More news from NZ! Or at least, NZ tells American news... I thought you would be interested after that story you told me about Linda Ronstadt getting booed off the stage in Virginia, Carole - well, not only Virginia! The discussion in this article about freedom of speech is really interesting, and so important. I think at the very least Michael Moore's done a real public service by inciting debate about this war,debate which was so strangely absent in the early days of the war as everyone rallied around the flag. For a country with such a strong and proud tradition of freedom of speech, that's a real tragedy. (The article's really from The Independent, an English newspaper, but republished in NZ)
Regardless of what really happened (and this eyewitness denies pandemonium), I agree with the Aladdin. They said, "It did not come down to the statements she had said, per se. It's about using our venue for political commentary versus being an entertainer. She was hired to entertain, not to preach." As an audience member who had paid outrageous sums of money to see anyone perform I wouldn't want to hear irrelevant opinions on any topic. I want to hear the performer perform.
Performers seem to have double standard about relating personal information to the general public. They don't want us to know who they are dating or what they had for dinner last night, but they want us to know what they think about any given political situation. The opinion of a nearly washed up (certainly after this) folk singer about politics and foreign affairs is useless to me. Cut the editorializing and start singing like you are getting paid to do.
To me Aladdin is the one that turned the whole thing upside-down and acted inappropriately. Since Linda Rondstadt had been dedicating the song to Mr. Moore in each of her concerts in other cities prior to coming to Las Vegas, and then even mentions the same thing in her interview with the LV Review-Journal, it should have come as no surprise to Aladdin.
Even if it was a surprise to Aladdin, it seems irrelevant to me what she dedicated the song to. Singers often dedicate songs to things out of their personal life. Maybe she dedicates the song to her dead dog Tutu and I'm offended because I dislike dogs. I have every right to express my dislike (I can boo, leave, vow never to attend another Linda Rondstadt concert). But it doesn't mean I think the venue management needs to usher her away as if she threatened to blow up the city.
Maybe we should outlaw such talk. Maybe just publish a list of acceptable and non-acceptable public conversation topics. That starts to sound like another country, some country we might point at and cry "Their government suppresses its people!" Of course I realize there are boundaries to "free speech". I don't want to listen to Neo-Nazis or Klu Klux Klan members spouting off their views. But taking into account their relative offensiveness to Ronstadt's I'd put hers down as hardly worth getting worked up about.
Now the notion that celebrity status automatically grants a person some extra insight or validity of their views, that's something else altogether.