This should not have passed without applause!
[QUOTE=an earlier poster]
(comparison of Hitler with Thomas Kinkade)
[/QUOTE]
This, either! 
I’ve been reading the Neil Young biography Shakey. I’d place Young high up in any hierarchy of assholism. Along with about 50 of his closest friends and associates. He comes across in the book as an immense talent with a Steve Jobs-like reality distortion field. Anybody who doesn’t view the world in the way Young was viewing it at any given moment gets stomped on. Lots of others assholes fit in, though, from time to time.
That doesn’t excuse the drug-fueled assholery of Stills and Crosby (until they cleaned up) one bit. But Young never should have joined them; he hurt them in a million ways.
Isaac Asimov’s reputation has taken a huge hit in recent years as stories of his groping women at cons have spread. Randall Garrett was apparently similar to Me-Lay Marston of MAS*H (the one who went up to every woman he encountered and said “Me lay. You lay?”) John W. Campbell eventually alienated everyone except for a handful of core acolytes and sometimes them. Much like Ayn Rand.
I’m not going to mention names, but I’ve given up on [del]some[/del] SF forums online because they are dominated by assholes.
Some people believe that Marion Zimmer Bradley is a talented artist because of “The Mists of Avalon.” But what’s undeniableis that she enabled her husband Donald Breen, a convicted pedophile, in his pedophilia, and that her daughter claims that Ms. Bradley molested her as a child.
Wow. Just…wow.
To the extent that that’s true, it was undone in a big way by things like the episode at the end of 2006 when the Bushies cajoled their cronies in Ethiopia into invading Somalia. That’s far from the only example.
Yeah, mind-blowing, isn’t it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Idilia Dubb View Post
Mozart was an immature jerk with a scatology fetish.
Oh, go ahead and challenge me. I’m a newbie but I can take it. 
Mozart wrote a series of salacious letters to his girl cousin. The most notorious is excerpted here:
His coprophilia is well documented. Just google “Mozart scatology” and you’ll find lots of material. The letters to his cousin are excruciating to read. All I think of to say in his defense is that Lil Wolfie was the 18th-century version of a child star and child stars, as we know, seldom turn out well.
Yes, your way of thinking does blow my mind. I’ve encountered it before and it never fails to amaze me. I hope you’re young. If you’re still young, then there’s still time.
It’s been common knowledge for decades that the original members of Motley Crue have always been some of the biggest jerks on the planet, but after finally reading their group autobiography “The Dirt” a couple years ago, I just feel sorry for them. At least two of them (Vince and Nikki) clearly suffered horrific child abuse - physical and mental, and probably sexual too.
Mickey Mantle was not a nice guy, either. (Massive understatement)
If you extend this out a little further, the groundbreaking transplant surgeons Christiaan Barnard and C. Walton Lillehei were sociopaths extraordinaire. Both of them could have been Dr. Swangos had things gone a bit differently.
I’m 32.
Elaborate. What do you mean? Geldof and Bono need a good dose of David Rovics:
I mean that there might still be hope that someday you’ll develop a good dose of perspective. The fact you believe something fiercely doesn’t mean it’s true. The fact that you believe something fiercely doesn’t mean that people who don’t agree with your beliefs are bad people or stupid people. Or even mistaken people. You might be wrong. That’s the thing that takes the longest to realize, the last sign of being an adult: the realization that you might be wrong. Realizing that makes it much harder to vilify people with whom you disagree. It took me into my mid 30s to come to that realization, so maybe you’ll do the same.
“semi-viral?” is this one of those “viral” emails which “quote” celebrities yet are complete bullshit? Like the George Carlin “I’m a bad American” lists which weren’t anything he actually said?
Oscar Wilde treated his loving wife and two small children with callous disdain, abandoning his family and lavishing all of his own money and much of his wife’s on the grasping catamite, Alfred Douglas. Wilde left his wife and two boys emotionally bereft and fiscally bankrupt. When he was offered the chance to escape from England with some of his and his family’s dignity still intact, he declined. He gave histrionic performances at his trials and perjured himself in a fruitless effort to prove his devotion to that rotter Douglas. He only succeeded in ruining himself, his wife, sons and widowed mother. It’s a tragic story. Wilde is venerated today as the great British martyr of the gay cause but he was in reality an obsessed, pigheaded fool.
I’m actually pretty curious about that. Although I wouldn’t put it past him, based on such things as the transition he made from civil rights activist to defender of privilege, complaining about the phantom specter of “reverse discrimination” and other such nonsense. As soon as the tide started to turn, and people like that started to see privilege as a zero-sum game in which they were losing out, they started complaining about “political correctness” and so on. Yeah, that’s pretty horrible.
I’ve heard it said that the difference between God and a cardiologist is that God never thinks he’s a cardiologist.
This sounds an awful lot like Frank Lloyd Wright, too.
Yep.
I’ve also heard more than once, from more than one person, that this is one occupation whose practitioners, male or female, should not have children. Get married, sure, but don’t have kids.
I know that. I try not to have beliefs; instead, I look for facts and empirical evidence, even when they force me to take a long hard look at my own privilege and position, and the actions taken by those who claim to represent me. Those who disagree are not necessarily bad or stupid, and I gave a few examples above. They might indeed be mistaken. Of course I can be wrong. I take a look at times when I have been, and I try to learn from them. I also look back with satisfaction at all the times I’ve been right.
The important thing is, these are not academic exercises. There’s plenty of room for vilification where it’s appropriate, and no, not when it’s a simple matter of disagreement. Criminality on a grand scale deserves vilification.
Wright was a bastard to his family? Tell us more.
Bing Crosby.