Time for a rant

My mom writes "my son's back" cuz my last post was more optimistic than previous ones. The truth is, the only reason I haven't been writing about the madness of this deployment is because I've grown bored with worrying about it so I know you guys won't want to hear about it. But for me to be really "back" I need a good rant. The folks I'm working with here are only just beginning to understand my addiction to ranting. Some of them thought they knew, yet whenever I go off on one, they say things like "having a bad day already?" which clearly indicates they have no idea how much ranting is a part of my routine. It's my drug of choice.

Fortunately, I caught about an hour of "news" today and I don't even know where to start, but Bill O'reilly is always a good place. Among all the Fox personalities, he's my favorite. In spite of his obvious disregard for balanced reporting (yes, even on Fox!) he sticks to his guns rather than forwarding the party agenda in the rare instance where he disagrees with it. But today, had he attacked someone who was present to defend himself, Bill would've had to stick to his old stand-by: winning the argument by yelling louder. Here's a link to the offending article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-statue21apr21,0,3503675.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
You'll have to check it out to fully understand my confusion, but it basically comes down to this: Michael Kinsley, Opinion Director of the LA times, used an analogy comparing papal selection folk to a campaign to stop a statue from being erected in Venice, CA. Kinsley's analogy notes that those who chose the conservative pope did so under a ceiling bearing nude breasts, etc... and that it's a good thing these works of Michelangelo were in Rome... not Venice, CA, where they would likely be banned. A rather clever play on those city names, eh? And nothing more than an interesting intro to an article that has nothing whatsoever to do with catholicism.

Somehow O'reilly confused this clever introduction to an article about how art in America can't be displayed in public unless it provokes absolutely no thought or reaction, with an attack on an entire faith. O'reilly falsely claimed that Kinsley wrongly associates a church with the halting of the statue's erection although it is in fact a church that has mounted the protest. Kinsley points out that church representatives protested against the nude torso in front of actual women whose torsos were also nude, as they typically are on Venice Beach. O'reilly's biggest point seemed to be that Kinsley's entire objective was to bring down the Catholic Church and was using this statue fight to do so... in his own op/ed piece, the dirty liberal.

After watching the Factor, I did something crazy... something very liberal of me... I read the piece in question. Now I'm not catholic, but I failed to see the bashing that O'reilly spoke of. I'm also not from Venice, but I've been there and was actually surprised to see a place that still held on to what it must have been 50 years ago... a wonderful mix of young and old, artists and bankers, liberals and conservatives, stately homes and modern shacks all overlooking one of the most famous and enticing beaches in our great land. Its beauty and intrigue almost led me to an understanding of why people from my beloved midwest give up all it offers for the sunny beaches of southern Cali. Almost. (I was even somewhat saddened to read Kinsley's take on the "gentrification" of the area.)

Upon reading this op/ed piece I found myself longing for my small town newspaper days wherein I was blessed with the opportunity to weigh in on local issues. I was impressed that someone of Kinsley's stature actually bothered to write about an honest to goodness local issue like this statue controversy. I was also reminded of some of the criticisms received in the mail after writing those pieces. Usually they were pretty entertaining - people who couldn't name a city councilman telling me how wrong I was for having an opinion about the council's latest decisions, which I'd covered every step of in order to report on them BEFORE writing my editorial on an unrelated issue. Who would ever have guessed that Ol' Bill would be as irresponsible? It makes me wonder if he even read the article before criticizing it... not that I'd be surprised to learn that.

Have I mentioned that I love this 'blog - how else could anyone ever argue a point with O'reilly without getting yelled at or thrown off the show. Speaking of that, I also found it curious that O'reilly chose the local issue piece over a piece about how Democrats, since 1981, have better delivered on all the promises Republicans usually spout. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kinsley3apr03,0,6929691.column?coll=la-util-op-ed) Now were I Bill, this is the kind of thing that would really irk me... much more than a bunch of hippies in Venice arguing over a statue. (yeah, I know it's just an op/ed piece, but so is the statue story) See, the LA times is sort of supposed to cover Venice issues, but the unbiased, national "news" show O'reilly hosts should probably be more concerned with national politics. I wonder why he laid off this one in favor of the statue one? Then again, it's probably part of the contract at Fox to support the one issue the president has been consistent on: putting the "church" back in "church and state," and unless O'reilly usurped Kinsley's intro just like he claims Kinsley usurped the statue controversy to forward his anti-catholic agenda, how else could Bill have helped Bush establish a state religion?

Short story long: All this over a local-interest opinion piece he apparently didn't even read?!

Holy crap, I can't stop myself - I almost forgot. In the same segment, Bill was upset that DNC chairmen, oh, what the hell's that guy's name, Dean, yeah, that guy. Bill was upset that Dean criticized Rush Limbaugh for being a drug user. Bill said something along the lines of "if a Republican made those kinds of comments about a Democrat, there would be a call for his head among the liberal press blah blah blah..." First of all, we have to assume that Bill means if a Republican OFFICIAL made those comments... since Howard Dean is the DNC chairman... about a Democratic official. Now Rush is a lot of things but he is NOT, by God's grace, a public official, so who cares? And C.) Can you say Ted Kennedy? What human, Repub, Dem, or Libertarian, has not made fun of him as a drunk?! Give me a break Bill. How come that "if a Dem said that" crap never works both ways? Just like the filibuster BS going on now... it's ok when Repubs use it, but if Dems might, then it's an outdated technique that must be banned. It was ok for Ronnie Earle to prosecute Texas Democrats for illegally using their staffs to campaign for Clinton, but now that he's exposed millions of illegally raised funds through Tom Delay's office, Ronnie Earle is a "partisan wacko."
What the f... ahhh that's probably enough for tonight, it's getting late.

Type at ya later.