Sickos speak out. Sadly, some listen

It is a long time since we lived in warm & fuzzy times, like the 50's, and, though there was much to improve upon during those times, I find myself yearning for their return. At least a return to the simple sense of decency and, yes, innocence, that seemed to prevail in that seemingly simpler time.

A "good news" event this past week was surely the return of the reporters who were being held in North Korea, and yet, the vicious and the small minded, the guttersnipes who pretend to be important public voices will say what they think, no matter how despicable the thoughts, in national venues.

Here's a section of the article in Salon.com today by Joe Conason entitled Clinton Derangement: North Korean Strain

"Here was an effort that exemplified the best of America -- a society that values the lives of its citizens enough to send a former head of state, with all the power of government behind him, to the aid of two women in distress. Here was a happy reunion, bringing wives home to their husbands and a mother back to her little girl, that surely uplifted the spirit of anyone who actually believes in family values. Here was a moment of pride and joy.
But not for Gordon Liddy, the demented felon and radio bigot who cackled about "Ling Ling and Wee Wee being locked up for nine hours in an airplane with Bill Clinton." Not for Rush Limbaugh, the obsessive guttersnipe who wondered aloud whether Clinton "hit on those two female journalists on the long flight home." Not for Andrea Peyser, the curdled tabloid columnist who insisted that "the whole shebang was nakedly scripted and staged as a device to help rehabilitate the image of former President Bill Clinton" (and who neglected to mention that Clinton did not speak to the eagerly waiting press corps and has given not a single interview on the North Korea mission). Not for Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who predictably seized on Clinton's mission as an opportunity for gratuitous and ugly insults to his wife, weirdly imagining that the prisoner release was "some clever North Korean revenge plot, giving the limelight to Daddy to punish Mommy." And not for the editors of the Huffington Post, who posted a very strange headline -- "Bill Upstages Hillary ... Once Again" -- on an Associated Press story that didn’t mention her at all."
Find the complete article at http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/08/07/clinton/?source=newsletter

I commented to a friend yesterday that, since my retirement, I've been reading more and am much more current with what is going on in the world and the issues we are facing. Yet, I wonder if that's a good thing. Crap like this make me wish I could find more ways to fill my time that would block out and ignore the world entirely. I'd truly love a return to simpler times, but alas, the best I can do is block out the present times and fantasize. Oh, if only I could develop selective memory loss.