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Tuesday, July 13, 2004
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Big Recording Star Family Circus
Today's Cartoon (See it here):
Jeffy and PJ are standing at attention and facing Dolly.
Dolly is dressed in an Ann Coulter black mini-dress (but she ruined the effect by wearing a blouse under it, and by having some curves). She is holding a microphone which is plugged into a home sound system.
Dolly says, "When I'm a big recording star you guys cab be my backup singers."
Analysis:
Yes, Dolly is going to be a rock star, and her little brothers can be her backup. They could call themselves Dolly One-Nostril and the Poops. (As somebody -- I don't mean to slight anybody, but I'm too tired to go back and check who -- said about an earlier cartoon, PJ does seem to carrying a full load in his diaper.)
And why is Dolly's mouth the shape of a black bucket? Why is PJ's head twice as wide as it is long? These aren't children, they are hideous mutants or evil space aliens!
Prediction:
Tapes of prewar, pre-9/11 White House conversations will surface. It will turn out that invading Iraq was really all Karen Hughes' idea, with Dubya (Billy, clutching a piece of paper so that nobody will ask him to do any work, a trick he learned in Business School) and Cheney (sweet, innocent, baby PJ) just backing her up in the plan. The tapes also will reveal that Karen is a foul-mouthed, paranoid, control freak who is, in real life, Ann Coulter, and that she left the White House, not to spend more time with her family, but to write Slander. After the tapes come out,"Ann's" career will be kaput, but Karen will get her own AM radion talk show, which will be a big success.
Yeah, like you could do better.
But maybe Pete can -- let's read what he had to say some seven or eight hours ago. (He really CAN predict the future!)
As usual my schedule has forced me to provide tomorrow's prediction today. Turkee did finally manage to get one thing right, though (well, two if you count her mention of the 40s)...Bil Keane is now beginning to discuss music history.
Analysis: Today's cartoon has Alison wearing a black dress and black hair scrunchy. Given her somewhat Gothic, early 80s appearance (and vintage recording equipment), we see that she represents the legendary Siouxsie Sioux. Little Turkee and the strange deformed interloper, though, most assuredly do not represent the Banshees. No, little Turkee once again represents Clear Channel music. Notice that he holds an "acceptable playlist" in his left hand. In other words, he's trying to silence the creativity and haunting beauty of the underground Dark Wave scene with his mass-market-driven, profit-oriented garbage. Notice how his silent side-kick has no face (or personality)? That's because he represents the blindly accepting masses who have been lulled into listening to sterile, pre-programmed schlock by the Turkees of the world.
Prediction: Clear Channel will not allow any anti-war billboards to go up in Times Square. A few visionary voices will use this opportunity to capture the imagination of the American people via blogging (BlondeSense comes to mind), causing the Boy Emperor to lose this year's election and Clear Channel to begin "backing up" in the face of true art and passion.
Will Preznit or Alison call Pete on his libel? Will somebody offer the definitive take on today's cartoon? Will Mommy stop taking thalidomide while pregnant? Stay tuned for all the answers!
7:30:54 AM 
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Operation "Coals to Newcastle"
Via Andrew Sullivan, we learned of this great idea that Winds of Change came up with:
Operation "Buy Hitchens a Drink!"
Have you read Christopher Hitchens before, and wanted to show your appreciation? Well, our secret agents of Department 13 1/2 have been hard at work, and now you can do just that... ... by buying Hitch a drink, on the blogosphere!
Truly, a fitting salute to our favourite leftist contrarian.
Here's the drill. We have a PayPal button set up below. Donating $5-10 to this campaign won't save the world or anything grandiose - just help buy Christopher Hitchens some bottles of Johnny Walker Red (his libation of choice). These will be delivered to him, along with a note of appreciation and thanks from the Blogosphere that includes all of the contributing bloggers and readers. Delivery will be handled by the aforementioned secret agents - and yes, we really can do it.
Over to you, ladies and gentlemen....
I think Operation "Help Hitchens Drink Himself to Death" is a great idea, and I support it 100%! (Support it intellectually, I mean -- morally, I feel it's the same as buying booze for alcoholic homeless people, so I won't be donating any cash).
Anyway, I suggest the blogosphere's next project should be Operation "Buy a Bunch of Scary Books About How Terrorists are Targeting America, Specifically Minnesota, for James Lileks." You know, to thank him for all he does.
6:41:01 AM
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There Are Medications That Can Help
Quiz Time: Who do you think would appear goofier in a Front Page Mag interview -- the authors of Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, or the interviewer?
Well, if you recall that the FrontPag Mag interviews are conducted by Jamie Glazov, the mag's managing editor, then the answer is easy: the interviewer will be the looniest.
Let's watch.
Frontpage Interview’s guests today are David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke, the authors of the new book Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.
[...]
FP: When you listen to Moore’s language, it is hard to decipher the difference between his ideology and that of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro. What would you say motivates Moore? What is the impulse that lingers behind his vision?
Hardy: Let's be fair to totalitarians! Moore is just a wannabe fan. In our book we explore the parallels between his behavior and an emotional illness known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder -- an illness which also features in totalitarian leaders. It combines an apparent, and I stress apparent, overblown ego with an inner self-loathing. Look at what Moore most loathes -- and he IS it. A very wealthy, white, American male. He is what he hates.
Jamie thinks that Moore's ideology is the same as that of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Castro. Hardy co-wrote a book diagnosing Moore with a mental disorder, basing his conclusions on a DSM IV entry and a dislike of Moore's work. So, that round is basically a toss-up. Let's go on the next question.
FP: I don’t think that you need a vision “beyond that” to be put into the same category as the mass murderers of the 20th century. I am not saying that Moore is a murderer; what I am saying is that the ideas, impulses and characteristics that motivate him are the same ones that led to the socialist killing fields of the last century. [snip]
Mr. Clarke, what are your insights here in connection to Moore’s philosophy and character and how it relates to the longing for totalitarianism?
Clarke: [a bunch of psychobabble snipped]
Frankly, I think it's giving Moore far too much consideration to even suggest in hindsight view that his theories are equivalent to those of the most violent political theorists of the past. Fortunately, I also believe that the effects of his worldviews on his followers are to date, in most cases, equally inconsequential.
Although we make a strong case in the book that the potential exists for his sermons to inspire violence as it has with thinkers and leaders from the past, I would offer that the biggest difference between Moore and those we compare him to is that a majority of Moore's followers exist in the same vacuum he creates from. With the notable exception of the defense attorney for one of the Bali nightclub bombers, who quoted from Moore's Stupid White Men during the trial, we've fortunately documented no other meaningful examples of Moore's ideology relating to any tangible acts of violence.
Um, Mr. Clarke, a defense attorney citing somebody's work at trial isn't the same thing as "inspiring violence."
But to recap the above exchange: Jamie puts Moore in "the same category as the mass murderers of the 20th century." Clarke says that Moore and his "followers" are basically inconsequential. I'd have to say that Jamie wins the crazy points that time.
FP: I don’t think we are in disagreement gentlemen. What I am basically getting at is that Moore does not have to be a great intellectual or to even understand what he is talking about to be related to the species that spawned the communist killing fields. All you really need is some self-contempt combined with the ignorant belief that there are no limits to human hope. Then when you start your social engineering experiment to purify the environment around you. . . .we know the end result.
I like how Jamie declares that he isn't wrong because they can all agree that anyone who feels "some self-contempt," and ignorantly believes that "there are no limits to human hope"(?), is pretty much the same as Stalin, Mao, and all the other Commie dictators. (I guess Moore isn't like Hitler, because [a] Hitler apparently believed that there were limits to human hope; and [b] Jamie only hates Commies.)
But since Jamie realizes he's on shaky ground, he gets back to the psychoanalysis.
FP:Could you kindly expand a bit on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder and how you find it in Moore?
Hardy: Jason and I have the advantage here in that we are completely unbiased, since we have neither a background in psychiatry nor an opportunity to interview the patient.
Hey, that's what I look for in someone doing a psychological assessment.
Hardy: That said, Moore has a number of traits which parallel the classic symptoms of NPD.
[Snip more crap about Moore's ego and his (deduced by Hardy and Clarke to meet the NPD diagnostic standards) self-loathing.]
FP: Hearing these descriptions, I get shudders just thinking about being this guy. He strikes me as the kind of pathetic soul who was picked on all his life in school and dealt with it by drowning 24 cans of coca-cola a day while plotting revenge in his basement. Now he is getting back at the world by hating his own country.
That's odd. Reading Jamie's words, he strikes me as the kind of pathetic soul who desperately misses the Soviet Union because hating it gave his life meaning. He tries hating liberals, blaming them for everything that is wrong with the world (thus imbuing them with all of the failings that he secretly senses in himself, and using their imagined evil to try to convince himself that he is good and worthy of love, because he isn't one of THEM), but it just isn't the same. So, without that warming glow of hatred to let himself know that he's alive, he feels he feels hollow and unsatisfied all the time.
I don't get shudders thinking about being this guy (because I have no fear about actually being him), but I do feel sorry for him.
6:29:24 AM
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2004
World O' Crap.
Last update:
7/31/2004; 4:51:27 AM.
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