Honestly, I really do love "A Prairie Home Companion," and Garrison Keillor's book "Lake Wobegon Days" is one of my all-time favorites. But the man is humorless when it comes to politics, and can be a nasty piece of work. I read his book "Homegrown Democrat" a couple of years ago, expecting to find some of his usual homespun humanity, but obviously from a left-liberal perspective. What I got was sourness and spite that didn't seem like him.
In 2006, he came to give a speech in Dallas before an enthusiastic crowd of admirers, and after he left, wrote a column as if he'd been invited to address a John Birch Society reunion (he was at a Methodist church). He insulted his Dallas fans, and burned a lot of people here -- apparently because he expected that he was talking to a group of raging brownshirt Bushaholics, which just wasn't true.
Well, this weekend he went to Abilene, a small city in west Texas, and has written a column marveling over how even though they're all a bunch of Republicans, they actually were nice to him. He did end his piece on a grace note, though:
But it's good to be among the opposition and know them as fine upstanding people. At the dinner where I was forced to eat the prime rib, we all sat around afterward and sang "I'll Fly Away" and "God Bless America" and "How Great Thou Art" and "Home on the Range" and a dozen other songs we all knew, and it was a lovely evening a couple weeks before a big election. We still do know some of the same songs, we Americans. Deep down, we are loyal to each other. And the truth is marching on.
Nice, that. I just wish it didn't come out of him as so grudging and condescending. It's like he was pleasantly surprised that the folks in Abilene weren't mouth-breathing troglodytes ready to lynch Meskins and nigras.
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Good point Sig. I guess nobody can't criticize nobody no more...
Memo to all critics: Stop criticizing other people's views or statements until you start heaping it on God first. He's the real fiend anyway because he made all of us.
JH:
Why are you spending time on something you say you don't buy?
David:
Put your name on the list of addressees of the memo you sent and implement your own suggestions.
David, I'd be in quite a fix if criticism were banned. ; ) I don't usually object to people voicing their opinions of the actions and statements of public figures, especially if it's done in a courteous and rational way. "I think he was too snide about Texans" is a perfectly acceptable statement to me. What I don't like is watching people dogpile on anyone who rubs them the wrong way, impugning his motives and character and globally condemning him.
Keillor has been called "asshole," "jerk," "nasty piece of work," "pain in the butt," "arrogant" and "bilious," and compared to a hemorrhoid. Good heavens. That's pretty nasty payback for the crime of attempting to amuse people on the radio. You're certainly entitled to not like his show. But why the big hate for the man behind the show? Let it go.
Maybe I'm just sensitive to this because I'm in the entertainment biz myself in a minor kind of way. Critics love to dump on artists, even though they themselves can't create anything. Or perhaps because they can't.
Kirk:
"My fellow liberal elitists are more dependent on other people. I am, that's for sure. I need other people to fix my car, raise my vegetables, build bookshelves, launder my shirts and clean my house, and since I need those people, I should take some passing interest..."
Partial translation:
We liberals are a rather helpless bunch, not doing very much for ouselves in the work-of-the-hand realm (especially writers and entertainers?) so our "concern" for the people we depend upon is not moral superiority at all. We just know who we will answer to if backs are ever up against the wall. Those neighborly, competent Texans will not have anything to fear.
I'm a proud resident of Abilene who wonders why Keillor decided to frame us in reference to GWB and other nonsense. Does he think that Abilenians spend most of their time discussing/defending Bush? We don't. Does he even realize that Texans don't register a party affiliation? And has he considered that many Texans would likely consider themselves independent? Probably not.
I suppose that calling our area as a "khaki-colored desert" was the best fit for his "Bedouins" reference but it's not reality, either, in either respect. Abilene isn't khaki-colored or desert-like, and West Texans tend to stay put, not wander.
We'll accept his back-handed compliments with a public smile and a private shake of our collective heads that people like Keillor just don't get it. West Texans don't need a political party to promote common decency, hospitality, neighborliness, compassion, and concern. That the Democrats apparently do -- and that they only bestow those qualities on people they need to win elections and those who agree with them is telling. That they want to foster dependence on the government foremost and dismiss real relationships and community as Republican-area oddities is rather scary.
As a West Texan, however, the upcoming election doesn't make me fearful, even if the far-left candidate wins, which is likely. And that's a tribute to "quaint" Abilene and our way of life here.
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