Good eulogy from a good writer. This is a little off Ann's beaten path, but well done.
Here's a cute pic of Ann:
Posted on 03/18/2009 2:52:48 PM PDT by Syncro
SILVER'S BRAVERY NOT AN ACT
March 18, 2009
I wish I could ask Ron Silver what he thinks of the AIG bonuses. He'd have some original take -- maybe propose re-opening the bonuses paid to Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick for their yeoman's work running Fannie Mae into the ground and then collecting bonuses of $90 million and $24.7 million, respectively. Or maybe he'd just make a joke.
But I can't ask him anymore because Ron died of a rare esophageal cancer last Sunday.
So now there is one less person in the world who never chooses his positions to feed a pompous ego or to stroke his self-image as a thinking person. There was no point to posturing for Ron: His social standing in Hollywood was revoked the moment he supported Bush and the Iraq War.
Perhaps Ron always spoke his mind, but I didn't know him when he was "brave"; I only knew Ron when he was actually brave.
I've noticed that words like "brave" and "courageous" are mostly used nowadays to mean "left-wing.." We're constantly asked to admire the monumental courage of Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Janeane Garofalo and the Dixie Chicks -- sometimes even by other people.
But for my younger readers, what courage traditionally meant was risking the disapprobation of people you know. It was about losing friends, losing work and losing status where you live -- not alienating people you will never meet. Insulting people in Kansas when you live in Los Angeles is not speaking truth to power; it's speaking anything to serve power.
One thing you cannot say about Ron's magnificent speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention is that he did it to go with the flow in Hollywood, to take the path of least resistance, to win easy applause. Ron did lose work, lose friends and lose his entire social apparatus.
Ron didn't say what he said to get any kind of reaction, but because he believed it. He was an intellectual trapped in an actor's body.
Amid the antiques at his beautifully appointed Park Avenue pre-war, there were piles and piles of magazines and newspaper articles on topics ranging from Sunni Muslims to Darwinism. Nearly every room was lined with books, most of them dog-eared.
When I needed to stay with Ron for a few weeks once, he'd get up hours before I did, read all the major newspapers and leave the interesting articles circled at the foot of my bed.
This might be the nicest thing a man could ever do for me. Hey, skip the bagel and fresh coffee -- bring me that op-ed page and a pair of scissors! It was like a fabulous Park Avenue hotel with a clipping service.
During his long-shot chemo treatments at "the spa," as he called Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Ron turned his chemo rooms into Command Central. Most people doze off during chemo; Ron would be sitting upright, watching the news, checking his laptop and making cell phone calls, seemingly oblivious to the poison being injected into his arm.
He'd often come to church with me on Sundays -- while insisting he favored the "Original Testament," as if the New Testament were an act of judicial activism. He just liked to hear an intellectual lecture on the Bible -- and always perked up when the minister began discussing the "Original Testament."
Read more at AnnCoulter.Com
Find what she wrote when her father passed. Why not? You’re already sniffling. It too, was very touching.
“He’d have some original take — maybe propose re-opening the bonuses paid to Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick for their yeoman’s work running Fannie Mae into the ground and then collecting bonuses of $90 million and $24.7 million, respectively..”
Best quote of the article.........
Yep. Good read too.
Man, I’ve got tears in my eyes.
He may have converted to Christianity as Ann Coulter may have evangelized him.
Thanks for posting.
My husband gets up at 4:00 am everyday and reads the paper. He highlights everything I want to read so I don’t have to waste alot of time. That includes the sports page.
bfl
You nailed it, Sir.
Wish I could have bought you a beer (or two ;>), and thanked you for your exceptional work.
Unlike some folks, we here will truly miss you...
His was evidently a soul in transition.
I think we’ll be seeing him down the road.
Thank you Ann! Beautiful words and a wonderful way to remember a dear friend. He is watching you from heaven, you have an angel with you who’s name you know.
beautiful
Good eulogy from a good writer. This is a little off Ann's beaten path, but well done.
Here's a cute pic of Ann:
Ann Coulter is a lovely person writing about another lovely person.
Incredibly touching.
We cut Ann the same slack we cut you.
She wrote a nice remembrance of a good and respected friend.
An aborted surgery and told he had months to live.
He held on for 2 years!
Ann lost a good and worthy friend. My heart goes out to her.
Bingo! The so-and-so's (as my mother used to refer to them) get a break, because their [conservative or libertarian or republican, in alphabetical order] opponents are honorable people (and I'm absolutely sure JR is intimately familiar with that fact).
Go figure (and take appropriate measures)...
God Bless Ron Silver, and God Bless Ann Coulter as well. She is probably one of the sharpest minds in the media. Ron, was always a dashing hero figure to me...even when I knew he was a liberal. One always understood that what he believed was an honest summation he had made with the information and knowledge he had. As his wisdom grew he became conservative but never gave up or indeed changed his core principles. He is a good man.
Therefore IMO, this eulogy is not the time nor the place to speak about private conversations she had with Mr. Silver about his former friends who spoke cruelly about him.
Ann Coulter is a good friend of Free Republic and does not have a policy requiring excerpting her columns.
It is done as a courtesy to her (website hits help writers, pundits etc) as well as a bonus for posters here to encourage them to go to her website to see the many links she has to important stories.
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