This post might serve as a test bed to determine just how nasty comments might get. She was someone's daughter once -- just bear that in mind.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Helen Thomas, dead at 92
In the spirit of not speaking ill of the dead, let it be noted that she was an interesting woman.
Really, my only major problem with her was her antisemitism cloaked as antizionism. (It's not as though antizionists hate Jews...they'd just like to see them driven into the sea.)
This post might serve as a test bed to determine just how nasty comments might get. She was someone's daughter once -- just bear that in mind.
This post might serve as a test bed to determine just how nasty comments might get. She was someone's daughter once -- just bear that in mind.
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71 comments:
It's really remarkable that she remained as relevant and coherent as she did, to such an advanced age. I didn't realize she was that old -- I would have guessed late 70s.
The Hyman Rickover of the newsies.
I thought she was dead. And she was, like most on the left anti Zionist. That victory in their minds would include some collateral damage to Jews is just bonus.
Like Obama, she appears to have written more than one autobiography - so it should be no problem to find who was the real woman behind the mask. And it was a doozy of a mask.
I did not care for Helen Thomas. She was a woman who rose in journalism as a pioneer. But it is interesting how no conservative woman was similarly elevated over that period. Where were the conservative journalist all bare foot and pregnant during these decades? Or does this show how the left promotes its own?
St. Peter gives her the first question.
A great gyno-american.
She was someone's daughter once
I like the tone of this post. Nicely said. I think liberals should stop thinking about how good they are and that they know best. I have never seen such group think before.
I find I generate 12 gallons of trash in a week.
I have a 10 gallon waste basket in the kitchen.
This has resulted in building a fence of trash around the top so that it holds 12 gallons in the end.
Lindt chocolate wrappers make the best fence. You can wedge them around the trash easily.
But flattened cereal boxes, if you take off the ends, can be used as well.
Helen Thomas was sort of the same way.
Richie Havens sang about her being a motherless child.
Speaking of ugly horrid journalists/journalsim...
Watch this and you will once again be reminded that factual honest journalism in America is dead. RIP. Just like Thomas.
I'd like Shiloh to watch the attached video and then comment.
Regarding the controversy that ended her career Ralph Nader makes a good pont, "Lastly, there is the double standard. ... enhanced careers and fat lecture fees are the reward for ultra-right wing radio and cable ranters, and others like columnist Ann Coulter, who regularly urge wars, mayhem and dragnets based on bigotry, stereotypes and falsehoods directed wholesale against Muslims, including a blatant anti-semitism against Arabs."
As a woman with Lebanese parents, some skepticism regarding Israel's use of force in the region was probably not unreasonable.
I think they get the fees for being correct.
Coulter has to drop the Princess Diana eye shadow.
The raccoon look is out.
Also the fake laugh in interviews.
She has good columns though.
She was evil personified.
She never used her looks to get ahead.
We need Coulter like people to balance the unreasonable lefty media and hearing both we can decide where we want to stand. You think I want to hear MSNBC in this age of Obama? Hell, no. I am going to Hannity -- he had so many upstanding Blacks last night who saw through the charade of Obama/Holder/Sharpton. That gives me hope because I want the Blacks to prosper, develop confidence, and walk up to a Zimmerman in the future and say, 'hey, how are you? I live in Block ABC, do you live around here?' I want a Martin who has a stable home with two parents like the Zimmermans of this world. But if one political party looks at this 12% of population as just a vote bank and keep them in a fog, there is every reason to say that is unreasonable, for their sake and for the larger good.
I don't know much about Ms. Thomas and that's on purpose.
It kind of bugs me, though, when people type "R.I.P." on the internet. It stands for "rest in peace" and they used to put it on a tombstone when there was nothing particularly notable about the dead person.
And they're not resting, whether peaceably or otherwise,
They're dead.
And I am unaware of any mainstream religion that teaches that dead people check back periodically to see if anyone still alive has wished them a peaceful rest, as if that would somehow make a difference.
If you take soul as a language marker for relations to others, rest in peace refers to our relation to her.
That has the advantage of making sense.
Twenty-one years ago today I stood by the mortal remains of my Father and Mother at the United States military cemetery at Indian Town Gap, PA. They presented the colors to my Brother, as the oldest son, with the thanks of a grateful nation. he immediately gave it to my sister who was the one who lived without Dad while he was in the War. I still miss them. I hope I have made them proud.
And RIP Helen Thomas
Or actually, her acquaintances' relations to her.
Our relations are to a celebrity.
I watched the video that Aprl Apple posted at 11:09. Very informative, but there's not a chance in hell such information will ever be included in the reportage on the case......Zimmerman said that Trayvon looked like he was on drugs. The autopsy report said that he had THC in his system. When the defense moved to include this as admissible evidence, the Martin family claimed that this was an attempt to murder their son's reputation. Overwhelmingly the press took their position.......If there's one big all out from the Martin case, it will be people's alienation from the press. They see Jeantel. Then they see the news telling us how brave, honest, and admirable she was......Helen Thomas is dead but her spirit and beauty live on.
R.I.P. - Requiescat in pace (rest in peace) comes to us from the earliest days and can be seen inscribed in the catacombs of the early Church. A variation on "Grant her eternal rest, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine on her forever," it is a prayer for the dead, a prayer said even for those you did not particularly like. It is not said because any person really deserves it -- you do not earn your way into heaven -- but as a matter of charity and equity, in that, if we want God to be merciful with us, then we better be merciful ourselves and if we do not want to be condemned for the jerks that we too often are, we better not rain condemnation upon the souls of others.
Yes but the "souls of others" isn't a reference to something called a soul, but a stand-in for relations to them.
RIP is then directed at the living. Put it away, in other words. Move on.
Take religion as a poeticization of ethics. Here's what it's poeticizing with soul.
Yes but the "souls of others" isn't a reference to something called a soul, but a stand-in for relations to them
No. I said what I said. I meant what I said. The reference to souls is just that, a reference to souls. And the reference to others is a reference, both to those still living, but also to the dead.
Don't presume to correct me as if you know more of what I mean than I do.
Hitchens on Coulter's Godless
Somewhat OT, but we're a little looser here:
Apparently AG "my people" sees nothing wrong with poking into opponents' tax records.
Think Jack Ryan.
You can be curious about what you mean or not curious.
A lot of insistence comes from language going on holiday, as if one could make up for it not working.
The paragraph to look at is in Cavell here, and back up a paragraph for more context, on soul and its tendencies.
The question is whether it seems to track what happens or not.
I don't know much about Helen Thomas. My first inclination is to think she was one of those journos that spoke her own brand of truth to powerful Republicans.
Maybe she has a compelling backstory as a girl who overcame all sorts of barriers and heartache and patriarchy and misogyny to become the grand dame of the WH press corps. I can't say I recall reading anything she has written.
Condolences not only to her family but to every other family who has lost a loved one recently.
I think RIP is a nice way of saying let bygones be bygones and more geared toward the living. I don't know religion and scriptures and souls -- so that is just my 2 cents.
OTH, I am quite dispassionate about death unless it was of someone near and dear to me. Everybody makes their own deathbed by the way they live their life.
Another useful word to suspect is intend.
I claim it's a marker in retrospective accounts, not a report of anything that was ever present.
Language works with those. We need accounts. It's not a mistake.
It's only a mistake when dogmatized as referring to something.
Just work with the account. "I don't think so, because if he intended ... then he would have ..."
It stays within the account. You don't look for brainwave records of intending.
Language is at home with this.
It's just hard to spot that that's what's happening.
J.L.Austin "Three Ways of Spilling Ink" is entertaining, in _Philosophical Papers_.
On intentionally, deliberately and on purpose.
It gets you in the habit.
Stanley Cavell is actually better at it, and a poet at it.
Ann Coulter's demeanor bothers me too. The snark is over the top and makes me not want to give credence to a thing she says.
A prayer for the dead, RIP. I never knew that Bender, thanks. That is what I will be saying for those who pass before me. Very beautiful and eloquent.
It's easy to describe how much anger I felt whenever I heard Helen Thomas ask any Republican president a question at a press conference, or when I read her columns in my local newspaper. But there's no point in doing so.
I've gotten into the habit of asking one question when someone (famous or otherwise) dies: How did he or she have a positive effect on my life?
A family member, a friend, a co-worker, a scientist or inventor, an athlete whose performance I watched and similar others effected me in a positive way, and I'll grieve the loss.
Helen Thomas had no positive effect on my life, so I note
her passing without either a sense of loss or anger.
Well, Katelyn, actually the rites go on much longer, even more than this brief snippet --
Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you, in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you, May you live in peace this day, may your home be with God in Zion, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with Joseph and all the angels and saints.
May Angels lead you into paradise;
may the Martyrs receive you at your coming and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem.
May a choir of Angels receive you,
and with Lazarus, who once was poor, may you have eternal rest.
May eternal light shine on your son/daughter ______, O Lord, with all Your saints forever, for You are rich in mercy. Give him/her eternal rest, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine on him/her forever, for You are rich in mercy.
Amen.
_____________
Granted, such prayers come more easily off the tongue when they are said of a loved one, someone you actually like, rather than someone who, during her life, was rather unpleasant. But it bears remembering that, in the end, we are all family, even those who are jerks.
Bender,
Thanks for posting the rest of the prayer. I might ask that it be said at my own funeral. I'm not Catholic and don't recall hearing it at Catholic funerals, though I may have forgotten. The completed prayer is breathtakingly beautiful. I don't know if that is an appropriate thing to say about a prayer, but it struck me as such.
First time that I've ever seen Helen Thomas wear a tie.
RH, I appreciate your increased commenting around these parts.
I can say this about her: I like that she made political spokes-holes uncomfortable.
Bender, or would that be inappropriate? A Catholic rite at a non Catholic's funeral?
I can say this about her: I like that she made political spokes-holes uncomfortable.
This is true. She was a old school journalist and I think gave even Obama a hard time.
Katelyn --
Actually, these would be said more at the death bed or otherwise soon after death, rather than at the funeral service (Mass), but a variation might be said at the grave site. Of course, for non-Catholics who might not feel comfortable about this or that, it could be modified.
Here are some more prayers that might be said at a vigil before the funeral proper.
Ralph Nader is of Lebanese Christian extraction himself. Not exactly an unbiased observer.
Similarly, Sirhan Sirhan, RFK's executioner, was Palestinian, but not muslim. He was raised Christian and dabbled in other religions as an adult, but not Islam.
Bender, or would that be inappropriate? A Catholic rite at a non Catholic's funeral?
We are all -- or at least should be, are supposed to be -- one family, one people in God. So there really is no ownership of prayers per se. If we Catholics find our brothers and sisters in Christ say something in a better way than we do, we wouldn't hesitate to adopt it.
We even sing Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" on occasion!
Yes, I messed up my comment three times.
She was someone's daughter once -- just bear that in mind.
As were many of the dead whose murderers she supported.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samir_Kuntar
Come on. Somebody's daughter? They're dead too. No peace for me, no peace for you. Screw r.i.p., I'll chip m.i.c. onto your stone.
mortem in conturbatio instead, and go on and multiply
as garden gnomes throughout the land and gargoyles adorning the top of buildings actively discouraging evil spirits from entering by appearing to be even more frightening. Stay active, ugly and
stay uncomfortable, you dead ugly stupid fat unhelpful woman. I told you I didn't want to come to this funeral, why did you bring me?
AReasonableMan said...
Regarding the controversy that ended her career Ralph Nader makes a good pont, "Lastly, there is the double standard. ... enhanced careers and fat lecture fees are the reward for ultra-right wing radio and cable ranters,
This is not a double standard, except to the extent the right trails the left in scope and in sticking others with the bill. Coulter has a nice life via Fox News. Far more disgusting people, like Bill Ayers, have a nice life via the taxpayers, as do so many other radical political activists who now control the higher education system.
Thank you again Bender. I agree we are all one family in Christ, or we should strive to be.
Chip Ahoy reminded me of this. Funeral for a Friend['s Mother].
Surprised she's dead. She didn't look a day over a 100.
And I wish Ann Coulter would go away. We conservatives should answer the Liberal abuse with good- natured cheer and polite, restrained language. We should never stoop to their level or engage in "snark" or edgy humor.
I think we can all take a lesson from Mitt Romney.
Blogger rcocean said...
And I wish Ann Coulter would go away.
I'm of two minds about her. I don't like her personally because she reminds me of how the leftist media acts: ignoring facts and repeating only what supports her position. On the other hand it's absurdly amusing watching people criticize her while [for example]repeating the leftist mantra that if Zimmerman stayed in his car Martin would be alive as if the attack were irrelevant. A better hypocrisy magnet could not be designed in fiction.
Marshal said...
This is not a double standard
The point here is that whatever social censure is triggered by anti-semitic sentiments directed towards Jews should be matched by a similar level of censure towards those who express anti-semitic directed against Arabs. This would seem to be an uncontroversial application of the Golden Rule.
Personally, I would defend Ann Coulter’s right to say whatever she wants on any topic, without any consequences, as I would have for the now deceased Ms Thomas.
As some have noted, Coulter's style is not always helpful to right-wing political causes, but this is a different issue. There are commentators on both the left and right about whom this can be said.
Hell Needs a New PA Announcer:
(Lucifer strides into Hell in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt smoking a cigar and scratching his balls. He does that a lot. That's why they call him old scratch)
Lucifer: How the fuck are you Forcas? Ah who the fuck am I kidding I don't give a shit. I'm back from vacation so let's get to work. I need a new PA announcer and I am getting tired of waiting around. I have a lot of work to do while my son is still President. Who you got?
Forcas: Did you enjoy your time in NYC?
Lucifer: Yeah it was kind of cool. I mean literally. It was about 100 degrees so I had to wear a sweater. But I got to enjoy a lot of people suffering and crying from the heat.
I stayed with Anthony and Huma. We had to do some planning. So let’s get to it. Who do we have lined up.
Forcas: Well we had one of the mo’s from Glee. You know the one who pretended to be a football player.
Lucifer: We went over this already. I can’t have that douche as a PA Announcer. I hate that show. I mean they are doing my work but I don’t want them to burst into song all the time. You know what a pain in the ass that is? It’s bad enough when Gene Kelly does it while he is burning in the fiery pits of hell.
Forcas: Yes sire. Well we also have a famous journalist.
Lucifer: OH GREAT! IS DAN RATHER FINALLY HERE!
Forcas: No my Dread Lord.
Lucifer: Erza Klein? Joe Klein? Sidney Blumenthal? William Kristol? DON”T TELL ME THAT SKANKY WHORE ANN COUTLER FINALLY GOT STRANGLED BY MR. GOODBAR!!!!!!!!!
Forcas: None of those I am sorry sire. Let me send for her.
Helen Thomas: (slides down the stairwell to hell and tumbles at the feet of Satan and his right hand fallen angel Forcas , a blowsy and disheveled Helen Thomas falls ass over teakettle and her pearls break and scatter all over the floor.) What the fuck...where am I? I BLAME THE JJJJJJEEEEEEEWWWWSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lucifer:MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trooper York said...
Forcas: Well we had one of the mo’s from Glee. You know the one who pretended to be a football player.
The handsome face of heroin addiction.
AReasonableMan said...
The point here
It seemed clear to me your point was that those who are willing to say stupid shit to support the right often benefit financially. It's absurd to claim the right disproportionately violates this standard. Leftist political activism is based on this agreement, and since they've subverted the resources of higher education the left has a vastly greater ability to make good on their offer.
Looks like I needed a sarcasm tag.
I find it amazing that anyone who actually stands up for conservatism in the MSM and uses humor or truly fights liberalism is always attacked by so-called fellow conservatives.
Yes, we all need to be Little Lord Fauntleroy and lose, rather than be "nasty" and win.
Also, interesting that the liberals have 100 famous celebrities/TV talking heads on their side, less witty and much more vicious than Coulter. They never criticize them.
you dead ugly stupid fat unhelpful woman.
Dead--✔
Ugly--✔
Stupid--✔
Fat-- hmmmm...wow never could past the other stuff so debatable....
Unhelpful--✔
Woman--........
*******
Oh the hell with it--I cede to your powers of observation.
Trooper, classic. Wonder how many whippersnappers get Mr. Goodbar?
"Grant her eternal rest, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine on her forever," it is a prayer for the dead, a prayer said even for those you did not particularly like. It is not said because any person really deserves it -- you do not earn your way into heaven -- but as a matter of charity and equity, in that, if we want God to be merciful with us, then we better be merciful ourselves
Also said in hopes that the dead person will remain in that state and not come back.
Hey Rev, great to see you here.
Revenant said...
Thomas had no real reason for hating Jews; she just did.
Since a significant fraction of the press corp are nominally Jewish, and they largely defended her, I suspect you are on pretty weak ground here in generalizing about who she did and did not hate.
In the spirit of not talking ill of the dead,
Who says God does not have a sense of humor?
In my lifetime, I have come to see Roman Catholic Christians and other Christians learn that they have more in common than they used to think. Part of this is because all Christianity itself is under attack, but it is good that we are drawing together.
Helen Thomas? Didn't like her but may she RIP.
"We conservatives should answer the Liberal abuse with good- natured cheer and polite, restrained language. We should never stoop to their level or engage in "snark" or edgy humor.
I think we can all take a lesson from Mitt Romney."
No. The lesson to take from Romney is that being nice, polite, and restrained, leads to losing.
I hadn't thought about that old anti semetic crone in a long time, and am glad she is dead.
I am however, pleased that many of the commenters I used to read found a new home.
Circle of life.
Ding dong the witch is dead...
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