"I think your head and your heart are out of alignment,"

[CatWoman]

This was a diagnosis made of Lee Atwater by Susan Trout, a spiritual counselor who helped people to grow even in the process of dying.

After watching the Frontline report on Atwater that aired earlier this week, I've been thinking a great deal about him.

He was a very ugly man on the inside, but attractive on the outside.

I found him most complicated, too.

The one thing he was good at was being ugly, and knowing how capitalize and sell that ugliness.

I'm struck by how the ugliness seeped out and just took over his entire body.

This is Lee Atwater before being struck down with brain cancer:



And this is what he looked like afterwards:



For a man who so viciously used race as a wedge, he had many black friends in the music world. This album was released days after he was admitted in the hospital for brain surgery:




I hope we have see enough of his influence on our world.

We have no where to go but up.

[Captain Hilts]

1. He was courting religious votes while having nooners with a senior RParty official from Kentucky...

Ellen Williamson.

[firedupdem]

2. A lot of the world of politics is new to me. I watched that documentary

and saw such a nasty man. I hope this era is over soon. He was a horrible person.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. It would have been bad enough if he did what he did because of some conviction...

but the fact that he did it just because he could, and he got paid to do it, makes it even more disgusting.

I guess his story is akin The Portrait of Dorian Grey..except the ugliness showed up on his own face and in his own head...

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

4. Karma is not forgiving

Atwater was consumed by his own evil and he met a just and fitting end.

[Idealism]

6. I believe the correct phrase is: "Karma is a bitch"

[noamnety]

5. I dislike this sort of post

that implies that people's physical attractiveness is a reflection of their value as a person, or that the ugliness finally "seeped out of them" while they were terminally ill.

There was a post some people read recently about my dad having a heart attack 2 days before the election, and coming out of it 10 days later - and one of the first things he wanted to know was "who won".

Hypothetically speaking, if he is deformed or bloated and such from his medical issues, if he can't fully control a side of his face after this ... is it fair to say that's due to "ugliness seeping out of him"?

There are an awful lot of people on this board who have dealt with people who were critically ill. Can you understand why posts like yours, with the photos to demonstrate how "ugliness takes over a sick person's entire body" might be hard to stomach or leave people speechless about how insensitive that is?

[11cents]

7. Yes, thank you.

My mother didn't look pretty when she was dying of cancer. Was that "karma?" Sickness doesn't discriminate, and death sure as hell doesn't.

[Berry Cool]

8. Yeah, I really hate all these posts about Atwater or any other nasty person who met a bad end

where someone always has to say "They got what was coming to them" or "It was karma" or that other crap.

Funny. They never say that about, oh, Molly Ivins. Then, it's just cruel fate.

When are people going to learn...cancer knows no virtue or vice...it attacks the evil, the good and everyone in between...you don't get it because you earned it through your bad deeds.

From now on, I'm alerting on this crap.

[CatWoman]

9. you know, I'm not going to fight with you

I did not say that the man deserved what he got, etc.

I made a personal observation about the downfall of a man who took so much pride in his appearance, and how he appeared to others.

To "me", his insides were full of hate and ugliness. To "me" that hate and ugliness took over his outer shell, much to his chagrin and ego.

I know nothing about a thread or a post about someone having a heart attack 2 days before the election.

Can we/I have one fucking post/thread where people don't come in bitching and moaning and pissing about side issues that I know nothing about nor give a shit?

[gratuitous]

10. In answer to your last question

No.

Another edition of short answers to obvious questions, courtesy of
Your friendly neighborhood gratuitous

:loveya:

[CatWoman]

11. *smooch*

:hi:

:loveya:

I get so fucking sick of holier than thou bullshit.

[gratuitous]

13. Back atcha

I'm not holier than anyone.

Aren't you up a little late?

[CatWoman]

14. I've had the flu, can't eat or sleep

so I've been up reading and watching television, trying to recover.

The weather here keeps changing -- one day in the 70's, the next in the 30's.

And I've been miserable for going on 2 weeks now. :(

You know the funny thing? I got a flu shot this year -- the first in 10 years.

Ain't that a kick in the teeth?

[dweller]

18. Baby Cat

Forget the shot, get some chicken soup and VitC and repeat. Call me in the morning and i'll tell you the same thing.

Here's one more hint: you have to spend some time remembering how good it feels to be well and healthy. It's too easy to think of how bad, or sick you are feeling right now and that will only exemplfy the negative. It only takes a few minutes, so take it, and remember how postiive it feels to feel good. Let that feeling flood you, and let it go. Picture in your mind a box, you are putting in all the cruddy cold and flu symptoms and shutting the box. Tie a big string around it in your mind. Seal it up tight.
Now attach a big helium ballon to it, and give it a nudge, push it away and into the sky. In your mind watch it float away out of sight.

Go to sleep. And tomorrow, chicken soup and VitC again. Just to be sure. It all aligns in your heart and head for sure, so use them both to your advantage.

get well
dp

[CatWoman]

19. Dweller

:hug:

[dweller]

20. ...

:fistbump:

dp

[TahitiNut]

17. I think of it as the "Swiss 'tude"

... and it has nothing to do with Switzerland. :dunce:

:loveya:

[noamnety]

21. I don't want to fight with you either.

I thought you might have read that thread because it had a lot of recommendations and was very recent.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7864072

I am just asking that if you are taking shots at people's appearances when they are critically ill, that you take a moment and consider how it hits people to read that others are interpreting their physical appearance as seepage of inner ugliness. Not trying to "bitch and moan." I am asking that you consider other people's feelings out of respect, even if you don't give a shit personally about the people they care about.

It's enough that he was full of inner ugliness.

peace.

[MichiganVote]

12. L. Attwater was a sociopath regardless of any poetic justice.

[CatWoman]

15. I feel nothing but pity for him

read this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/bckgrnd/atwater.htm

I hope he found peace in death that so eluded him in life.

[11cents]

16. "I'm struck by how the ugliness seeped out and just took over his entire body."

Naw. That was the cancer.

I don't advocate fighting (or alerting) over this either, but I do advocate thinking about the objections made here instead of getting defensive about them. Over on Free Republic there are undoubtedly people who think that Molly Ivins was "ugly inside." If one of them had the means to post a photograph of her as she looked when she was near death (and I can guarantee you she looked horrible) as an example of her "ugliness seeping out," I think you'd find that repugnant.

Cancer isn't a morality tale.