There are many of these so-called writers that wouldn't know "Strunk & White" from black and white.
But i think he dropped the ball wth Simmons. The discussion regarded a nationwde publik skool promotion making rapper Jay-Z "Principal for the Day." He softballed Simmons throughout the interview. What's worse, it seemed O'Reilly was not as informed about rap culture as I would have liked him to be. one of the "archived" clips they had of Jay-Z showed him on stage (somewhere) with porn star Ron Jeremy! (Don't ask how I know that was him... that's not the point!) That would have been great ammunition to use against Simmons, but he din't think of it, or didn't look at the clips beforehand. He claimed he had Jay-Z's lyrics in front of him, but never read them out loud; it's a good he didn't; Simmons would have been put in the position to defend the indefensible. That would be good for ratings, right? Simmons' claims that (c)rap was a 'positive' influence on American culture was also not challenged, which was a little disappointing.
Buuuuuuuut... for all my complaints, O'Reilly is one of the only ones championing this issue, and I'm glad he is doing it.
Compare the best of it (if there is a "best") with any of Bach's works.
And there's the rub. The "Hip Hop" drives out real music.
As in "the bad drives out the good". Hell, "Row Row Row Your Boat" is more musical than "Rap".
Now. Not many kids (maybe 5%?) appreciate classical music. But I wonder what kids raised on "Hip Hop" will listen to when they're 40. I didn't like much classical when I was a teen; now it is over 50% of what I listen to.
Someone once said that "God gave music to man that he might worship without speaking," or something similar. Listen to the Tocatta and Fugue [which Boris considers the single finest work of music in history]. Bach is proclaiming the glory of God and the wonder of the universe; in the words of Neal Stephenson, "...it was as if the math teacher had suddenly played the good part of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor on a pipe organ the size of the Universe in one merciless descending ever-mutating chord, as if his foot is thrusting through skidding layers of garbage until it finally strikes bedrock. In particular, the final steps of the organist's explanation were like a falcon's dive through layer after layer of pretense and illusion, thrilling or sickening or confusing depending on what you were. The heavens were riven open. Lawrence glimpsed choirs of angels ranking off into geometrical infinity."
And what is "Ice T" or whoever compared to that?
--Boris
Anyways i have always thought O'Reilly is one of the biggest spinners out there, and on other threads i have given examples of where he has changed his mind about an issue (it happens when one week the person he is 'interviewing' supports an issue and Oreilly promptly unleashes his acerbic tongue-lashing; and then the next week another person takes the opposite side forcing Oreilly to attack him as well).
It is not news-reporting or anything like that ....simply entertainment where OReilly does what he has to do to raise ratings.
And there is nothing wrong with that (after all the guy has a family to feed) ....but he should stop saying that it is a 'no spin zone' because when it comes to spin O'Reilly can give a lot of DemocRats a run for their money (and win handsdown).