Sat - July 26, 2008
NAGGING QUESTIONS FOR A SATURDAY AFTERNOON
when a good man is hard to
find.
What does it say about us a people that it took a
dying man's self-absorbed cliche-fest of a lecture, and the ego-stroking,
maudlin media attention that followed, to inspire millions of people to live
better, more fulfilling lives? And what will it say about us when, a year or
two from now, precious few of those millions will still be so inspired,
forgetting once more the lessons they've already learned many times
before?
I suppose it says, to paraphrase Flannery O'Connor's Misfit, that we would have been a good people, if there'd been someone there to die for us every minute of our lives.
I suppose it says, to paraphrase Flannery O'Connor's Misfit, that we would have been a good people, if there'd been someone there to die for us every minute of our lives.
Posted at 12:50 PM
EXAMPLE #1,237,365
of what's wrong with professional athletes
today.
In a move that likely means Pittsburgh baseball
fans will not get even one more sniff of that occasional, fleeting whiff of mediocrity until
next season at least, the Pirates traded two of the best players on their
major-league roster to (who else?) the New York Yankees, for four minor league
prospects. Even if their team -- which, admittedly, has new management in place
(again) -- did not have a long history of trading solid major leaguers for minor
leaguers who come to nothing, Pirates' fans would still have reason to be
concerned about this deal. Consider:
Torre Tyson, a one-time batting coach in the Yankees' system but now the manager of the Class A Charleston Riverdogs, had this to say about [Jose] Tabata to the New York Times:
"He thinks he belongs in the big leagues and he's ready for it. There's confidence and there's cockiness, and he's got plenty of both... He just carries himself like a major leaguer.A lot of people don't like to play against him because he carries himself like he already is Manny Ramirez. But he thinks he's the best guy out there, and he goes out and proves it most of the time."
While batting .248. With 3 home runs and 36 RBI. In AA ball.
Perhaps Tabata ought to carry himself a little less, and start playing himself a whole lot more, like a major leaguer. And perhaps someone in the Pirates' organization ought to tell him, before he ever puts on one of their uniforms, that the minor leagues and college ranks and even the sandlots and playgrounds of every major sport are filled to bursting with people who fancy themselves as pro talents. And that the surest way to end up just like them is to think, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, that your potential has already been realized merely because it's been recognized.
Torre Tyson, a one-time batting coach in the Yankees' system but now the manager of the Class A Charleston Riverdogs, had this to say about [Jose] Tabata to the New York Times:
"He thinks he belongs in the big leagues and he's ready for it. There's confidence and there's cockiness, and he's got plenty of both... He just carries himself like a major leaguer.A lot of people don't like to play against him because he carries himself like he already is Manny Ramirez. But he thinks he's the best guy out there, and he goes out and proves it most of the time."
While batting .248. With 3 home runs and 36 RBI. In AA ball.
Perhaps Tabata ought to carry himself a little less, and start playing himself a whole lot more, like a major leaguer. And perhaps someone in the Pirates' organization ought to tell him, before he ever puts on one of their uniforms, that the minor leagues and college ranks and even the sandlots and playgrounds of every major sport are filled to bursting with people who fancy themselves as pro talents. And that the surest way to end up just like them is to think, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, that your potential has already been realized merely because it's been recognized.
Posted at 12:05 PM
Fri - July 25, 2008
(TWO-SENTENCE) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY NIGHT
uploading the photos of my
mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all those offers I'm still getting,
credit crunch be damned, for Visa cards and Discover cards and big home equity
loans. But without the handy reply envelopes...
• I first tried this little gimmick about a year and a half ago. On a late night with a tight deadline, I thought it would be fun to try it again.
• Two and a half years ago, I (in)famously wrote that Barack Obama was George W. Bush all over again. If this piece by Slate's John Dickerson is any indication, it seems more and more people are catching up to me.
• The first paragraph of that piece should send a chill up the spine of anyone who's paid any attention at all during last seven-and-a-half years. And Dickerson knows it: We should pause when a man auditioning for commander in chief says that the facts confirmed his beliefs and that he's never in doubt.
• I saw an ad this week -- I imagine you did too -- in which the McCain Campaign says you can "thank" Barack Obama for "rising prices at the pump." I'd say it's the early frontrunner for TWM's Quadrennial Worst, Most Offensive Commercial of the Campaign Award.
• It's so bad -- by which I mean so egregiously full of shit -- that I'd like to think it's the biggest of the Big Lies I'll see this whole campaign season. But I know better.
• One of TWM's favorite correspondents emailed this afternoon to tell me about this news item: Investigators are looking into how a young boy managed to slip out of a Denton day care center unnoticed, then cross two busy roads and end up a half-mile away at a Hooters restaurant on Tuesday afternoon. And to tell me that he has the answer: the same impulse that sends chinook salmon upstream to spawn and die.
• I was sorry to see that Professor Randy Pausch died this morning. I imagine I'll be even sorrier to see the media coverage that follows.
• (With apologies to and admiration for Bill Maher...) NEW RULE: The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission can not brag about offering E-ZPass until every exit has a dedicated E-ZPass lane. Waiting my turn behind three ticket-taking cars in one of those infuriating combo-lanes at the Bedford interchange this afternoon felt very little like E-ZPass and a whole lot like F-UChad.
• And another NEW RULE: ESPN -- and most of the rest of the sports commentariat -- must stop pretending that anyone outside of Green Bay gives a damn about what happens to Brett "Most Interceptions in NFL History" Favre. His never-ending, ego-fueled story has been holding ESPN News hostage for so long that I keep expecting him to appear alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini.
• Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight was that rarest of pop culture commodities: a reality that exceeded the hype. If it were up to me, the Academy would have awarded him the Oscar already.
• Many of you emailed to agree with my utter distaste for Entertainment Weekly's new layout. My favorite comment, from a reader we'll call Ms. D: I remember [the layout] from when it was called People magazine.
• I just took a look at this week's issue, and I hate it even more. If the magazine gets any thinner or includes any less content -- three CD reviews? -- it'll be a pamphlet.
• Tomorrow night, for the first time in five years, and for only the second time ever, Foo Fighters come to Pittsburgh. I'll take anything and everything they play, and I know they're gonna play a bunch of my favorites (Times Like These, Everlong, Monkey Wrench), but if I could make one request -- c'mon, Dave, I know you're reading -- it would be for another beautiful acoustic version of Big Me.
• I first tried this little gimmick about a year and a half ago. On a late night with a tight deadline, I thought it would be fun to try it again.
• Two and a half years ago, I (in)famously wrote that Barack Obama was George W. Bush all over again. If this piece by Slate's John Dickerson is any indication, it seems more and more people are catching up to me.
• The first paragraph of that piece should send a chill up the spine of anyone who's paid any attention at all during last seven-and-a-half years. And Dickerson knows it: We should pause when a man auditioning for commander in chief says that the facts confirmed his beliefs and that he's never in doubt.
• I saw an ad this week -- I imagine you did too -- in which the McCain Campaign says you can "thank" Barack Obama for "rising prices at the pump." I'd say it's the early frontrunner for TWM's Quadrennial Worst, Most Offensive Commercial of the Campaign Award.
• It's so bad -- by which I mean so egregiously full of shit -- that I'd like to think it's the biggest of the Big Lies I'll see this whole campaign season. But I know better.
• One of TWM's favorite correspondents emailed this afternoon to tell me about this news item: Investigators are looking into how a young boy managed to slip out of a Denton day care center unnoticed, then cross two busy roads and end up a half-mile away at a Hooters restaurant on Tuesday afternoon. And to tell me that he has the answer: the same impulse that sends chinook salmon upstream to spawn and die.
• I was sorry to see that Professor Randy Pausch died this morning. I imagine I'll be even sorrier to see the media coverage that follows.
• (With apologies to and admiration for Bill Maher...) NEW RULE: The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission can not brag about offering E-ZPass until every exit has a dedicated E-ZPass lane. Waiting my turn behind three ticket-taking cars in one of those infuriating combo-lanes at the Bedford interchange this afternoon felt very little like E-ZPass and a whole lot like F-UChad.
• And another NEW RULE: ESPN -- and most of the rest of the sports commentariat -- must stop pretending that anyone outside of Green Bay gives a damn about what happens to Brett "Most Interceptions in NFL History" Favre. His never-ending, ego-fueled story has been holding ESPN News hostage for so long that I keep expecting him to appear alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini.
• Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight was that rarest of pop culture commodities: a reality that exceeded the hype. If it were up to me, the Academy would have awarded him the Oscar already.
• Many of you emailed to agree with my utter distaste for Entertainment Weekly's new layout. My favorite comment, from a reader we'll call Ms. D: I remember [the layout] from when it was called People magazine.
• I just took a look at this week's issue, and I hate it even more. If the magazine gets any thinner or includes any less content -- three CD reviews? -- it'll be a pamphlet.
• Tomorrow night, for the first time in five years, and for only the second time ever, Foo Fighters come to Pittsburgh. I'll take anything and everything they play, and I know they're gonna play a bunch of my favorites (Times Like These, Everlong, Monkey Wrench), but if I could make one request -- c'mon, Dave, I know you're reading -- it would be for another beautiful acoustic version of Big Me.
Posted at 10:25 PM
THE WALL (7/17/08 - 7/23/08)
they gave the last full measure of
devotion.
Technical Sergeant Jackie L. Larsen.
Posted at 05:36 PM
Wed - July 23, 2008
THE TRUTH WILL HAVE TO WAIT
again.
I am not foolish enough to think that most of you
are waiting, with breath baited and fingers a-twitter, to read yet another post
about Senator Breath of Fresh Air. And yet many of you have inquired about it,
one of you is owed it, and all of you, I'm afraid, will have to wait a few more
days for it. (Methinks I hear the sighs and cheers -- and probably the jeers --
of Obama supporters echoing in the
distance.)
It's been one of those weeks. And one of those posts. And now, it's one of those little breaks I need to take from time to time. I'll be back on Friday, with The Wall and The Notes, and then on Saturday, one week after the original post and so somehow fitting, with a set of clarifications I'm struggling to write, if only because I'm still not sure why I need to write them at all.
It's been one of those weeks. And one of those posts. And now, it's one of those little breaks I need to take from time to time. I'll be back on Friday, with The Wall and The Notes, and then on Saturday, one week after the original post and so somehow fitting, with a set of clarifications I'm struggling to write, if only because I'm still not sure why I need to write them at all.
Posted at 07:18 AM
Tue - July 22, 2008
WE ARE GETTING TO KNOW
what some of us knew all along.
Every once in a while, along comes an op-ed that I
desperately I wish I'd written. Last Friday, the Washington Post's
Pulitzer-Prize-winning Charles Krauthammer did me one better: he offered up a
brilliant and blistering op-ed that I
desperately wish I'd written, in part because I've already have argued most of
its points and summoned many of its examples. Just not nearly as well. Or as
eloquently.
I'll save you the troubles of the click and the link and, while I beg both your pardon and your patience for one more day on my oft-promised, now oft-delayed Obama email response, provide the full text right here. To regular readers of TWM, much of this will sound awfully familiar...
The Audacity of Vanity
Charles Krauthammer
Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast — a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins — would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit ap propriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush 41 — who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap — called "a Europe whole and free"?
Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)
Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history — "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" — when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggest ed that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: "I am the one we've been waiting for."
Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his podium, until general ridicule — it was pointed out that he was not yet president — induced him to take it down
He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" — a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is, 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.
His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism ... that you come out of your isolation. ... Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall — I'm no expert on this — Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.
I'll save you the troubles of the click and the link and, while I beg both your pardon and your patience for one more day on my oft-promised, now oft-delayed Obama email response, provide the full text right here. To regular readers of TWM, much of this will sound awfully familiar...
The Audacity of Vanity
Charles Krauthammer
Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast — a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins — would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit ap propriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush 41 — who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap — called "a Europe whole and free"?
Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)
Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history — "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" — when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggest ed that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: "I am the one we've been waiting for."
Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his podium, until general ridicule — it was pointed out that he was not yet president — induced him to take it down
He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" — a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is, 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.
His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism ... that you come out of your isolation. ... Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall — I'm no expert on this — Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.
Posted at 06:56 PM
Mon - July 21, 2008
THE TRUTH WILL HAVE TO WAIT
until after you read at least one more
emailer.
Because today, I got too damned wrapped up with
work and play and spending some time with Adam that I didn't have time to finish
work on the long-in-coming last word on my contentious relationship with Senator
Breath of Fresh Air and his supporters. In the meantime, I'll share one more
email on the subject, this one from an old, dear friend who felt compelled to
add his always interesting voice to the
mix:
If I were trying to persuade you to pick one candidate over the other -- which I wouldn't do, since I know how you feel about both candidates -- my argument for McCain would be just this... No matter who wins, the next 4 years are going to be a disaster. (Hell, even if Lincoln or FDR or Reagan were elected in their political primes, the next 4 years would still be a disaster; there are just some horrible fundamentals that aren't likely to reverse in a short period of time, particularly when we have an electorate that seems short on sacrifice and long on wishful thinking).
As I've mentioned before, I'm sure a lot of Democrats thought their years in the White House after the disaster that was the Nixon Administration would bring great change. Then along came Jimmy Carter and the rest was history. As impossible as it may seem, Obama likely will preside over 4 years that will make the last 8 seem pretty damn good (at least economically). I think we could see 20-30 more years of mostly Republican presidents -- which is OK by me, if they aren't fuck-ups =) -- as a result of the disaster that will be the Obama Administration.
Whether you agree or disagree with this emailer, or with either of the previous two, it's pretty clear that I have some strong and provocative opinion rolling into TWM headquarters these days -- even when it's not being sampled by The Cutting Edge -- and I might do just as well to step aside and let all of you take over for a while.
Fascinating stuff, folks. Please keep it coming.
If I were trying to persuade you to pick one candidate over the other -- which I wouldn't do, since I know how you feel about both candidates -- my argument for McCain would be just this... No matter who wins, the next 4 years are going to be a disaster. (Hell, even if Lincoln or FDR or Reagan were elected in their political primes, the next 4 years would still be a disaster; there are just some horrible fundamentals that aren't likely to reverse in a short period of time, particularly when we have an electorate that seems short on sacrifice and long on wishful thinking).
As I've mentioned before, I'm sure a lot of Democrats thought their years in the White House after the disaster that was the Nixon Administration would bring great change. Then along came Jimmy Carter and the rest was history. As impossible as it may seem, Obama likely will preside over 4 years that will make the last 8 seem pretty damn good (at least economically). I think we could see 20-30 more years of mostly Republican presidents -- which is OK by me, if they aren't fuck-ups =) -- as a result of the disaster that will be the Obama Administration.
Whether you agree or disagree with this emailer, or with either of the previous two, it's pretty clear that I have some strong and provocative opinion rolling into TWM headquarters these days -- even when it's not being sampled by The Cutting Edge -- and I might do just as well to step aside and let all of you take over for a while.
Fascinating stuff, folks. Please keep it coming.
Posted at 08:40 PM
Sun - July 20, 2008
AND ANOTHER TRUTH, THE WAY ANOTHER HE SEES IT
the same way some of us have all
along.
Before I respond to yesterday's reader email -- stay tuned for that
tomorrow -- I am compelled to reprint part of another email I received this
week. It comes from a political blogger whose work I greatly admire, but whose
identity shall remain anonymous, lest his inbox be inundated with insults and
hate mails from the supporters of hope and positivity. After complimenting me
on last week's Jesse Jackson and the Nucking Futs post, my
second emailer added:
I was certainly among those who, during the spring primary season, was hoping against all hope that you had Obama pegged dead wrong. But you didn't, of course, and now we all know that you were right.
I imagine he's far too optimistic in the end. Not everyone knows I was right, and fewer still will admit it. But I don't mind telling you how nice it was to hear from someone who, dropping the partisan glasses -- that's the key here, folks, as I'll argue at length tomorrow -- and looking as purely and openly and objectively as he does at so many other things, this emailer sees something he has not wanted to see and possesses honesty enough to acknowledge it.
I would not presume to guess for whom this second emailer will vote, or even if he will vote. But he seems at least to realize -- and this is a point missed even by many of my most faithful readers, and one I will explore at great length tomorrow -- that I also would not presume to tell anyone for whom they should or should not vote for president. Unlike many other bloggers, I'm not playing partisan hack or shill or biased, blindered cheerleader. I'm sticking to a core set of beliefs and principles that have not changed in the almost four years I've been writing this blog. All I'm doing is calling the truth as I see it.
It's just that this time, as Colonel Nathan Jessup once famously noted, some people can't handle it.
I was certainly among those who, during the spring primary season, was hoping against all hope that you had Obama pegged dead wrong. But you didn't, of course, and now we all know that you were right.
I imagine he's far too optimistic in the end. Not everyone knows I was right, and fewer still will admit it. But I don't mind telling you how nice it was to hear from someone who, dropping the partisan glasses -- that's the key here, folks, as I'll argue at length tomorrow -- and looking as purely and openly and objectively as he does at so many other things, this emailer sees something he has not wanted to see and possesses honesty enough to acknowledge it.
I would not presume to guess for whom this second emailer will vote, or even if he will vote. But he seems at least to realize -- and this is a point missed even by many of my most faithful readers, and one I will explore at great length tomorrow -- that I also would not presume to tell anyone for whom they should or should not vote for president. Unlike many other bloggers, I'm not playing partisan hack or shill or biased, blindered cheerleader. I'm sticking to a core set of beliefs and principles that have not changed in the almost four years I've been writing this blog. All I'm doing is calling the truth as I see it.
It's just that this time, as Colonel Nathan Jessup once famously noted, some people can't handle it.
Posted at 11:55 AM
Sat - July 19, 2008
THE TRUTH THE WAY HE SEES IT
which is truly sad.
Buried in yesterday's first Note was the promise to
reprint, verbatim, an especially earnest and passionate -- I forgot to mention
bracing and beautifully written -- email I received on the subjects of Senator
Obama, his coverage in the mainstream media, and his treatment here at TWM. The
email, to which I have so far only responded with praise and thanks and a
request to reprint it, comes from a good friend and former student, someone I've
known and liked and respected the hell out of for more than ten years now. I'll
respond to him privately -- and perhaps also publicly -- later this weekend, but
for now, because I was so riveted by its momentum and so energized by its
honesty, because it is far and away the best of its kind I've yet received, and
because I thought it deserved a far wider reading than just my narrow little
focus, I wanted to offer it here, uncut and uninterrupted, for your
consideration.
Enjoy...
I've held my tongue for awhile, but I wanted to share my thoughts with you on Barack Obama.
I completely get what you've been saying about the media's coverage of Senator "Breath of Fresh Air" (that's my favorite of your nicknames, by the way), but I disagree with your recent take on The New Yorker cover.
Your reader, Mr. R, wrote, "The cover is an obvious satire -- at least obvious to the presumed sophisticates that take The New Yorker every week, or, as is my tradition, every visit to the doctor."
That, on its face, is absolutely true. But didn't the 2004 election, and the way our government operated in the years after 9/11, show us how impressionable the people living in this country are? George W. Bush shoveled bullshit about weapons of mass destruction, and we totally bought it by re-electing that prick. And once he touted home ownership as the key to our continued economic growth and greased the wheels to allow everyone with a pulse to obtain a loan for a $500,000 house, we bought it. And once he told us that he needed to grossly encroach on our human rights in order to protect this country, we fucking bought that too.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of stupid motherfuckers living in this country, but even worse, they are scared to death. Scared of losing their homes, scared of losing their jobs, scared of getting on airplanes, scared of going to school. Magazine covers like The New Yorker, while intended for folks like you and me, get into the hands of fear-mongering news organizations like...oh I don't know....ALL of them, and they plant the seeds in the heads of our impressionable fellow citizens and cause them to do stupid things, like vote for John McCain.
I can understand the counter-argument -- well, how is it fair for the media to deify Barack Obama every chance they get? Well, I guess my simple answer is because the primary goal of these organizations is to sell more magazines and newspapers, and quite frankly, Barack Obama is a guy who moves paper, because people fucking love him. Yes, I wish Time and Newsweek ran more articles that explained differences in each candidate's approach to key issues, but they don't -- they talk about Obama's NCAA tournament bracket and the restaurant McCain's daughter went to with Heidi Montag. And while it's a shame that things such as how handsome Barack is or how John McCain's wife looks like a drugged-out whore with a terrible hairdo are the reasons some people choose their next President, it's the fucking truth.
Which is truly sad. Because here's the truth the way I see it.
I can't stand to live in this country anymore if a person who intends to continue the same policies as our current President is elected as our new President. And I'm not the only one that feels that way -- I imagine you feel that way too. And when I listen to Barack Obama speak, I hear a man who is optimistic about my future because he speaks about doing something that's different than what is happening now, which, quite frankly, is all I need to hear. I need Barack Obama to be elected, because I don't want to be at war anymore, I don't want the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer, and I don't want someone to tell me what's best for me anymore, the way George Bush does every time he speaks about why he didn't do something that is very obviously in the best interest of the public but did not benefit his billionaire friends. (Let's ignore the fact that I'm being naive on Barack Obama's, or any Democratic candidate’s for that matter, ability to truly make a change, but that's a different story.) Because that's what has happened in the last eight years -- we've stopped being able to think for ourselves anymore, and have become a society of citizens who have been trained to act based on fears conveyed to us by our government.
Which is why your indictment of the media is perfectly fair, and why I share your opinion. I am outraged by the behavior of just about every single news organization in this country.
But haven't we beaten this to death? And shouldn't I be concerned that your blog, which is based in a key election state, may be communicating the same impressions that you yourself may not want the impressionable minds of Pennsylvania folks who have fallen on hard times to read?
I guess this is where I'm confused sometimes. I'm pretty certain that there is no way in hell that you would vote for John McCain. I know you well enough to be sure of that. But are you telling folks that we should consider not voting for Barack Obama because too many people love him and the media takes advantage? You haven't said this explicitly, and I don't imagine you will, because if Barack Obama had a face that didn't look good on a magazine cover (Ryan Malone's post-Finals face?), I imagine you would be giddy about the notion of an Obama presidency.
Anyway, that was all I had to say. I really do enjoy your hammering of the media on many issues, but at the same time I'm tired of repeatedly being made to feel that I should consider not supporting Barack Obama due to the looniness of the hype surrounding him.
I guess when it comes to reading your blog, I am impressionable that way. But there's a reason for that -- it's because I always believe what you say.
Enjoy...
I've held my tongue for awhile, but I wanted to share my thoughts with you on Barack Obama.
I completely get what you've been saying about the media's coverage of Senator "Breath of Fresh Air" (that's my favorite of your nicknames, by the way), but I disagree with your recent take on The New Yorker cover.
Your reader, Mr. R, wrote, "The cover is an obvious satire -- at least obvious to the presumed sophisticates that take The New Yorker every week, or, as is my tradition, every visit to the doctor."
That, on its face, is absolutely true. But didn't the 2004 election, and the way our government operated in the years after 9/11, show us how impressionable the people living in this country are? George W. Bush shoveled bullshit about weapons of mass destruction, and we totally bought it by re-electing that prick. And once he touted home ownership as the key to our continued economic growth and greased the wheels to allow everyone with a pulse to obtain a loan for a $500,000 house, we bought it. And once he told us that he needed to grossly encroach on our human rights in order to protect this country, we fucking bought that too.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of stupid motherfuckers living in this country, but even worse, they are scared to death. Scared of losing their homes, scared of losing their jobs, scared of getting on airplanes, scared of going to school. Magazine covers like The New Yorker, while intended for folks like you and me, get into the hands of fear-mongering news organizations like...oh I don't know....ALL of them, and they plant the seeds in the heads of our impressionable fellow citizens and cause them to do stupid things, like vote for John McCain.
I can understand the counter-argument -- well, how is it fair for the media to deify Barack Obama every chance they get? Well, I guess my simple answer is because the primary goal of these organizations is to sell more magazines and newspapers, and quite frankly, Barack Obama is a guy who moves paper, because people fucking love him. Yes, I wish Time and Newsweek ran more articles that explained differences in each candidate's approach to key issues, but they don't -- they talk about Obama's NCAA tournament bracket and the restaurant McCain's daughter went to with Heidi Montag. And while it's a shame that things such as how handsome Barack is or how John McCain's wife looks like a drugged-out whore with a terrible hairdo are the reasons some people choose their next President, it's the fucking truth.
Which is truly sad. Because here's the truth the way I see it.
I can't stand to live in this country anymore if a person who intends to continue the same policies as our current President is elected as our new President. And I'm not the only one that feels that way -- I imagine you feel that way too. And when I listen to Barack Obama speak, I hear a man who is optimistic about my future because he speaks about doing something that's different than what is happening now, which, quite frankly, is all I need to hear. I need Barack Obama to be elected, because I don't want to be at war anymore, I don't want the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer, and I don't want someone to tell me what's best for me anymore, the way George Bush does every time he speaks about why he didn't do something that is very obviously in the best interest of the public but did not benefit his billionaire friends. (Let's ignore the fact that I'm being naive on Barack Obama's, or any Democratic candidate’s for that matter, ability to truly make a change, but that's a different story.) Because that's what has happened in the last eight years -- we've stopped being able to think for ourselves anymore, and have become a society of citizens who have been trained to act based on fears conveyed to us by our government.
Which is why your indictment of the media is perfectly fair, and why I share your opinion. I am outraged by the behavior of just about every single news organization in this country.
But haven't we beaten this to death? And shouldn't I be concerned that your blog, which is based in a key election state, may be communicating the same impressions that you yourself may not want the impressionable minds of Pennsylvania folks who have fallen on hard times to read?
I guess this is where I'm confused sometimes. I'm pretty certain that there is no way in hell that you would vote for John McCain. I know you well enough to be sure of that. But are you telling folks that we should consider not voting for Barack Obama because too many people love him and the media takes advantage? You haven't said this explicitly, and I don't imagine you will, because if Barack Obama had a face that didn't look good on a magazine cover (Ryan Malone's post-Finals face?), I imagine you would be giddy about the notion of an Obama presidency.
Anyway, that was all I had to say. I really do enjoy your hammering of the media on many issues, but at the same time I'm tired of repeatedly being made to feel that I should consider not supporting Barack Obama due to the looniness of the hype surrounding him.
I guess when it comes to reading your blog, I am impressionable that way. But there's a reason for that -- it's because I always believe what you say.
Posted at 09:22 AM
Fri - July 18, 2008
(THE DARK K)NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
fighting the crime of my mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all these unexpected, consecutive days
of sunshine we've had in Pittsburgh. But without the damned humidity...
• I'm starting to get the emails. I knew it was only a matter of time, but they're still coming a little earlier than I thought. The we know you don't like Obama, but you can't like McCain either, and you're living in a swing state, so you know what you have to do. They're earnest, and they're passionate -- one in particular is so much of both that I'll be reprinting it verbatim tomorrow; stay tuned -- and they're a marked improvement over all the insults and invectives I usually receive from supporters of a candidate who believes American politics are too filled with insults and invectives, but they occasionally miss the point and, so far at least, are not especially persuasive. Compelling, yes. Persuasive, no. If only because I am not, as you might have guessed, someone who takes his vote lightly. And so the you must help undo the last eight years of mistakes by voting for a guy you fear will make plenty of new ones gambit is only marginally less onerous than the you must do your duty and stand by the Democrats argument. Neither one is likely to send me sprinting for the polls. Or anywhere else.
• In November 2004, for the first time in my life, I voted not for one candidate, but against another. And I didn't much like the way it felt. In November 2006, I did it again. And it felt even worse. And so I told myself I would never do it again. I know, as Sean Connery taught me, that once you say never, you can never say never again. And I have no desire to compound what felt like two big mistakes (compromises? sell outs?) with the commission of a third. And that's why, if the election were held tomorrow, I would not vote for either man.
• Yeah. Okay. I hear you. So please spare me the you must vote or you're a bad American/person/citizen bit. I happen to believe that along with the right to vote comes the right not to vote. Because in the end, though we all must live with the sum of our choices, each of us must also live with the spirit of our own individual choice. And right now, I simply could not live with either.
• One more note about that awful Barack Obama commercial about which I wrote last Sunday: the problem, in a nutshell, with those sorts of ads is that the characters talk to each other like they're 10, and they talk to us like we're 5.
• When campaigns -- and I mean both of them -- think so little of their audience's intelligence, it's no wonder they should think us also incapable of distinguishing satire from reality.
• If both sides are aiming that low, it's no wonder they've missed me.
• That said, it is nice to see that The New Yorker will be making amends this week.
• An Obama supporter with a sense of humor -- hey, they really do exist! -- watched the new Jib Jab video on Wednesday and then emailed: Tell me Obama on the unicorn isn't the funniest part of the day. :) I responded that, yeah, it was pretty great, but that I thought it finished second to McCain just keeling over in the hospital corridor. That caught me off guard and, unlike anything else in the video, actually made me laugh out loud.
• The thing about that video, as it was about the last couple, is that it just wasn't very good. Or fresh. Or inspired. It's just more -- and so in many ways less -- of the same. They struck pure gold with the first one, but for my eye and ear, they’ve unearthed mostly silt, and just a couple of tiny, shiny nuggets, since.
• I meant to call your attention to this on Sunday but never got back to it: Dennis Roddy's typically brilliant, positively heartbreaking piece on the late Ricky Nguyen -- a most unlikely subject, it seems, for so much sympathy, much less empathy. It reminded me a lot of a another piece he did about a year and a half ago on a lost soul named Molly Jean Dilts. And so it reminded me that, among his many remarkable gifts as both writer and reporter, we can count chief among them a lovely ability to find, and then to communicate, the battered and broken lives of people like this. And to so do in a way that makes them not just emotionally but even physically uncomfortable to read.
• As usual, Dennis is operating on his own, rarefied level at the Post-Gazette. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
• The TWM Great, Unexpected Ending to an Otherwise Straight-Up Paragraph Award this week goes to Slate's Farhad Manjoo, for this passage from a piece on the new iPhone applications: They can also use the fantastic Apple-produced app that turns your iPhone into a wireless remote control for iTunes. Where you once had to trudge five or six feet to your computer in order to search through your music library, now you can do it from the couch. I'm waiting for a whole family of such remote apps—soon we'll use our iPhones to control multiroom music players, wireless security systems, and unmanned Predator drones.
• Have I mentioned how much I hate the new Entertainment Weekly magazine layout? I haven't? Okay. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. At its current rate of change, the publication will, only one or two years hence, publish nothing but photos and white space. The only remaining text will be on the address labels.
• Which, if they're still employing Diablo Cody as a columnist, will be fine by me.
• Ever have one of those moments when you're alone, and you're listening and maybe singing along to a song you know and love, and some emotion sneaks up from deep down inside you, from some place you knew you had but, until the song caught you at just the right time, you hadn't really been paying much attention to? And then, before you realize what's happening, and long before you could ever hope to stop it, it just reaches up and grabs you and damned near rips your heart out? I had one of those moments this morning, listening to Drive-By Truckers on my way home from dropping off Ethan at his day-camp bus stop. Some combination of that, and talking to my Mom -- who lives, of course, on the other side of the state, and who, along with my father, I don't get to see nearly as often as I like -- for a long time last night, and all the thinking I've lately been doing about all the best parts of my childhood, and missing the holy hell out of Adam, who's finally coming home tomorrow from two weeks away at camp and who's going to high school next month and who's growing up just too God-damned fast, made Jason Isbell's Outfit reduce me to a suddenly blubbering mass of father and son on the front seat of the 4Runner. I'm pretty sure you had to be there, and I know you had to be me, to fully appreciate it. But it's still a wonderful song, one I'm pretty sure any parent or child out there will appreciate it, and so it seems like a fine place to close for today...
You want to grow up to paint houses like me? A trailer in my yard till you're 23?
You want to be old after 42 years? Keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears.
Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back, and I sold it to buy her a ring.
And I learned not to say much of nothing, and I figure you already know,
But in case you don’t or maybe forgot, I’ll lay it out real nice and slow.
Don’t call what you're wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t worry about losing your accent; a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell 'em you’re bigger than Jesus. Don’t give it away.
Five years in a St. Florian foundry; they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School, just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama, and I got to missing you too,
So I went back to painting for my old man, and I guess that’s what I’ll always do.
So don’t let 'em take who you are boy, and don’t try to be who you ain’t.
And don’t let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy-man’s paint.
Don’t call what you're wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t sing with a fake British accent, and don’t act like your family’s a joke.
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell 'em you’re bigger than Jesus. Don’t give it away.
Don’t give it away.
• I'm starting to get the emails. I knew it was only a matter of time, but they're still coming a little earlier than I thought. The we know you don't like Obama, but you can't like McCain either, and you're living in a swing state, so you know what you have to do. They're earnest, and they're passionate -- one in particular is so much of both that I'll be reprinting it verbatim tomorrow; stay tuned -- and they're a marked improvement over all the insults and invectives I usually receive from supporters of a candidate who believes American politics are too filled with insults and invectives, but they occasionally miss the point and, so far at least, are not especially persuasive. Compelling, yes. Persuasive, no. If only because I am not, as you might have guessed, someone who takes his vote lightly. And so the you must help undo the last eight years of mistakes by voting for a guy you fear will make plenty of new ones gambit is only marginally less onerous than the you must do your duty and stand by the Democrats argument. Neither one is likely to send me sprinting for the polls. Or anywhere else.
• In November 2004, for the first time in my life, I voted not for one candidate, but against another. And I didn't much like the way it felt. In November 2006, I did it again. And it felt even worse. And so I told myself I would never do it again. I know, as Sean Connery taught me, that once you say never, you can never say never again. And I have no desire to compound what felt like two big mistakes (compromises? sell outs?) with the commission of a third. And that's why, if the election were held tomorrow, I would not vote for either man.
• Yeah. Okay. I hear you. So please spare me the you must vote or you're a bad American/person/citizen bit. I happen to believe that along with the right to vote comes the right not to vote. Because in the end, though we all must live with the sum of our choices, each of us must also live with the spirit of our own individual choice. And right now, I simply could not live with either.
• One more note about that awful Barack Obama commercial about which I wrote last Sunday: the problem, in a nutshell, with those sorts of ads is that the characters talk to each other like they're 10, and they talk to us like we're 5.
• When campaigns -- and I mean both of them -- think so little of their audience's intelligence, it's no wonder they should think us also incapable of distinguishing satire from reality.
• If both sides are aiming that low, it's no wonder they've missed me.
• That said, it is nice to see that The New Yorker will be making amends this week.
• An Obama supporter with a sense of humor -- hey, they really do exist! -- watched the new Jib Jab video on Wednesday and then emailed: Tell me Obama on the unicorn isn't the funniest part of the day. :) I responded that, yeah, it was pretty great, but that I thought it finished second to McCain just keeling over in the hospital corridor. That caught me off guard and, unlike anything else in the video, actually made me laugh out loud.
• The thing about that video, as it was about the last couple, is that it just wasn't very good. Or fresh. Or inspired. It's just more -- and so in many ways less -- of the same. They struck pure gold with the first one, but for my eye and ear, they’ve unearthed mostly silt, and just a couple of tiny, shiny nuggets, since.
• I meant to call your attention to this on Sunday but never got back to it: Dennis Roddy's typically brilliant, positively heartbreaking piece on the late Ricky Nguyen -- a most unlikely subject, it seems, for so much sympathy, much less empathy. It reminded me a lot of a another piece he did about a year and a half ago on a lost soul named Molly Jean Dilts. And so it reminded me that, among his many remarkable gifts as both writer and reporter, we can count chief among them a lovely ability to find, and then to communicate, the battered and broken lives of people like this. And to so do in a way that makes them not just emotionally but even physically uncomfortable to read.
• As usual, Dennis is operating on his own, rarefied level at the Post-Gazette. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
• The TWM Great, Unexpected Ending to an Otherwise Straight-Up Paragraph Award this week goes to Slate's Farhad Manjoo, for this passage from a piece on the new iPhone applications: They can also use the fantastic Apple-produced app that turns your iPhone into a wireless remote control for iTunes. Where you once had to trudge five or six feet to your computer in order to search through your music library, now you can do it from the couch. I'm waiting for a whole family of such remote apps—soon we'll use our iPhones to control multiroom music players, wireless security systems, and unmanned Predator drones.
• Have I mentioned how much I hate the new Entertainment Weekly magazine layout? I haven't? Okay. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. At its current rate of change, the publication will, only one or two years hence, publish nothing but photos and white space. The only remaining text will be on the address labels.
• Which, if they're still employing Diablo Cody as a columnist, will be fine by me.
• Ever have one of those moments when you're alone, and you're listening and maybe singing along to a song you know and love, and some emotion sneaks up from deep down inside you, from some place you knew you had but, until the song caught you at just the right time, you hadn't really been paying much attention to? And then, before you realize what's happening, and long before you could ever hope to stop it, it just reaches up and grabs you and damned near rips your heart out? I had one of those moments this morning, listening to Drive-By Truckers on my way home from dropping off Ethan at his day-camp bus stop. Some combination of that, and talking to my Mom -- who lives, of course, on the other side of the state, and who, along with my father, I don't get to see nearly as often as I like -- for a long time last night, and all the thinking I've lately been doing about all the best parts of my childhood, and missing the holy hell out of Adam, who's finally coming home tomorrow from two weeks away at camp and who's going to high school next month and who's growing up just too God-damned fast, made Jason Isbell's Outfit reduce me to a suddenly blubbering mass of father and son on the front seat of the 4Runner. I'm pretty sure you had to be there, and I know you had to be me, to fully appreciate it. But it's still a wonderful song, one I'm pretty sure any parent or child out there will appreciate it, and so it seems like a fine place to close for today...
You want to grow up to paint houses like me? A trailer in my yard till you're 23?
You want to be old after 42 years? Keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears.
Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back, and I sold it to buy her a ring.
And I learned not to say much of nothing, and I figure you already know,
But in case you don’t or maybe forgot, I’ll lay it out real nice and slow.
Don’t call what you're wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t worry about losing your accent; a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell 'em you’re bigger than Jesus. Don’t give it away.
Five years in a St. Florian foundry; they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School, just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama, and I got to missing you too,
So I went back to painting for my old man, and I guess that’s what I’ll always do.
So don’t let 'em take who you are boy, and don’t try to be who you ain’t.
And don’t let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy-man’s paint.
Don’t call what you're wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t sing with a fake British accent, and don’t act like your family’s a joke.
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell 'em you’re bigger than Jesus. Don’t give it away.
Don’t give it away.
Posted at 03:36 PM
THE WALL (7/10/08 - 7/16/08)
they gave the last full measure of
devotion.
Lance Corporal Jeffery S.
Stevenson.
Staff Sergeant Danny Dupre.
Aviation Boatswain Mate 3rd Class Daniel E. Verbeke.
Staff Sergeant Jeremy D. Vrooman.
Staff Sergeant David W. Textor.
Staff Sergeant Danny Dupre.
Aviation Boatswain Mate 3rd Class Daniel E. Verbeke.
Staff Sergeant Jeremy D. Vrooman.
Staff Sergeant David W. Textor.
Posted at 07:43 AM
Thu - July 17, 2008
THINGS THAT ALMOST MAKE YOUR (EARLY MORNING) HEAD EXPLODE
almost.
1) When you wake up just in time to catch the tail
end of a Today show report on consumer concern in the face of recession,
rising prices, and crunching credit.
2) When you realize this is the 437th consecutive day they've aired a report exactly like this.
3) When you discover that they're gonna spice things up a bit by trying to help you feel more confident in these tough economic times.
4) When you hear Matt Lauer introduce the man who's going to help you do that: motivational speaker and peak-performance coach Tony Robbins!
5) When you resist the urge, because you don't want to wake up your sleeping son or scare your showering wife, to scream at the tv, Maybe we'd all be a little more confident if you ever fucking talked about anything fucking else! . . . And I don't mean Angelina Jolie!
2) When you realize this is the 437th consecutive day they've aired a report exactly like this.
3) When you discover that they're gonna spice things up a bit by trying to help you feel more confident in these tough economic times.
4) When you hear Matt Lauer introduce the man who's going to help you do that: motivational speaker and peak-performance coach Tony Robbins!
5) When you resist the urge, because you don't want to wake up your sleeping son or scare your showering wife, to scream at the tv, Maybe we'd all be a little more confident if you ever fucking talked about anything fucking else! . . . And I don't mean Angelina Jolie!
Posted at 10:00 AM
Wed - July 16, 2008
CAPTURING IN CARICATURE
what was there in substance.
One of TWM's favorite readers and writers -- we'll
call him Mr. R. -- emailed in response to yesterday's magazine-cover post with two paragraphs of
typical wit and wisdom that, as surely as anything else I've read, cuts to the
heart of the New Yorker
histrionics:
I am completely banjaxed by this frantic response to The New Yorker cover. It is proof positive that Americans are the lone species capable of hyperventilating without oxygen. The cover is an obvious satire -- at least obvious to the presumed sophisticates that take The New Yorker every week, or, as is my tradition, every visit to the doctor. I mean, this is the same magazine that ran Art Spiegelman's famous cover cartoon of a Hasidic Jew in a passionate kiss with a black woman -- something we are as likely to see as an AK-47 slung over the shoulders of La Michelle.
It is an interesting window into the invented aspect of the American political identity. Because image is all-encompassing and public perception becomes the defined character of the aspiring leader, a cartoon suddenly takes on a talismanic magic, as if drawing a man that way materially makes him what is drawn. Without force of personality, without the puissance of character, suddenly a cartoon has the power of redefinition? I mean, Thomas Nast's famous cartoons of Boss Tweed had their power in capturing in caricature what was there in substance. This is the inversion of that theory, and it is cause to worry about whether Obama has what the Brits would call "bottom" and whether Americans can tell their aspirant from their elbow.
The most salient point here is the thought of capturing in caricature what was there in substance. It is at once both an apt description of Thomas Nast's Boss Tweed cartoons and an acute lamentation for the state of our modern body politic.
I am completely banjaxed by this frantic response to The New Yorker cover. It is proof positive that Americans are the lone species capable of hyperventilating without oxygen. The cover is an obvious satire -- at least obvious to the presumed sophisticates that take The New Yorker every week, or, as is my tradition, every visit to the doctor. I mean, this is the same magazine that ran Art Spiegelman's famous cover cartoon of a Hasidic Jew in a passionate kiss with a black woman -- something we are as likely to see as an AK-47 slung over the shoulders of La Michelle.
It is an interesting window into the invented aspect of the American political identity. Because image is all-encompassing and public perception becomes the defined character of the aspiring leader, a cartoon suddenly takes on a talismanic magic, as if drawing a man that way materially makes him what is drawn. Without force of personality, without the puissance of character, suddenly a cartoon has the power of redefinition? I mean, Thomas Nast's famous cartoons of Boss Tweed had their power in capturing in caricature what was there in substance. This is the inversion of that theory, and it is cause to worry about whether Obama has what the Brits would call "bottom" and whether Americans can tell their aspirant from their elbow.
The most salient point here is the thought of capturing in caricature what was there in substance. It is at once both an apt description of Thomas Nast's Boss Tweed cartoons and an acute lamentation for the state of our modern body politic.
Posted at 09:18 PM
TWO MONTHS...
...to the day...
...Until training camp
starts.
Which means it's time...
...for the first official LET'S GO, PENS! of the 2008-09 season.
So, LET'S GO, PENS!
(Okay. So it's time for the first two. I got a little carried away.)
Which means it's time...
...for the first official LET'S GO, PENS! of the 2008-09 season.
So, LET'S GO, PENS!
(Okay. So it's time for the first two. I got a little carried away.)
Posted at 06:37 PM
SELLING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SHORT
and taking the willfully stupid
long.
I have, in the past few weeks, been justifiably
hard on columnist Tony Norman and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editorial
Board on which he sits -- they'd been pumping out Obama apologetics and
histrionics at a rate nearly rivaling Newsweek's -- so it seems only fair
to praise them when they get it absolutely right, as they have the past two days
in writing about the New Yorker cover
kerfuffle.
Mixed metaphors (There is so much emotional dynamite embedded in the image that taken in isolation, each of the elements has enough resonance to deliver a gut punch to readers inclined to miss its savage irony) aside, Mr. Norman provides an even-handed look at both the criticisms and the defenses of the cover, then sums it up perfectly:
Honestly, there's a messianic quality to much of the imagery and hype surrounding Barack Obama that doesn't allow for a lot of satire. Treating a presidential candidate with the same awe one brings to a sacred text is un-American and a betrayal of our democratic traditions.
Savvy TWM readers will note, of course, that I've been making that same argument -- both explicitly and satirically -- for months, if not years, now. But it's always nice to see someone else come around, however late in the game, to the land of common sense and rational analysis.
Welcome also the PG Editorial Board, which this morning retreated several steps from xxx and back to credibility with this surprisingly blunt and accurate summation:
The rumors aren't true, but a minority of inattentive Americans believe otherwise.
It is feared, especially in Democratic circles, that The New Yorker cover pours accelerant on biases that are already burning. Those who are most outraged fear that the humor will be lost on too many readers who don't understand satire. That's selling the American public short...
...If a minority of voters choose to believe the rumors after this week, then they are willfully stupid. What's the point of coveting their vote?
Contrast this triumphant -- and rightly, delightfully dismissive -- stance with the hand-wringing staged byObamaweek Newsweek Senior Editor Jonathan Alter, who
invokes a certified loon (Ross Perot) and a seeming idiot (his cousin, Paul)
to
explain why the New Yorker cover does so much
damage:
In the course of the conversation, it became clear that Perot thought Obama was a Muslim. When I informed him that Obama was actually a Christian, Perot was relieved. He didn't hate Obama; he just had an instinct to believe whatever he happened to see online over what he read in reputable newspapers...
...My cousin Paul, a smart and successful Californian now in his 80s... doesn't read the New Yorker, but does include Newsweek, Time, the Los Angeles Times and such rarefied publications as the American Scholar in his media diet.
Paul, a lifelong Democrat, is truly undecided about whom to vote for, and it's not hard to see why. To get a fix on the truth about Obama, he recently sent me a letter with a series of things he'd heard about the man. [TWM Note: All were widely discredited rumors about Obama being a Muslim.] He asked me to answer "true" or "false" to each.
Mr. Alter, of course, answered false to all of them. If he'd been true and honest and possessed by even the faintest inclination toward tough love, he would have answered, They're all false, you idiot. Now get your head out of your ass, off the Internet, and back into the real, live, fact-based world with (most of) the rest of us.
Not that it would have made much of a difference. Because in the end, the willfully stupid and the hopelessly ignorant and the gleefully gullible, all the Ross Perots and cousin Pauls of the world, will go on listening to the whispers and reading the forwarded emails and believing all the happy horseshit that appears, with an alarming ease and regularity, on the newswires of their own political delusions.
And if we haven't cured those people by now, a single, satirical magazine cover will not make them any more sick than they already are.
Mixed metaphors (There is so much emotional dynamite embedded in the image that taken in isolation, each of the elements has enough resonance to deliver a gut punch to readers inclined to miss its savage irony) aside, Mr. Norman provides an even-handed look at both the criticisms and the defenses of the cover, then sums it up perfectly:
Honestly, there's a messianic quality to much of the imagery and hype surrounding Barack Obama that doesn't allow for a lot of satire. Treating a presidential candidate with the same awe one brings to a sacred text is un-American and a betrayal of our democratic traditions.
Savvy TWM readers will note, of course, that I've been making that same argument -- both explicitly and satirically -- for months, if not years, now. But it's always nice to see someone else come around, however late in the game, to the land of common sense and rational analysis.
Welcome also the PG Editorial Board, which this morning retreated several steps from xxx and back to credibility with this surprisingly blunt and accurate summation:
The rumors aren't true, but a minority of inattentive Americans believe otherwise.
It is feared, especially in Democratic circles, that The New Yorker cover pours accelerant on biases that are already burning. Those who are most outraged fear that the humor will be lost on too many readers who don't understand satire. That's selling the American public short...
...If a minority of voters choose to believe the rumors after this week, then they are willfully stupid. What's the point of coveting their vote?
Contrast this triumphant -- and rightly, delightfully dismissive -- stance with the hand-wringing staged by
In the course of the conversation, it became clear that Perot thought Obama was a Muslim. When I informed him that Obama was actually a Christian, Perot was relieved. He didn't hate Obama; he just had an instinct to believe whatever he happened to see online over what he read in reputable newspapers...
...My cousin Paul, a smart and successful Californian now in his 80s... doesn't read the New Yorker, but does include Newsweek, Time, the Los Angeles Times and such rarefied publications as the American Scholar in his media diet.
Paul, a lifelong Democrat, is truly undecided about whom to vote for, and it's not hard to see why. To get a fix on the truth about Obama, he recently sent me a letter with a series of things he'd heard about the man. [TWM Note: All were widely discredited rumors about Obama being a Muslim.] He asked me to answer "true" or "false" to each.
Mr. Alter, of course, answered false to all of them. If he'd been true and honest and possessed by even the faintest inclination toward tough love, he would have answered, They're all false, you idiot. Now get your head out of your ass, off the Internet, and back into the real, live, fact-based world with (most of) the rest of us.
Not that it would have made much of a difference. Because in the end, the willfully stupid and the hopelessly ignorant and the gleefully gullible, all the Ross Perots and cousin Pauls of the world, will go on listening to the whispers and reading the forwarded emails and believing all the happy horseshit that appears, with an alarming ease and regularity, on the newswires of their own political delusions.
And if we haven't cured those people by now, a single, satirical magazine cover will not make them any more sick than they already are.
Posted at 09:53 AM
Tue - July 15, 2008
YOU CAN SEE WHY THEY'RE SO UPSET
about that one.
The New Yorker staff, apparently, did not get the memo.
You know, the one that says Senator Second Coming may only be portrayed in the most flattering and/or dignifed and/or beatific and/or Messianic of poses. The one that The one that says no ill words nor unflattering light, no pedestrian poses nor middling moments, shall ever befall a portrayal of him. The one that says you may not, even when you're defending him and attacking his most hateful and ignorant detractors, employ irony or subtlety or satire or anything else that could possibly be misconstrued as anything less than unconditional awe and/or uncritical adoration.
I'm not sure when we started worrying so much about what the great unwashed, the ill-informed and the under-educated, might do if they don't get a joke. And I'm still trying to figure out why, apart from hyperventilating news and internet coverage, all those people are suddenly looking at The New Yorker. But I do know that if we're going to do it, if we're really going to spend our time and our energy and a good chunk of our rhetorical capital fretting over the effects that one magazine cover ironically depicting Senator Obama as a terrorist can have on an impressionable and not terribly discerning or sophisticated electorate, then we should also, once we've finished plunging our knives and slings and arrows into the bloody corpse of satirical cartoonery, start wondering about what kinds of effects might also be wielded upon those poor folks by a constant stream of magazine covers worshipfully portraying the Senator as a cross between MLK, JFK, and Jesus Christ.
Posted at 10:07 AM
Mon - July 14, 2008
CARBOLIC RISING
to infinity, and beyond.
This past Friday, three years to the day after it
opened, and almost a year and a half after I joined in the festivities, we
killed the Judge, printed an obituary, and closed up shop at the Carbolic Smoke
Ball. Some folks, fearing the worst, said nice things about us and wished us well in
our future endeavors. No one, at least to our (admittedly limited) knowledge,
danced on our graves or threatened to cut our nuts off if we ever returned.
Which is good, because we're back.
The future is now, the endeavors have landed, and an all-new -- proudly refocused, redesigned, and re-energized -- Carbolic Smoke Ball rises today.
Give us a week, and we'll give you the world. But a whole lot funnier.
Which is good, because we're back.
The future is now, the endeavors have landed, and an all-new -- proudly refocused, redesigned, and re-energized -- Carbolic Smoke Ball rises today.
Give us a week, and we'll give you the world. But a whole lot funnier.
Posted at 12:05 AM
Sun - July 13, 2008
R & K B-DAYS
happy, happy.
TWM takes a moment and makes a post to celebrate
the birthdays of two of its favorite people in all the
world:
Ralph Moeslein, totally rockin' husband, father, grandfather, and father-in-law extraordinaire, and
Keyana Farkondepay, totally rockin' TA, friend, former student, and communicator extraordinaire.
Other than their loves of football and good beer, it's difficult to imagine, besides one fateful date on the calendar, that they have too much in common. Except, of course, for the great pleasure I take from having both of them in my life.
Happy Birthday, Dad. Happy Birthday, Keyana. May your days be as vital and as vibrant as you.
Ralph Moeslein, totally rockin' husband, father, grandfather, and father-in-law extraordinaire, and
Keyana Farkondepay, totally rockin' TA, friend, former student, and communicator extraordinaire.
Other than their loves of football and good beer, it's difficult to imagine, besides one fateful date on the calendar, that they have too much in common. Except, of course, for the great pleasure I take from having both of them in my life.
Happy Birthday, Dad. Happy Birthday, Keyana. May your days be as vital and as vibrant as you.
Posted at 01:50 PM
MCSAME AS IT EVER WAS
yowza!
I've said it before (and before, and before, and
before), and I suspect I'll say it again (and again, and again, and again):
New kind of politics, my ass.
No one -- and I mean no one -- who writes, plans, approves, or distributes a radio ad like this can ever -- and I mean ever, ever -- lay claim to being a new kind of politician or representing a new kind of politics or perpetrating anything -- and I mean anything -- but the most old and tired and cloying kind of pandering political hackery. It's embarrassing. Or at least it should be. But I suspect it won't be, if only because so many people are by now so used to hearing and accepting and probably even knee-jerk responding to crap just like it.
The problem isn't the theme of the ad; Senator Straight Talk approved an RNC ad full of lies and distortions (what are the odds?), and Senator Breath of Fresh Air was quick and smart -- you know, in a very non-John-Kerry-way -- to respond. And the problem isn't so much that the fourth line of the ad links Senator McCain to President Bush and Karl Rove in ways that are not fair (not yet, anyway) and more than a little slimy; you expect that sort of old-school gamesmanship even from a candidate who's promised not to do it, and besides, we've already seen and heard it from him before.
No, the problem with the ad is that Senator Hope and Change has invited himself to sit down at the kitchen table -- or in this case, the computer keyboard -- with citizens Harry and Louise. It's just another awful, poorly scripted, even more poorly acted, spoon-fed bit of intelligence- and good-taste-insulting pablum with a husband and wife trading the some of the most stilted, artificial, no-real-human-beings-talk-like-this-except-maybe-the-Romneys dialogue you'll ever hear outside of these rancid, cookie-cutter, idiot-assemby-line productions. My OralComm students used to do better in sixty minutes, from first concept to final, recorded commercial.
Think I'm exaggerating? Of course I am. But not by much. Listen for yourself. And try not to laugh. Really. Go ahead. I dare you.
Is there some sort of strange, archaic rule that says only crappy actors can participate in political radio ads? Even at bargain-basement voice talent prices, they can't find someone, anyone who sounds like he didn't just mosey out of his first acting class, or like she didn't just wander over from her accounting office? And don't even get me started -- well, okay; technically, I'm already started -- on the writing. The husband sounds like someone who exists only in the realms of political ads and erectile dysfunction commercials, and the wife, whose scintillating dialogue includes lines like What now, honey?, Yeah., Uh-huh., and Yowza!, sounds like someone who exists only in political ads and Leave it to Beaver reruns. (Oh, Ward, Wally and Beaver were fighting again, and I just don't know what to think about John McCain...)
And, yes, she actually says Yowza! In 2008. In a message that Barack Obama approves. For that alone, he should be forced to decline his party's nomination. Or at least be forced to admit that he's not one-tenth as hip and cool as he likes to pretend to be.
Though, of course, what he should really do is renounce -- I hear he has some experience with that -- the consultants who came up with that ad. And the consultants who came up with the consultants who came up with that ad. And the advisors who came up with the consultants who came up with the consultants who came up with that ad. And vow never again to put his name, his campaign, or his seemingly excellent chance of winning the White House in the hands of people who, through that most foul and fetid combination of political access and intellectual hackery, continue to suck the life, and indeed the very soul, out of modern political discourse.
No one -- and I mean no one -- who writes, plans, approves, or distributes a radio ad like this can ever -- and I mean ever, ever -- lay claim to being a new kind of politician or representing a new kind of politics or perpetrating anything -- and I mean anything -- but the most old and tired and cloying kind of pandering political hackery. It's embarrassing. Or at least it should be. But I suspect it won't be, if only because so many people are by now so used to hearing and accepting and probably even knee-jerk responding to crap just like it.
The problem isn't the theme of the ad; Senator Straight Talk approved an RNC ad full of lies and distortions (what are the odds?), and Senator Breath of Fresh Air was quick and smart -- you know, in a very non-John-Kerry-way -- to respond. And the problem isn't so much that the fourth line of the ad links Senator McCain to President Bush and Karl Rove in ways that are not fair (not yet, anyway) and more than a little slimy; you expect that sort of old-school gamesmanship even from a candidate who's promised not to do it, and besides, we've already seen and heard it from him before.
No, the problem with the ad is that Senator Hope and Change has invited himself to sit down at the kitchen table -- or in this case, the computer keyboard -- with citizens Harry and Louise. It's just another awful, poorly scripted, even more poorly acted, spoon-fed bit of intelligence- and good-taste-insulting pablum with a husband and wife trading the some of the most stilted, artificial, no-real-human-beings-talk-like-this-except-maybe-the-Romneys dialogue you'll ever hear outside of these rancid, cookie-cutter, idiot-assemby-line productions. My OralComm students used to do better in sixty minutes, from first concept to final, recorded commercial.
Think I'm exaggerating? Of course I am. But not by much. Listen for yourself. And try not to laugh. Really. Go ahead. I dare you.
Is there some sort of strange, archaic rule that says only crappy actors can participate in political radio ads? Even at bargain-basement voice talent prices, they can't find someone, anyone who sounds like he didn't just mosey out of his first acting class, or like she didn't just wander over from her accounting office? And don't even get me started -- well, okay; technically, I'm already started -- on the writing. The husband sounds like someone who exists only in the realms of political ads and erectile dysfunction commercials, and the wife, whose scintillating dialogue includes lines like What now, honey?, Yeah., Uh-huh., and Yowza!, sounds like someone who exists only in political ads and Leave it to Beaver reruns. (Oh, Ward, Wally and Beaver were fighting again, and I just don't know what to think about John McCain...)
And, yes, she actually says Yowza! In 2008. In a message that Barack Obama approves. For that alone, he should be forced to decline his party's nomination. Or at least be forced to admit that he's not one-tenth as hip and cool as he likes to pretend to be.
Though, of course, what he should really do is renounce -- I hear he has some experience with that -- the consultants who came up with that ad. And the consultants who came up with the consultants who came up with that ad. And the advisors who came up with the consultants who came up with the consultants who came up with that ad. And vow never again to put his name, his campaign, or his seemingly excellent chance of winning the White House in the hands of people who, through that most foul and fetid combination of political access and intellectual hackery, continue to suck the life, and indeed the very soul, out of modern political discourse.
Posted at 11:32 AM
Sat - July 12, 2008
GERRY AUSTIN IS A BIG FAT STINKY FACE
and nfl head coaches say so.
It's been a while since I've written about Gerry
Austin, the now-forcibly-retired -- the league finally wised
up and sent him a letter -- worst referee in the NFL. Which means, of
course, that it's also been a while since I've received a ranting, semi-coherent email from one of his
vulgar relatives. But a little item I saw on ESPN.com last night made me
realize that it was time to write about him again, insults in my inbox be
damned.
(But don't worry, Terry. I remembered your email and the sensitivities of the grand kids, so I kept the title elementary-school-mild once again.)
It seems that ESPN asked NFL head coaches, who were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor, to name the best and worst referees in the league. The breakdown of the vote, which should not surprise anyone who watches football and possesses a functioning brain, looked like this:
Since the coaches remain anonymous, I guess it's only a matter of time before ESPN columnist Mike Sando, the guy who wrote the piece in which these results appeared, receives a batch of whiny, threatening emails from Gerry Austin's relatives. Or, better yet, before every coach in the league receives one. (I can hear Elberta now: You bastard! What do you know about football?! Huh?! Don't make me come and find you and shove a yellow flag up your ass!)
Me? I'm tempted to say I told you so. But that would be silly.
Because you already knew.
(But don't worry, Terry. I remembered your email and the sensitivities of the grand kids, so I kept the title elementary-school-mild once again.)
It seems that ESPN asked NFL head coaches, who were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor, to name the best and worst referees in the league. The breakdown of the vote, which should not surprise anyone who watches football and possesses a functioning brain, looked like this:
Since the coaches remain anonymous, I guess it's only a matter of time before ESPN columnist Mike Sando, the guy who wrote the piece in which these results appeared, receives a batch of whiny, threatening emails from Gerry Austin's relatives. Or, better yet, before every coach in the league receives one. (I can hear Elberta now: You bastard! What do you know about football?! Huh?! Don't make me come and find you and shove a yellow flag up your ass!)
Me? I'm tempted to say I told you so. But that would be silly.
Because you already knew.
Posted at 09:56 AM
Fri - July 11, 2008
(OH, THANK HEAVEN FOR 7/11) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
pouring the slurpee of my mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like a whole lot of things I might have
said, but not regretted saying, into an open mic these past few days. And,
thus, without the need for empty
apologies...
• Here's hoping the next (ahem) Christian (ahem) Reverend who insults, mocks, demeans, denigrates, or otherwise postulates physical harm to someone will, at the very least, explain what Jesus would do about Senator Obama's -- or anyone else's -- nuts. And then shut the hell up.
• I know, I know. But this graphic still makes me laugh:
Nothing like an OPEN convention that you could get to go to. As long as you give money first. And don't make any disparaging remarks about his testicles.
• When I saw this morning's wonderful Rob Rogers cartoon -- for which you can be sure he'll suffer a couple of hysterical letters to the editor -- the first thing I thought was, Hey, Rob, it only took you a little less than twenty-eight months to catch up to me. The second thing I thought was, But that's okay, because you were still next person to arrive.
• I guess he and I'll just sit here and wait for the rest of you.
• TWM's Insular, Idiotic Quotation of the Week Award goes to Janet Taylor of Plymouth, Massachusetts, who, in an Associated Press article detailing how pet owners so far prefer John McCain to Barack Obama, told the reporter, I think a person who owns a pet is a more compassionate person -- caring, giving, trustworthy. I like pet owners. If the thought of our current, senseless-war-starting, more-than-four-thousand-Americans-killing, dog-owning president is not enough to change her mind, I doubt that the notions of Hitler's dog or Mussolini's cat will be enough to make her reconsider her position either.
• Timothy McVeigh's dog, anyone? John Wayne Gacy's dog? How about Lizzie Borden's cat?
• I don't know if he owns a pet -- how could he? right, Janet? -- but I do know that if anyone in the country is suffering from a mental recession, it's Phil Gramm.
• When Wendy and the boys and I left for vacation, contractors for the city of Pittsburgh were milling the street in front of our house. When we returned home ten days later, a Public Works crew was paving the street in front of our house. Which means, of course, that for the nine days in between, a large part of Shady Avenue looked (and no doubt felt) like a cross between the Burma Road and some bombed-out back alley in Baghdad. And it's not alone. A long stretch of Murray Avenue, replete with several meteor-crater-sized holes, currently suffers the same fate. Parts of Beechwood and Northumberland suffered it before that. Now. I know that schedules vary and weather delays can make things even worse. But. Can't someone somewhere do a better job of co-ordinating the milling and the paving, so that they occur just a little closer together? They really can't do any better than ten (or more) days?
• Driving around the East End this summer gives me an idea of what it must have been like to drive around in the summer of 1994. In Sarajevo.
• I must give yet another shout-out to long-time friend and TWM Best Man Jim Pascoe, whose fabulous Undertown continues to get all sorts of positive press and reader reaction -- especially now that it's being syndicated in the Sunday comics section of newspapers worldwide. The latest example: this fine article from the Concord (N.H.) Monitor about Undertown and its place in the Manga genre, replete with some typically thoughtful and entertaining observations from the man himself.
• The man himself also forwards me this link, which outlines how a collection of monumental talents -- Howard Shore, David Cronenberg, Dante Ferretti, David Henry Hwang, and Placido Domingo -- has collaborated to produce The Fly: The Opera, an all-new adaptation of Cronenberg's 1986 horror masterpiece for performances in Paris and (this fall) Los Angeles. The very thought of seeing one of my favorite films of all-time -- already a kind of intimate little operatic tale in its own right -- given a full-blown stage treatment, much less by these masters of their crafts, gives me the chills. And makes me want to book a flight on Southwest.
• As the movie poster said: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
• I've always said that I would buy a ticket just to watch Morgan Freeman read the phone book. But I'm now prepared to go one giant step forward in my praise and admiration of the man and his talents. After seeing a few of those Olympic-themed Visa commercials he narrates, I've decided that I would even pay to see him host NBC's God-awful-excuse for live Olympic TV coverage. If they'd be willing to place Mr. Freeman on Bob Costas' Throne of Unctuousness, I'd be willing to sit through all 472 hours of their cloying, maudlin, Dick-Enberg-moment filled crapfest.
• I'd only get to see about forty-seven minutes of actual athletic competition, of course. But with Morgan Freeman hosting, it would still be worth it.
• With a tip o' the cap to the great Mike Woycheck, who linked to it earlier this week, this may be the funniest damned thing I've seen all week.
• Speaking of great and funny... It is with a sad and heavy (but ultimately hopeful) heart that we mourn the timely death of the Hon. Judge Rufus Peckham, Jurist, Bon Vivant, Advocate of the Downtrodden, and Guiding Light to Discerning Newshounds Everywhere. He was truly a great man, and, if only because he never once yelled at me for missing a deadline, also a great boss. You can read his full obituary here, at the landmark site he founded and loved. The fake news community will miss him dearly. He will not be forgotten.
• Also not forgotten are big, happy, punch-lines-and-belly-laughs kinda birthday wishes to my collaborator and co-conspirator, Tim Murray. Today is a big day for Tim in more ways than one, and I am both honored and privileged to share it with him. Just as I am to know him, and to call him my friend. Happy Birthday, Tim. May your day be as rich and as brilliant as you.
• Here's hoping the next (ahem) Christian (ahem) Reverend who insults, mocks, demeans, denigrates, or otherwise postulates physical harm to someone will, at the very least, explain what Jesus would do about Senator Obama's -- or anyone else's -- nuts. And then shut the hell up.
• I know, I know. But this graphic still makes me laugh:
Nothing like an OPEN convention that you could get to go to. As long as you give money first. And don't make any disparaging remarks about his testicles.
• When I saw this morning's wonderful Rob Rogers cartoon -- for which you can be sure he'll suffer a couple of hysterical letters to the editor -- the first thing I thought was, Hey, Rob, it only took you a little less than twenty-eight months to catch up to me. The second thing I thought was, But that's okay, because you were still next person to arrive.
• I guess he and I'll just sit here and wait for the rest of you.
• TWM's Insular, Idiotic Quotation of the Week Award goes to Janet Taylor of Plymouth, Massachusetts, who, in an Associated Press article detailing how pet owners so far prefer John McCain to Barack Obama, told the reporter, I think a person who owns a pet is a more compassionate person -- caring, giving, trustworthy. I like pet owners. If the thought of our current, senseless-war-starting, more-than-four-thousand-Americans-killing, dog-owning president is not enough to change her mind, I doubt that the notions of Hitler's dog or Mussolini's cat will be enough to make her reconsider her position either.
• Timothy McVeigh's dog, anyone? John Wayne Gacy's dog? How about Lizzie Borden's cat?
• I don't know if he owns a pet -- how could he? right, Janet? -- but I do know that if anyone in the country is suffering from a mental recession, it's Phil Gramm.
• When Wendy and the boys and I left for vacation, contractors for the city of Pittsburgh were milling the street in front of our house. When we returned home ten days later, a Public Works crew was paving the street in front of our house. Which means, of course, that for the nine days in between, a large part of Shady Avenue looked (and no doubt felt) like a cross between the Burma Road and some bombed-out back alley in Baghdad. And it's not alone. A long stretch of Murray Avenue, replete with several meteor-crater-sized holes, currently suffers the same fate. Parts of Beechwood and Northumberland suffered it before that. Now. I know that schedules vary and weather delays can make things even worse. But. Can't someone somewhere do a better job of co-ordinating the milling and the paving, so that they occur just a little closer together? They really can't do any better than ten (or more) days?
• Driving around the East End this summer gives me an idea of what it must have been like to drive around in the summer of 1994. In Sarajevo.
• I must give yet another shout-out to long-time friend and TWM Best Man Jim Pascoe, whose fabulous Undertown continues to get all sorts of positive press and reader reaction -- especially now that it's being syndicated in the Sunday comics section of newspapers worldwide. The latest example: this fine article from the Concord (N.H.) Monitor about Undertown and its place in the Manga genre, replete with some typically thoughtful and entertaining observations from the man himself.
• The man himself also forwards me this link, which outlines how a collection of monumental talents -- Howard Shore, David Cronenberg, Dante Ferretti, David Henry Hwang, and Placido Domingo -- has collaborated to produce The Fly: The Opera, an all-new adaptation of Cronenberg's 1986 horror masterpiece for performances in Paris and (this fall) Los Angeles. The very thought of seeing one of my favorite films of all-time -- already a kind of intimate little operatic tale in its own right -- given a full-blown stage treatment, much less by these masters of their crafts, gives me the chills. And makes me want to book a flight on Southwest.
• As the movie poster said: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
• I've always said that I would buy a ticket just to watch Morgan Freeman read the phone book. But I'm now prepared to go one giant step forward in my praise and admiration of the man and his talents. After seeing a few of those Olympic-themed Visa commercials he narrates, I've decided that I would even pay to see him host NBC's God-awful-excuse for live Olympic TV coverage. If they'd be willing to place Mr. Freeman on Bob Costas' Throne of Unctuousness, I'd be willing to sit through all 472 hours of their cloying, maudlin, Dick-Enberg-moment filled crapfest.
• I'd only get to see about forty-seven minutes of actual athletic competition, of course. But with Morgan Freeman hosting, it would still be worth it.
• With a tip o' the cap to the great Mike Woycheck, who linked to it earlier this week, this may be the funniest damned thing I've seen all week.
• Speaking of great and funny... It is with a sad and heavy (but ultimately hopeful) heart that we mourn the timely death of the Hon. Judge Rufus Peckham, Jurist, Bon Vivant, Advocate of the Downtrodden, and Guiding Light to Discerning Newshounds Everywhere. He was truly a great man, and, if only because he never once yelled at me for missing a deadline, also a great boss. You can read his full obituary here, at the landmark site he founded and loved. The fake news community will miss him dearly. He will not be forgotten.
• Also not forgotten are big, happy, punch-lines-and-belly-laughs kinda birthday wishes to my collaborator and co-conspirator, Tim Murray. Today is a big day for Tim in more ways than one, and I am both honored and privileged to share it with him. Just as I am to know him, and to call him my friend. Happy Birthday, Tim. May your day be as rich and as brilliant as you.
Posted at 01:53 PM
THE WALL (7/3/08 - 7/9/08)
they gave the last full measure of
devotion.
Sergeant 1st Class Anthony Lynn
Woodham.
Specialist William L. McMillan III.
Sergeant 1st Class Steven J. Chevalier.
Private Byron W. Fouty.
Sergeant Alex Jimenez.
Specialist William L. McMillan III.
Sergeant 1st Class Steven J. Chevalier.
Private Byron W. Fouty.
Sergeant Alex Jimenez.
Posted at 09:19 AM
Thu - July 10, 2008
CRAPPED OUT
and we have to wipe it up.
If anyone in Pittsburgh -- or, hell, in the whole
tri-state area -- was not yet convinced that the Pennsylvania Gaming
Control Board made one of the biggest, most boneheaded blunders in the
history of the commonwealth when it awarded this city's casino license to Don
Barden and his Majestic Star House of Financial Cards, you should read the
(let's face it, inevitable) piece that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's
Mark Belko posted about a half hour
ago.
Everyone on that board should be fired. Or at least severely beaten. And then made to march from the Hill to Station Square, back through downtown and over to that padlocked North Shore construction site, where we could all chant No due diligence, no peace! over and over and over again. Or at least until we'd permanently branded each and every one of their forheads with the scarlet letters DA.
For Dumb Ass.
Everyone on that board should be fired. Or at least severely beaten. And then made to march from the Hill to Station Square, back through downtown and over to that padlocked North Shore construction site, where we could all chant No due diligence, no peace! over and over and over again. Or at least until we'd permanently branded each and every one of their forheads with the scarlet letters DA.
For Dumb Ass.
Posted at 01:42 PM
JESSE JACKSON AND THE NUCKING FUTS
or, an apology decoded.
It's almost too easy. But it's so funny and so
bizarre and so (more) perfect, that I can't
resist.
I thought I'd said everything I wanted to say about it over at the Carbolic Smoke Ball. And yet, the more I read the Rev. Jesse Jackson's apology, the more it seemed to cry out, if not for a full-fledged TWM deconstruction, at least for a fairly thorough TWM decoding. There's a lot going on there -- both in the lines and between them -- so I thought it might be fun to take a closer look and see what lies beneath its murky, slimy surface.
For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused,...
But not, you know, for actually saying or thinking it...
...I apologize.
And wish, more than anything, that those bastards had cut off that mic, so no one would have heard what I really think, and so I wouldn't have to be dealing with the indignities of all this scrutiny, my own son's repudiation, and yet another profound, poetic reinforcement of the fact that I can be, despite my better instincts, a vindictive and self-obsessed asshole.
My support for Senator Obama's campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal.
And I'd like to cut his nuts off.
I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.
But I'd cherish it even more if it were happening to me. Or if more people were listening to me. Or if I could just cut his nuts off.
My appeal was for the moral content of his message to not only deal with the personal and moral responsibility of black males,...
And so not just to cut his nuts off...
but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy which would be a corrective action for the lack of good choices that often led to their irresponsibility.
...but to suggest, finally, in as vague and weaselly a sentence as possible, that government should, in some indeterminate way or ways, produce public policy that would correct, or resolve, or perhaps even absolve, the lack of good choices -- by which I mean the abundance of bad choices -- made by some young black males as a first step upon, as opposed to yet another step along, the long and terrible path of their own irresponsibility, which, rather than praising Senator Obama for speaking openly and honestly about, simply makes me want to cut his nuts off.
That was the context of my private conversation...
For which I have not actually apologized, and that, once again, I really, really wish you hadn't heard. Because it was private. And by "private," I mean, "what I really think but don't want you to know."
... and it does not reflect any disparagement on my part for the historic event in which we are involved...
Because, you know, in some parts of the black community, saying you want to cut someone's nuts off is actually a wide, deep, unequivocal, non-disparaging show of respect and support.
...or my pride in Senator Barack Obama,...
Whose nuts I'd like to cut off.
...who is leading it,...
With those big, stupid nuts...
...whom I have supported...
...just a few hours ago I said I wanted to cut off. Because I did. And still do.
...by crisscrossing this nation in every level of media and audience...
Talking to people who knew how and when to turn off my microphone.
...from the beginning in absolute terms.
Except in private conversations. When I say I want to cut his nuts off.
I thought I'd said everything I wanted to say about it over at the Carbolic Smoke Ball. And yet, the more I read the Rev. Jesse Jackson's apology, the more it seemed to cry out, if not for a full-fledged TWM deconstruction, at least for a fairly thorough TWM decoding. There's a lot going on there -- both in the lines and between them -- so I thought it might be fun to take a closer look and see what lies beneath its murky, slimy surface.
For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused,...
But not, you know, for actually saying or thinking it...
...I apologize.
And wish, more than anything, that those bastards had cut off that mic, so no one would have heard what I really think, and so I wouldn't have to be dealing with the indignities of all this scrutiny, my own son's repudiation, and yet another profound, poetic reinforcement of the fact that I can be, despite my better instincts, a vindictive and self-obsessed asshole.
My support for Senator Obama's campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal.
And I'd like to cut his nuts off.
I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.
But I'd cherish it even more if it were happening to me. Or if more people were listening to me. Or if I could just cut his nuts off.
My appeal was for the moral content of his message to not only deal with the personal and moral responsibility of black males,...
And so not just to cut his nuts off...
but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy which would be a corrective action for the lack of good choices that often led to their irresponsibility.
...but to suggest, finally, in as vague and weaselly a sentence as possible, that government should, in some indeterminate way or ways, produce public policy that would correct, or resolve, or perhaps even absolve, the lack of good choices -- by which I mean the abundance of bad choices -- made by some young black males as a first step upon, as opposed to yet another step along, the long and terrible path of their own irresponsibility, which, rather than praising Senator Obama for speaking openly and honestly about, simply makes me want to cut his nuts off.
That was the context of my private conversation...
For which I have not actually apologized, and that, once again, I really, really wish you hadn't heard. Because it was private. And by "private," I mean, "what I really think but don't want you to know."
... and it does not reflect any disparagement on my part for the historic event in which we are involved...
Because, you know, in some parts of the black community, saying you want to cut someone's nuts off is actually a wide, deep, unequivocal, non-disparaging show of respect and support.
...or my pride in Senator Barack Obama,...
Whose nuts I'd like to cut off.
...who is leading it,...
With those big, stupid nuts...
...whom I have supported...
...just a few hours ago I said I wanted to cut off. Because I did. And still do.
...by crisscrossing this nation in every level of media and audience...
Talking to people who knew how and when to turn off my microphone.
...from the beginning in absolute terms.
Except in private conversations. When I say I want to cut his nuts off.
Posted at 09:09 AM
Wed - July 9, 2008
SAME OLD SONG & DANCE
my friends.
I've been working on another major web project the
last few days and so haven't gotten around to a whole bunch of topics that have
been rattling around my mind lately. Stay tuned later in the week -- and quite
possibly next, once things settle down -- for more on those, but for
now...
...let's pause, a moment, to lament the early demise of what might have been a fair and rational and civilized presidential election. Now that Senator Straight Talk has aired a radio ad that, according to FactCheck.org, gets nearly all its facts wrong, and now Senator Breath of Fresh Air has aired a television commercial that, at least to my nose, and surely for the first 14 seconds, smells an awful lot like old school negative politics, it's time to drop any pretense to which you may have been clinging about this year being any different.
The Maverick vs. The Motivator? Please.
Let's just call it The Fibber vs. The Phony. And then, being sure to hold our nose and cover our ears and forfeit our dignities, prepare ourselves for another four months of another four years of the same old political song and hypocritical dance.
...let's pause, a moment, to lament the early demise of what might have been a fair and rational and civilized presidential election. Now that Senator Straight Talk has aired a radio ad that, according to FactCheck.org, gets nearly all its facts wrong, and now Senator Breath of Fresh Air has aired a television commercial that, at least to my nose, and surely for the first 14 seconds, smells an awful lot like old school negative politics, it's time to drop any pretense to which you may have been clinging about this year being any different.
The Maverick vs. The Motivator? Please.
Let's just call it The Fibber vs. The Phony. And then, being sure to hold our nose and cover our ears and forfeit our dignities, prepare ourselves for another four months of another four years of the same old political song and hypocritical dance.
Posted at 04:50 PM
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
Terror Alert
Brilliant Satire
Required Reading
Traffic Count
Official Muse
Syndication
Carbolic Wear
Y Chromosomes
Some Perspective
On Tour
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Published On: Jul 26, 2008 12:52 PM
Published On: Jul 26, 2008 12:52 PM