Compassion and Hate at Townhall.com

One of my favorite sources for material to poke fun at (1  2) is Townhall.com.  The thing is, they do have some good columns.  They also have some really offensive ones.  This is not so much of a left brain - right brain comparison as a ego - id comparison.

Tourette Syndrome
George Will

April 25, 2004
COPPELL, Texas -- Even in what passes for repose, your basic 11-year-old boy resembles the former Yugoslavia -- a unity of sorts, but with fidgeting and jostling elements. Andrew Nesbitt is like that, only more so, because he has Tourette syndrome.

He also has something to teach us about the power of a little information and a lot of determination. And about how life can illuminate philosophy, which is supposed to do the illuminating. [...]

 The mind-body dichotomy is a perennial puzzlement for philosophers. Most people say, "I have a body."  Perhaps we should say, "I am a body." People who say the latter mean that the mind, the soul -- whatever we call the basis of individual identity -- is a "ghost in the machine," a mysterious emanation of our physicality. They may be right. But were Andrew given to paddling around in deep philosophic water -- if he were, he would not be your basic boy -- he might reply:

"No way. Wisdom is encoded in our common language. We all have, to some extent, a complex, sometimes adversarial, relationship with our physical selves. And I more than most people know that it is correct to say 'I have a body.' There is my body, and then there is me, trying to make it behave."


Day Dreamin' Anti-Dude Dames
Doug Giles

April 24, 2004

What do the anti-dude dames daydream about?  Well … I can think of 10 fantasies right off the top of my unapologetic, heterosexual, white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant, testosterone-fog-loving head.  Ready?

1.   Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche would get back together and adopt a cat.  Lovely!

2.   Rush Limbaugh would choke to death on a plate of Hooter’s hot wings.

3.   Newt Gingrich would actually turn into a newt, relocate to a Madagascar rain forest and be relentlessly chased by the Crocodile Hunter.

4.   Hillary Clinton would run for President in 2004 with Melissa Etheridge as her running mate. Yummy!

5.   Thelma and Louise would experience a cinematic resurrection, which would yield up the theatrical release of “Thelma and Louise Part 2: Revenge of the Bra Burners”.

6.   K.D. Lang would do another album with Tony Bennett, only this time they’ll sing her lesbian ballads. Oh, behave!

7.   Janeane Garafalo would permanently replace Brian Kilmeade on “Fox and Friends”.

8.   The script of “Boys On The Side” would be written into the U.S. Constitution.

9.   George Washington’s face would be removed from the dollar bill to be replaced by a glamour shot of Gloria Alred.

10. The line in the pledge of allegiance would be changed from “One Nation, under God”… to “One Nation, run by Broads.”

This is what the feminists daydream about while they’re shopping for golf shirts, stretch pants and at-home-hair-cut kits.

[...]  My ClashPoint is this: Just because when the white, conservative, Christian man talks, the feminists begin to squawk, does not mean we keep our mouths shut.  We had better talk, and not just talk, work -- to protect the state of our nation against these liberal “ladies” pushing hard to the left for a “She-ocracy,” and to support the giant majority of women out there who aren't buying their hashish.

I'm talking about the women who like being a wife, like having kids, enjoy being treated like a lady, are delighted not  to fight in a war, thrive on being feminine and not butch.  They’re the women who, if they choose a career outside the home, are not shamed into it by some uni-brow, chucka-boot wearing she-male with a bad hairdo and camel's breath.

But what do I know?  I'm gender challenged.

I actually edited out the more offensive stuff that Mr. Giles wrote.  Mr. Will deserves credit for writing about Tourette Syndrome, which, as an orphan disease, is often made the subject of crass curiosity.  It is a serious illness, but it is not necessarily debilitating.  Mr. Wills illustrates how a little compassion can go a long way toward helping humanity make the most of its resources: other humans. 

Giles, on the other hand, illustrates how intolerance just screws everything up.  He's not just gender-challenged, he's logic-challenged.  His kind of hate speech makes it difficult for people to cooperate with each other, which lowers the GDP.  Some Republican.