They'd have a decent argument, but idgaf. I suppose doing so would make me a glaring example of leftist intolerance by those who love him. you know: to do one of my actual self-appointed JOBS I cherish as an illustrator/artist/critic/observer/human. Not going to lie, It's tempting af to do a memorial caricature, not a portrait at all to be cynical and vindictive as an artist- to go for jugular, editorially speaking. Specifically here-as of this AM–: Rush Limbaugh. So as admittedly partisan as it sounds, it's a relief when nature provides an opportunity for me to sit one out. I'm doing them, even months later, (i.e., all the time it seems) Were I actually getting paid to do them (I'm not) this quest would be the definition of job security. It is to see only part of a person, and therefore ignore the fullness of a human being.Fwiw, and to those who actually notice such things- it's no secret I'm behind on memorial portraits for people who I feel legitimately warrant them- as subjective as that may sound. ![]() To mock someone’s death is also to mock the pain of those who loved him. A human being dies, an individual with connections and fears and a history and a soul. The character onstage, performing for an audience, is not everything, and a public person does not die. We should have learned by now that a public figure is a person. To celebrate his death is to emulate his methods. Limbaugh’s signature monologues were fusillades of facts, confabulations, and insults in prose and song, in the service of a relentlessly partisan agenda. Ridicule rallies the troops it does not open avenues of dialogue. The test will be how we talk about those we oppose or even detest. The tone of our public sphere will not be elevated by the way we talk about those we like or treasure. Humor has punctured many totalitarians more effectively than argument.īut there is a difference between condemning someone at or after their death-and certainly, there is much to condemn in Limbaugh’s periodic rhetoric of cruelty-and celebrating the death itself. And while people are still in the public arena and able to fight back, ridiculing their ideas can be an important weapon. Those who celebrate the death of public figures invariably point to their malign influence. The rationale for telling such jokes is easily understood. The taboo against rejoicing at another’s death is, of course, part of the frisson of shocking jokes, which work because of the first, aghast instant. ![]() Feelings cannot always be regulated, but the reality of death supervenes, and any expression of happiness should be tempered by sadness. And today, when Jews commemorate their exodus from Egypt at the Passover seder, we take a drop of wine from the cup to mark the diminishment of joy we should feel at death, even the death of our enemies. At the Red Sea, the children of Israel sang as the Egyptians who had pursued them drowned.īut Proverbs also says, “Do not be glad when your enemy falls.” The Talmud relates that when the angels joined in the celebration at the Red Sea, they were rebuked by God for rejoicing. The passage is descriptive, of course, not prescriptive, but there is nonetheless a recognition of the upsurge of excitement at seeing someone you detest leave this Earth. “When the wicked perish there are shouts of joy,” the Book of Proverbs says. The impulse to celebrate the death of one’s enemies is very human. And to see such grief, over and over, makes it impossible to view death as frivolous or an occasion for jubilation. Death is impossible to understand that someone with whom I shared a moment yesterday, who was vivid and alive, is now in a box and being lowered into the ground forever is not a fact that the brain can comprehend. In all its varieties, from silent to wailing, grief expresses the reality that a person can stand before you no longer, hold you no longer, speak and be with you no longer in this world. I have watched people try to throw themselves onto graves, claw and clutch at their throat, at the coffin, at their remaining relatives, huddled in almost paralytic pain. But what consistently struck me was the raw, depthless fact of grief. Some had a reputation that any of us would envy others had ruined their public standing through acts or words that followed them throughout their life. In my more than 30 years as a rabbi, I have stood at the graves of many people. “For everyone about to tweet out a joke or otherwise revel in the death of Rush Limbaugh I just ask that you pause and ask yourself: am I going big enough?” one user tweeted, urging her followers, “Don’t hold back.” ![]() The death of the talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, who could himself certainly be savage, touched off an explosion of gleeful celebration on the site. Twitter is often contentious, but sometimes it turns truly savage.
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