Connections

Former 1960s radical Bill Ayers appeared (as himself) in the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground, which was narrated by Lili Taylor.

Taylor was in High Fidelity with Tim Robbins who was in The Hudsucker Proxy with Steve Buscemi.

And Steve Buscemi was in Tanner on Tanner with, yes, Barack Obama.

That's only four degrees of separation -- a closer connection than either The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times was able to establish in their exhaustive attempts to find any links between the former '60s radical and the current Democratic nominee for president.

Gov. Sarah Palin has also recently tried to link Obama and Ayers, suggesting that Obama is somehow complicit in Weather Underground activities that took place when he was a child because he has since raised funds for poor kids' schools in Chicago and so has Ayers. CNN debunks Palin's claim, noting that they're a bit late to the party what with the Times and every other news outlet -- "Several other publications, including the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic ..." -- having already staked and dusted the claim before Palin repeated it.

I've never met Ayers, and I haven't been to Chicago in years, but I can claim a closer connection to the man than Obama has. My uncle, and namesake, is listed in Ayers' c.v. Ayers contributed a chapter for a book* my uncle edited. It's the very first chapter -- meaning Ayers' name in the book's table of contents is listed directly below the name of my mother's favorite baby brother. By Gov. Palin's reasoning, that'd be more than enough to put me on some FBI watch list.

This kind of desperate straining to find some distant association with which to smear Barack Obama seems like a counterproductive tactic for the McCain campaign. Going after Obama with a smear that's this obscure, this far-removed, and this baseless reinforces the perception that McCain and his hired mudslingers were unable to find anything substantial or legitimate with which to criticize his opponent. (Plus, as a general rule, when you're trying to land a below-the-belt smear it probably shouldn't include having to point out that your opponent has a long history of raising funds to help poor schoolchildren. That's generally regarded as a Good Thing.)

It doesn't speak well of Sen. McCain that his campaign is willing to rely on such silly tactics. Ten years ago I might have said that McCain was "stooping" to such tactics, but the senator has gotten lower and lower over those years, wallowing deeper and deeper in whatever filth he thought might get him elected. It's hard to say at this point that anything is beneath him.

More to the point though, these strained attempts at guilt-by-association don't actually prove anything. The photograph above, for example, shows the 1996 Republican nominee for vice president Jack Kemp with one of his intimate business associates -- a suspected murderer who is now a convicted felon. Did Kemp's association with this unsavory figure make the former congressman any less qualified to be Bob Dole's running mate? I didn't think so, but then I don't work for the McCain campaign.

Actually, when I say that these baseless and illegitimate attacks "don't prove anything," that's not quite accurate. They don't prove anything about the person being attacked, but they do prove quite a bit about the people making the attacks. They prove the attackers to be capable of the level of dishonesty and the level of sheer silliness that ought to disqualify one from public office.

In Gov. Sarah Palin's case, this isn't the first time she has demonstrated such dishonesty or such silliness. Nor is this the first instance of Palin repeating something that isn't true long after it has been thoroughly documented as untrue.

Palin's willingness to repeat such disproven and discredited allegations confirms the dismaying pattern we saw established in her very first speech after being selected by John McCain. She says things that aren't true. She does this a lot.

Worse than that, Palin says things that aren't true long after it has been pointed out to her repeatedly that the things she is saying are not true. She says things that aren't true that she knows are not true. This is called lying.

The public hasn't been afforded the opportunity to learn very much about Gov. Sarah Palin, but this much we do know: Sarah Palin is a liar. She lies to make herself sound better than she knows herself to be and she lies to make her opponents sound worse than she knows them to be. Her lies are many and they just keep coming, from her misleading self-flattery on her role in the Bridge to Nowhere scandal, to her obstruction of the Troopergate investigation, to her recent perverse description of her role in Alaska's efforts to divest from the Sudan. She is a serial liar.

This has now been so well documented that the closest thing to a defense of Palin isn't a defense at all, but rather an admission. "All politicians are liars," her defenders say. That cynical, blanket condemnation blurring all degrees and frequencies of dishonesty fails to recognize what makes the Alaska governor special. She has distinguished herself by her willingness to continue repeating her lies long after they have been thoroughly discredited. Most lying politicians either back off or change the subject when their lies are refuted, but not Palin.

And that brings us to the second thing that we have been able to learn about Gov. Sarah Palin: She views her own supporters with contempt.

However much Palin may dislike her critics, that dislike is nothing compared to the scorn, disdain and loathing she regularly displays for those who offer her only their unconditional support. She detests those people.

Palin's supporters are, for the most part, evangelical Christians, which is to say these are my people. She feeds my people lies, with a smile on her face, convinced that they are too stupid or too lazy to know or to care that she is feeding them bullshit and calling it chocolate. These people that she is treating with such contempt and inordinate condescension are my family -- both figuratively and literally.

And, yes, I find it upsetting when someone treats my family so contemptibly. It would be wrong of me to allow anyone to treat my family this way without calling them on it, so I am calling her on it: Sarah Palin is a remorseless liar with a hole where her soul should be.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* The chapter "Work that is real: Why teachers should be empowered" in the book Empowering teachers and parents: School restructuring through the eyes of anthropologists. G. Alfred Hess, Jr., ed., Bergin and Garvey, 1992. In case you were wondering.

Comments

[Pope Easier Rhino I]

I agree with you completely. And thus, I am not a member of the group which should be your target audience. But since they don't agree with you, they won't be your audience. At least, not most of them. I'm not being holier-than-thou; I undoubtedly do it too, on the other side of the fence. But it is something which concerns me about reasoned political discourse. When a person can lie as much as people are currently lying and this person can be believed not because people are too stupid, but because they agree with that person and therefore are predisposed to believe... it's concerning.

I guess I spend a lot of time worrying that people who are telling the truth can only preach to the choir. Maybe that's not the case. I sincerely hope it's not. But if it is, or if it mostly is, how can we "call her on it" in any meaningful way?

[djstn]

I've always hated it when the "other side" lies about "my side." It makes me angry. Like when someone is picking on your little brother, it makes you want to punch that someone in the ear. But, for some reason, it always seems far more detestable when someone you ostensibly agree with is telling what you know to be lies. It cheapens the whole debate. As though your argument is so weak that it can support itself without blatant fabrications.
I realize Mr. Clark wrote a series about willfully investing in a lie you know to be a lie, but is there something about conservatives or even Christian conservatives that makes them particularly susceptible to this line of argument?

[Eric b]

but is there something about conservatives or even Christian conservatives that makes them particularly susceptible to this line of argument?

There is something in all of us that makes us susceptible. We are prone to want to beleive certain things, and will often give a little lattitude to anyone who tells us what we want to beleive. We do it to varying extents. Take OJ Simpson, for example. Some beleived he was guilty right away. It took me a couple of months to accept it. Some still think he is innocent. It's more of an issue of how much you wanted to beleive he was innocent.

[Eric b]

Yikes, I got cut off. Anyway, we are prone to want to beleive certain things.

I had a great analogy, but I don't feel like typing it out again.

[cjmr]

aaaaack! And you left the italics on...

[Nenya]

Yay! Italics SEEM off....

[Sniffnoy]

Testing 1 2 3...

[Sniffnoy]

Let's try this again...

[Yeltar]

My observation about Christian conservatives is their need for certainty; even more than a need, a craving for certainty, an insistance on it. These are the ones that, as Fred has pointed out, tend to over-react to any perceived threat to even the smallest part of their beliefs--the fear that if any one thing isn't so, then (somehow) that'll mean NONE of it is. Ack! Ack! panicpanicpanic Can't have that!

Which is what, it seems to me, drives that tendency to rationalize nearly anything, no matter how far-fetched it sounds to a centrist or less rigid believer, if only it'll feed the certainty or soothe the fear of UNcertainty. If one feels genuinely under attack--whether or not that's actually true--then it's much, much easier to ignore proof to the contrary, as has been offered over and over and more than enough, that Palin's latest lie (Obama "pals around with terrorists") is, indeed, a lie. Fear will justify anything. So they'll rationalize the counter-attack. Buy the lie. She's an "us," not a "them," so of course it's true. Or true enough for politics....

[fairmack]

Would like to get reactions to a short article I ran across on Google. The title of it that you can type in is "Obama Supports Public Depravity." The whole thing is shocking, to say the least! fairmack

[fy]

This is not just your typical political tactic of 'picking out' the facts (without regard to context). It is in fact actually _subverting_ the truth and selling something you know is false. This is very dangerous.

In the same speech, Palin says "'The New York Times' is almost never wrong", while at the same time _choosing_ to ignore the article's conclusion: that Obama, Ayers are not closely associated. I marvel at such capacity for contradiction. So either Palin is dumb, or -- and this is more concerning -- she is purposely feeding and encouraging this Hannity-concept of Barrack Hussein Obama as terrorist. In other words: a simple smear campaign, not a questioning of judgment.

The turn of events is very sad indeed. I hope people listen more to what she speaks, and see less of the cartoon-likeable 'fluffy bunny'.

[pharoute]

Unfortunately to Gov. Palin supporters, helping poor schoolchildren is probably not considered a good thing.
But in the big scheme I see these kind of attacks as giving persons of a certain generation an excuse to not vote for the black guy "He supported the Weathermen!" To generations born after the 60's The Weathermen was Lou Reed's first band right? ("Lou Reed...the guy that made the video where he had a robot head...yeah the old guy")

[victoria]

I've been following this story with a lot interest, because I might be considered suspect as well by Palin's reasoning. In his capacity as a well respected educator, Ayers is on the doctoral committee of a close friend friend of mine. She's even (gasp!) been invited to his house for social occasions.

Another thought: A lot of Christians might listen to and agree with Palin's logic that after all this time, Ayers should still be judged by the actions that took place decades ago. But using that same logic, those same Christians who buy Chuck Colson's books ought to be taken to task for supporting a convicted criminal.

[fy]

Speaking of racism, there's a nice op-ed on NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/opinion/05kristof.html?em. The study he cites is very illuminating.

[Erl]

Fred. Please run for public office.

I'm serious about this, though. The evangelical movement is shifting, and as you've often said, power in it is open to he who claims it. Claim it, Fred! Wield it!

We'll totally owe you one.

[Mau de Katt]

Trouble is, a lot of people in "the flyover states" and/or the Conservative Christian "Base" get their news from Fox "News." My own father, whom I had thought had at least decent reasoning skills before all this, is one of them. And they believe the "Obama is friends with TERRISTS!!!" crap that Faux endlessly spews out. (It seems the more outrageous the lie, and the more it is stated in public, the more it is believed!) And the rest of "mainstream news" reports all this stuff ad nauseum in the guise of "being fair."

When one wants an excuse for racism (or any other "ism), one will grab at any straw that's thrown, even if it is a lie.

[clew]

No, no, don't grasp the Palantir!

...sorry.

[Tayi]

In all fairness, didn't Palin completely blank when asked what newspapers she reads? So maybe, if she doesn't read the newspaper, she doesn't know that what she's saying is a lie.

Not that this is a great defense: it would mean she is someone who chooses to remain ignorant of the world instead of a calculating liar. I'm not sure which is worse in a politician.

And at the risk of feeding a troll, fairmack, if the story you're talking about is the vote against a law that would have made illegal the killing of babies born alive after a failed abortion, well, don't be a fool. It was a bill that pretended to outlaw something that was already illegal (killing infants born alive) in an effort to outlaw all abortion. It was a bad bill, completely flawed and pointless and deceitful, and Obama was right to vote against it. There was an article in Relevant magazine (yes, an evangelical source!) that has more details: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life_article.php?id=7591

[Caravelle]

My 6th-grade teacher went to prison for a bit for harboring ETA members. How's that for degrees of separation ?

Speaking of racism, there's a nice op-ed on NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/opinion/05kristof.html?em. The study he cites is very illuminating.

It's illuminating to people who'd never heard of unconscious racism before, is that such a big portion of the population ?

[Caravelle]

Obama in Tayi's article :
It defies common sense to think that a hospital wouldn't provide life-saving treatment to an infant that was alive and had a chance of survival.

Then again, we're talking about people who think if the rapture happened, doctors who perform abortions would be horrified because they couldn't do them anymore.

[Brandi]

To generations born after the 60's The Weathermen was Lou Reed's first band right?

Heck, to at least one post-Boom generation the Weather Underground is a forecasting site.

[Turcano]

I realize Mr. Clark wrote a series about willfully investing in a lie you know to be a lie, but is there something about conservatives or even Christian conservatives that makes them particularly susceptible to this line of argument?

Political conservatism tends to correlate with right-wing authoritarianism, which suggests a higher-than-average degree of tribalistic thinking.

[Jon P]

In all fairness, didn't Palin completely blank when asked what newspapers she reads? So maybe, if she doesn't read the newspaper, she doesn't know that what she's saying is a lie.
No, Palin said she read all newspapers. [facepalm]

In the same speech, Palin says "'The New York Times' is almost never wrong"
Wait... what?! Isn't The New York Times a bunch of Communist bull, meant only to smear Republicans with its inthetankedness?

[Praline]

Going after Obama with a smear that's this obscure, this far-removed, and this baseless reinforces the perception that McCain and his hired mudslingers were unable to find anything substantial or legitimate with which to criticize his opponent.

I remember thinking this at the time of the Clinton impeachment. I was fairly young, and the world was in less of a crisis, so my grasp of foreign politics was a bit sketchy - but the whole business with Clinton (about whom I'd had little previous opinion) drove me to the conclusion that he was probably a good President. Why? Because the Republicans were clearly so desperate to get him out of the White House that they were doing just about everything short of coshing him and dragging him out by his tie ... and yet all they could come up with was some sexual misconduct - which is being a bad husband and a questionable boss, but hardly the political crisis of the century. Conclusion: if he'd taken a bribe, collaborated with his country's enemies, corrupted a public office or undermined the Constitution - you know, done anything politically serious - they'd be talking about that. As they weren't, he almost certainly hadn't done any of those things. Few things are a better character witness than the sight of an enemy trying to dig up dirt and failing.

And yes, I'd like to see Fred run for office too. Evangelicals deserve better than this crap.

[Ryan Ferneau]

It's illuminating to people who'd never heard of unconscious racism before, is that such a big portion of the population ?

Yes. We are all very color-blind-blind.

[Ian]

Most people have heard of other people's racism.

[Tonio]

Worse than that, Palin says things that aren't true long after it has been pointed out to her repeatedly that the things she is saying are not true...She lies to make herself sound better than she knows herself to be and she lies to make her opponents sound worse than she knows them to be.

Sounds like Harlan Ellison's longstanding complaint about Gene Roddenberry. Ellison's original script for the Guardian of Forever episode had a minor crew member dealing drugs, and Roddenberry repeatedly claimed that the character in question was Scotty. From my reading of the biography by Joel Engel, the Star Trek creator had a messiah/persecution complex - would this be an accurate description of Sarah Palin?

[Tonio]

But using that same logic, those same Christians who buy Chuck Colson's books ought to be taken to task for supporting a convicted criminal.

Putting aside his conversion in prison, I suspect those Christians really admire Colson's unswavering loyalty because it fits with their authoritarian worldview. Reading Colson's entries on Post/Newsweek OnFaith, he could just has well have written them in 1972, substituting Nixon for Jesus and Democrats for atheists.

[Nenya]

Re: Charles Colson. I was pretty moved when I first read the book he wrote about getting converted in prison and starting a prison ministry to help other people after he got out. You know--big sleazy politician reformed, sees world in new light, tries to make a difference.

Then I found out he was still shilling for the same stupid, arrogant, harmful policies that he would have supported as Nixon's right-hand-man, and all the respect I had for him disappeared. I don't doubt his conversion, but it doesn't seem to have made him *think* or be very much more compassionate. Not a real good advert there, nor very good evidence of "I've changed!"

[Nenya]

Most people have heard of other people's racism.

Mind if I quote this, Ian?

[JayH]

Fred writes: This has now been so well documented that the closest thing to a defense of Palin isn't a defense at all, but rather an admission. "All politicians are liars," her defenders say. That cynical, blanket condemnation blurring all degrees and frequencies of dishonesty fails to recognize what makes the Alaska governor special. She has distinguished herself by her willingness to continue repeating her lies long after they have been thoroughly discredited. Most lying politicians either back off or change the subject when their lies are refuted, but not Palin.

People on both the left and right tend to only accept facts as reported by the people on their own side, because "the other side are liars." And I think it's just as likely that Palin is simply deluded herself (all politicians start their lives in the rank and file) as that she's deliberately treating the people with contempt; in other words, those "facts" that have been pointed out to her aren't really "facts" at all because they come from people she doesn't trust. Plus, of course, Obama and every evil 60's radical leftist who wants to see teenagers having sex with complete strangers and abortion legalized and the Christian family destroyed are in league anyway, just by virtue of being under Satan's influence. Because Obama can't possibly be a Christian. Because he's a Democrat.

See, this is more of a problem on the right, because of the influence of all-or-nothing, "by their fruits ye shall know them" thinking.

[JayH]

BTW, the reason I led with "People on both the left and the right" and then talked entirely about the right was because I forgot that I was going to say something about how we're now hearing accusations from both sides about how the MSM is leaning towards the other side. The right wing has been whining about the "liberal media" for years, but now it's becoming more common to hear people on the left whining about how the MSM is leaning right. (The momentum really started with Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy" comment a few years back.)

This is why I'm so depressed when I hear liberal/progressives saying that the Democrats will never succeed until they learn to fight as dirty as the Republicans do.

Anyway, what it all comes down to is: so long as a person sees the world in terms of an enemy (with or without a capital E), he or she will more easily characterize other people as in cahoots with that enemy, and ignore facts that come from even neutral sources (because "neutral is bad when there's a war on"). It's why my mother-in-law can still believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim -- and assert, with a straight face, that Hillary Clinton's business-suit attire is further evidence that she's a (her word) dyke.

> Most people have heard of other people's racism.

Now see, that's the kind of crap that you can expect from a Norwegian.

[indifferent children]

Oops, that was me at 9:37, and yes it was a joke.

[bulbul]

now it's becoming more common to hear people on the left whining about how the MSM is leaning right
Except it's not whining when you're right. Consider the bastion of liberal costal elitist media operation, New York Times, which employs such liberal luminaries as David Brooks and William Kristol. Or take the Sunday talkshows line-up: which one of those is helmed by a liberal? How about the Iraq war, where were the liberal media then? And how about most of the primary season when right-wingers complained about the non-existing Obama-media lovefest while a major news anchor called on the press to "lay off McCain", to quote but one example of the very real kid-glove treatment the media gave McCain. And finally, which media outlet is the unrepentant voice of the left in the same way Fox represents the right?

[MikhailBorg]

Tonio, I don't consider either Gene Roddenberry or Harlan Ellison reliable narrators in the "City on the Edge" tale. A skeptic can find good reasons to take both versions of the story with a Horta-sized chunk of salt.

Thing is, I've read Ellison's screenplay; it's been published a few places. Ellison's version is an excellent science fiction tale that would have made a really lousy Star Trek episode. That screenplay included drug dealing on the Enterprise, Kirk being perfectly willing to sacrifice the post-WWII future of humanity to his hormones, and a time portal that today would still take the visual-effects resources of WETA to pull off: fine story elements all, but just not a good fit to Classic Trek.

Roddenberry's version not only worked much better within the series, but did win the Hugo Award, which means the SF community of the time agreed it probably wasn't garbage.

Messiah/persecution complex? Isn't that just another phrase for "Hollywood producer"?

[Dylan]

I agree with the "people on both the left and the right" comment, mainly because I see myself as more or less centrist. But seriously... is it just the influence of the Internet, or have some of the most insane allegations ever bubbled up into the mainstream this election cycle? The claim that Palin's daughter is actually her granddaughter, the suspicions that Obama is secretly a Muslim and/or the Antichrist, and the intense (but probably somewhat out-of-context) focus on both of their churches. I have to agree it seems worse on the right. I don't think that means there aren't similar amounts of conspiracy theories on the left, I just get the feeling they aren't as vocal, or at least the mainstream left doesn't listen to them as closely.

But if this is the type of political game that America wants to play now, then we have serious problems as a country no matter who wins this election.

[Tonio]

MikhailBorg, you're probably right about the reliability, and about the suitability of the original screenplay. (I suspect each man's personality pushed emotional buttons in the other man.) My point was Roddenberry consistently lied about the content of the screenplay, and did so in interviews and at conventions, despite the screenplay being available in print as you noted. Ellison may or may not have been justified in taking that as a personal slight. I'm more interested in what the lying said about Roddenberry's views of himself and the world, and if Palin holds similar views.

"Messiah/persecution complex? Isn't that just another phrase for 'Hollywood producer'?"

(Chuckle) Yes and no. Pauline Kael's landmark piece On the Future of Movies has an excellent dissection of the producer mindset.

[Fred Davis]

People on both the left and right tend to only accept facts as reported by the people on their own side, because "the other side are liars."

Except that the rightwing explicitly asserts that it accepts the fact that Palin is a liar; they just think it's okay in her case because, obviously, "all politicians are liars" (which somehow makes it okay), and probably some stuff about "balance" or whatever.

Backing up what bulbul is saying however, if you have two sides asserting mutually incompatible things, a good way of figuring out whether anyone is correct is to first of all work out if either can be right - in this case, question whether the media is actually biased - and then to work out which one is actually right, or whether both are still wrong in someway.

However you don't even need that much analysis in the situation you're talking about JayH, because the left and right have completely different concepts of "bias". When the right talks about "bias" what they mean is that the media doesn't present everything the left does, or what it views as the left, as pure unbridled evil, and doesn't present everything the right does as pure unbridled good.

By comparison, when the left talks about "bias" in the media, they're talking about how aspects of the media fail at journalism forever, often in their routinely sychophantic and factless "he said/she said" reporting style.

Obviously both sides' respective view of the media isn't actually mutually exclusive, so it's less a matter of who is right, as they both are really, but more a matter of which side's concept of "bias" you find less hideously fascist and insane.

[MikhailBorg]

Indeed, I've read a transcript of an interview where GR said something like "He even had Scotty running drugs on the ship, for goodness' sake!" The question is: Was GR intentionally lying? (And what would be the point?) Did he just misremember? (After all, GR was an over-stressed TV producer and had a lot on his mind back then. And he had little motivation to go back and re-read Ellison's work to clarify that single datum.) Was there a draft where it actually was Scotty? (According to David Gerrold, there were many drafts of that screenplay.) We'll never know.

GR may have been a liar. He certainly tried to conceal his affairs with women from the participants, often long after they'd worked it out themselves. (Cf. Barrett and Nichols.) But getting wrong whether it was Scotty or Ensign Ricky is certainly a minor issue at most.

[Fred Davis]

And let me just add a caveat that most sane/moderate right wingers don't actually talk about "bias" all that much - and I'd bet that is in part due to them having the same problems with hte media as left wingers do, beause no matter what side of the aisle you're on, things like FOX or the daily mail are just bad for democracy, no matter how you look at them or who's "side " they're allegedly on.

[hapax]

You see this type of behavior on the part of Creationists all the time. I have actually seen tapes of Duane Gish, frex, conceding in the face of indisputible evidence that some of his "scientific" claims are flat out wrong -- and then repeat the very same nonsense in later talks.

This kind of radical disconnect -- and yes, I have heard some proselytizers call it "lying for Jesus" -- simply cannot be healed by any means that I've ever heard of. Basically, it takes a complete crash of a person's entire mental operating system, and the victims usually end up incapable of believing anything, even the observations of their own eyes.

It's very sad. And dangerous.

P.S. I am more closely connected to General McClellan than Obama is to Ayers, and on that authority, I can assure everyone (despite Palin's claims in the debate) he does NOT support a "surge" in Afghanistan.

[hapax]

He certainly tried to conceal his affairs with women from the participants

Hmm. I *think* I know what you're trying to say, here, but how does that work, exactly?

[Tonio]

The question is: Was GR intentionally lying? (And what would be the point?)...getting wrong whether it was Scotty or Ensign Ricky is certainly a minor issue at most.

Valid point. I can see one motive for such a lie, whether intentional or unintentional - GR was presenting himself as a martyr, betrayed by not just allegedly hostile network executives on the outside but also allegedly recalcitrant writers on the inside. Whether that was an accurate description of the overall situation is not the issue. Again, I can easily imagine both GWB and Palin having similar mindsets.

[MikhailBorg]

Hmm. I *think* I know what you're trying to say, here, but how does that work, exactly?

Poorly :) But yes, I worded that sentence very badly.

I'm especially thinking of part of Nichelle Nichols' memoirs, where she states that GR was divorcing his first wife, and setting up a fling with Nichelle. (Nichelle is coy about the details of the fling, and that's fine with me.) She found out there was a third woman, went to confront her, and discovered it was her friend Majel Barrett; they sat down, had coffee, discussed Gene in some detail, and Nichelle left to let him down gently. Apparently everyone stayed friends; perhaps 'twas the setting of late-60s California.

(It's been a while since I read Nichols' book, so I may be misremembering details. Wouldn't lie to you, though, I promise!)

[Elmo]

By Gov. Palin's reasoning, that'd be more than enough to put me on some FBI watch list.

Oh come now Fred, it's not as if you haven't done anything to attract the attention of Pig Brother.

FWIW -- My 9th grade history teacher was at the Grant Park demonstration when I was in the 11th grade. That puts me very close to Bill Ayers. When I was in college, one of the guys in my dorm was a member of SDS so he certainly knew someone who knew someone which gets me pretty close from another angle.

[Monkay]

left and right tend to only accept facts as reported by the people on their own side, because "the other side are liars."
What if it's true, and both sides are liars? To paraphrase the Bible, when your salt isn't salty anymore, what are you going to use for salt?
Deep Philosophical considerations aside, it is possible to check facts, and the current right-wing is often wrong about things. Blatantly. As Fred wrote, "feeding them bullshit and calling it chocolate"; and that's an unworthy thing; and one is judged by the quality of one's opponents; thus, their problem is our problem, in several ways.

[shannon]

Thanks for explaining, mikhai. Otherwise I would have kept thinking that GR had flings with women and then somehow told them that they hadn't had flings together..

[cjmr]

It's been a while since I read Nichols' book, so I may be misremembering details.

I vaguely remember that story, too. Unfortunately, I think we got Nicol's book out of the library, not purchased it, so I can't check for you... (Now, if you want factchecking from Takei's book or James Doohan's, those I have.)

[lonespark]

Star Trek, yay!

I am not the sort of fan who knows about much of anything behind the scenes, but I did know about Ellison's antipathy toward the final version of COtEoF. (Because my viewings of most TOS eps and all my in-color viewings thereof were the 90-min-w/commentary versions Sci-fi ran in the late 90's.) And yeah, it didn't make sense, because science fiction stories are one thing and Star Trek episodes are another, and you don't get to just change the tone and content of somebody's show because you wrote a good story. (Although, as a dark-AU fancfic, that version might have kicked ass. Especially if there were more sex in it.)