I’m often tempted to send you a frantic e-mail warning you about it, lest my wisdom be lost to the ages.

I think they’d probably cover that exchange just as eagerly today, if only because they’re the same hypemongers they’ve been in English-speaking America for 250 years. When Zell Miller said he wished these were still the days when you could challenge someone to a duel, it was eagerly reported as that he HAD Challenged Chris Matthew to a duel. Surely they’d jump all over the face-socking incident with rabid glee.

Perhaps.  But, unlike you, I was around and in college in 1968 and remember the exchange vividly.  There was a huge to do about it, and there were even lawsuits involved.  And back and forth between the two in various magazines.

I had never heard the report that Zell Miller supposedly challenged Chris Matthews to a duel.

I was around in the 60s and I am, obviously, around now, and I can tell you for a fact that many, many things are much, much different today than then, so I don’t buy the idea that the more things change the more they stay the same.  There were doubtless earlier times in history when sexual mores and levels of civility may have been what they are today, but it wasn’t the 60s.

Cheers–

MRE

P.S. This comment didn’t get nabbed by the spam filter; it came in the regular way.  So, I don’t have a clue as to why you don’t get the ‘waiting for moderation’ message. 

I recall, although as a recording, as it happened before I was born, a televised discussion between Buckley and…umm…not Chomsky, that other flabbier, more affeminate socialist pseudointellectual…ummm…oh, Gore Vidal, I think it was.

Anyway, it was 1968, the year before your equally famous exchange. Buckley and Vidal were doing a televised set of discussions from the Republican convention, and at some point Vidal summed up a verbal, somewhat ad hominem retort, by referring to Buckley as a “crypto-nazi”, to which Buckley replied “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in you goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.”

Oh, here’s a link:

When someone says “things were so much better, before…kids/politicians/mores/diets are insane now”, it’s almost always exactly what people have always claimed of “the past days”, and in reality things either slowly improve, or at least cycle back and forth every few decades.

“These kids and their sexual, devil music” was said about ragtime jazz, and everything worth listening to since (note that it wasn’t said about big band “pops” jazz and 1940s pop music, both of which which I don’t consider worthy), same with every new game trend, every new batch of politicians, et cetera.

Of course, as you know, it’s not that I’m saying the current batch are no worse, so much as I’m saying the past batches were no better. When it comes to coercive government, the glass is half empty, and has a gaping hole in the bottom.

Ah KAZ–

You’ve drawn me out. You make my point. Had Buckley said that of Vidal now, no one would have much mentioned it. As it was, it was huge, huge news because in those days civility reigned much more predominately than it does now.

Thanks very, very much for the link. I’ve read about this exchange a thousand times, but I’ve never actually heard it until now.

Cheers–

MRE

P.S. Once again you had to be rescued from the spam filter. Maybe the spam filter is trying to tell me something

The spam filter I now use is Akismet.  I’ll check into the other.

Thanks–

MRE

I’ve got an idea! Why don’t you set your filter to automatically send any comment that contains the phrases “artery-clogging cholesterol” or “heart-healthy whole grains” right into the pooper?

LOL.

Richard

PS. Keep up the good work. I hate to see you waste time plugging through all that spam.

Were that the spams were of the “artery-clogging cholesterol” and “heart-healthy whole grains: variety.  Unfortunately, they run a little more risque than that. 

Of course, you do not need to respond to this……

Thanks Regina–

I’ll check it out.  I tried it when I was using Movable Type, but it caused more trouble than it was worth.  I’ll see if WordPress has a plug in.

Best–

Mike