Posted on 07/20/2004 9:43:45 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
omething went awry at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas last Saturday night. Linda Ronstadt did what she has done at several concerts across the country this summer. She dedicated the song "Desperado"- an encore - to Michael Moore and urged members of the audience to go see his new movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11."
Elsewhere, audiences have reacted to the mention of Mr. Moore by cheering, booing, walking out and sometimes glaring at one another in parking lots. At the Aladdin, a few audience members tore down posters, threw drinks and demanded their money back. According to one person who was present - William Timmins, the Aladdin's president - it was "a very ugly scene." Mr. Timmins promptly made it even uglier. He had Ms. Ronstadt ejected from the premises.
This behavior assumes that Ms. Ronstadt had no right to express a political opinion from the stage. It implies - for some members of the audience at least - that there is a philosophical contract that says an artist must entertain an audience only in the ways that audience sees fit. It argues, in fact, that an artist like Ms. Ronstadt does not have the same rights as everyone else.
Perhaps her praise for Mr. Moore, even at the very end of her show, did ruin the performance for some people. They have a right to voice their disapproval - to express their opinion as Ms. Ronstadt expressed hers and to ask for a refund. But if their intemperate behavior began to worry the management, then they were the ones who should have been thrown out and told never to return, not Ms. Ronstadt, who threatened, after all, only to sing.
Maybe some audiences don't mind paying good money to have Ronstadt come along and piss in their drinks.
But the management of the Aladdin doesn't think this is good for customer relations, so Aladdin Prez Timmens correctly tosses the ageing saloon singer into the street on her fat butt.
Of course, the NYTimes walks a one-way street when it comes to defending bad behavior from leftists like Linda. Look how long they carried their lying, fake journalist Jason Blair before cutting him loose.
Linda Ronstadt; an example of real ugly ethics for a performer: the New York Times; an even bigger example of ugly ethics in journalism.
Linda Ronstadt should have known that her remarks would provoke a raucus and should have kept quiet. Using inflamatory remarks is the equivalent to yelling "fire".
Entertainers and trained animals on stage get rewarded for entertaining, not for pontificating on politics and social issues.
Sorry, New York Slimes. Linda Ronstadt has absolutely no more of a right to express a political opinion from the Aladdin stage than I have the right to express my political opinion in your newspaper. If the owners of the Aladdin don't want her there, it's their right not to have her.
Yep, you got this one right on. Too bad the New York Trash Talking Times can't look into their own mirror.
The nerve of those audience members, actually expecting music, instead of a political lecture, at a concert.
I don't know how he keeps a job there, other than ESPN's indulgence of his liberal politics. His writing peaked 30 years ago, and he's more known with the younger generation for how much drugs he's taken than for any great writing. Most ESPN Page 2 readers are interested in reading Bill Simmons' take on the Red Sox, not Thompson's politics.
Sorry, he's already booked a Syrian band.
I realize that a lot of article don't carry the author's name, but don't you think it shows some cowardice to have left it off this time?
This elitist statement assumes that people have no right to react to abhorrent, totalitarian, anti-american, leftist hate speech.
It also clumsily implies that those of us who live in the fly-over states need to just shut up and listen to the Left's traitorous rhetoric. I guess patrons at the Aladdin the other night didn't get the memo.
It is an editorial on the Slimes editorial page, for once. Not news analysis masquerading as news.
What a pantload. People are paying to see Ms. Ronstadt sing, not pontificate. She can say all she wants about Michael Moore once the show is over.
And since you're talking Eagles tunes, I would suggest another one to Moore, Ronstadt and the NY Times - "Get Over It". Especially the part where they say what they want to do to your inner childs.
Oh yeah.
If I own a casino, I'm going to kick out paying customers to accommodate a narcissistic freak going through life changes.
Yep - that's what I'm going to do. Sure I am.
Is the NYT really this stupid? Seriously.
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