Thursday, January 6, 2011

Your Suffering Is Putting Me Off My Pu-Pu Platter

Dr. Diane Medved is another in an increasingly long line of wingnutty head-shrinkers who believes that a just God permits misery to exist in the world solely to spoil her view of Waikiki Beach.   But who, you may ask, is Dr. Diane Medved?  Well, according to her Townhall bio, she's "a clinical psychologist and best selling author," by which Dr. Medved apparently means she wrote a book in 1989 entitled The Case Against Divorce: Discover the lures, the lies, the emotional traps of divorce--plus the seven vital reasons to stay together, about which one of the two quoted reviews observes, "it lacks compassion and is almost frightening in its gloom-and-doom predictions. In addition, the statistics Medved uses appear skewed to support her argument without being remotely objective."

She's also Michael Medved's wife, according to Wikipedia, but doesn't mention this fact in her bio, for which no person with more compassion than she has would blame her.  Anyway, on to the holiday-despoiling hobos!
Homeless in Hawaii
Leave it to the homeless to dampen my enthusiasm for paradise.  
Imagine when she gets to Heaven and finds all those lepers, tax collectors, and prostitutes Jesus hung out with standing around, ruining the view and depressing the property values.  No doubt the words, "Hey!  You!  Get off of my cloud!" will be among the first to drop from her postmortem mouth.
I haven't blogged in awhile as I'm in Hawaii, the best new-empty-nesters gift my husband could have given me this winter. I'd rather have a warm downpour than a frigid one, and the overcast skies punctuated by monsoon-style cloudbursts have offered enough intermittent sunshine to allow us some beachy afternoons and great tete-a-tetes with friends to create some fabulous photos and indelible memories. 
But the tete-a-tetes were tainted when she found herself vis-a-vise with the sort of people who are tactless enough to be poor and allow themselves to be exposed to monsoon-style cloudbursts without recourse to a cabana and a banana mango smoothie.
Equally memorable were the "landed-homeless" whose blue-tarp-covered heaps of possessions pock the grass-strips between sidewalk and street, even in the most touristed areas of Waikiki.
Are there no truncheons?  Are there no water cannon or police dogs?  What kind of paradise is this?
Their tents pitched under banyans in parks and their groaning shopping carts draped with plastic bags stationed along sidewalks remind us that hospitable liberal government would rather enable freeloading on public property than business to high per-square-foot rent-paying establishments.
Here's where we see the superiority of conservative economic theory in action.  The homeless can be legally barred from private property, and if public properties, such as parks, are turned over to high rent-paying establishments, then they will have nowhere to pitch their tents.  And once the habitat of a species is destroyed, extinction usually follows.  After all, you've never had your shopping, sun-bathing, or rum-drinking disturbed by a Stellars Sea Cow, have you?
I've seen matted-haired scavengers picking through trash bins along the beach, and even right in front of Kalakaua Avenue designer shops, searching for cans to redeem for pennies.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, but at least they didn't block Ferragamo's display windows.
On a drive around the island, we saw a public elementary school lawn food distribution, long tables of comestibles seemingly offered to anyone approaching. 
Dr. Medved's skewed statistics show that children who are exposed to charitable giving at a young age are at a higher risk of contracting infantile compassion or pediatric moral compass.
On last night's walk, we saw a guy lying asleep on the Kalakaua thoroughfare sidewalk...His clothes and person were dark with dirt, in contrast to the white sidewalk. What an appealing incentive to spend big bucks in Fendi, Coach, and the other glitzy stores a few feet away. 
Just because you have to sleep on concrete doesn't mean you shouldn't do all you can to promote the Chamber of Commerce.
We've been privileged to come to Honolulu, where my husband works during our stays, many times over the years. I've never seen so many and such conspicuous homeless encampments, just plopped down in the most desirable footage on the planet. 
Government success stories are few and far between, but it seems obvious that Indian Reservations provide the best model for dealing with the homeless.  First, deport them internally to the least desirable footage on the planet, where they can wallow in unemployment and alcoholism, far from the better beaches, and higher end leather goods shops.  Then, in about a hundred years, allow them to build casinos.  Problem solved.
[Hawaiian's] "shaka" attitude of casualness goes a little too far when tourists are forced to step around some pretty disgusting inhabitants, and doesn't serve those individuals or their neighbors at all. 
Dr. Medved is the author of the forthcoming travel guide, Exterminate All The Brutes! from Kurtz & Marlowe Press.

29 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

Dr. Mrs. Medved's pile of hate was not well-received at her very own web log, but she ran w/ it at the nepotism log anyway.

She should be a shoo-in for Worst Person (To Have Publicly Admitted It) in The World This Wk.

Woodrowfan said...

OK, I got out of the boat for this one. Yep, she is just as vile as she appears.

preznit said...

"Hey! You! Get off of my cloud!" will be among the first to drop from her postmortem mouth.

following in the footsteps of Abe Simpson and Grampy McSame

and a banana mango [strike]smoothie[/strike] daiquiri.
FIFY


would rather enable freeloading on public property than business to high per-square-foot rent-paying establishments.

I see a modest opportunity for a Jonathon Swift's Long Pig and Poi Hut franchise

Glennis said...

On last night's walk, we saw a guy lying asleep on the Kalakaua thoroughfare sidewalk...His clothes and person were dark with dirt, in contrast to the white sidewalk. What an appealing incentive to spend big bucks in Fendi, Coach, and the other glitzy stores a few feet away.

Jesus Fuck!! Oh no she di-nt! The sight of a homeless guy who can't eve find a place to shower or sleep harshed her fucking Fendi bag lust? heaven forfend.

sarah said...

what a truly contemptible essay.

Bill S said...

I'm speechless. This is just jaw-droppingly offensive.
I used to think Michael Medved was one of the stupidest wingnuts alive. Now I KNOW he is, because why else would he marry such a completely contemptable asshole?

D. Sidhe said...

You know, being married to Michael Medved and so fucked up about divorce that you feel like you're stuck there forever would probably leave most of us so emotionally damaged it would start to uncoil our actual DNA, but even so she is such an awful person that I am now considering feeding myself to the cats out of species-shame.

Bill S said...

Oh, I assumed that book on divorce was a warning to HIM.
I'm sure of the two of them, which one would be worse to be chained to for life.

Bogie said...

The guillotine was made for people like her.

heydave said...

Verily, I am mild of temperament and oft times lacking in rage, and the dear lady's woes both tire and unnerve me... nah: Shut The Fuck Up, Asshole!

The wife of a friend revealed herself to share these feelings to me not too long ago. After quoting her the very same line, she speaks to be so seldom now.

Kathy said...

If those high end retail establishments were run by individuals rather than soulless corporations, the owners would get together and create a shelter or two (maybe even tax-deductible) for the pitiful homeless. But corporations such as Purina or IMB which actually own the "made in China or Thailand for slave wages "Designer Stuff"" won't cut into their staggering billions in profit for so much as a penny. Gotta keep the $20 million bonuses coming.

Brian Schlosser said...

Good God, if you were ever going to write a parody of a hate-mongering, mean-spirited, wingnut screed, don't bother. The real thing is 1000x worse.

What a truly vile and contemptible harridan.

Anonymous said...

Are you SURE she's not Robin of Berkeley's sister?

Hmmm...I guess she doesn't think all those homeless might have something to do with the recent economic implosion....

Think she'd support "death panels" for the homeless? That way, the streets around her Fendi and Couch stores would be as sparkly-clean as those in Marie Antoinette's Versailles...

Another Giver said...

The Case Against Divorce: Discover the lures, the lies, the emotional traps of divorce--plus the seven vital reasons to stay together.

In her sleep does she start screaming for Henry VIII?

I also find it ironic that she manages, against all odds, to make the case for divorce in the title of her book.

searching for cans to redeem for pennies.

And she manages to come out against market solutions for reducing pollution and waste (while being wrong about the difference between a "penny" and a "nickle") while she strives at the same time to

...remind us that hospitable liberal government would rather enable freeloading on public property than business to high per-square-foot rent-paying establishments.

Yes, it's liberal government's fault that there's not enough money for shelters, not enough mental health care to help the indigent, not enough money for law enforcement AND not enough jobs for people to work at for pennies. Solution: MORE PRADA!

Finally: [Hawaiian's] "shaka" attitude of casualness goes a little too far when tourists are forced to step around some pretty disgusting inhabitants, and doesn't serve those individuals or their neighbors at all.

Uh, if you don't like their culture or how they deal with their society's most vulnerable citizens, there is NO ONE compelling you to go Hawaii.

More and more I'm thinking that the Jacobins have gotten a bad rap.

Kathy said...

"the best new-empty-nesters gift my husband could have given me this winter..."

She hates her kids, too. Thank God they're finally, finally GONE.

Tehanu said...

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, but at least they didn't block Ferragamo's display windows.

Brilliant. And may this woman receive exactly the amount of compassion herself, when she's old and sick, as she displayed with this shameful screed.

Julia said...

You know, the rest of it is more or less covered, so I'll just go with

We've been privileged to come to Honolulu, where my husband works during our stays, many times over the years.

So she's all bent out of shape because the homeless harshed [one of] her vacation[s] in Hawai'i, _which her husband _deducts from his taxes_

You really have to love this family. They on the record have more compassion for Mel Gibson and Jack Abramoff than they do for people living on the street.

mndean said...

Appropriate eternal punishment for her: A cloud that perpetually rains urine and feces on her and her alone. Robin's a pissant complainer next to our new Marie Antoinette/Leona Helmsley.

Happily, the comment by preznit above gave me an idea for lyrics to a comic song entitled "Long Pork and Poi", which I may even finish.

James Briggs Stratton "Doghouse" Riley said...

On the other hand, it is nice to have one's lifetime opinion of Michael Medved verified independently.

round guy said...

You'd think the homeless would have the decency to swim to some less desirable island so they didn't interrupt her vacation.
Damned inconsiderate of them frankly.

StringonaStick said...

She's just carping because her husband never got rich enough for them to be able to buy their very own, homeless-free island. Fucking loser.

This is part of the humilation she rubs in his face everyday, and it so matches that humiliatingly stupid moustache; I'm sure she makes him wear that too, and that it figures prominently in their bondage-submission-humiliation scenarios.

Aimless in Florida said...

"First, deport them internally to the least desirable footage on the planet, where they can wallow in unemployment and alcoholism,..."

So another Trail of Tears to add to our county's list of outrageous acts. Here we have the insight into the feeble thinking that caused the first one.

Kathy said...

I had a roommate who really did think the Homeless should be rounded up and put in a camp in Montana. Because, she said, everyone knows the homeless are the main cause of Country's problems.

Why she chose Montana I don't know.

Li'l Innocent said...

When you guys courageously excavate one of these potpourris of hatefulness and arrogance and find the (even more) courage to poke fun at them, I always wonder whether the authors, deep down within themselves, know that they're being mean and selfish and evil. And whether they're flaunting and posturing and shooting up random jets of conservative political theory to cover that knowledge.

I just wonder.

Scott said...

Why she chose Montana I don't know.

Well, there was a Japanese-American internment camp at Ft. Missoula in World War II, so maybe she figured it would be cheaper to just repurpose the existing barbed wire.

Chris Vosburg said...

I've never seen so many and such conspicuous homeless encampments

Her fault, innit, oughta get out more.

Anonymous said...

Wow...did she fly a plane into the World Trade Center or something? Oh, never mind...I forgot...if she'd done that, you would have written nothing but compassionate, weepy platitudes about her.

Glennis said...

I know this is an older post, but in the spirit of Jon Swift's efforts, I re-read it and even got out of the boat and read the entire article at Ms Medved's site.

And the comments.

The last commenter at Ms. Medved's site spoke in favor of her article, and left this little statement of principle:

NO ONE should have the right to just plop down where ever they want--beachfront no less!

There you go - without a bit of irony - the creed of the party of Freedom.

Anonymous said...

Sad...Hawaiian people are so out of touch... They are of the highest welfare rate in the country... I think LBJs comment was probably meant to Hawaiians...sad that this sleuth of islands could be a distribution center for goods other countries..but instead they suck off the mainland..with their take care of me culture.... It sure isn't Paradise, that's for sure..

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