Ray had a background in science as a marine biologist. She appeared on the popular CNN program Crossfire once to debate the subject of nuclear power with an Australian scientist. Whenever the scientist made points familiar to and eagerly embraced by a main body of current scientific thought he would be interrupted by Ray.
Limbaugh's champion behaved in a manner characteristic of right wing talk show spokespersons. She used the cardinal rule of responding to a logical presentation, which requires thought and concentration, with a buzz word appealing to emotion.
In Ray's case that meant repetitiously hurling the name "Hollywood." The film "The China Syndrome" dealt with a nuclear meltdown. It supplied Ray with an inviting target. Whatever the scientist revealed was ridiculed as "Hollywood science" that was divorced from the real world.
Not only was Hollywood a code word that the hard core right's talk show hosts constantly denounce since their listeners so frequently equate it with Sodom and Gomorrah and treason. The film starred Jane Fonda, hated by the right for her outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War.
Another point of interest involving Dixie Lee Ray occurred in 1992 while an Earth Summit involving 172 nations was being held in Rio de Janeiro. Al Gore attended as a United States delegate.
Ray accepted an invitation to be a keynote speaker at a Nevada convocation advertised in U.S. right wing circles as an alternative to the disturbing conference occurring in Brazil. A pale, deeply wrinkled, emaciated woman puffing fervently from a cigarette proudly exclaimed that their meeting was an alternative to "all those nuts in Rio."
Earth Summit activities would certainly involve lunacy to the heavily smoking spokesperson for the Rush Limbaugh and Dixie Lee Ray movement. After all, the lunacy preceded controversies over global warming and nuclear power.
There was that infamous Surgeon General's Report on links between cigarette smoking and cancer. The lady scoffing about lunacy in Rio, based on her unreserved smoking while on camera, might well have gained additional satisfaction by ridiculing that anti-smoking report of those smarty pants researchers believed by Washington, D.C. federal government infidels.
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