Tag: Anger and Rants

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This photo appeared at Balloon Juice earlier today. How true…and the most staggering thing is the way the Top 1% has funded a bunch of know-nothing Tea Partiers whose only function is to make sure that the everything that the Top 1% wants is handed to them. I’d wistfully await the day when the Tea Partiers realize that they’re just useful tools in the further indenturization of America, but self-awareness generally isn’t a quality that seems to be in abundance in Tea Party types. Either that, or they genuinely want to be serfs.

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Grumble….

An apology to the blogger I like enormously into one of whose comment threads I just spewed an immense amount of bile at someone (not the blogger) on the opposite side of the political fence. It may be time for me to just stop reading political comment entirely. I just can no longer act as if there’s a reasonable argument to be made for “deficit cutting” that calls for sacrifices by everybody except the rich, for an economy that is built on everyone just accepting the premise that we should all count ourselves lucky to have whatever little we’ve managed to create for ourselves (or just hold onto), for any notion that my personal freedom would somehow be lessened by the adoption of a real national health care plan, or for the idea that Government is bad bad bad but the Market is great great great and if the Market wants to screw me with my pants on, well then, I’d best be about the business of bending over first and saying “Thank you!” after.

No, I’m not in a good mood right now. So I’m off to mark as “read” every single item in my Google Reader subscriptions. The political ones, anyway.

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Insulted!

Back when I was active on USENET — heavens, that era, in itself, was over ten years ago — there was a character on rec.arts.books who went by the pseudonym “SubGenius”. I never figured out what, if any, connection he may have had with the fake religion “The Church of the SubGenius”, but he was a shockingly erudite character who had a highly amusing way with words. He also had a website for a while, hosted by a university in Texas (can’t remember which one), where he posted a lot of things he had, in turn, posted to online fora like rec.arts.books. One of my favorite things there was this very long insult that he had crafted. As I have not found this anywhere else online and think it deserves enshrinement, I do so here. Enjoy the insult!

(And a resounding NO, this is not even partially directed at any one of my readers!!!)

Given my spiflicated state (i.e., full sheets to the wind) and your persistent nanointellectual tendencies, I’d tend to think that this matter would be solved by a `Sir, your mother, under the pretense of maintaining a bawdy house, was the receiver of stolen goods,’ but, I fear, this sort of comment would send you a-scampering to the nearest dictionary for a look-up a) to see if you’ve been insulted and b) a quick wank in conjuntion with any of the naughty words you missed in your `curmudgeon’ research.

In short, sir, I must say that in general (no pun intended, but one indeed noted [ha]) you are lacking in wit, pathetic in practice and laughable in comprehension and therefore a typical representative of the common swut poster whose idea of clever rhetoric is the bit of verse s/h/it saw on the lavoratory wall the other night and, indeed, are the sort of chap whose idea of slander was passe when the dozens became a memory. In shorter, sir, you bore me with your lack of invention, raise my eyebrows in your attempts to simultaneously lower the standards and raise the gorges of whoever might be paying attention to your random flailing and flabbergast me (rhetorical device–I am overcome with ennui at your critical flatulence) with your patheticness and patheticeousity (pardon me whilst I pixilatedly coin new words for your damnedly mediocre mendacity) in shortest, sir, you are:

A turd herder, a shit shepard, a pustule-besmirched rapscallion, a fondler of other people’s wilted mothers, a knee-biter, a one-man plague, a titty-baby, the sort of lad who nods a hundred and nineteen times everytime he sees one of those `wouldn’t it be great’ Airhead Lite commercials, the sort of chap who one could clap about his head and shoulders and reasonably expect a handful of dead insects to spew forth from his mouth, a smidge, a forgetable simper of a coward, a clodhopper, a patsy, a fat-mouthed slob, a fop, a motor-tongue, a toothless boor, a loathsome scab, a babbler at meaningless banter, a cackler, a limp, wet fish, a conceited monkey, a tooth-chatterer, a dung-drover, a dweller in other people’s bottoms, a fanny fellow, a snaggle-toothed toady, a mincing milksop, a hopeless addlepate, a conousseur of caldswallop, a slabberdegullion rogue, a paltry panty-waste, a prating gobbleblorget, a lickorous glutton for cellulite women, a slapsause scaldiwag, a non-drunken unwoysterer, a drowsey loiterer in the halls of averageness and averagitude, a forlorn snippit, a drawlatch hoydon, a negligible coxcomb, a blockish grutnol, a foolish loggerhead, a turgy gut, a noddipeak simpleton, a codshead loobie, a woodcock slangam, a fondling fop, a base loon, a freckled bittor, a mangy prating gabler, a lubbardly lout, a sousening simp, a ninny lobcock, a gaping changeling, a ninny-hammer flycatcher, a noddy meacock, a grout-head gnatsnapper, a jobbernol goosecap, a clutch calf-lollie, a kib-dotterel, an idle lusk and above all, a pathetic wimper of a apology for a man.

And, having accosted you with such defamatory epithets of such profusion and so on on several counts, I say further not to address me any further until you can comment likewise with such length (appy polly loggies to hit a raw nerve, there) and so on that rather you should content yourself with provoking pederasts and others in your league and perhaps, to gain vengance with the world, victimise an earwig or something similarly your speed.

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Let me get this straight….

This is a political rant, which I’m going to put beneath the fold. Comments are also closed for this post. Don’t read the whole thing if you don’t like it when I go all political.]

After reading a lot of hand-wringing from right-wingers today, it strikes me that the only way they would ever accept that maybe, just maybe, their years and years of increasingly violence and eliminationist rhetoric might have had any bearing on today’s events in Arizona would be if the gunman were to have, say, posted videos of himself saying “I’ll kill for you, Sarah Palin!” to YouTube, or maybe left a Facebook status message of “I’m off to kill that Democrat now!”

Right-wing rhetoric in this country has been a cesspool of violent fantasy for years. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed, as I have, the work of journalist David Neiwert, but the vehemence of the denials does surprise me a little. Ezra Klein said it well:

But today’s shooting was a reminder of what real political violence in this country could look like, and the awful recognition that it could’ve easily fit with comments made by trusted political figures should stop us cold. We’re lucky to live in a country where political violence is rare. We’re lucky that that doesn’t appear to have changed. But that may be dumb luck that we’re benefiting from. It is hard to look through those statements and believe that we’re doing enough to keep our political system peaceful.

It should stop us cold, but it doesn’t. Instead, the violent rhetoric from the Right is downplayed and denied, and lots of false equivalency — “Your side does it too!” — is tossed around. There’s a screen-grab of some DailyKos diarist making the rounds of the Rightwingers, because a DailyKos diary is the same thing as a former candidate for Vice President and current Big Leader on the Right running an ad where Congressional opponents are “targeted” using gun-sights.

Here is WNYMedia.net‘s Christopher M. Smith, from a discussion thread on Facebook:

By its very nature, the [attempted] murder of a Congresswoman is a political issue. Especially when the person who allegedly committed the act is evidently an adherent to various crypto-libertarian and right wing ideologies. So, to wonder how straight the line is from a political leader who targeted the victim with a gunsight in a mainstream political campaign to the assassination by gun of that very Congresswoman is not “out of bounds” by any means.

No matter how you look at it, we need to think about changing the tone of political discourse in this country away from “second amendment remedies” to losing elections (Angle), being “armed and dangerous” (Bachmann) over the healthcare bill and “reloading rather than retreating” and taking out political opponents using implicitly violent imagery (Palin). It’s time everyone grew the f*** up and realized the consequences of their language. [slightly edited by me for clarity and language]

The only way this could not be political is if the killer’s motivations had turned out to be completely apolitical. The only assassination of a political figure, successful or not, that I can recall filling that bill is John Hinckley Jr.’s shooting of Ronald Reagan; I have to figure that if today’s assassin had been attempting to impress a girl, that would have come out by now.

But even so, that’s a very short list of examples of violent right-wing rhetoric Chris gives. There’s no reason why he had to stop there; as a long-time denizen of the blogosphere, I’ve seen a ton of it. I’ve seen one right-wing blogger selling coffee cups with a picture of a gun on one side and the slogan “So many liberals, so little time!” on the other. I’ve seen another who offered shirts with the slogan “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.” on it. And it goes back farther even than that; I remember how, after Waco in 1993, G. Gordon Liddy went on the radio and advised his listeners that if they saw ATF agents coming toward them, they’d do well to “take the head shot”. For those who want to wade into this cesspool, the work of journalist David Neiwert is the place to start. Or just peruse this timeline.

As Ezra said, this should give us pause — but I doubt it will. I suspect that lots of Right-wing bleating and screaming will have its usual effect, and that soon enough, we’ll be hearing from the Concern Trolls of the Beltway Village, the Deeply Serious people, that we need to tone down the rhetoric on “both sides”. There will be lots of cautionary tut-tutting about how we can’t “politicize” this incident, possibly with reminders of the “awful politicization” that took place at the funeral of Senator Paul Wellstone. (Well, it really didn’t take place there, but no matter — it’s almost part of the official narrative now.) And of course, the “both sides need to tone it down” camp will be right, because they’ll have a crazy murderer gunman on one side, and a DailyKos diarist on the other. And thus the center line will get nudged rightward yet again.

Oh, and this act will never actually be seen for what it is: Terrorism. Because terrorism is done by brown people with bombs, not white people with guns.

Ugh.

[Again, comments are closed for this entry.]

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Oh, man up, you little twerp.

Buffalo is hosting the World Junior Hockey Championships right now, and one of the visiting players went on Twitter and said that Buffalo is “the worst city ever”. Now, it could be argued that he does have some small beef here — namely, it’s not exactly clear what there is to do in Buffalo when you’re a teenager visiting from out of town and you’re staying downtown, a place that, aside from a few hot spots, isn’t known for being Activity Central. But still, it was pretty insulting. You get a trip that’s paid for and then rip on your perceived lack of entertainment? Yeah, pretty rude. So screw that kid.

Especially after he offered up a lame apology:

“My point to get across was not to put down a great host city like this. I know a lot of people put in time and effort to make this thing possible.”

So what possible rationale could there be for this kid’s Tweet other than to rip on a city he felt was boring him to tears when he wasn’t on the ice?

Lord knows, Buffalo isn’t the greatest hotbed of activity. Especially not downtown. And maybe the organizers could have factored that into the age considerations of the people they were hosting; I don’t know (Alan Bedenko has been covering this beat today). What I do know is that this kid’s a boorish ass who can’t even man up and own the words he himself put out there, so I for one don’t really care if he’s bored or not.

This reminds me of when Willis McGahee was with the Bills and was bitching about the lack of clubs around for young black men. I remember thinking, “Gee, Willis, you make a pretty nice paycheck — why not open such a club yourself?”

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Thanking Barack

My general opinion of Barack Obama is, I think, kind of middle-of-the-road among people on my side of the political fence. I do think he could have accomplished more in his first two years had he done things differently, but I’m not unhappy with, or unaware of, the surprisingly large roster of things that he and his administration have gotten done. I’m not wild about some of the stuff he’s done or left undone in the area of personal liberties, executive power, or the wars overseas, and I hope he betters his record in those areas in years to come.

But I will say this: if Obama was such a dud in the White House that he accomplished absolutely nothing else other than denying John McCain the Presidency, well…I’d owe Obama some thanks just for that, alone. I never liked John McCain to begin with — his “Maverick” bullshit always struck me as preening for political effect, and not terribly reflective of actual thoughts on issues — so I, unlike many in Washington, am not surprised to see McCain tossing aside all of his goodwill and firmly embracing his true role of angry, bitter old man. But it can still be pretty breathtaking to see the depths this man is willing to plumb. John McCain is a mean, useless son-of-a-bitch, and the sooner he is out of public life, the better. Hell, I’d settle for the Washington media establishment to start the process along by not acting as though McCain is some kind of insightful voice on any issue at all.

Imagine if this guy had actually become President. So, thank you, Barack Obama.

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An antidote to annoyance

As you all might expect, I am seriously irritated by my lack of Internet connection at home and the Keystone Kops manner in which EarthLink is going about fixing it. The latest? Out of curiosity I decided today just to see if maybe my phone was causing some kind of problem, so I experimented with plugging it in, unplugging it, et cetera, just to see if my DSL would come on. And what did I find out?

Since their “tech” came out, my landline has apparently been dead too! What the hell did they do, shut off my entire phone line instead of fixing it?

AGGHHHH!!!

So I’m annoyed and need something to amuse me. Which brings me to…some pie-throwing action.

Antigone Magazine is trying to raise money by selling calendars; in an effort to drum up business, the editor, a young woman named Amanda Reaume, has decided to take a pie in her face for every ten calendars they sell. They must be up to thirty, because so far, she’s received three:

Self-inflicted, too — that takes some moxie.

And then there are Ten Unexpected Pies in the Face:

And…ten more (with a Star Wars one)!

OK, that’s helping my mood. A bit, anyway. Harumph.

Stupid EarthLink.

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Stop the dreading!

Hey all! I hope everyone has had an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. More to come later on mine, of course, but this annoyed me greatly when I went to the Buffalo News website on Friday morning. I saw this headline, with the text right under it:

On Black Friday, forecast is for white

Southtowns, at least, are expecting 1st snow as winter makes its long-dreaded return to WNY.

The Southtowns are the suburbs south of Buffalo, as you might expect. (Thus, the location of Casa Jaquandor.) So what’s irritating about this? That qualifying phrase in the sub-head: long-dreaded.

I, for one, like snow just fine. Sure, I get tired of it in March, but I also get tired of hot weather in September but it’s fine in June. Point is, there is entirely too much hating of the snow around here, and there is entirely not enough embracing it. Every time we openly admit that we “dread” the snow, as far as I’m concerned, we’re openly admitting as a region that we really wished we were someplace else.

Well, I don’t wish I was someplace else. I like it here, snow and all, so let’s stop acting like the snow is this awful thing, OK? You know what, Buffalo? Maybe the rest of the country would stop acting as though Buffalo is a godforsaken snowy wasteland all months of the year if we stopped acting like it is too.

Snow rules. Embrace it! And those that don’t want to? Charlotte, NC beckons.

End of rant.

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I probably hate this, so let me tell you what I think of it!

Here’s the kind of review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that’s driving me crazy. I’ve seen a bunch of these over the last few days, all striking the same kind of tone, but this one takes the cake. Why oh why oh why should I take even remotely seriously the opinion of a person who leads off thusly:

Fans know the tales better than I; I stopped reading the books after the third entry, and have only enjoyed the movies intermittently. The first two, directed by Chris Columbus, were too faithful to their source material to have much life or personality. The next couple had moments of macabre delight in part because they strayed from their predecessors’ literalness but also felt curiously static; formula crushed the energy from them to the point that I skipped the fifth altogether. I did see the sixth, but cannot remember a single frame.

I’m not saying you have to be a fan to review the film, but it’s the final chapter of a larger tale. If you’re going to grapple with it, then you really should have some working knowledge of what has gone before. This kind of thing is like reviewing, oh, A Tale of Two Cities and saying, “Well, I didn’t really like the first ten chapters, skipped a bunch of the next ones, but here’s my take on the book’s last six chapters anyway.”

Ultimately this goes back to my deep, deep aversion to the whole notion of “objectivity” where Art is concerned. I remember arguments I’d have on rec.music.movies, for instance, where someone would say, “Well, the score to [Movie Title Here] is nice, but when you listen to it objectively, you realize it’s not that good.” I’d respond with the obvious point that no, you’re not being “objective”, you’re just being negative but trying to give yourself an air of authority by claiming “objectivity”.

I submit that if someone says “I really don’t know anything about Harry Potter”, then their opinion on the new movie is next to useless. And that goes for everyone, including Roger Ebert. If someone who loves Harry Potter doesn’t like the film, that’s interesting to me. Otherwise, it’s just people who don’t like spinach offering reviews of a cookbook of spinach recipes.

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