Mr. Crowder (no - not your dad, you!) and others who agree with his take in this article:
You would love a book called "Shows About Nothing" (Thomas Hibbs). It looks at nihilism in popular culture. I think it has an essay that talks about why Seinfeld should be morally superior to Friends...but only for people who get the joke that these people are essentially horrible wretches you would never want as your actual friends and neighbors (whereas Friends attempted to make similar behavior "nice"). Honesty indeed! And the reactions to the final episode often reveal who did and did not get the point...

See my reply below about who "researching" is and, aside from shilling for his book here and on many other sites on the web (comments to news articles, etc. using the same text over and over), what he is up to here...

Folks, "researching" is "Walter Phillips" (as he has admitted) who is actually a Structural Engineer in Barbados named Grenville Phillips. This guy - as well-meaning and sincere as he might be, is presenting a stacked deck.

> 1st and most importantly, he acts as if the texts exist independently from the traditions and believes that you can approach the Bible and the Quran from a "blank slate", tradition-less point of view which he seems to equate with being "scientific." This is an untenable claim that is rejected by almost every serious participant in any field that understands hermeneutics.
> 2nd - Whenever you cite any part of the ~2000 year history of Christian practice or interpretive tradition or of the Muslim practices and tradition that reveal the profound disconnect between the two religions, Grenville Phillips will claim that it is merely the tradition or interpretation of either or both texts that causes the dissonance.
> 3rd - He will then offer his own interpretation of the texts...an interpretation that he privileges above the millennia of interpretive history of both texts and the continuing practices of the believers who value them.

I have no idea of his motives, and he seems, from my brief investigation of him and his claims about his book, to be a misguided, perhaps clueless but very bright amateur religious scholar....one who chose to start writing long before he had the necessary skills and before he had acquainted himself with enough of the centuries of previous scholarship on these topics.

[not sure why my attempts at replying have been blocked!...]

Agreed, Mr. M! ...makes no difference if it's cool or hot...

(cont. from initial post)
See - they knew better what you and everyone else should like! If you argued that what you (and many others) liked was also something new in jazz - though evolving out of the tradition rather than make a radical revolutionary break - then you were stupid and probably working for the soulless recording industry.

I never made it to Bradley's, but always hoped to (esp. if Mike Stern had a good group with him) b/c of the intimacy Mr. Moriarty celebrates. However, I can list several outstanding jazz recordings and live performers for any who want to know one man's strong opinions about the good stuff still being played. As for the political analogy, I will leave you to make your own (pretty obvious) connections.

No need to wonder for long. With Maddow's "report", every mention in the MSM, every spittle-inflected attack on O'Keefe and Giles, every defense of ACORN (or whatever dozen new acronyms they will hide behind) will include some version of: "Those racist videos were severely edited! I *saw* the report that exposed them! They cut out everything that showed the ACORN people were honest, crusading community nurturers!" [Add spittle, repeat]

They've been throwing the "edited!" defense around for months already, this "proof" is merely the final imaginary nail in the imaginary coffin (probably decorated with unicorns) where they want the ACORN expose to rot.

Sean: since you like that Kolakowski quote, you might enjoy reading some of the essays in his "Modernity on Endless Trial" - especially "The Revenge of the Sacred in Secular Culture" and "The Illusion of Demythologization." Kolakowski also wrote *THE* intellectual take-down, demolishing, ass-whooping of Marxism in "Main Currents of Marxism" (a mere 1200 pages).

The "Illusion" essay I mentioned above has this gem:
"After centuries of the growth of the Enlightenment, we suddenly woke up in a mental and cultural disarray; we are more and more frightened in the face of a world that is losing its religious legacy, and our fear is well justified. The lost myths seem to be replaced less by enlightened rationality and more by terrifying secular caricatures or substitutes . . . Intellectuals are helpless . . . And the attempt to endear oneself to the rationalist ideology by “demythologizing” Christianity is the least reliable prescription."

MR. CHENEY:

(cont.) Regarding my third item above - I wonder what we would find if we tracked the involvement of these "artists" and groups with the Natl Education Assoc. and state & local educational administrations. Just like the iconography of the campaign, Obama and his fellows see the stakes in generational terms: in the wake of 25 years of the systematic corruption of US education, if you control "cool," you control the culture for the next generation and therefore the lens through which politics is viewed. / / These "artists" are pop artists - they know they already have the elite arts crowd - and pop "art" targets the young. Harness pop "art" after the educational system has already fit the bit into the mouths of the next generation, and you're ready to ride and ride and ride...

Notice the frequent recognition of how this "community" was instrumental in the campaign. Combined with the fact that 16 out of 21 of these groups got $2 million right after Obama took office, it all adds up to verify the sickening sense so many of us felt during the campaign that the fix was in: news media, pop and "arts" culture, and educational establishment.

Judge may have gone to UC SD, but he (or someone on his writing staff) knew Texas pretty well. One of my favorite bits was when Hank is over at Willie Nelson's place. He calls Peggy and, in the background you can clearly see Ann Richards (former governor and loud-mouth lib) playing tether ball! (which Hank finally mentions...she's playing with one of Willie's roadies). Brilliant *and* a Texas in-joke.

Plus "Buckley's angel" and Chuck Mangione hiding out in the Mega-lo Mart, and that final scene where John Redcorn finally gets his land....on a highway median. One of the best, cleverest, and most honest shows of the last 10 years.