Now Playing: My Friend Tony is upset again
Topic: Broadcast Betrayal
Tony and me - we're veterans. He's a former First Shirt (First Sargent - not to be confused with Sargent Majors who seem to be most famous when they get accused of sexual abuse of female underlings.)
No, Tony and me - we're conservative about America's core values. When Tony forwards me stuff that has him aroused, it's worth reading.
Like this morning's email revealing that Erica Jong has got him aroused. No ... not "aroused" from the viagra point of view. But from the "By God This Time They've Gone Too Far" kind of arousal.
Now years ago Tony and I had no time for Erica's frivolous writings in the 70's.
You know ...
Erica Jong is the author of eight novels including Fear of Flying; Fanny, Being the True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones; Shylock's Daughter (formerly titled Serenissima); Inventing Memory, a story of mothers and daughters, and the new novel SAPPHO'S LEAP. Several of her novels have been worldwide bestsellers. Her other books include the nonfiction works Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir; The Devil at Large, a study of Henry Miller; Witches; and What Do Women Want, and six volumes of poetry. - Huffo
Tony and I were Cold Warriors fighting for Cold War stuff and values. These were the values that still meant the good old fashioned American Pie stuff and not the fluffy directions Jong's honest, self-revealing and pop-psychology stuff were taking us.
So when Tony as an old Cold Warrior is aroused by Fluffy Erica Jong, it means something. I read the Erica Jong/Huffpo article Tony arousingly sent me.
And agreed when she said this:
I want to talk not about candidates but about our media turning every presidential election into a high school popularity contest.
And this:
Our magazines and newspapers are so dumbed down that they never discuss issues, only stereotype or attack or puff up candidates -- and all for the most idiotic things -- like their marriages, which in truth we know nothing about -- or their weight or their clothes or their hair.
They don't discuss brains, intelligence, psychological maturity, but only who's up or down in the polls, cuter in photos, who misted up, cried or didn't cry, said "my friends" like Reagan or mimicked Bill Clinton's style or JFK's or whomever's. Our press is a disgrace.
And this:
We never discuss psychological depth because hey, who cares if the president's a bomb-happy dry-drunk trying to play out an Oedipal war with his father? We never talk about people being tested in power or how steady they are or whether they read books or understand what they read because we judge them on their looks.
Or one idiotic sound byte, taken out of context.
And this:
I like shooting my mouth off on the Op-Ed page as much as anyone. Besides women writers are only drafted for the most trivial subjects. We comment on style not substance, beards not policy, clothes and shoes and chick lit and cooking. The men get the big topics like war, though women have the most to lose--like their children whom they carried and nursed and suckled and love more than themselves--as of course do many men.
And this:
If Eleanor Roosevelt were alive and running, they'd talk about her big teeth and her hoity toity accent. If JFK were alive and running, they'd reveal his affair with Marilyn and slander his wife for it. If Jackie O were alive and running, they'd say she fucked Onassis -- which she did -- while she was married to JFK. If Plato were alive and running, they'd say he was gay--though many Greeks were bisexual and thought nothing of it.
So kids, if you elect a President of the United States like you elected the President of the GO in High School, you deserve what you get.
Now I'm sure Tony and me ain't never gonna read Fear of Flying mostly cause we're too busy digging through bull pucky and trying to cope with news proclaimers' Fear of Substance
NOTE: Tony gets a copy of these posts. He responded right back as follows:
Good Morning Old Chap.
I like your website. Very sophisticated and eye-catching. I think I will start reading it more often.
By the way, I did read Fear of Flying and she is a decent writer. I would be surprised if you didn't read her work as well.
Even though I was on the war wagon in the 60s and a hot shot PI in the 70s, I still tried to keep up with what was going on politically in our great country.
I was even a registered Conservative fighting for less government at one time until I realized those guys were only interested in power and money, not the people they represented; and as far as I can figure, our country is supposed be about protecting and taking care of the citizens and being an example to the world of the right kind of freedom and justice, not just exploiting and manipulating them for corporate greed and trying to do the same around the world.
So how did NAFTA actually help the US? Wasn't this the precursor to outsourcing our economy?
I found it interesting that one state has made it law that only American flags made in the US can be sold there.
Ah, we can go on and on.
You, better than most, know the drill. I am impressed you have taken a step back from the political arena and are not wasting your precious time shilling for the Democrats.
We are way beyond parties these days. Most politicians today seem to be self-serving, willing to sell out for success. They have lost their way at our expense.
Here is a great quote for you for your Blog a Rag about war from a truly great author, Tom Clancy in "The Bear and the Dragon"
"Wars are not rational acts. They are not begun by rational men. They are begun by people who don't care a rat fuck about the people they rule, who are willing to get their fellow men killed for their own narrow purposes."
