Mel Gibson Gets DUI, Blasts Jews

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stormie_skies
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#41 Postby stormie_skies » Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:13 pm

Fair amount doesn't suggest equal amount. On the other hand, I have seen very LITTLE coverage of the Seattle incident since it occured. Actually, the ones >I've< seen are saying that he is being CHARGED with a hate crime.. and trust me, the levels of coverage I've seen on this PALES in comparison to the coverage given to Gibson's drunken palaver.


No offense, but its kinda silly to suddenly curse the media for giving more coverage to the actions of a celebrity than it does to the actions of a "regular person" - as if this were the first time that such a thing had ever happened and its just Mel Gibson thats being railroaded, or as if its some kind of moral judgement on the part of the media. It isn't a moral judgement, and its not just Mel Gibson - the media always pays more attention to celebrities than it does to the average person, even if that average person was a criminal. C'mon, SURELY you've noticed this, A2K. How much time did the media spend on Clinton's extramarital activities, or on Brittney Spears' 24 hour marriage, or on any other silly little thing celebrities do? You don't think there are greater sexual sins and marriage abuses in the world? Of course there are. But we are a celebrity-obsessed society, thus celebrity bumps up the news value of what would normally be a run-of-the-mill stupid act.

News headlines are not a rundown of what the world thinks is most immoral - its a list of what the media thinks people want to hear about based on past ratings and publication sales. Its a business decision - NOT a moral one.

If people choose to forgive this blatantly anti-Semitic outburst, thats up to them, of course. Personally, I've been drunk plenty of times, and I've NEVER used racial slurs or made sexist comments, nor have I ever felt any urge to. I've known drunks and been with people who were intoxicated, and I've never seen anyone express feelings of such a deeply hateful, prejudiced nature unless those feelings were rooted in some sort of preexisting prejudice. Its not as if this is the first time that Gibson has faced such charges - his father is a blatant, unrepentant Holocaust denier, and Gibson has refused to seperate himself from his dad's views in any meaningful way (when asked about it, I believe his response was "my father has never once told me a lie in my life" - not very encouraging, is it?).

Sometimes when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, you gotta call it for what it is.....
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#42 Postby Skywatch_NC » Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:41 pm

abajan wrote:
Skywatch_NC wrote:
abajan wrote:
Skywatch_NC wrote:Mel is Catholic not Jewish, abajan.

I know that.
Neither my last post nor the one before it were meant to be taken seriously.


It's a serious situation for heavens sake...nothing :lol: about it.

One can learn to see the funny side in almost anything if one only tries.

Look, I agree it's a serious situation but not half as serious as some seem to want to make it out to be.

Laughter is good medicine.


I can enjoy humor at times! :D

****

But IMO Mel's situation isn't...let's just agree to disagree shall we? :wink:
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#43 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:54 pm

No offense, but its kinda silly to suddenly curse the media for giving more coverage to the actions of a celebrity than it does to the actions of a "regular person"


In the first place I'm not "cursing" anyone--I'm merely pointing out the obsessing over Gibson's rant. Also, the comparison is ludicrous, as Gibson's crime was that of a verbal tirade--that "regular person" commit premeditated, cold-blooded murder, and several cases of attempted murder--I do believe the latter is considerably more news/noteworthy. All that other stuff, Stormie, with all due respect, has "political" ramifications... which I most certainly could address and respond to; but such are not allowed on this forum, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. I fully understand the "celebrity" part of this story; but as I'd stated earlier, the propensity to forgive FAR more egregious evils than this does display a colossal duplicity IMO. Seems folks were pretty quick to forgive Johnny Depp for some of his silly, but rather vitriolic verbal tirades against America ... heck, they even managed to make a senator out of someone who allowed a woman to drown in a car he abandoned and forgot for an entire night--oh yeah, he was "drunk" too, wasn't he? Is this any less of a sin than a drunken, bigoted tirade? I guess to some it is; which only exemplifies how screwed up our priorities have become, IMO. So again, the "celebrity" thing will wash only so far... beyond that--well it gets into no-man's land.

its a list of what the media thinks people want to hear about based on past ratings and publication sales. Its a business decision - NOT a moral one.


To an extent, I agree with this statement--but only to an extent.

I've NEVER used racial slurs or made sexist comments,


I'm certain that you well know that what YOU have never used, or what I have never used, or this one or that one has never used, is completely irrelevant. It would be like me saying that in all my cases of inebriation, I HAVE NEVER become aggressive and/or assaulted anyone (which whether you care to believe it or not is quite true), this does not mean that someone else couldn't react quite differently--already addressed the "different affects" issue.
Sometimes when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, you gotta call it for what it is.....

Indeed, and this applies to Daffy, and Donald as well--but neither exist.

Like I said, to each his or her own on this issue. The latest reports I'd heard was that one of the leaders in the ADL (is it Foxman?--sounds like that) has said he believed in Gibson's sincerity with his last release. If it's good enough for him, certainly it's good enough for me. For some folks, I guess they feel no apology was needed and wouldn't have blinked--but we've always had bigots with us. For others, no amount of punishment or contrition will suffice. To them, this, while stupid, but essentially innocuous crime is uttery unforgiveable and six quarts of his blood wouldn't be adequate recompense. I still say we live in a society that has made many words far more egregious than many heinous actions, and that distortion of priorities and mores is yet another "duck" that bears watching. Again, with all due respect, just airing my honest opinion of all this--much ado over something--just not the something some are making of it... They've morphed the proverbial "duck"...

Into Rodan!

(And yes I know he doesn't exist either--but like the others--only to make a metaphorical point :wink: )

A2K
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#44 Postby GalvestonDuck » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:27 am

Audrey2Katrina wrote:
Sometimes when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, you gotta call it for what it is.....

Indeed, and this applies to Daffy, and Donald as well--but neither exist.


They don't? :wink:
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#45 Postby stormie_skies » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:26 am

Also, the comparison is ludicrous, as Gibson's crime was that of a verbal tirade--that "regular person" commit premeditated, cold-blooded murder, and several cases of attempted murder--I do believe the latter is considerably more news/noteworthy.


I wasn't in any way, shape or form trying to make a tit-for-tat moral comparison between the two crimes, A2K. I don't know how I can say this any more clearly....

As for your judgement of newsworthiness, from a business-based POV you couldn't be more wrong. Sad as it might be, we as a society got over most typical crime ages ago ... how many murders, carjackings, assaults happen every day in your state? Do you read about all of them? Do you want to? Most people don't. Most people don't pay a whit of attention to a crime unless they feel like it stands out or touches them personally in some way - if it happens to someone they know, if it happens in their neighborhood, if it is especially grotesque or stupifying or mysterious. Those are the elements that create newsworthiness.

Gibson's celebrity status makes his rantings a good news story for several reasons:

1) As a celebrity, he falls into the "someone they know" catagory with nearly everyone on some level. We all feel like we know celebrities to some extent (I suspect there wouldn't be so many defenders if we didn't, would there be?), so when something happens to them or they do something, it matters to us.

2) There are few greater sins I can think of here in the US that you can be guilty of than anti-Semitism (or flagrant racism of most kinds), as far as public opinion goes. Call it PC, call it holocaust guilt, call it doing the right thing (as I do) or whatever - we don't like it when people express opinions like those Mel expressed AT ALL. Look at the hostility Trent Lott faced - from both parties - when he spoke wistfully of a segregationalist campaign. Racism is one of those few wrongs that no one can get away with justifying, ever.

Add to that the touchiness between the Catholics (and some other Christians) and the Jews as a result of a long history of hostility .... the fact that Mel is a Catholic extremist outlier .... and the fact that his best known accomplishment reignited the friction between the two in some ways.... and there is a lot of historical baggage here.

3) As I mentioned earlier, this is NOT the first time Mel has danced with the Jew-hating devil. The question of anti-Semitic intent hung heavily over the Passion. His father is a self-professed anti-semite, and Mel has gone out of his way to be supportive of him (not just as a person, either). So this ISN'T some one-off fluke incident, no matter how you choose to slice it - this is a part of an ongoing debate about a celebrities motives and whether or not they are suitable for society to support.

4) And technically, this is completely verifiable. It happened during the commission of a crime. There are credible witnesses and a detailed police report. The story pretty much writes itself.
Last edited by stormie_skies on Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#46 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:50 am

GalvestonDuck wrote:
Audrey2Katrina wrote:
Sometimes when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, you gotta call it for what it is.....

Indeed, and this applies to Daffy, and Donald as well--but neither exist.


They don't? :wink:


Ahhh, but we can always take consolation in that GalvestonDuck DOES very much exist! :wink:

A2K
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#47 Postby furluvcats » Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:57 am

I'm sooooooooo OVER this story....its our local news...and they are all over playing this....is it like this elsewhere in the country?
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#48 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:07 pm

You know, it never ceases to amaze me how people can go on, and on, and on, over what--when you really get down to it, is less than a tempest in a teapot. Here we have a case where a very drunken man made a VERY stupid series of comments, (Earth shattering in and of itself isn't it?) very hateful and definitely reprehensible--and people are positively getting worked up into a frenzy demanding everything but lethal injection. Let a man/person suffer the absolute MOST punishment that can be exacted against he who dares to say (even when intoxicated) that which is (gasp!--Hateful!!!). Ruin his life, destroy his career, and hound him, berate him, and pound him to ashes--for something that neither killed nor caused physical harm to anyone--and yet, many of these SAME people, with this lynch mob mentality--(no person in particular) would be the very first to plea the case of the poor "victims" who just happened to commit every conceivable crime, from murder, be it infanticide, matricide, patricide, or any other kind of homicide, to terrorism, from armed robbery, to rape, from willful neglect, to physical rioting, or assault and battery. Some of these same people who would be DEMANDING the maximum penalty against the horrible purveyor of that worst of all crimes: “hate” (disregarding the possible consideration that it was linked to alcohol) and yet again these very people will be amongst the first to show “compassion” for a REAL criminal who had, perhaps, this kind of childhood, that kind of psychosis (never mind that alcoholism is a "disease" too), how they were "driven" to do what they did by society, by their feelings of oppression, by poverty... and on, and on.... this I find just AMAZING---
Duplicitous in the extreme—but amazing.

Look, I’m not gonna defend what this drunken sot said—it was beyond the pale. But there is no law against stupidity in this country. You don’t want to go to his movies… don’t go, you think it was awful—say so and get over it. But this endless railing about a DUI rant smacks of a lot more than the right to make stupid—even hateful comments in this country. It smells a lot to me of a more frightening, and growing monster of “thought” police who because of a treacherously slippery slope WILL sooner or later be shackling more and more of what people DARE to think—and say. I find that prospect more disturbing than what a drunken, possibly bigoted actor said. Talk, while often outright despicable, (and this WAS), in the final analysis is just that--TALK. They once said “Actions speak louder words”--sadly in the minds of many today... WORDS do MUCH more than Actions, (Well, at least SOME words). These action apologists will equally show remarkable compassion in seeking social balm for the very real actions of true perps, in seeking out a ready, willing, and growing array of psycho, or socio-analysts.
/rant

.... Next post I'll respond to some of the comments clearly directed at me above.

A2K
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#49 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:08 pm

I'm sooooooooo OVER this story....its our local news...and they are all over playing this....is it like this elsewhere in the country


It's EVERYWHERE... and I'm with you!

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#50 Postby Stephanie » Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:15 pm

If I had a dollar for everytime someone turns a thread into a political one I'd be rich! :roll:

Stormie - you took this one WAY off the beaten path. May I suggest you read the rules?


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I'm also with you A2K and Furry! :wink:
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#51 Postby stormie_skies » Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:33 pm

Steph - sorry if that came across as political, I actually thought I was going out of my way to avoid that bent. Guess when someone gets Ted Kennedy involved, its hard to avoid taking a turn for the worst... :oops:

I chopped off the bit responding to that part. Is that better, I hope?

MY POINT in all of this was that Mel's outburst's "news value" is rooted in the points I listed above - NOT in some kind of weird political headhunting routine. I think its pretty safe to say that if any popular public figure said what he said, from Bono to Jerry Falwell to Hillary Clinton, people would be gossiping about it as well. It sure doesn't help his case that he has said things that could be interpreted as sympathetic to holocaust deniers in the past (here are his original comments, so you can decide for yourself: http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=28713 ) and that he made a movie that many Jewish organizations thought felt anti-Semitic. It fits a pattern. And that pattern is rather dispicable.

Frankly, I don't understand all the "political" interest in this to begin with, cuz to me its nothing of the sort. Its about religion and prejudice .... here we have a guy whose deep religious convictions contain anti-Semitic roots, and its becoming more and more clear that he at least in some way buys into that. Take from that what you will.

Personally, I agree with you, A2K, that the coverage is annoying. I hate celebrity coverage anyways ... but more to the point, Mel doesn't deserve it, just like Brittany doesn't deserve it .... why do we let trash take up so much space in our minds? There are a million important things going on in the world today, and Mel's racist attitude is about #999,999 on my list.

Ignore him, and hopefully he will go the way of Tom Cruise - marginalized because he couldn't keep his whacko beliefs in check.

JMHO
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#52 Postby x-y-no » Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:42 pm

I had dropped this topic, but I wanted to add one thing about Mel Gibson's second statement on this (full text here).

Specifically, in this part:

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery.


he is aknowledging precisely the point I made, which is that this kind of thing doesn't come out of nowhere.

Assuming this statement is sincere (and I see no reason to assume it is not) this is exactly the right path to take. None of us is a saint - we all have flaws. If we are willing to honestly seek to know them and eliminate them, then we have a decent shot at becoming better people.
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#53 Postby stormie_skies » Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:49 pm

x-y-no, I sure hope he means that..... :)

And you are exactly right, none of us are saints ... the key is knowing our weaknesses and trying in earnest to correct them. I haven't seen much of that with Mel up to this point, but it would be great ... for him and us..... if he chooses to grow from this.....

(I shouldn't let my visceral disgust with comments like his get in the way of trying to forgive.... my weakness, perhaps? :oops: )
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#54 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:22 pm

I wasn't in any way, shape or form trying to make a tit-for-tat moral comparison between the two crimes,

Well, aside from the qualifying word "moral" injected in the last post, a comparison (moral tit-for-tat or not) was clearly implied from your previous post:
its kinda silly to suddenly curse the media for giving more coverage to the actions of a celebrity than it does to the actions of a "regular person" -

Those are the elements that create newsworthiness.

Rather than go into every item you rail about in that paragraph, suffice it to say I've already admitted the validity of your statement on the topic "to an extent" earlier. And while you might well claim I couldn't be "more wrong"... I equally could say the same for you--all a matter of perspective. I already made it clear I wasn't going to tread into that area beyond that "extent". Secondly: the issue is not the "reporting" of the story... it's the incessant literal beating it to death. Most folks I know are already sick of hearing about THIS issue--that is with the exception of those who aren't satisfied that he wasn't drawn and quartered.

2) There are few greater sins I can think of here in the US that you can be guilty of than anti-Semitism (or flagrant racism of most kinds),


Yup... this IS the crux of the issue. Won't get into what I wish to "call" it... you've listed an adequate litany of possibilities. But think of the implications of that little word "few". Let's see: rape? murder? sexual molestation? physical assault? arson? acts of terrorism? savage cruelty to animals? blackmail? hostage taking? extortion? gross negligence? embezzlement? The list could go on and on.. but it makes my point clearly. Few is a very vague term; but I'd say that's more than a "few" sins, and I'd rate all of them above how someone wants to feel. Of course you're entitled to your own set of guilt/priorities, or what-have-you; but every ONE of the things I've enumerated are far greater evils (certainly more harmful to society) than how a person wishes to think or feel which is what most of your "isms" amount to being. I attribute most REAL "isms", (e.g. racism) to one of two causes: ignorance, or stupidity--neither of which is a crime--either of which has its own potential consequences; but we're not talking potential here--we're talking actual.
Trent Lott faced - from both parties - when he spoke wistfully of a segregationalist campaign.

Are we bringing those "political motivations" into play again? 8-) Naw, unlike the erroneous (but suggestive) conclusion you arrived at, I'll let it go as just an attempt to "illustrate" a point. It's a typical out of context retort, however. He passed a comment about a 100 year old man, at his birthday party (as did many others I might add) and made no allusion whatsoever to his segregationalism--although the "diggers" managed to mangle his obvious "tongue-in-cheek" comment into a "wistful" one. There are quite literally dozens of counter-arguments to this little bit of counter-point but they would most-definitely encroach upon dangerous waters, so I will suffice it to mention but two names and leave it there: Jesse Jackson, and Robert Byrd. (Operative word: duplicity)
Racism is one of those few wrongs that no one can get away with justifying, ever.

I agree with you inasmuch as it's not "justifiable".. it quite simply isn't. On the other hand, it's application to some as opposed to others does show a clear double-standard... leave it at that.

Statement 4 is irrelevant with the noted exception that the "Story writes itself" comment is nice rhetoric, but hardly the undeniable truth in the context it is being presented.

*Edit made 1:48 CDT in deference to similar edits in referred to post. No intent to be taken off-topic was made. Thanks to all for understanding.

A2K
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#55 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:27 pm

Guess when someone gets Ted Kennedy involved,

You're doing it again, Stormie... I was merely pointing out two things: celebrity status... and willingness to forgive... I'd expressly mentioned both... it was YOU who dragged in the "political" ramifications.

I will defer further comment as we'd already been dragged way too far off topic.

I will reiterate my many-time expressed opinion:

1.) What Gibson said was horrific, and detestible.

2.) The incessant press railing on, and on, and on, about it... is making it MUCH more than it deserves to be.

Additionally, apologies for the previous post, Stephanie.. I was doubtlessly penning it as you were posting the above.. I want it understood that while my response was a point-by-point response to Stormie's previous post... it was only feeding the diversion... and for THAT, I apologize.

A2K
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#56 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:29 pm

Assuming this statement is sincere (and I see no reason to assume it is not) this is exactly the right path to take. None of us is a saint - we all have flaws. If we are willing to honestly seek to know them and eliminate them, then we have a decent shot at becoming better people.


I completely agree, Jan--and you've proven that which I've already stated. Above all the din of disagreement--you are fair!

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#57 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:35 pm

whose deep religious convictions contain anti-Semitic roots,


The only thing I know about his "religious convictions" are that he is Roman Catholic (traditionalist--but still RC) and That :uarrow: comment in and of itself is pretty potentially incendiary.

This is an issue where the two opposing views are almost inevitably going to drag into it either religious, or political biases of their own--and neither is appropriate.. I've said what I felt needed saying, and intend to leave it at that, and can only hope others will do the same.

A2K
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#58 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:40 pm

Ignore him, and hopefully he will go the way of Tom Cruise - marginalized because he couldn't keep his whacko beliefs in check.


On this, and the previous paragraph, we very much agree... let it all end! Puhleez!

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#59 Postby stormie_skies » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:53 pm

A2K -

If you took my post as hostile, I apologize. It wasn't meant to be. I'll admit to getting frustrated with this ... as I said, its the visceral "ick!" reaction, I guess.

I deleted the second part to try to clear up any perceptions of political intent. As I said in my second post, I don't see whats so political about it in the first place.

IE I think we agree here, at least in our major points. We both think what Gibson said was ridiculous and unacceptable. We both think the media is being obnoxious about it. I THINK, in the end, our desired outcome is the same - lets not support the guy, and lets not obsess over him, either. Am I too far off the mark?

The heart of where we disagree seems to be in people's motivations: in the motives of the media and the people who watch and support them. In a perfect world, perhaps, people would get just as excited about animal abuse and embezzlement as they do about Mel's little rant - I, personally, would find the latter two more interesting and important. But again, its human nature in a world of desensitation and info overload for people to weed through events, and they don't always do it by moral importance. Given our obsession over celebrities, its no surprise to me that this has overtaken the 24 hour news channels and such. Its sensationalistic and features a well-known face.

As far as the media is concerned, while they make me mad often for taking the easy route and going with pre-fab stories like this instead of doing real journalistic work, you have to admit that there is a symbiotic relationship between the news outlets and the public: if people werent watching and reading and talking, the media wouldn't keep running the story. Thats a matter of simple business ethics. And the way traditional media outlets are hemorraging money right now, I assure you that business interests are paramount. Blogs are full of this garbage, they were yesterday, too, and they will be tomorrow - and not just political ones, mind you. People are shallow - perhaps thats just the nature of the beast.

My only point was that Gibson isn't getting singled out - he is getting "star treatment" - something he's prolly rather not have anything to do with right now.

And I'll try to leave it at that, as everyone seems eager to read more into my posts on this topic than I intend, and the last thing I wanna do is get caught up bickering about something this silly.... :roll: My intent was NEVER to offend anyone.....


(And for the record, I was using what Lott said to make a point - that the perception of open racism is rarely tolerated in a public figure. I didn't mean to comment on his intent. And also for the record, I agree with you about Byrd and others ... I think racism should be taken seriously by all people and concerning all people, regardless of status or affiliation :wink: )
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stormie_skies
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#60 Postby stormie_skies » Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:54 pm

Audrey2Katrina wrote:
Ignore him, and hopefully he will go the way of Tom Cruise - marginalized because he couldn't keep his whacko beliefs in check.


On this, and the previous paragraph, we very much agree... let it all end! Puhleez!

A2K


ACK! And THAT is what I get for responding without double checking - LOL! :lol:

YES- it SOOO needs to end. Take that as both apology and surrender... :P
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