.

Ain't No Liberty at this "University"

by Pa Rock
Educator

Not every university is the same. Some are private and very good - like many of the Ivy League schools of the northeast, and some are public and also very good - like many schools in the state university systems. A true university is a refuge for those wanting to explore and increase the accumulated knowledge of the world. Real universities tolerate divergent points of view. Unfortunately, there are also some truly bad schools also posing as universities, schools with no tolerance of divergent points of view and whose sole function is to push religious dogma and fight the acquisition of knowledge at every turn.

Liberty University (sic) of Virginia is a grand example of the latter. It is a private school founded by the late televangelist and hate-monger, Jerry Falwell. Liberty prides itself on not encumbering its students with genuine knowledge about the real world, and produces graduates who don't believe in evolution, or apparently, even the two-party system.

The school is little more than a pit of religious fundamentalism. It is the place where John McCain actually lost the 2008 Presidential race when he showed up there a couple of years earlier to lick Falwell's boots as he tried to worm his way back into the good graces of his party's reprobate wing. Many of the kinder and gentler Republicans were aghast at his hypocrisy, and went on to vote for Obama.

Liberty University (sic) allowed a crack in its know-nothing shell last October, one month before the election, when it inexplicably granted a small group of students the right to start a Democratic Club. Apparently that was a move that their fat cat fascist funders could not abide, because last week the university (sic) pulled the plug on its fledgling attempt to accommodate some bipartisanship on campus.

Last Friday Mark Hine, the Vice President of Student Affairs at the pseudo hole of higher learning, sent an email to the Democratic Club president, Brian Diaz. The email, which young Diaz said came "out of the blue" decreed that the club must stop using the university's (sic) name, holding meetings on campus, or advertising events. Violations of that edict could lead to expulsion.

The university (sic) official said yesterday that it could not sanction an official club that supported Democratic candidates - apparently on moral grounds. But, he added for clarification, "We are in no way attempting to stifle free speech."

So far there is no confirmation to the rumors that students who refuse to recant their Democratic tendencies will be burned at the stake - but this story is still evolving!

A Tale of Two Movies

Two notable movies were being shown at the same time in Springfield, MO, in the fall of 1966. Mike Nichols’ directorial debut, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, was playing at the Gillioz Theatre, while the Swedish art film, Dear John, was being featured at the Tower Theatre. Both of these movies raised eyebrows due to their explicit content, yet one created a community firestorm and the other played out its engagement with hardly any public comment at all.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? portrayed an older couple (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) who were hosting a younger couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) for drinks and conversation. The drinks were plentiful, and the conversation, especially between Burton and Taylor, contained some of the strongest and most obscene language ever presented on an American movie screen up until that time. (Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis went on to win Oscars for their roles in the movie.)

Dear John was about a sailor and his brief affair with a local girl. Most of the film occurred in bed, and the nudity was gratuitous and ubiquitous. There was, however, no bad language in the movie.

So, given the choice between raunchy language or complete, rollicking nudity, which raised the hackles of conservative Springfieldians?

Surprisingly, at least to me, the community railed against Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and said nary a thing about Dear John. Springfield is home to several religiously oriented colleges, including one that graduated Jerry Falwell and another that was headed by John Ashcroft’s father for many years. Those schools and some local churches managed to get a picket line going outside of the Gillioz Theatre that stayed active the entire time that the film was playing. The picket line had a real impact on the theatre, drawing free attention to the film that brought the crowds scurrying in to buy tickets and see what all of the hullabaloo was about.

When that was happening I had just started working at the Tower. My boss, “Mac” MacDonald was furious at all of the attention that the protesters were garnering for the Gillioz, and he angrily claimed that their manager had struck a deal with some of the local religious leaders. But regardless of how much he fumed and flared, Mac was not able to get anyone fired up about Dear John. “It just wasn’t fair.” I remember him lamenting, “It just wasn’t fair at all.”

(For those who have ever pondered the question of when American cinema came of age, I heartily recommend the first two films that Mike Nichols directed: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Their power, clarity, and relevance haven’t faded in the ensuing forty years.)