Friday, June 5, 2009

The Seven Stages of Conservative "Grief" Over the Murder of Dr. Tiller

  1. We deplore this terrible taking of a human life and trust that the left will not exploit it for political purposes.
  2. We deplore the taking of all human life, even that of an abortionist. And just watch: The left will exploit this for political purposes.
  3. "Evidence" suggest that Tiller performed unsafe and illegal abortions. The Kansas jury that acquitted him of just that was the tool of a liberal governor and a liberal judge.
  4. Tiller was a baby killer who specialized in late term abortions and who committed tens of thousands of them. (Insert torture porn description of a late term abortion here.)
  5. The elimination of Tiller the Killer was justifiable homicide, but we played no role is creating the climate for it. All we did was speak the truth.
  6. Who?
  7. Obama is a socialist. And the most pro-abortionist president ever. That makes it his fault.

Ellen Goodman writes that the killer did not act alone:
I don't blame everyone who checks a pro-life box on the pollster's chart. I know that ambivalence is the emotion often cast onto the sidelines of this debate. But it is well past time for the anti-abortion movement to denounce those who are in the profession of inflaming passions: Those who call Obama the "most pro-abortion president ever." Those who ratchet up the rhetoric on a Supreme Court nominee. Those who cull doctors from their honored profession by labeling them "abortionists."
That anti-choice groups have created a dangerous environment for doctors who perform a legal medical procedure seems self-evident. You don't see pro-choice groups picketing doctors who don't perform abortions, threatening them and publishing their home addresses, or murdering them. The rationalization by the right-wing blogosphere of Dr. Tiller's assassination is repugnant. The left doesn't need to politicize this tragedy: The right is doing that without our help...

Wayback Machine: The Who Sell Out (Deluxe Edition), The Who. When The Who released Sell Out in 1967, it arrived during the Summer of Love as a contrarian tribute to what Dave Marsh called in his excellent essay about the album the romance of the transistor radio and to the kids who learned about new music from listening to them. Replete with commercials and public service announcements, Sell Out boomed thunderous anthems like "I Can See For Miles" on the heels of novelty songs like "Tatoo" before leading into such pop wonders as "I Can't Reach You" and lovely ballads like "Sunrise." The album captured the experience perfectly. While the term "concept album" carries connotations of pompous grandiosity, Sell Out is a concept that works from beginning to end.

My first transistor radio was about 4" x 4". I regularly removed the back of it and studied the innards. It was my link to popular music, and it had one monaural speaker that I often eschewed in favor of the single earbud that came with the radio. When I listened that way, I could turn up the radio as loudly as I wanted to. That's what music was to me in those days: Loud and monaural.

Now, Geffen Records has released a 2CD Deluxe Edition of The Who Sell Out with all kinds of bonus tracks and -- best of all -- the vaunted mono recording of the album. The mono version is the Criterion Collection of CDs: When the sound floods out of my speakers like a great flood from a bursting dam, it's like I'm hearing the album for the first time. I suppose a sound engineer could dissemble the stereo version and rebuild it from scratch with improved results, but I don't think he or she could ever capture the romance the way that the mono version does. If you are a fan of The Who, you already know that your collection is incomplete without the Deluxe Edition of Sell Out. If you're not, well, there are worse places to start. Incredibly highly recommended...

Robert Frost's Banjo reviews Stew Called New Orleans, the excellent new CD by Paul Sanchez and John Boutte. RFB's review includes a video of their beautiful interpretation of Paul Simon's timeless "American Tune"...


Friday's Choice. Greatness: The Who perform "I Can See For Miles":

5 comments:

Roy said...

I don't remember the schtick with Tommy Smothers, but I do remember seeing The Who do "I Can See for Miles" and "My Generation" on TV. My mother's comment after "My Generation" was, "Why do all these singers from England try to sound like Kentucky hillbillies?" Heh, heh! She'd already been putting up with Mick Jagger emanating from my room. It's great to hear that The Who Sell Out is being re-released in a special edition. I guess I'd better get in line now.

About your first subject... Have you been watching Rachel Maddow nailing Bill O'Reilly to the wall on this? She is definitely tearing him a new a$$hole over his many years of "Tiller the Killer".

Annette said...

This is exactly correct. They have done everything just as you said. They are attempting to link Phill Kline the former AG of Kansas to Operation Rescue now, they have already linked him to O'Reilly. He is the one who helped him set the girls up on O'Reilly's show. Kline is the one who put the bogus charges against Dr. Tiller last year and because of them and some of the things he did to Planned Parenthood is why he lost out on the election last year.

I only hope now with the Federal investigation maybe something else will come up. Cheryl Sullenger needs to be really investigated, she has been talking to Roeder all along and he had her phone number with him.

K. said...

Roy: You will not be disappointed. I cranked "I Can See For Miles" up to 11 this afternoon and listened to it over and over.

Annette: That Cheryl Sullenger is a piece of work. I checked the k-tip.org web site she touted. They haven't even had the decency to take down a video of Bill O'Reilly attacking Dr. Tiller. They really are awful people.

Unknown said...

Nice review of The Who Sell Out, & love the Smothers Bros. footage; that was a real favorite around the Hayes household, especially with my father (can't remember what he made of acts like the Who, but he loved the show). Hadn't seen the Townsend "windmill" in years-- not recommended (he broke a lotta strings for one thing) but very effective from a dramatic standpoint.

linda ana said...

Hey, Citizen K.,

Great post, all around! Two very different topics, but related in my mind -- and obviously yours -- in an odd way. Maybe because those who persecute doctors who perform often valuable, but always difficult abortions can "see for miles", whereas those who criticize and, well, "murder" the same, can generally see for inches...I got pregnant at almost 47 years old, no interest or ability to raise another child when mine was almost 22, and it would have been HORRIFIC if I had had to go overseas to abort -- it turned out the fetus was dead by that time, anyway, but that is another issue....husband got vasectomy a month later, and all is now OK, but, but -- I shudder to think of my/our situation without a safe, viable alternative... and, on a lighter note, I loved the playfulness of those WHO guys...Keith Moon was an incredible drummer, seldom -- if ever -- equalled in rock history...
What is it about the drummer (Led Zeppelin's also) which makes them subject to extremes -- you think it might be a lifestyle issue??? Hard to drum the heck out of everything in sight for 2-3 hours than try to live a "normal" lifestyle right after, I can only imagine...

Anyway -- keep on postin'. I'm enjoying it immensely....