Nicely put. I hadn't thought of that analogy before.

Well Lennon did say at one time that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. No doubt, Rolling Stone concurs.

He gets zero points for creativity; Johnny Rotten posed as Christ, on the cross no less, for an NME cover back in '78.

"...John Lennon, with a bullet hole in his chest..."

Lennon was shot in the back; none of the slugs made it through. Beatles trivia is so cute isn't it?!!

People who are into Beatles trivia are fun.

People who are into Lennon trivia are scary.

Well...

Since West is trying to illustrate our culture's continuing distance from Christ, and as Lennon's social commentary is hardly as profound as Christ's, I guess maybe they felt it was poignant.

They probably would consider West posing as Lennon as irrelevant, which might explain why he didn't (it would have been), and further would clarifies why this post is irrelevant, if West had posed as Lennon, no one would care, and thus RS wouldn't publish it. Once again we have distraction masquerading as statement.

PB

Not at all, Peeb. West's motivations are indeed interesting.

But my remark wasn't about West. It was about Rolling Stone and the cultural icons they revere. Christ is comedy fodder for RS. Lennon, not so much.

(Hey, ol' pal - dial back the hostility a bit, k? You don't get paid extra for it).

Mitch, regarding hostility, a. take your own medicine (for once) b. frankly my comment was anything but hostile, it pointed out that your post was irrelevant, if sarcasm now is hostility on your website, I guess dissent will soon be called treason and we can all stop doing anything but genuflecting to your ruminations.

BTW - I certainly would have never said "Mitch admits defeat on this" regarding HSA's, so exactly who is unreasonably hostile? Frankly, given the fact that you know me, you should have known better. I've called out your foibles to be sure, but I'd never rub your nose in something..had you admitted a misunderstanding.

Further, it again points out that while you complain about hostility, it is almost always you who needs to be first in line for etiquite lessons.

Another BTW, thanks for locking the HSA thread thereby giving the appearance of needing the last word... I was discussing HSA's, any read of my posts is clear on it, e.g. the fact they're nearly meaningless, so thanks for the false accusation of "hijacking" your thread. When you comment on 1000 things in a 500 page post (like the HSA one), sometimes some of the over-generalized "stuff" you don't substantiate needs to be challenged, but fundamentally, as here, I talked to your point, and your characterization was false.

Anyway.. back to West, my post was about RS, not West, specifically, that West acting like Lennon is hardly relevant, so RS wouldn't print it. I understand you don't LIKE the fact that I characterized it as West contrasting our lack of compassion to Christ's message. Also, your post appeared to be trying to redirect the discussion of that post to some sort of RS bias, but realistically, RS, which may be biased, didn't need to be biased to NOT print West/Lennon or to PRINT West/Christ. West's message was powerful, and so RS published it. If you have an issue with West's message, debate it, but attacking obliquely by criticizing RS and bringing up a non-sequitor like Lennon, is just distracting it to a debate you want, rather than the one it should be. Whether RS is biased is what you WANT to discuss, but unfortunately for you, a Kwame West sporting Lennon's spectacles and talking about instant Karma simply isn't relevant and as such RS would not be bound to post it, so the question of bias is also, irrelevant, making your post, imho, unfortunately irrelevant.

The thing is, here, like in the HSA discussion, you just don't seem to have a fundamental understanding of the underlying debate (and in the case of HSA, issues or facts). Oh, you have some, but an inadequate sum. You want to restrict debate to HSA's when they are part of a larger context, and so have to be evaluated in that context. You also have a profoundly incorrect view that our Healthcare problems stem from people simply "using too much care" (overutilization) because they are decoupled from the cost. That position is utterly false, and while we could have had a good discussion about the ability of patients to place pressure on doctors BECAUSE they are paying directly, instead you stiffled the discussion. Now here, we could have a good discussion about whether West's message is fair, but instead you want to (falsely) accuse me of hostility when there was none, and direct the debate ONLY to Rolling Stone. Well Rolling Stone is nothing in the context of West.

Perhaps, someday, you'll begin to see your own conduct is what engenders the responses you receive. Perhaps as well, someday, you'll begin to understand that discussing topics which are firstly straw-men designed to illustrate ONLY the point you want, and secondly fail to discuss the larger context, is neither clever, nor contributes to debate.

A wiser man than I once said, you get only as much respect as you give, sometimes less, but never more.

PB

BTW - if you don't like hijacking threads, don't lock them after you petulantly take shots at people, it's rude and definetly hostile.

"Perhaps, someday, you'll begin to see your own conduct is what engenders the responses you receive."

Or, perhaps, since you are the ONLY person on this blog who engenders the responses you do (and who gives me the responses you do), perhaps someday *you* will.

" if you don't like hijacking threads, don't lock them after you petulantly take shots at people, it's rude and definetly hostile."

One does not follow the other.

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