About Rarmcwa

 See my Member Profile

Dear Friends:

     I am a 55 year-old, Rapidly Aging Republican Media Creep W/Attitude (which may clear up questions some of you had about my screen name) who lives with his attorney wife in Richmond, Virginia.

     My ethnic lineage includes Irish, German, Scots, English (although the Scots and Irish side of the family doesn't like to mention the filthy, murderous Sassenach side of the clan, at least not in mixed company) and a bit of Cherokee on Daddy's side (his ancestor came into Charleston Harbor from Ireland in 1798, and as with most families who've been here that long, we are miscegenated to within an inch or our lives). I am, accordingly, what I like to call a Great American Mutt. The cool things about mutts are, they have no pretensions to speak of and they are, as a general rule, far smarter, calmer and more loving than over-bread pedigreed animals.

     If you don't believe me, get a mutt from the ASPCA, buy a pure breed at an exorbitant price, then train them together and see who catches on sooner. Also, who's less likely to bite, tear up the house or otherwise disturb the peace.

     Mutts forever!

     Although I call myself a Republican, I am seldom able to vote for the party of my fathers, mostly because I'm a pro-choicer and think any level of the government getting into the business of endorsing any kind of faith is nuts.

    I also seldom vote Democratic, since I believe in Capitalism and am unalterably opposed to government which sees as one of its prime functions the redistribution of wealth. Robin Hood stole from the oppressive rich and gave to the deserving poor: governments seldom make those ancilliary distinctions.

    My wife works in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, so don't get me started on out-of-wedlock births, especially among those portions of our population who never bothered to finish high school or hold a job for very long.

     My Republican sympathies are more along the lines of A. Lincoln, T. Roosevelt and Barry Goldwater; which is to say Libertarian in the extreme. Which is how I nearly always vote.

     I'm a bookaholic who loves fiction and nonfiction equally. My favorite authors include John O'Hara, John Steinbeck, Michael Chabon, Ian McEwan, Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, Ken Kesey, Richard Wright, and John D. MacDonald. Also David McCullouogh, William Manchester, Barbara Tuchman and that whacky University of Chicago economist who researched Freakonomics, Steven Levitt. What a cool book! Everyone who hasn't read it yet, run, do not walk, to your library or book store and check it out.

    I am currently working on my own nonfiction book, devoted to proving that things are not nearly as bad as some would have us believe. Anyone know an open-minded publisher not afraid of unconventional wisdom?

 

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Location:

United States

Primary occupation:

Reporter, editor

Dream occupation:

Reporter, editor

Hometown:

Suburbs of Covington, KY

Schools attended:

Dixie Heights High School, Columbia College of Chicago

I like:

Everyone except people who do not love their fellow man ... I hate people like that!

Favorite writers:

They're listed in no particular order in my profile statement, with plenty of ommissions

Favorite books:

The Fountainhead, Huck Finn, Darkness at Noon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, American Ceasar, Saturday (a black-comedy masterpiece by Ian McEwan) and a few billion others

Favorite newspapers:

My hometown rag, the Richmond Times-Dispatch is pretty good, but I loved the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times when I lived in The Big Town. I surely hope they haven't gone downhill since.

Favorite magazines:

Esquire, Newsweek, US News & World Report

Favorite music:

Aretha, Otis, George Jones, Beatles, Stones, Doors, Dylan, Sam and Dave, the Grass Roots, the Temps, the Tops, the Drifters ... I'm such a pathetic Boomer

Favorite movies:

Sense and Sensibility, Gross Point Blank, Little Miss Sunshine, Citizen Kane, The Front Page (w/ Grant and Russel)and many others too numerous to mention

Favorite TV shows:

Washington Week, Nova, Gilmore Girls, Friends reruns, Barney Miller reruns, Hill St. Blues reruns ... as I say, such a pathetic Boomer

Favorite teams:

White Sox, because I lived in Chicago for 15 years and the Cubs suck (sorry, Northsiders)

Favorite quote:

"When a man loses his sense of humor, he looses his footing" - Ken Kesey, in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"

Gender:

Do I have a choice?

Religion:

Jeffersonian Deist