Letters to the Editor
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Something else we agree on
Michelle Goldberg is one fine, resourceful, really amazing journalist, and her book scared the hell out of me twice: once when I read it, and again when she reviewed "American Fascists" and said she was sorry she'd toned hers down.
And I grew up with that stuff.
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Editor Is Donohue's Savior
It's hard to believe that segment was originally forty minutes. As always Joan came off well, but I've got to admit Donohue didn't come off that bad either. I saw him last week debating The Chocalate Jesus artist and he got hoisted by his own petard.
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Stop Kowtowing
We need a new assault on religion... all religion.
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Yep, he's an overgrown high school bully
Like all bullies, Donohue's a coward when faced with people he can't beat down. That's the reason he's not confronting Parker and Stone. They'll always have the last laugh at his expense.
I wish it didn't need to be reiterated that he pays himself over $300k a year, nearly a tenth of his pseudo-society's revenues; that he bases his operation in Midtown so that he's never more than a short cab ride away from the nearest TV studio, and that he picks on people who aren't as chummy with the hosts or as familiar with the media.
Eventually, Catholics are going to start calling up their local dioceses and demanding that the actual Church hierarchy either endorse Donohue, his hair-trigger outbursts and his tendency to show his inner bigot, or officially distance themselves from him. And at that point, it's incumbent on the lazy cablenews bookers to stop bringing him in as if he's the damn Pope.
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I'm glad Joan Walsh is fighting the good fight
Have a nice Easter. Watch out for bad Peeps.
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Thank You Joan
You know, this is a bit of a meta comment, and I apologise in advance for it, but the more I read Joan Walsh's blog, the more I'm impressed that Salon has ridden and evolved beyond its apparent reader crisis. I was never one of the "ad hominers" in the old Letters section -- I just can't work that way -- but I sorta could see the point that Ms Walsh came across as autocratic and arid and even (as someone recently wrote) a bit tight-assed. I could see it, even if I didn't buy into the whole "bring back our old Salon" rhetorical whining that began to emanate from the outer circles of the long-term peanut gallery.
Now I'm simply impressed. There is energy again, and an engagement on the part of writers and readers (and the entire blurry middle) with the issues and concerns that will, in a very real sense, shape our collective future in this brave, often tortuous, and definitely bewildering new world. It sure feels like time to cut the crap. Yet it also feels like an opportunity to drop the jaded cynicism and all the other awkward tools that help maintain the (mostly artificial) yawning gulf that lies between political and philosophical adversaries. The tone in which Joan Walsh describes her encounter with someone very difficult to appreciate from our secular liberal perspective is a case in point.
I know this might be seen as backslapping, but for once I'm being deadly serious. It's time to re-establish the parameters of the public debate circle, and instead of filling it with hurt, replenish it with passion, reason, imagination and the near-sacred art of persuading others to see it our way without rancour. Because -- all postmodern relativity aside -- we (progressives, liberals, lefties, whatever) do believe we're on the right track with our insistence on inclusiveness, compassion, justice, humour, nuance and, yeah, simple kindheartedness. The mistake we've made is to join those on the political right who have insisted on framing everything in terms of war or combat. Put simply, let's reinvent the town square for the Internet age.
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that was me, Survivor Man
that bit about "tight-assed" but it was in the context of a compliment. i learned the she has a sense of humor. nevertheless i disagree about the reasons for the change in salon. like an ocean liner (i've used this metaphor before - even *I* can sometimes repeat myself) we are seeing, before our very eyes, america changing course (and it's very *exciting*!). walsh (salon - and i see them as interchangeable) is feeling power and change and riding the neap tide. i think walsh is about being a part of that change and being part of the result of that change - i only hope her views on israel don't prevail. i really ought to say something about donohue - be "on topic". i leave all that to you irish catholics. it's *your* fight and all referees do is get bruised.
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Great exchange.
Man, Donahue is a yeller, huh? I had to turn down the volume on the tv when he was barking. You did great Joan - you held your own without yelling.
The only criticism I have - and perhaps it was the editing - was the fact that you wouldn't concede that Catholic bashing is not politically incorrect, the way anti-semitism or racism is.
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cordelia525, as one who was on the brunt end of
"catholic bashing" (by the irish kids in the neighborhood) i wouldn't concede (*that*, i think was the problem, in the old days!) think it's politically incorrect either, just as i wouldn't call white people crying "black racism" isn't either.
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I'd like to see this
Rats, I missed this confrontation - I would have liked to have seen it. I'll have to scour the web for it. Donohue has to be one of the biggest phonies in American politics. I don't understand that he gets on all these shows as if he's representing mainstream Catholic thought. He seems to see anti-Catholic enemies lurking in every shadow. I'll never quite forgive him for getting "Nothing Sacred" taken off the air. (Ok, the low ratings didn't help either.)
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any voice for the great silent majority of Catholics. Sure, there are church-reform groups such as Catholics for Free Choice, or Call to Action, etc. But, I'm not sure they're that mainstream either. Though, ironically, they probably are more in sync with the majority of american catholics than Bill Donohue.
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ok, Marcos22, i'm treading where i oughtn't
but what i'd like to see is an organization for *lapsed* catholics - they're the BEST! totally immunized, not merely by the vaccine, but the *disease*. (sorry others, just couldn't help it - you can't imagine what a machiah (sp? it's a yiddish word meaning comforting warmth) it is to bask in the security of seeing anti-catholicsm spout from a font that can't be pogrom-ed)