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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 22, 2014 - 07:26am PT
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Belated, potushumous best wishes, Tricky Dick.
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/zcyj0l/40th-anniversary-of-nixon-s-resignation
Two years ago I was dog-sitting and house-sitting for Jim Shirley and family in Simi Valley, home of the RMN Presidential Library. The Shirleys had gone to France for a vacation. When they came home, Jim offered to take me to the Nixon library. Somehow, I was able to miss that.
I really wish the country had been spared the Watergate experience: It lasted and lasted and lasted and bored us all to tears.
"Why can't they just escort him off-stage like they did to that pirate Spiro Agnew?" was my question to my fellow Apathy House roomies.
"It wouldn't be cool, Mouse," the Rev told me.
"It would be unconstitutional, too," Jones added. "And my mom, your mom, and Jeff's mom would throw a hissy fit." All three of our moms, Bobbye, Betty, and Mrs. Jones, had voted for the man who became our 37th POTUS. This was before POTUS was even a recognized word, it was that long ago.
Instead of running him out of DC on a rail coated with tar and feathers, which might have been the case at one time in America's history, we stupid Americans chose to watch the news each night, thereby increasing TV network net profits and the net profits of many of Nixon's biggest supporters who advertised on the nightly newscasts.
It was also a huge opportunity for Nixon-bashing by anti-war groups.
Three years later, in 1977, David Frost, the Brit TV journalist, and Lord Birt, the Brit head of Brit-TV, wangled us an apology from Tricky Dick. We were too apathetic, it seems, having been wrung dry of concern due in part to the animosity of that era to seek such an apology. Again, the media was profit-seeking on our dimes. But, hey, the so-called "age of deference" ended as a result of those interviews. Here is that story.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/02/david-frost-nixon-interview-lord-birt
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Comment from Rational Wiki:
Nixon was a sweaty, smelly, hard-drinking, foulmouthed anti-Semite[12] who suffered from heavy beard growth and a raging inferiority complex. That such a subtle monster was elected to the world's highest office speaks volumes about the self-image of Americans.
"Awesome quotes" from the same source:
"You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more."
"I am not a crook."
"[Expletive deleted]"
"When the President does it, it's not illegal."
"When the American people look at you they see what they want to be; when they look at me they see what they are."[13]
"F*#king Jew-bastards everywhere!"
"Sock it to me?"
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Richard_M._Nixon
So what did the Apathy House do when he had left the White House?
In an ironic early climbing adventure, the Rev and I took off into the horrible rock jungles of Upper Sunnyside Bench one day. Starting with the awesome and terrible Tiny Tim route and doing two more pitches recommended by Davee Bircheff, we were able to penetrate far up into the realm of chossy DG in Castle Cliffs.
Once in that jumble of garbage, we immortalized the man by climbing a one-pitch rotting chimney and naming it, citing Taft Point and Washington Column as presidential precedent, after the by-then ex-president.
It became unknown as "Tricky Dick." We sought no glory for shooting a dead dog. It never found its way into the binder of recent new climbs which was begun by Pratt and kept in the Mountain Shop in the Village.
Tricky Dick is up there waiting for a second ascent, Whitemeat and Lilabiene. Here is a chance to make your bones for all time. You may find orange peels which we left mixed in with the cairn we constructed on the ledge at the top of the chimney. They don't rot very fast. But it's been forty years.
Comments? Problems? Difficulties?
Spew, praise, or damn and blast but "DON'T HOLD BACK!"
BUT, let's not turn this into a raging politard thread, dear readers.
Thank you so much in advance. There are other places well-established for political BS.
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Aug 22, 2014 - 09:18am PT
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Thank you Mouse, I am laughing and laughing. You have a wonderful way with witty malapropisms and other word plays.
But the TR part on sending tricky Dick and the orange peels was righteous.
Thank you for the morning smiles.
feralfae
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Aug 22, 2014 - 11:57am PT
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"I am not a thief!"
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Lassitude 33
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Aug 22, 2014 - 03:21pm PT
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Watergate Rock in Joshua Tree has a variety of routes commemorating the Nixon controversy and resignation:
Routes include:
I Am Not A Crook 5.8
White House Plumbers 5.8-
Pardon Me 5.9 R
White Collar Crime 5.8
H.R. Hardman 5.8
Fifteen Minute Gap 5.6
Political Asylum 5.7
Dirty Tricks 5.11d
Malicious Deception 5.11b
T. Gordon Liddy 5.11a
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