Tim Russert vs. George Carlin

[AllentownJake]

Tim Russert dies and we have a week of endless media coverage.

George Carlin dies we get a 2 minute blurb.

I think George Carlin has had more of a cultural impact than Timmeh did but that's just me. He also had more interesting things to say.

In fact Carlin was the exact opposite of everything that was Tim Russert.

[mediaman007]

1. Can I get an amen?

Amen!

[Hydra]

17. Ramen?

:evilgrin:

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

23. Our pasta, who art in a colander,

draining be your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, on top some grated Parmesan. Give us this day our garlic bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trample on our lawns. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us some pizza, for thine is the meatball, the noodle, and the sauce, forever and ever. RAMEN.

[Hydra]

24. I'll go for the pizza

Ham and pineapple, if you please. It pleases her divine pinkness.

[liberal N proud]

2. I know that I would drive 100 miles to see Carlin

I wouldn't have crossed the street to see Russert

[Feron]

22. I agree. n/t

[Christa]

3. Amen, K & R

My thoughts exactly.

[BlueJazz]

4. I didn't know George died...Shit!.....

[fasttense]

5. Yeah, it would be so neat to have a week of mourning George Carlin.

They would run his routines on every news program, bleeping out the curse words of course. Even I would watch corporate news if they did that.

Rest in Peace George. We will honestly miss you.

[tom_paine]

10. Can you imagine that? The Toady Corporate Media airing a week of Carlin

telling the truth about how horrible they and the machine they Toady for is?

You know, a week of 24/7 coverage of that would shatter a hell of a lot of Bushiganda and Bushie Lies, especially since he spoke with such clarity and brevity.

Thanks for the image, even though there is as much chance of that as the Nazis using THEIR media to lionize and eulogize and honor Jews.

As much chance of that. Exactly so. No more and no less.

[malaise]

6. And he was 1000% more honest

RIP George - I'd settle for some reruns of your shows :cry:

[skooooo]

7. Goodbye Hippy Dippy Weatherman

:cry:

[janet118]

16. "Darkness in the early evening . . .

. . . continuing darkness through the evening, then scattered light towards morning."

George Carlin a/k/a the hippy-dippy weatherman
1937 - 2008

[chelsea0011]

8. Could be the most important comedian in the last 30-40 years and

just another entertainer's death to the TV media. Maybe he should have worked in the media biz for the 24-7 funeral.

[Gabi Hayes]

21. how could you forget Carrot Top?

[chelsea0011]

30. Carrot Top is the most important prop comedian ever. Take that Gallagher.

[tom_paine]

9. Yes, Carlin and Russert were opposites. Carlin a comedian yet a defender of liberty,

Russert a suposedly serious "journalist" :puke: yet a defenders of tyranny and criminality on a massive scale, with the blood of a million victims on his hands.

Opposites. Which is why if there IS an afterlife, Carlin is in heaven getting good dope and supermodels, while alternately chatting with Plato and Nieztche (I'm just guessing at what Carlin's Heavan would look like) while Tim Russert is sharing a room on the CorpAdverticus, one of the lowest, foulest levels in Dis, with some flunky from Goebbel's Ministry of Propaganda. Someone just like him, I hope, a "serious journalist" who lent people's belief in their gravitas to help Hitler into power and the rest of his predations.

They can compare notes about lobbing softballs to Nazis while badgering Jews and only pretending to be a "journalist" then. Or was it, "They can compare notes about lobbing softballs to Bushies while badgering Democrats and only pretending to be a "journalist" then."

Either way, they can compare notes, have much in common, and they will have much to talk about inthe smoky smouldering one-bedroom APT.

If their is any justice in the afterlife, Carlin has a TV on which if he wishes he can look down at Russert and laugh and blow smoke rings and nuzzle his supermodel who is also a briliant philosopher and conversationalist.

Maybe Hypatia, who was murdered by a bunch of Bushies doing the bidding of the Bishop of Alexandria onthe step of the Great Library because in those days, Bushies killed smart people and "liberal intellectuals", ESPECAILLY IF THEY WERE WOMEN.

So Carlin and Hypatia can look down at Toady Russert undergoing the torture of the day (perhaps some nice waterboarding) and laugh and laugh and laugh. IF there is justice inthe aftrelife and IF there is an afterlife.

[Hydra]

18. That's my guess

The worst kind of hell you can send someone to is one where all the other people are just like them. Think of it- a million Used-Car salesmen. A million pimps with no women. A million Bush and Cheneys. A million rapists.

In a place with so many sharks and no one to feed on but themselves, it must get pretty interesting.

Meanwhile, I'm probably go to a place with a million well-informed smartasses. That'll be SO cool! I might even see George there.

[David Zephyr]

19. Totally agree with you tom_paine and the OP.

Out of sheer courtesy, I avoided every single one of the maudlin posts regarding Tim Russert and his exaggerated role as a journalist. Every single one.

Now today that someone truly great has died, I join with the OP and with you in saluting this great man, George Carlin, who told more truth in a monologue than Russert ever could in his TV show.

Tim Russert was a leader of the pack that gave George W. Bush and Dick Cheney a green light to undermine the Constitution, disregard the Bill of Rights, to corrupt government and science with religious dogma and superstition, to wreck our national economy, and worse to wage an illegal war against a nation that never attacked ours.

Tim Russert and Judy Miller are peas from the same pod. Miller willingly passed along disinformation to the American people to support Bush's lies about WMD. Russert, at the very least served as a critic of anyone who questioned those lies, and at worst, a facilitator of those lies.

Carlin told the truth in bite sizes that made people laugh and understand things from a common sense angle. When Carlin gave you the "news", it was straight.

[endarkenment]

11. Exactly my thoughts

As I drove to work this morning and heard the sad news I thought 'no quasi state funeral for a man who really did have integrety, a man who was unafraid to speak the truth', no Carlin will merit a mention and that is all. Russert meant nothing to me, Carlin meant a lot.

[Mad_Dem_X]

12. Truer words were never spoken:

"I think George Carlin has had more of a cultural impact than Timmeh did but that's just me. He also had more interesting things to say."

Carlin deserves much bigger a tribute than Timmeh, for sure.

[Echo In Light]

13. "To be a radical is to simply grasp the root of the problem." Howard Zinn

I flashed on that when I read this thread's heading.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. I said just about the same thing when I signed on this morning.

[LWolf]

15. Yes. n/t

[rhett o rick]

20. I was thinking the very same this morning. Loved George. nm

[pokerfan]

25. They are still talking about Russert

They don't even give that much coverage to presidents and senators (from either side.

Even Olbermann (who devoted an entire show to Tim) only gave six minutes to Carlin, replaying an interview where Carlin repeatedly praised P;bermann's greatnest.

I guess when one of their own dies, it's somehow more important. To them, anyway.

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

26. RAAAGE

seriously, George Carlin is a far greater loss.

[liberalla]

27. The whole deal with the Russert afterlife miniseries, and the reason

they keep worshiping him is because by doing so, they are worshiping themselves (by proxy). He was one of them. He belonged to them. As he becomes greater and bigger in memory, they're also lifted to greater prominence. Who can mourn and grieve the best? Whose prose is best?

They're investing in their own eventual obit and memorial news coverage when it's their time to go. It's all very self serving and self-congratulatory. The media will always 'cover' itself when there's a ceremony and opportunity to further inflate itself. That's what they do.
____________________

Apart from that, I loved George Carlin. His impact and influence on society was much greater than Russert.

[Aviation Pro]

28. For those of you who remember....

...Carlin did a bit called Baseball vs. Football. I think someone should come up with an appropriate Timmeh vs. Carlin monologue.

Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.

In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you'd ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you'd know the reason for this custom.

Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

[eilen]

29. I'm going to miss George Carlin

a helluva lot more than Russert. Russert was really easily replaced in the public eye, another stuffed suited head on tv kissing ass (although I do feel for his family, they lost someone they loved). With George Carlin, you never know what can happen, he was honest, sincere, seriously funny, like your cool younger uncle and you know if he were in your living room he'd offer you a bong hit and share. He was the person who pointed and laughed at the naked emperor. You could count on it. I think of him, Kurt Vonnegut and Frank Zappa hanging out and what a cool party that is.