Dear BB…welcome to wow…So sorry that you are being slammed for taking time to express yourself at length…I notice that you have 26 long (relatively long) posts and when I can sit a bit, I will read them. There was a time on this site when earnest, honest self-revelation was the coin of the realm…..and we learned a lot from each other. I applaud your effort and hope that you continue putting forth your views on this forum. Much of what you have to say resonates with me and, I trust, will with others. To your detractors, I would point out that the scroll button (among other things) goes both ways….and thirty+ pirated cut and paste paragraphs dropped in day after day makes for fairly tedious reading….

Dear LR..nicely done…and thanks for pointing out the PhD…..calling her Dr. Maddow has a nice little ring to it….hate to point out the glaringly obvious, but can’t resist mentioning that it ain’t Dr. Beck, now is it?  

Mighty good to hear from you….I’m not here much either but I feel so strongly about Rachel Maddow….the intellectual curiosity, the animated debate, the civility, the wit…Thanks for putting in backup. I keep running through this thread (not for nothing that this avatar is a scroll…scroll…..!) and it seems to me that Rachel herself is faring pretty well…I think she is almost unassailable but I’m a bit biased…and that the debate about the relative demerits of Fox/MSNBC, real and/or imagined transgressions, is just another whistle stop on The Everlovin’ Red Herring Tour….Please write macwoof and say hi to the chickens for everybody! Folks have been inquiring after you. 

Hi MM…I missed the whole Meet The Press bit…I’m guessing it could be fished out for re-run? Another thing I find so engaging/appealing about RM is that she is such an "active listener"….not just waiting for the guest to wind it up….Isn’t it something that we have not seen the likes of her before? If we have…who? And certainly not in the days of Sevareid/Murrow…."Mad Men" anyone?..!

Dear PS..you are certainly welcome…It was in defense of simple civility….which seems to be in rather short supply this century….Having grown up listening to the calming, well-modulated voices of Eric Sevareid and Edward R. Murrow, I find any of the so-called journalists who routinely foam at the mouth to be unworthy of my prolonged attention. Dr. Maddow is in a league of her own. My only minor complaint is that she talks too fast for me to process! Not her fault that I’m challenged…. 

FP…"the devil made me do it" department: I caught a bit o’ Beck yesterday…he was taking Hollywood to task for touting volunteerism…that’s the capsule report…About RM…I find her to be somewhat old-fashioned in that sees fit to be unfailingly polite….funny word these days, huh? "Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person"—-Samuel Clemens  "Good manners consist of doing precisely what everyone thinks should be done, especially when no one knows quite what that is.."—-Modern Manners by P.J. O’Rourke 

I can’t find that word….maybe, if you’re so inclined, you’ll ‘splain it…..thank you…

FP…whew! thanks for clearing that up!

Susan…hi…re: "going forward"..how about "return back" or "continue on"  "rethink again"  etc…

Hi Phyllis….I used to get my panties in a wad about the "nouning of verbs" or is it the "verbing of nouns"…and still do, but they are finding their way into acceptable usage…"Journaling" and "scrapbooking" may be OK, but I still think it sounds goofy….Sounds goofily? How about fractured proverbs? (My sister is good at these..) "You’ve buttered your bread, now lie in it…" 

Dear ccch…isn’t the government really the worst at this….slimespeak or somesuch…can’t come up with a bunch of them, but we did have "anticipatory defense", I think. That’s like, "I’ll just go on and stab you now while I’ve got the chance because you might be thinking about stabbing me next year…." And what’s the repellent one that’s the new definition for "hunger"? Calorically or nutritionally what? I’ll have to look it up…..  

Res ipsa loquitor? Put that in your arsenal!

"awake and on foot"