Reader Interactions
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.
New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.
Usually wrong but never in doubt
Tick tock motherfuckers!
I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.
It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.
Bark louder, little dog.
Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
After roe, women are no longer free.
“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!
Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
White supremacy is terrorism.
Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.
It’s a doggy dog world.
They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.
Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
We’re not going back!
That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.
Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
cleek
now can we take his gun?
D-Chance.
Too bad he didn’t get to use it on some deserving liberals first.
Chief
I will shed no tears.
jon
I’m going to enjoy a nice delicious meal of the green soylent. Later I’m going to have my pet chimp wash the chariot, since I’m not going outside until all those mutants disperse. And tonight I’m going to dye my hair white.
Rest in Peace now that you can stop taking yourself seriously, old dude.
Porco Rosso
Remember the good times. His role as the Federale in ‘Touch of Evil’. Playing Steve Leech in the Big Country he and Gregory Peck pounded each other to a bloodied draw. Running around in a loincloth pursued by a bunch of damned dirty apes…
CrazyDrumGuy
According to the WashingtonPost.com news alert in my email, “Actor Charlton Heston has died at age 84.”
Talk about a mysterious guy. Nobody knows his true age!
Krista
I’ll give the man credit. I didn’t agree with many of his later views, but earlier in his life, he did march with MLK Jr., which at the time, could have been a career-ender for him. So he did do the right thing at a time when it counted for an awful lot.
dmhlt
To D-Chance –
Thanks for providing the perfect personification of the hate so proudly displayed by you of the radical right.
Killing always seems to be the rejoinder of choice for anyone who disagrees w/ you and your minions.
Sad. Very, very sad.
CrazyDrumGuy
Nevermind, the Post has settled on 83.
Soylent Green is people!
frankdawg81
I want his guns – can I pry them from his cold dead hands myself?
I read a few years ago that he had become very secretive, to the point of paranoia. The interviewer had to go through a lot of hoops and was met by an armed Heston. I thought that was really sad.
douglasfactors
Mmm… tasty.
Wilfred
I thought he was older, or already dead. And what Krista said – he stood up when it meant something.
Dennis - SGMM
Who will protect us from the damned dirty apes?
RIP, Charlton.
dslak
Maybe he bought too much into the NRA propaganda, mistaking it for reality.
Disclaimer: Criticism of the NRA is not criticism of the right to bear arms.
ThymeZone
He was an interesting guy. He had a certain charisma as an actor, in his day. I marvel at him in Ben Hur, and Khartoum.
He was a strong Democrat who campaigned for Kennedy, for civil rights and even for gun control.
But in his old age, something happened to him, and he turned into one of those rightwing cultists that we all love to hate. I haven’t read up on it, but I don’t understand this shift in his worldview. I do note that Ronald Reagan did a similar shift, and both men ended up with Alzheimers. Correlation is not causation, but it’s a hard parallel to miss.
Heston’s is a sad ending to a rather remarkable life.
DR
Live by the Sword, Die of Natural Causes??? There’s something just patently unfair here; he just didn’t suffer enough…
capelza
Don’t forget his standing up for Vanessa Redgrave, 20 years ago when she made some pro-Palestinian speech and a performance she was going to give with the Boston Symphony was canceled because of it and something about the Oscars, too. He certainly didn’t agree with her politics, but didn’t believe she should be penalised for them. I’m going from memory.
He also then did “A Man for All Seasons” with her.
Someone can be conservative and still be a righteous human being. I think those last years before he left the NRA were a reflection of his Alzheimer’s, though he certainly did believe in gun ownership.
Dennis - SGMM
CNN, Aug 9, 2002:
maxbaer (not the original)
RIP Chuck.
His politics did become a little whacky. I never saw one of his movies that wasn’t interesting, enjoyable and often thought-provoking, though.
Soylent Green
Soylent green is…
Well, you know.
A fine actor with amazingly memorable roles. We should honor him for entertaining us so well for so long. In that sense, his personal views don’t matter.
Dave_Violence
Great man. Great American. Great person.
I met him three times, all of which he was quite decent, fun even. Made some great films, a lot of so-so films, and a few stinkers: just like his buddy Larry Olivier.
Best: Ben-Hur, The Big Country, The Warlord, El Cid, The Savage, more. So-So: Earthquake, Midway, more. Stinkers: Solar Crises, Jewel of Seven Stars, a few more…
Classic American success story, from cradle to grave. Good-bye, Chuck.
benjoya
a complicated man, like most people. we all have our Omaga Mans, as well as our Touch of Evils.
benjoya
omega
Redhand
There is also a condition known as paranoid dementia, which is rather like Alzheimers plus. Maybe that was one of his problems, in the end. No question that he had lost his faculties when his body failed.
To me Heston will always be Ben Hur, Moses, and the human in “Planet of the Apes.” He was a screen idol in the classic Hollywood tradition. Despite some of his whacky statements in old age, I will remember him fondly.
rob!
at one point in the 60s, j edgar hoover warned heston not to appear at some civil rights march. he threatened him with that vague crap all authoritarians use.
heston apparently told hoover to shove it up his ass.
anyone who once told j edgar hoover to f**k off isn’t all bad.
Mike
And Heston was a great Cardinal Richelieu.
The Other Steve
On the subject of the NRA… There is yet another group out there trying to be what the NRA used to be… a sportsman’s club.
article about American Hunters and Shooters Association
It’s led by former Redskins Ray Schoenke.
Chris
Fuck the NRA, but the man marched with Dr. King. Shame he lost so much in his old age. Alzheimer’s is really a horrible way to go.
srv
In other news, a judge is trying to shutdown Westboro Baptist with a very scarey $5M lien.
John, Tim, you support this counter counter 1st Ammendment abortion?
DR
srv:
The lien came because the Church *broke the law*. It’s not a 1st Amendment case; Religion *cannot* be used to cover law-breaking.
mark
Thanks for the important heads-up, Krista.
libarbarian
This reminded me of this old YouTube funny
srv
Right, protesting a military funeral = $5M.
Can’t wait to see how that ruling gets used in the future.
cbear
protesting at a dead gay guy’s funeral = $3M
bringing your fucked up children along = $1M
having your nasty ass capped by an enraged family member = Fucking Priceless.
Southerndemocrat
Westboro Baptist Church got hit with a 10 million dollar verdict when they were sued by the parents of a fallen Iraq war veteran. They were sued for “defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” A funeral of a private citizen should remain private and not open to any disruption. Plain and simple.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/31/funeral.protest/index.html
b. hussein canuckistani
I was ready with some snark here, but since Krista has rehabilitated him, I will go with remembering what an awesome movie Touch of Evil is.
whack
Did anyone have to take a rifle from Heston’s cold dead hands? Just askin’
redterror
Yeah, he went over to the darker side as he got older. So, what? As has been pointed out up thread: He marched with MLK when doing so was not particularly safe for his life or his career, told J. Edgar Hoover to f*** off, and stood up for Vanessa Redgrave (whose politics, along with those of her brother, are toward to very scary pole of Trotskyism). A brave and honorable man.
Dennis - SGMM
Do you even read the stuff you link to? A jury awarded the 5 mill in damages against Westboro Baptist to complainants who’d brought a civil suit against the church. A jury. The judge was following the law in making sure that the complainants get some recovery through the seizure of the assets of the defendants in the suit.
Just because you’re a church doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever the fuck you want to. If that’s your argument then I’m founding The First Church of the Blazing Tazer. God has revealed to me that it’s my duty to tazer every right wing blowhard in America until they shit their pants. Want to defend that?
LiberalTarian
Maybe you can get a grant.
Dennis - SGMM
LOL! It’s reached the point where the most hyperbolic, least probable thing you can think of is topped by the Bush administration.
cbear
Pastor Dennis,
You blasphemous bastard….me, Roscoe, and Pookie aren’t going to stand for this any longer, and we’re splitting off from you and forming our own church—The Church of Latter Day Don’t Tase Me Bros.
We’ll see you in hell.
cbear
P.S. Can we have our wives back?
Dennis - SGMM
It was when I bought the Rolls-Royce wasn’t it? You jealous apostate bastards!
cbear
P.S.S. Except for Pookie’s, he says you can keep her, but he wants his pickup truck and bassboat back.
LiberalTarian
Exactly. Which upsets those of us given to hyperbole to no end.
cbear
No, we were OK with that—it was the “Hillary Clinton is putting Gonorrhea in my Sandwiches” sermon that was the final straw. That seemed a little strong for the children’s bible study class.
Dennis - SGMM
Look, let’s not go too far here. I bought the Rolls for our greater glory. True, I’m the only one who drives it but the glory is shared. As for the bass boat, pfui. The fucking Methodists were beating me to the bassholes toward the end of last season. Let’s settle this in the way dictated by the tenets of our faith; you guys come up with one of them 350 horse Yamaha V-8 outboards and all is forgiven.
Dennis - SGMM
That was an allegory. Besides, those nice IRS boys who came down for the sudit said that I could preach anything I wanted to about the Democrats.
cbear
We’ve considered your generous offer and, we accept….with two condidtions.
1. Pookie says you can keep the pickup and the boat, but you gotta keep the wife too.
2. Roscoe doesn’t want to do any more private counseling sessions with you and his wife…he says it makes him feel kind of funny, you know, “back there”.
Deal?
srv
You seem to equate physical violence with verbal abuse, in your world, obviously equivalent. If you want to run around and scream at wingnuts funerals, I fully support you being arrested or fined for whatever reasonable regulation you violate, but if some judge lets a ridiculous award sit to financially cripple your “church”, I would be the first to defend you.
Can’t wait until one of you “Saddam Lovers” gets hit by some “jury” with a $5M fine.
LiberalTarian
Well, I do hope that (should I fall off my rocker so far that I become famous for bringing misery to people I have never met in order to get my fanatic rocks off) someone would find a way to stop me.
Zuzu
I thought Michael Moore’s ambush of Heston in “Bowling for Columbine” was a real low point for Moore.
Heston had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (as I recall) and was quite obviously confused by the whole thing.
BFC excerpt
jon
Here’s some good timing: released in the UK on Tuesday will be a collection including this gem.
Krista
I didn’t realize I had such powers. Intriguing….
Zuzu
You can run around and scream that your neighbor is a child molester all you want. And when you have to pay damages because your neighbor has sued your a$$ off, I guess you’d consider it a “fine” designed to limit your free speech.
Tom in Texas
I thought it showed why old men losing their minds shouldn’t be carrying firearms.
Zuzu
The criteria for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress are already set forth in pretty clear terms. Either the facts of the case meet the criteria or they don’t.
SASQ
Paul L.
RIP
And a heartfelt special go screw yourself a-hole to Michael Moore and Mike Wallace.
ThymeZone
Now now, Paul. No need to bring your family dinner conversations in here. Just because your kids talk to you that way is no reason to take it out on us.
akaoni
Making interspecies love acceptable: Zira’s Theme
HyperIon
my pick: The Naked Jungle, a mid-fifties classic with a South American cocoa plantation threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants.
also i liked the Gore Vidal story about how he (as one of the writers on Ben-Hur) proposed making boyhood friends Ben-Hur and Mazzola (remember the SCTV parody?) lovers. Evidently this caused Heston’s head to explode.