Tim Russert and George Carlin

    I haven't blogged about Tim Russert's passing, not because it hasn't deeply affected me, but only because everyone else has already said everything I could have wanted to say about it.  I'll note particularly Peggy Noonan's column where she points out that the coverage has not been overblown at all; it's been commensurate with the greatness, and goodness, of the man:

In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That's what it really admires. That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, "The thing about Joe was he was rich." We say, if we can, "The thing about Joe was he took care of people."

The young are told, "Be true to yourself." But so many of them have no idea, really, what that means. If they don't know who they are, what are they being true to? They're told, "The key is to hold firm to your ideals." But what if no one bothered, really, to teach them ideals?

After Tim's death, the entire television media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actually need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life. This can be hard in America, where sometimes people are rather grim in their determination to get and to have. "Enjoy life, it's ungrateful not to," said Ronald Reagan.

Tim had these virtues. They were great to see. By defining them and celebrating them the past few days, the media encouraged them. This was a public service, and also what you might call Tim's parting gift.

    It is with some shame that I admit that I didn't value Tim Russert's contributions to our nation as much as I should have, until after I realized we'd never have them again.  It is with great relief that I learn today that Tom Brokaw will shepherd Meet The Press through the election season, making sure that the legacy of his friend and colleague is well taken care of.


    And then, tonight, I read of the death of George Carlin, someone who, in one sense, could not be more opposite from Tim Russert, and yet who served what he saw as the truth as effectively as he knew how, and no one did it better, ever.

    George Carlin was a writer first, and a wordsmith, and I love that about him.  My favorite author is Henry David Thoreau, and for much the same reason... no one has done with the English language what Thoreau did, and no comedian (with the possible exception of Dennis Miller) has been more careful about choosing exactly the appropriate words at exactly the right time as George Carlin.  They both saw themselves as part of the same society that they made such a point of criticizing, I think.

    I first fell in love with his comedy when I was 12 years old, I think.  I memorized "The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television", and I even memorized the extended version on Carlin At Carnegie, along with lots of other of his routines.

    I certainly don't share a lot of George's point-of-view on the world... he was an avowed Atheist, and saw little inherent meaning in life.  It amuses me right now to know that he's probably weirded out while experiencing* that Atheism turns out not to be the correct point-of-view on the universe... of course, his criticism of religion was Orange shredding Blue.  But even with the differences in worldview, many of his observations of the silliness inherent in American life since the 1960's are spot-on, and no one was more ruthless, and ruthlessly funny, at pointing them out.

    I will miss him, a lot.  We've lost one of our best tonight, someone who did it for over 50 years at the top of his game, through controversy and arrests and Supreme Court decisions.

    Almost everything I think about children and the unbelievably stupid parenting I'm seeing today is summed up in these seven minutes: