Thursday, June 25, 2009
Hicks From the Sticks / Kotz / Legislature / Media / Politics Sen. Mae Beavers: Not Successful Stripper, Has Never Been to Oregon
Posted by Pete Kotz on Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 5:59 AM
1. Sen. Mae Beavers: The good senator has played the ultimate trump card in the Tennessee legislature's reality TV show, "I'm Way More 2nd Amendment Than You Are." She's proposed the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act, which grandly exempts guns made in Tennessee from federal regulation. Unfortunately, the guys she's trying to regulate -- that would be the feds -- think Mae Beavers is a stripper who had a brief but successful career in rural Oregon during the early 1970s. We're not sure this is going to work.Now it seems that Beavers wasn't happy with her top ranking, nor our sense of jocularity in rendering the honor. Some of our readers didn't think it was all that funny either. ("Misogynistic and vile," wrote RedHatRob.) So this week, we received a letter from her attorney, one Ernest Williams of Franklin, declaring that said item was "extremely libelous." He's also demanding a "written apology" and "printed retraction." Says Williams, "Senator Beavers has never been a stripper and has never even been in the state of Oregon." Sorry, Mrs. Beavers. There are, however, mountains of evidence implying that she remains a huge kook. After reading her Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act, we're pretty sure the feds agree with us on this point. But you'd really have to ask them.
Comments (14)
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I truly think that we are all deeply relieved to hear that she has never been a stripper, although she seems unable to detect satire when she reads it.
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The stripper comment was gratuitous and over the line. I find most of your kook power rankings very funny although I disagree almost always. But random drive by character assassination is not satire. It is slander.
No, Anonymous, it's not "slander." Look it up in a law dictionary. At least try to know what you are talking about.
Public figures don't have the "right" to escape jokes, satire, comedy, criticism, finger-pointing, or put-downs -- even tasteless or unfunny ones...despite what Sarah Palin and Mae beavers might think.
Oh, I know, the humorless right wingers think they are above being joked about or criticized. But the crypto-fascists have not yet succeeded in criminalizing jokes about thier heros and heroines.
Missing from this whole debate is one key point.
Regardless of the absurdity of the libel/slander argument, Pete didn't imply she was a stripper at all. He implied that the Feds had mistakenly thought she was a stripper.
If anyone had a libel case (which they don't), it would be the Feds. Whoever they are.
Clearly us libs are over the line. Now that Obama spook picture, that was funny, right?
Maybe there'll be a lawsuit, so Pith can depose and get answers containing an admission.
I have a number of thoughts.
1. Common sense is clearly a brilliant and insightful commenter whose opinions should be heeded by all the rest of you fuckers.
2. I'm not going to send Pete pictures of me in a bikini any more if he's going to put them on the internet and claim they're Mae Beavers.
3. This morning I was listening to NPR and they were talking to Dan Savage, who they introduced as the editor of The Stranger and author of the sex advice column "Savage Love." And I was trying to imagine if the editor of the Scene had a sex advice column. Clearly, every question would be answered with "Oh Jesus, why do you have to talk that way?" It would be awesome.
I digress because I think I may be too lefty-feminist to address this issue full on, because, I have to admit, when I read, "Mae Beavers is a stripper who had a brief but successful career in rural Oregon during the early 1970s" I thought, "What is this 'rural Oregon during the early 1970s' reference? Is this something I should know?"
It literally did not occur to me that calling a woman a "stripper" is somehow supposed to be an insult.
It's just a job. It puts money in the wallet which puts food on the table.
Now, if Pete meant to make a "Mae Beavers"="Hairy pussy"="oh gross, yuck" connection, I will go hit him with my purse. But I didn't take that from it.
TennRod - "Oh, I know, the humorless right wingers think they are above being joked about or criticized. But the crypto-fascists have not yet succeeded in criminalizing jokes about thier heros and heroines."
So you know this, huh? This is your expertise? I am a hard-core conservative with a great sense of humor. Make fun of anyone, I don't care. It was obvious a joke from Pete. I see and hear the verbal beat-downs people take for questioning your messiah president (he's my president too, just not my savior) and seriously question who is wearing the latest fascist fashions. The right-wingers get clubbed by the media all the time and not everyone cries foul. And the fascists are the neo-cons (God help us) and not the true conservatives. Don't throw us all under the bus.
Mark,
Don't you know that all Conservatives are the same but the Left is a spectrum of subtle opinions? That is a fundamental premise of the Scene and many on the Left. Of course, it is nonsense and it worsens political dialogue but those are not what the Scene and other such Lefties care about.
Mark Breton,
Funny thing about senses of humor: you don't get to decide if you have one. Usually, when somebody tells me they have a great sense of humor, I translate that to mean they can't tell a joke worth a damn. Those conservatives who CAN tell a joke, customarily do it at someone's expense (Barack, the Magic Negro, anyone?).
Mark Rogers,
The conclusion people draw that all conservatives are the same springs largely from the fact that there are so many litmus tests to be a conservative. Diverge from the orthodoxy and you're out, and usually trashed as you're walking out the door.
Where do you think the old axiom "Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line" comes from?
Beavers smells like Jean Nate and mothballs. Doubt she could have been a stripper.
Moderate,
Fair point. But that is more a function of biased press coverage than reality.
Consider the very real differences between Social Conservatives, Economic Conservatives and Libertarian Conservatives. Each sees their (often contradictory) Ideas as being most important.
On a range of issues from domestic security to immigration to economics to the environment to drugs, there is an important debate going on among Conservatives. Remember, for example, that some of the most bitter critics of the Patriot Act were Conservatives.
It is also worth mentioning that the opposition to dissent on Ideas is not the sole province of Conservatives. Look at how African-Americans who dissents from party orthodoxy are treated. Or how the Democratic Party refused to allow any Pro-Life speakers at their national conventions. Or the feminists for whom support for Senator Clinton in 2008 was a litmus test.
At least Conservatives are honest in their desire for consistency on key Ideas.
