I never heard of this jackass before.
FRED Donate
Or don't. I don't know. But it would sure help. Panhandling is not particularly pleasant, or I'd be sitting outside the subway jiggling a McDonald's cup seeded with bait change. Fact is, though, costs attach to producing these eruptions of outrage and sedition -- not much more than $1K a year in direct costs, but lots more in time which, for a freelance purveyor of lies and distortion, is money lost. Granted, you didn't ask me to do it. You don't owe me anything. On the other hand, these curiosities seem to amuse a lot of people, who of course may have too much time on their hands.
This isn't a strong-arm approach. The column will continue anyway. I'm not actually dying. Why, you might ask, should you pay for my hobby when I don't pay for your hang-gliding? Think about something else. But in a moment of reduced alertness, especially if you are filthy rich from exploiting orphans and oppressing children in iron lungs, a few small bucks would sure help. That funny-looking little button below that says "Donate" works. Or send a massive check to Fred Reed, 10560 Main Street, Suite 211, Fairfax, Virginia, 22030. Your children probably don't need to go to college anyway.
The world of the late sixties through the election of Reagan was a hideous, frightening place. We had to elect a real grown up to take us back to where our parents had left us.
I couldn't let my wife and child go to the store at night during those days, and the liberal judges were finding every reason under the sky to release the most horrible killers and predators. Patti Hearst was kidnapped by one such bunch. Remember Manson, the Hillside Stranglers, the Freeway Killers, Zodiak, Zebra, Son of Sam? There were more mass murderers than grapes on the trees because of this type of lifestyle.
We were a powerless, listless, out of sorts society. I came from the southern/western bunch of boomers. That's the split you see in elections today, between the SF/Haight Asbury coastal hippies and the good ole boys from the interior who make up the red states. Most of us got drunk and grew our hair over our ears. But we never stopped loving our country, supporting our military, or feeling something wasn't quite right with the way Watergate and Vietnam ended. We listened to Led Zeppelin, but liked Lynyrd Skynyrd a whole lot better.
I ended up in AA and sixteen years later am still working to get people out of the lifestyle and depression and self centered loathesomeness that caused him to end his life as he did.
They can celebrate him any way they want to. All I see is waste, like so much of my generation. The Soviets did their work well.