*pause*

*laugh*

On the tone: Very sorry if I was testing the Didactic Crank Threshold of your blog. It’s never my intention to scare anyone out of the conversation, let alone on their home turf. Have a cup of tea, kick your feet up, think of nebulae for a bit. Peace.

Re name calling: Um . . . .

Re the Kaine/Pawlenty approach: Perhaps. I thought I was making the point that people I thought you would probably forgive (old school progressives) did things I took you to be claiming were reasons for disowning Buckley (e.g., liking some bad guy or other).

If Person A can like Person B in spite of Person B’s property x, it’s hard for me to take seriously Person A’s claim that I should dislike Person C for that same property x. It’s not impossible — with a little explanation of why what is ignorable in one case isn’t in the other — but it’s hard.

Re tone: I’d rather not turn my blog into a place where I go to get stressed. So forgive me if I suddenly go silent now and again (in the future) instead of responding to some response or other. :-)

Re music: Sweet common ground.

The specific Civil Rights Act Buckley opposed, by the way, was the one of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. To his credit, he later admitted his error in once writing op-eds that proclaimed “the White Community… is the advanced race,” but… come on. No extra credit for stuff he should have done in the first place.

On Third Eye Blind: agreed. Unspeakably horrible. Avoid at all costs.

On Buckley/Franco: Should we go into how many progressives were enamored with Fascists, Stalin, etc.? And for what did he praise Franco? Grooming? Oratorical skills? Ability to lead?

On Thompson: Don’t know what a third eye is, other than that Third Eye Blind is an annoying band. Not sure I want to get involved in that ;-)

On celebrities: :-)

Honestly, McFarlane’s politics appear to be pretty sympathetic to mine, but I just can’t stand Family Guy.

The Buckley clip was picked because it happened to involve both aforementioned parties. There are plenty of other clips of Buckley offering a knuckle sandwich to Chomsky, Hitchens, etc. His wit was quick, but he praised Franco and opposed the Civil Rights Act, for crying out loud. He was basically Bill O’Reilly with a posh education & something resembling a sense of humour.

Oh, and do read Thompson. That’ll squeegee your third eye sumthin’ fierce.

RE: Alicia Keys…
Man, Goldberg is on point, yo! That was an above-the-fold story on MTVNews.com, like, only four months ago!

Golly, a celebrity who believes in questionable theories? *Yawn* Fancy a cuppa tea, then?

*laugh* No, I haven’t read any Mailer or Thompson. Not for any particular reason, however. When I think about Mailer, I think about the Rocky and Bullwinkle episode when they go to college, and a bunch of their fellow students decline to get involved in any “collegiate hijinks” (or some such) because they’re going “to the student union to protest Norman Mailer.”

Buckley was a homophobic anti-semite who detested the poor . . . .

Really? We’re talking about the Buckley “joked that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty“?

Well, I hope he learned to get over his fear of the same, at least. Phobias are rarely helpful.

Oh, and on that “punch you in the face line,” I believe that was his response to being called a “crypto-Nazi.” The link you provided was him making fun of himself for losing his temper.

McFarlane is a progressive, isn’t he? Are you on a different wavelength from a lot of progressives, or is McFarlane a special case?

I also think “cantankerous” and “daft” get a bad rap. (Besides, if you want real cranks & nutballs, have you picked up any Norman Mailer? Hunter S. Thompson?)

As for Buckley, I’m on Vidal’s side: Buckley was a homophobic anti-semite who detested the poor and whose reputation as a leading intellectual hardly befits a man whose stock rebuttal was “I’ll sock you in the face.”

Funny: this is one of the very few times it appears I’m on the same wavelength as Seth McFarlane.

An old, bitter self-important weirdo is not something I want to become — and I was so looking forward to learning about him after he got such a glowing portrayal as a high-class intellectual on my beloved Family Guy.

*sigh*

This is the best part, however:

How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year? I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred.

Reminds one of those, “I hate haters” kind of statements. :-)