Friday, August 30, 2013

Happy Birthday, Doc Logan!

I hope everyone's having a pleasant Friday.  It's a bit miserable here at the House of Crap (apologies to Stan Lee). The temperature in Hollywood is in the low nineties, while body temperatures are in the low hundreds, thanks to a flu bug Mary brought home from school.  But I wanted to spend at least a few woozy moments at the computer to highlight the natal anniversary of old and valued Crapper Doc Logan.

Now, I don't personally know what scientific discipline he labors in, but I like to think he's a mad Doc, and spends his days perfecting killer robots and death ray-equipped atomic war Zeppelins, because as we all know I was abandoned in the woods as a child and raised by Universal serials.  But whatever his speciality, we're glad he spends some of his non-world dominating time here with us, and hope he's having a festive day in the company of his loved ones, or crushing his enemies, whichever is more fun and involves fewer undignified paper hats.

So in Doc's honor, we're having Post-Friday Beast Blogging a day early, because he recently expressed a fondness for the feature:
I love the Moondoggie/Riley posts, they remind me of the days when I had a yellow lab (Gypsy, named after everyone's favorite Richard Basehart loving automaton) and a Belgian shepherd (Damien, named after the antichrist, naturally). Same color scheme as Moondoggie and Riley, and similar personalities. Both have long since passed on, but the Moondoggie/Riley pictures bring back pleasant memories.
It's hard to think of two more perfect connections, since we yield to no one in our love for Mystery Science Theater 3000 (in fact, if it weren't for MST3K: The Movie, Mary and I wouldn't have met, married, and be violently ill at the same time right now, so pardon me a moment of tear-dabbing sentimentality).  And of course, Damien also has a special place in our hearts, since I had to watch Omen III: The Final Conflict when we were writing Better Living Through Bad Movies, and it had such a profound effect on my psyche that I bought that entire Seven Knives of Meggido set they used to sell on late night cable TV.
RILEY:  Sooo...celebrating your birthday, are you?  Wallowing in nostalgia for a time when you were blind, gooey with amniotic fluid, and fighting your littermates for a sip off a teat, all the while hoping your mother wouldn't decide to just eat the lot of you?  Yes...I can see why you'd want to paste that in your memory book.

MOONDOGGIE:  Did you get a balloon?

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The Nutty Professor

Before starting a teaching job at one of California's many fine universities or junior colleges, the prospective instructor must first undergo a simple hazing ritual that involves looking upon the hideous visage of a Lovecraftian Elder God.  If the applicant survives, his new colleagues clap him on the back, and everybody goes out for drinks and appetizers at the Cheesecake Factory..

However, if a glimpse of Yog-Sothoth or Shub-Nigurrath reduces the candidate to a gibbering madness, he is immediately subdued by the able-bodied men present, immobilized with leather gyves and a stout canvas "restraining sheet," and offered the chance to pick up a little extra cash writing articles for American Thinker. Then everybody piles into the Party Bus and it's off to the Cheesecake Factory!

This week's Cthulhu-plagued pedagogue is Robert Oscar Lopez, English Professor at California State University-Northridge.  But before we get to Professor Lopez's particular moral hobbyhorse, let's take a moment to meet the man himself.

[cue The Dating Game theme]

Bachelor Number One describes himself as a "children's advocate" and the editor of English Manif, a bilingual French-English blog which promotes the idea that "The rights of children trump the desires of any group such as the LGBT lobby seeking control of children for their personal fulfillment."

When the Minnesota legislature was considering marriage equality, Bachelor Number One showed up twice to testify as an expert witness:
On March 12, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee a convoluted story about growing up with a lesbian mother, falling himself into a life of drugs and promiscuity as a young gay man and finally marrying a woman and becoming a father. The experience, he testified, scarred him for life.
I'm sure my Dad would agree with Professor Lopez that becoming a father can leave a few scars. Especially when the ungrateful little twerp refuses to mow the lawn or get a haircut.
"[My peers] learned, typically, how to be bold and unflinching from male figures and how to write thank-you cards and be sensitive from female figures. These are stereotypes, of course, but stereotypes come in handy when you inevitably leave the safety of your lesbian mom’s trailer and have to work and survive in a world where everybody thinks in stereotypical terms, even gays.”
"So in conclusion, Senators, when you consider upending an institution that has been a cornerstone of civilized society since time immemorial, please remember the stereotypical trailer lesbians. Thank you."
“Young adult men’s support for redefining marriage may not be entirely the product of ideals about expansive freedoms, rights, liberties, and a noble commitment to fairness,” he is quoted as concluding. “It may be, at least in part, a byproduct of regular exposure to diverse and graphic sex acts.”
As several scientifically rigorous, peer-reviewed studies have shown, the more porn stars toss each other's salad, the more the typical young adult man thinks about marriage.

Prof. Lopez appearing uninvited before the Minnesota State Senate Judiciary Committee to answer the eternal, if unasked question of how he caught The Gay from two lesbians in a mobile home.  The Committee unanimously voted his testimony the Worst Penthouse Forum Letter Ever.

Anyway, on with the Professor's lecture:

The International Gay War on Black People
The most blatant contempt toward black Americans I've seen recently has come from none other than the organized leadership of the LGBT lobby.
ME:  And where exactly did you see that, Professor?

LOPEZ:  Inside this kaleidoscope!   (BRANDISHES LIFELIKE 13-INCH RUBBER PENIS)

ME:  I thought kaleidoscopes were those cardboard tube thingies.  That actually looks more like an enormous dildo...

LOPEZ:  Of course it does!  Where else would you hide the LGBT lobby?  (PUTS THE MEATUS TO HIS EYE AND TWISTS THE FORESKIN BACK AND FORTH)  Ohhh, you should see how racist they're being in here. Also, if you turn it real fast, it looks like the opening credits of Family Affair.
Donnie McClurkin, an award-winning musician, was supposed to perform at the fiftieth anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march on Washington. McClurkin is a black Christian who has come forward with an inspiring life story. He was molested as a boy and developed homosexual behaviors, possibly as a result of the trauma.
I dunno, Prof...as inspirational TV movie fodder goes, it's not exactly Brian's Song.  And if we're going to offer pseudo-scientific explanations for same-sex attraction, we should make certain that we're absolutely sure of our fake facts.  Have you considered the possibility that Mr. McClurkin developed homosexual behaviors as the result of a vaccination?  Or maybe he was driven to knob-gobble after years of using Sexy Hair's Soy Renewal Nourishing Styling Treatment.  (By the way, is it just me, or does The Knobgobbler sound like a character from those old McDonaldland commercials?)
Later his faith helped him to overcome his homosexual desires and live a more biblical life.
Now he spends most of his time cuckolding Hittites and refusing to mix his fabrics.
Under pressure from gay power activists in Washington the mayor of Washington, D.C., Vincent Gray, decided to drop McClurkin from the concert. McClurkin was humiliated. LGBT activists felt that someone who had called homosexuality a "sin" could not perform at a concert commemorating the life and work of a black Christian reverend.
Well, he also called it a "curse," but maybe he was just talking about the way trailer lesbians synchronize their monthly cycles.

Professor Lopez goes on for awhile, so let me summarize: at this point he rehearses a litany of African-Americans who've said or done discriminatory things regarding gay people and gotten flack for it.  Why is he the spokesperson for Black Christendom?  Probably for the same reason he's the leader of a Children's Crusade against the LGBT powers of personal fulfillment.
The peculiar ideology of the LGBT lobby, however, seems fashioned perfectly to inflame the rage and resistance of African-Americans. First, the ideology is based on biological determinism. The repeated appeals to the Fourteenth Amendment depend upon the notion that homosexuals are born with their orientation in the same way black people are born with dark skin. This isn't the most inviting way to start a comparison: "Hi, I'm a guy who loves playing with other men's genitals, and that's just like you being black!"
I really need to quit using this as an icebreaker at the Apollo.
There is an added dimension to this dangerous form of essentialism, however. The LGBT lobby is driven by the belief that people whom they classify as "born homosexuals" must engage in the actual acts of sexual gratification with the same sex, or there is something wrong with them.
Dude, this is America.  TV commercials for fast food patty melts make you feel bad if you're not having sex -- straight, gay, or otherwise.  
Within this logic, it is impossible to go from homosexual activity to non-homosexual activity.
I had no idea homosexuality was so powerful that gay guys can't stop blowing each other long enough to make a pot roast or buy snow tires.
So convinced are LGBT activists of this rejection of free will and self-control that they have moved to make it illegal in California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts for counselors to help minors cease or avoid sexual activities with the same sex.
And if you outlaw an entire industry based on quack psychology and self-loathing, it will likely have drastic and deleterious effects on society.  For one thing, it may lead to a decrease in teen suicides.  Which, okay, I admit sounds good, but will almost certainly produce unintended consequences, such as...um...fewer Bobbie Gentry songs?
The LGBT lobby also demands that same-sex couples have the right to be parents. Here is where the movement becomes utterly irreconcilable with black history...For same-sex couples to become parents, they must purchase children. They won't call it that, of course. But buying sperm from a sperm-bank or renting a woman's womb both entail the exchange of money for ownership of a child. The state is then embroiled in the arrangement as an enforcer of the contract, compelling the child and third parties to respect the authority of two adults, one or both of whom are unrelated to the child, and both of whom came into possession of a dependent human being through money.
Ahhh...that explains this birth announcement I just got from my friends Mark and Pam:
How does this sound for a race of people who came out of slavery? Do you think it makes sense to tell black people, who were treated as chattel and stereotyped as savages incapable of self-control, that they ought to jump on board?
Had Harriet Beecher Stowe only known that slavery, which seemed such a cruel injustice in her day, would come to seem trivial compared to in vitro fertilization, she probably would have titled her book Uncle Tom's Sperm Bank.
Has it ever occurred to the LGBT lobby's loudmouths that they are fighting for segregation, not against it, so they shouldn't be comparing themselves to blacks fighting Jim Crow at all?
This should be good...
 After all, to fight for same-sex marriage means that the state endorses the creation of separate estates for male/male and female/female couples, with restricted access to property. Old marriage laws ensured gender diversity within households; same-sex marriage drives men and women into ghettoized enclaves.
So traditional marriage was really just affirmative action?  It was a quota system?  In other words, Professor, you're telling me that under the old law, even if I found a more qualified man to propose to, I could be forced by the government to marry a woman?  Alright, that's it!  I'm taking this all the way to the Supreme Court.
Laws against miscegenation were based on the idea that whites were born to mate with whites and not with blacks -- so why is racial history being cited by a lobby that thinks gays were born to mate with the same sex and not the opposite sex (orientation-mixing, which they view as unnatural and even want to outlaw in California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey?).
Wow. That makes so little sense I'm surprised the Professor doesn't teach criminology.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Happy Birthday, Julia and Brian!

Here's hoping they still drop by on occasion -- especially today, when shots are a dollar off and kids drink free!

As someone (probably Bill S.) has mentioned in the past, Brian and Julia share a birthday with actress Tuesday Weld...
...seen here with Steve McQueen, who is not having a birthday, but probably is having an erection -- so it's basically a party no matter how you look at it.  Anyway, please join me in wishing these old friends the very perkiest of natal days!

Monday, August 26, 2013

Nigerian Oil Minister Wants You to Read His Movie Review

By now, most people who follow me on Twitter know that I have a terrible sense of direction and they're really better off getting one of those GPS things and just meeting me there, but also that I write a semi-daily feature called "Spam as a 2nd Language." Which is why I spend an inordinate amount of time rooting through my email spam folder (something I have in common with the NSA), and today I discovered, amongst the usual come-ons for "NASA Doctors" who can "reverse Brain Age","'Fruit Pills' that melt fat," and Daily Caller articles that "really make sense!", a movie review from Jason Miller.  Not the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of "That Championship Season,"nor even Jason "Mayhem" Miller, the MMA fighter and reality TV show host; no, I'm talking about the Jason Miller: Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Philosophy, and a Revd.
FILM: BETRAYED:
The Clergy Killer's DNA
Run Time: 93 minutes
4 1/2 Stars
REVIEWBy: Revd. Jason Miller, D.D., Ph.D. 
4 1/2 stars does sound like a pretty impressive score. Unfortunately, like most super-patriotic film critics (his email is spoofed from "reagan.com"), the Revd uses a scale of 1 to 50 stars, just like the American flag.
BETRAYED: The Clergy Killer’s DNA is an extraordinary Christian Film that happens to be a documentary.
Really?  Can something as complex as a documentary just "happen"?  Scientists will tell you that the odds against such a random event occurring naturally are astronomical, and many believe it's much more likely to be the result of some sort of "intelligent design."  Or at least I did, until I saw this movie.
BETRAYED represents an art of cinematography that collects interviews with today’s leading theologians, ministers and preachers in breathtaking sequences explaining the Clergy Killer Phenomenon. 
Now some of you folks may be under the impression that "cinematography" is the "art of shooting motion pictures" and yes, sure, that's an art of cinematography, but filmmaking professionals like the Revd and I know there are many different arts of cinematography.  Some of them involve collecting interviews.  Some of them involve collecting novelty shotglasses or commemorative plates from the Franklin Mint.  The important thing -- the thing that makes it an art, and not just journeyman cinematography -- is to collect the right thing at the right time, which is where the Revd's expertise really helps to maximize the return on your investment.  Because the Bradford Exchange predicts that these collections of interviews with leading theologians, ministers and preachers may increase in value by over 40 percent!
US Films has produced a perfect documentary that was shot and lit in churches around the world
Shot and lit?!  You know your cinematographer is an artist when he instinctively grasps the concept of using light to expose film.
 and the film shows the struggles it took to get that perfect look. 
A long and bitter struggle, since they had to find the light switch in the dark, which led to several stubbed toes.
While watching this film, I felt every physical, spiritual and mental emotion possible.
Embarrassment?  Paranoia?  Existential nausea?  At what point in the film did you achieve erection (I just want to make sure I don't pick the wrong moment to run to the Mens Room)?
BETRAYED it is a Christian cinematic treasure. 
With any luck, some pirates will bury it.
A great documentary that concentrates on the real unsung heroes of our Christian Faith! 
Okay!  Although...given how many ministers and preachers pop up on the TV (and not just on Sunday, like back in the days of Fulton Sheen, Oral Roberts, and Garner Ted Armstrong), I'm not exactly sure I'd call them "unsung."  Nevertheless, if they feel they're suffering from a lack of musical encomiums, I'm sure we arrange with the Swing Choir to sing something in their honor at the next Folk Mass.
BETRAYED is the equivalent of our walk with Christ in troubling times facing the church today.A special feature on the DVD is a prayer by Dr. James Forbes that was shot in the Riverside Church in New York.
Was it lit there too?  I hear that makes a potent combination.
 While I was watching Dr. Forbes prayer I found myself praying with him for every minister and lay person in the world. The film rates 4 1/2 stars. If you have not been confronted with a Clergy Killer in your congregation, you need to watch this film. If you have been confronted with a Clergy Killer you need to watch this film.
If you think the title sounds more like a Roger Corman film from 1987 about a policewoman (Kay Lenz) going undercover as a topless dancer in a desperate effort to track down a defrocked priest (Greg Evigan) who's gone on a killing spree through L.A.'s seamy strip clubs, then you don't actually need to watch this film.
BETRAYED is the best protection you can buy for employment security and to ensure that your church continues to grow in the faith and love of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
That should be the film's tagline:  "It's Not Just A Movie! It's Also A Tax-Deferred Annuity!"
SYNOPSIS/BETRAYED
Shouldn't there be a colon instead of a slash there, Revd?  Or are you planning to start off recounting the plot, draw me in, then BETRAY me halfway through by switching to a description of the way Miley Cyrus twerked on Robin Thicke at the VMAs?  Huh?  Didn't think I'd realize what you were up to, but your punctuation BETRAYED you!

Oh, Irony, thou art a cruel mistriss.
 BETRAYED the film confirms that there is a pandemic stretching around the globe at an alarming rate, one of which most people are unaware even exists. It is a spiritual sickness that affects over 50% of all congregations, and every month it is responsible for over 1,500 clergy leaving active ministry worldwide. It has been one of the best kept secrets of the Church until the filming of Betrayed: A Clergy Killer's DNA.
That doesn't really grab me, sorry.  If the pandemic was turning your congregations into zombies, and the clergy were leaving active ministry because their churches are filled with mindless ravening cannibals and they've got to get to high ground, then I might go see your movie.
Medical experts, leading theologians, sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and church historians expose what is called the "Clergy Killer Phenomenon."
The "Abortion Doctor Killer Phenomenon" actually involves people getting, you know...killed, but nobody's going to shoot and light a documentary about that, so by all means let's invest two hours of our lives watching drama queen clergy go on long, Swaggarty weeping jags about how they're unappreciated.
 The reality of "the clergy killer phenomenon" is that evil has found a great vulnerability in organized religion. 
You say "vulnerability," I say "business plan."
 Among the many professionals interviewed is Dr. G. Lloyd Rediger, who coined the "clergy killer" phrase and is the world's premier authority on this growing syndrome. Some people, upon hearing the term for the first time, think it is too harsh and extreme and that no one deserves being called a clergy killer.
Except maybe those four dudes from Murder in the Cathedral.
 However, once people hear firsthand accounts of the devastation wreaked upon ordained men and women and their families and congregations, they understand comments from people like Dr. James Forbes, Senior Pastor Emeritus of Riverside Church in New York City, who say that the term "clergy killer" is not strong enough! 
Dr. Forbes coined the phrase "clergy fucker-upper," but admits he's just tossing out ideas off the top of his head.

Anyway, Revd, I gather you think we should all set aside some time to watch this important film?
There is no more time!
Yeah, I guess you're right.  Dance Moms is gonna be on in like an hour, and I haven't even started the laundry.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Oh For The Days When We Stank of Swank

This technically doesn't qualify as an S.Z. Sunday, since the post below wasn't written by s.z., but it does feature one of my favorite columns by former World O' Crap regular Pastor J. Grant Swank, Jr. (or, as Doghouse Riley always called him, "Ol' Glamor Shots").  Hope you enjoy...

Speaking in Forked Tongues (originally published August 2, 2010).

Good day, brothers and sisters. Before we begin, the elders have asked me to announce that during the following sermon, Wo’C spiritual guide J. Grant Swank is expected to reach a charismatic climax of such unusual force, distance, throw-weight, and viscosity, that you might want to leave your hat on.
Sarah Palin will be quizzed about political this and that. But when she runs for Oval Office, if she does, and it surely does appear as if it’s in her adrenaline swing, her being Christian will be shredded.
Listen boys, if you’re going to use the adrenaline swing during your sex orgies and rainbow parties, remember to apply adequate lubrication and ease into things, so you don’t wind up shredding her “Christian,” as the kids call it nowadays. Didn’t the Coach teach you anything in Mental Hygiene class?
She is not only Christian in the biblical definition, but also “evangelical” when it comes to tags.
So if you’re going to “know” her “Christian” in the “biblical sense,” that’s fine, but if, during a peak of passion, she begs you for an “evangelical,” remember to be safe and use a condom and a shoehorn. (NB: Some inexperienced young people confuse the “evangelical” with the “throttled pentecostal” — a form of auto-erotic asphyxiation that requires two wet suits and a dildo — or the “Quaker snaker,” which is basically regular anal sex, except one party is wearing a periwig.)
And not only “evangelical,” but charismatic/pentecostal. 
That issue alone will swab the deck.
(“Swabbing the deck” is also known as a “Cincinnati Bowtie” or a “Chinstrap Penguin.”)
The atheists, agnostics and generic secularists will warp and woof. They will holler and screech. They will write and scrawl. They will pull up the sewer tops from every evangelical and pentecostal persona in the past century.
Hey, slow down there, Pastor. I can’t keep running to the Urban Dictionary every time you discover a new fetish.
Further, they will take especially the pentecostal beliefs and strew them from coast to coast, then every continent. They will misplace them, misstate them, malign them and nail them to hell’s front door.
Then ring the bell and run!
Her local church will be swarmed with reporters. Her pastor will have to hide from media.
And from definite and indefinite articles.
Every churchgoer there in her hometown will likewise be buttonholed.
Also known as a “Davenport Corncobbing,” or a “Minnesota Widestance.”
Some will speak clearly regarding doctrine. Others won’t have a clue and so will stir up the theological pot to dirt.
Well, not everyone can speak with the clarity and eloquence of a Sarah Palin. Or a J. Grant Swank, for that matter.
Then First Dude will be quizzed till he’ll flee on dogsled.
If only he not flee on dogsled, First Dude could answer quiz. Quiz easy! “Friend? Good! Fire? Bad!
Palin children will be asked if they agree or disagree with family faith, especially the matriarch’s claim.
A Matriarch’s Claim is basically a Dirty Sanchez using Jean Naté and potpourri.
The Bible verses relating to miracles, the Second Coming and speaking in tongues will make front page fodder, mostly screwed up to the nth.
I tried screwing up to the nth once. It made me very chafed.
Imagine what Katie Couric will do with the Word.
It actually works better for me if I just think about baseball.
Those truly interested in the topic will be twittering and emailing and posting till their fingers fall off.
Well, it’s better than going blind.
In the meantime, God will oversee the mayhem and wonder what happened when Sarah Palin decided to run run run.
She should flee on dogsled!
The circus has not even started yet. Wait till they pitch the Big Tent.
Oh, I think you’re pitching a pretty big tent right now, Pastor.  You might want to wait a few minutes before you stand up.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The Paws That Refreshes Edition

MOONDOGGIE:  No, sure, we can watch The Walking Dead, that's okay...And, um, if you want to hold my hand during the scary parts, you can...I don't mind.

RILEY:  Yeah.  If I had a finger I'd be sooo flipping you off right now...

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

HTK

Real life has attacked our little household with a funnel cloud of man-eating fish this week, and the improbable CGI weather event shows no sign of relenting, so I'm afraid I won't have a new post up until tomorrow.  But you know what? I say when Life gives you a Sharknado, you make Sharknade -- so let's have a caption contest!  I'll get things started...
Looking back on his trip to the 1939 World's Fair, Bob was pleased by the theme of optimistic futurism, and thrilled by the advanced technology on display, but felt they might have taken it all a bit too far when it came to the design of the public toilets.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Wouldn't It Be Ironic If This Was My Last Post?


As we all know, there have been some major changes in the blogosphere recently, none of them good, and it's put me in a reflective mood.  Not highly reflective, like a mirror or a Mylar balloon, but thanks to an oily T-zone I definitely have a bit of a shine going, enough that you could probably use my face as a makeshift heliograph if you had to.

But mainly what's got me looking back, besides the recent passing of Doghouse Riley and the retirement of TBogg, is my realization that s.z. launched World O' Crap ten years ago today.  How or why we've kept this thing has going for a decade I cannot say, under advice of counsel, other than confiding that our success owes something to the elaborate subterfuge practiced by the two bumbling Yuppies in Weekend at Bernie's.

Speaking of Doghouse, in 2011 he wrote, on the occasion of our 8th anniversary:
Sorry I'm late, but I didn't know this old thing was still around.  
Mary, Scott, field reporter Bill S., and the inimitable sz, unrequited love of my life, except for that weekend in Chicago, thanks for all the laughs, especially the ones when I didn't feel like laughin'. And for drawin' such a great lineup of commenters.
...and as usual, put his finger on the cardinal point.  This place is still around because you guys are; otherwise it would mostly just be me jabbering away to myself about various mythical creatures, and there's plenty of that in Hollywood as it is.   So whether you discovered Wo'C at the old Salon Blogs, back when the url was a weird, anonymous string of numbers that not even Sheri nor I ever bothered to memorize, or at our own, ill-fated domain, or here on Blogspot, the Velveeta of Blogging Platforms™, I'd just like to say "thank you" for your touching, if baffling, belief that this place is worth a click.  Frankly, I don't see it, but you're all pretty smart people so I won't question your judgment, mostly because I've gotten really lazy after ten years spent arguing with idiots.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The "Everybody's a Critic" Edition

RILEY:  I don't care what you say -- Shark Week is bullshit.

MOONDOGGIE:  I like the characters.

RILEY:  "Apex predator"...HA!  I'd like to see that Great White catch a laser pointer dot!

MOONDOGGIE:  I think those two hammerheads are in love...

RILEY:  It'd just flop around on the carpet until it died.

MOONDOGGIE:  Ohhh...Then we'd have like two tons of huge, rotten, stinking fish corpse in the living room...We'd eat like kings!

Friday, August 16, 2013

Kissner Me, Stupid

What is it about criminology professors?  And what is it about California State University, Fresno?  First there was Dr. Professor Mike Adams, Ph.D, who taught criminology and wandered around Wilmington, North Carolina with a posse of personal pookas that included phantom Feminists, hallucinated hippies, and tongue-lashed lesbians.  Then we had Victor Davis Hanson, Cal State Fresno "classics professor" (his bio doesn't state what kind of classic he specialized in; could be anything, really -- Coke Classic, Classics Illustrated, Classical Gas...), who spent his spare time on a quest to find his stolen chainsaw and avenge himself on the thief, much like John Wayne hunted Natalie Wood and the Comanches who abducted her in The Searchers, except instead of tirelessly riding the deserts and prairies of the untamed West, he posted a bitchy, weirdly spelled complaint ("I left my chainsaw in the driveway to use the restroom inside the house. Someone driving buy saw it") at Pajamas Media.

Now comes Dr. Jason Kissner, "associate professor of criminology at California State University, Fresno," which is like the Reese's Peanut Butter cup you'd get if two men, each holding a bag of dog shit, collided on the street.

Clowning the Os

Translation: he's upset about the cashiered rodeo clown in Missouri, but also, like Dennis Prager, upset about our definitions!
I am going to be so bold as to suggest that many conservatives still do not want to come to grips with the true function of racial discourse in this country.
Yeah, they've been real shy about that lately.
Matters are not going to be set right until Americans take fully on board the brute fact that the "dialogue" on race in this country is, quite literally, psychotic.
Sadly, while Americans will allow brute facts to board, they still require them by law to sit in the back.  Happily, however, since our racial "dialogue" is "literally" psychotic, it may respond to treatment with antipsychotic medications.  Unhappily, since it's a pre-existing condition, we'll have to wait until 2014 before it's covered by insurance.
That this is so is easily seen by reflection that, for example, the racial "dialogue" we've been hectored about for several decades is in reality no "dialogue" at all; it is a monologue imposed by the powerful in order to decimate the values and individuality of the powerless.
Are you a powerless white person who's had a tenth of his values and individuality destroyed by all-powerful Negro monologists?  Try applying scare quotes to the problem.
When reality itself is completely contradicted by the description of it and the description is resolutely adhered to anyway, what you have is -- psychosis.
Yet Dennis said, "If we ceased using all arguments or descriptions because some people feel offended, we would cease using any arguments or descriptions," and frankly, I can't tell you who's right.  All I know is, if Lewis Carroll were alive today, he'd totally be stealing this shit.
In the current historical moment, the psychosis is quite functional: it serves to facilitate "progress" toward full blown Marxo-Fascism.
So hurry up, you guys!  It's Friday, and the sooner we fully board our brutal facts, the sooner we can get our Marxo-Fascism fully blown.  (FYI, there are Wet Naps in the glove compartment for after.)
Why was the rodeo clown branded a racist? Why did the MSM fail to question the veracity of Oprah's confabulation? Why was Zimmerman tried?
Why must I be a teenager in love?  These are serious questions, so take the weekend if you need to, but get back to me by Monday.
Because under Marxo-Fascism, individuals do not matter -- unless, of course, you are a member of the Ruling Class -- which is why, for example, people like Hypocrite Harry Reid feel no pressure to step down and support a minority candidate.
Okay, couple things here, Dr. KissMeKate...One, if the minorities are in charge, can't they just force H. Harry Reid to step down?  And if you're against Marxo-Fascism, but you want to start a class war, then it's only the Fascism you object to?
Thus, from the controlling vantage point of the Rulers, when the rodeo clown woke up on that "fateful" day, he was of course the same being he was when he fell asleep, which is to say either an overt racist, or a latent racist whose racism was, due to either the passage of time or the merest of deviations from Marxist script, invariably going to manifest itself.
Right...

I think this is the point in your criminology class where I'd give up taking notes and just log into Farmville.
If the first random white is not literally a racist, who cares -- the next one will be, and what's the first going to do about the false allegation? And, once more, what psychotic cares about the "literal" anyway?
That's a little unfair.  I may be psychotic, but I still know how to use the word "figuratively."
Surely there are tens of millions of racist white sales clerks and rodeo clowns in the suburbs of America!
I'll call Orkin.
The proof of this, of course, is that if these people were not racist, they would not live in the suburbs -- they would live in Detroit, which is, incidentally, where the clown Obama takes his "working" vacations, isn't it?
Uhhh...I dunno.  Is it possible for someone to get Mad Cow Disease mid-sentence?
In the minds of these radicals, all roads are racialized, and all racialized roads must lead to one destination
Meanwhile, in the minds of conservatives, all suits are Martinized!  All cars are Simonized!  This Week Only! (Please present coupon immediately upon ordering.)
This is of course strongly suggestive of the notion that behind the manufacturing of victims such as Trayvon lies hostility to liberty.
Well, immediately behind Traylon lay a meaner, more heavily armed Paul Blart, Mall Cop, but I take your meaning (first time this column! Yay, me.).
In sum, it is a brute fact
All aboard!
that the collectivist cabals that compose the federal government
...are exhausting our Strategic Alliteration Reserve.
If the Marxo-Fascist dictator and his followers do not like certain sales clerks or rodeo clowns of the world, we might ask whether it is because they do not like being clowned, and, similarly, whether it is because they do not like clowns. 
It would be decidedly odd if either if these possibilities were true.
Right...

Is it possible "criminology professor" isn't actually a teaching position, but just a really ineffective form of occupational therapy?

Thursday, August 15, 2013

That Old Black Magic

Dennis Prager is a member of two separate persecuted minorities -- he's a White Male, and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host -- so he's uniquely qualified to advise Native Americans on this whole "Redskins" controversy, and his recommendation ("Toughen up, Tonto") is typically pithy.
The Left Vs. the Redskins 
[W]hat's so bad about the name Redskins?
I presume Dennis is also baffled by hypersensitive sob sisters who object to using the word "Jew" as a verb.
Slate Argument One: "Here's a quick thought experiment: Would any team, naming itself today, choose "Redskins" or adopt the team's Indian-head logo? Of course it wouldn't." 
Response: There are many teams with names that wouldn't be adopted today. Who would name a team the "Red Sox," "White Sox," "Packers," "Dodgers," "Forty-Niners," "Steelers," or, for that matter, "Yankees?"
While "Trolley Dodger" wasn't complimentary, neither was it racially derogatory, but "Yankee" is, and always will be, a filthy epithet -- at least in the mouth of a Rand Paul aide.
Slate Argument Three: "Changing how you talk changes how you think. ... Replacing 'same-sex marriage' with 'marriage equality' helped make gay marriage a universal cause rather than a special pleading." 
Response: It's nice to have at least one left-wing source acknowledge how the left changes language to promote its causes.
"Left-wing source"?  I thought this was from Slate.
When more and more people began to suspect that global warming was not about to bring an apocalypse, and that, at the very least, it is in a pause mode, the left changed the term to "climate change."
Sigh...Did it, Dennis?  Did it really?
Both Terms Have Long Been UsedThe argument "they changed the name" suggests that the term 'global warming' was previously the norm, and the widespread use of the term 'climate change' is now. However, this is simply untrue. For example, a seminal climate science work is Gilbert Plass' 1956 study'The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change' ... Barrett and Gast published a letter in Science in 1971 entitled simply 'Climate Change'. The journal 'Climatic Change' was created in 1977 (and is still published today). The IPCC was formed in 1988, and of course the 'CC' is 'climate change', not 'global warming'.
Anyway, Dennis, you were lying saying...?
The "marriage equality" substitution for "same-sex marriage" is just one more example of dishonest manipulation of English.
Yes, it lacks the brutal honesty of rough-hewn, plainspoken, unmincing English such as "enhanced interrogation."
Orwellian manipulation of language by the left would be reason enough to oppose dropping "Redskins," a nearly 80-year-old tradition venerated by millions.
You could say the same thing about Jim Crow, Dennis, and that lasted eighty-nine years.
Response: "Whether people 'should' be offended by it or not doesn't matter; the fact that some people (SET ITAL) are (END ITAL) offended by it does." 
This is classic modern liberalism. It is why I have dubbed our age "The Age of Feelings."
Unlike "marriage equality," that one hasn't really caught on.
In classic progressive fashion, the Atlantic writer commits two important errors. 
Often a progressive will commit three errors, or sometimes only one in an article and the editor will hand it back, muttering, "It's good...but it's not a classic."
First, it does matter "whether people 'should' feel offended." If we ceased using all arguments or descriptions because some people feel offended, we would cease using any arguments or descriptions.
And if we can't have racist descriptions, we can't have any descriptions.  But we can't describe anyone as racist, because that might offend them.
We should use the "reasonable person" test to determine what is offensive, not the "some people are offended" criterion.
Specifically, the "reasonable white person" test.  It's actually a fairly simple test -- the tricky part is finding the raw material (hint: it's usually not found between 530 and 1700 on your AM radio dial).
On a recent broadcast of my radio show, I played excerpts of winning songs from the recent Eurovision Contest.
You are hard up for material.
One of them was from Hungary, and after I announced the Hungarian title, I jokingly translated it as "Let's invade Romania." 
A man called up, and in unaccented English said he was of Hungarian stock and that I should apologize for offending him and Hungarians generally. I told him that his taking offense at a harmless joke was his problem, not what I said.
Yeah, Mitteleuropeans are all weirdly sensitive about warfare, especially since that whole "Bosnian genocide" thing.  Just pour some more sör in your mustache-cup, György, and get over it.
Teaching people to take offense is one of the left's black arts
It's true.  In fact, that was my favorite course at Hogwarts.  I didn't get particularly good marks in the Cruciatus curse, or Avada Kedavra, but my dudgeon was quite high.
Outside of sex and drugs, the left is pretty much joyless and it kills joy constantly. The war on the "Redskins" name is just the latest example.
When you're a liberal, life is one big game of Mass Effect, only instead of killing geth or Reapers, you're blowing away glee and stubbornly racist sports nicknames.
Second, it is the left that specializes in offending: labeling the Tea Party racist
We didn't want to label them, but the FDA insisted.
...public cursing, 

displaying crucifixes in urine
Hey, what a weird coincidence -- that was my job when I worked as a volunteer for Clinton in '92.  Got pretty good at it, too, and eventually they sent me to New Hampshire to pee the candidate's name into snowbanks.
...and regularly calling Republicans evil (Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column last month, wrote that the Republican mindset "takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable." For such people to find the name "Redskins" offensive is a hoot.
Yes, but Dennis, racial characteristics are inborn; evil is a choice.  We thought you'd be flattered that we've adopted your reasoning on gay rights.
The New Republic announced on Thursday that it would follow Slate's lead. And Mother Jones said on Friday it, too, will avoid using this R-word. They join The Washington City Paper, Washington online site DCist.com, the Kansas City Star and football writers at the Buffalo News and the Philadelphia Daily News. If the Redskins have any pride, they should not allow reporters from any of these publications into the Redskins locker room or give them free seats to any Redskins games.
Because that would prove Washington owner Daniel Snyder's point: "I'm not racist, I'm just petty!"
The logo of the National Hockey League team, the Ottawa Senators, features a helmeted male senator of the Roman Empire. In the name of not offending the transgendered and of gender equality, the left will one day find that offensive, too; and demand that the logo feature a helmeted female as well.
I suspect a lot of transgender people look forward to the day when a Canadian hockey mascot is their biggest problem.  In the meantime, I've got to deal with a world in which my sexuality is represented by Dennis Prager.
That is one of many reasons to fight the left on changing Redskins name. The left never stops.
And rust never sleeps.  And cheaters never prosper (as I'm sure one of your ex-wives told you at the property settlement).  And diamonds are forever.  I know, I know, I'm not telling you anything new, Dennis, but I can think of one phrase you evidently haven't heard...

Pick your battles, for fuck's sake.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

I Sense a Disturbing Trend Here...

You've probably heard the sad -- the latest -- sad news, but TBogg is retiring.  Not from work, to spend more time with his blog, but from blogging, to spend more time with his bassets (and wife and daughter, I suppose).  This outrage probably couldn't come at a worse time, and I was about to register a strong and full-throated complaint, perhaps even gather a rabble and rouse them, but three moral considerations stopped me cold:

(1.)   His reason is actually difficult to argue with:
What tipped the scales this time was the recent loss of the brilliant and greatly missed Doghouse Riley whom, I will note, was younger than moi when he passed so suddenly. As was Jon Swift. And Steve Gilliard. And Jim Capozzola. For me, this was a mortality wake-up call.
(2.)   I'm not sure on what legal grounds I could sue him for discontinuing my free entertainment.  Alienation of amusement?  Or perhaps, since he's been making me laugh for 12 straight years, my attorneys could argue that I have an easement.

(3.)  I can't remember my login at Firedoglake.

Actually, Tom Boggioni (as I assume we may now safely call him without peril of getting a National Security Letter from the FBI) and Doug Case were a lot alike -- each was a smart, jaded, middle-aged dude with a brutal command of the English language and his heart in the right place.

In addition to his other virtues, Tom was extremely generous with his Internet brand of fame and influence.  S.z. thanked him by name (well, by pseudonym) on WoC's first blogiversary, remembering when "a phenomenal blogger named TBogg (if that is his real name) was guilted into linking to this blog, and I knew the thrill of having more than 100 readers".  Other bloggers were also kind enough, back in those halcyon days, to give this blog a leg-up, including Seb of Sadly, No!, Atrios, and the still-missed Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review, who passed away in 2007.  But Sheri always considered TBogg to be WoC's "blogfather" (pending results of the blood test), since he was one of the first and most frequent champions of her writing.

As for his own writing, he should be Knighted for Services to the Blogosphere just for the Nine Million Names of Gurdon he coined in his "America's Worst Mother" series, but when you factor in the thousands of other posts over a dozen years, embracing everything from book and music recommendations to new and exciting sobriquets for Sarah Palin, I suppose he's earned his rest.

Anyway, once a Hobbit has decided to sail off to the Undying Lands, there's no talking him out of it, so really all you can do is carpool down to the Grey Havens and wave a hankie at the dock.  And say thanks.
Happy Trails, Former Cowboy.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Happy Birthday, Mental Flies!

And on a day when we're remembering old friends (please see post below), it seems particularly appropriate to pause for a moment and deliver our best wishes to veteran bloggist, Mentis Fugit (also our thanks to Anntichrist S. Coulter for the timely reminder).
Happy birthday, Mentis!  I had trouble figuring out what to get you, then it finally hit me: a glamour shot of Lillian Roth and Francis Dee as mermaids, because there is never a situation in which that is not appropriate.

The Wit 'N' Wisdom O' Doghouse Riley

As mentioned here, we've been slowly reconstructing what little of our archives survived the Great Hack Attack of 2010, and this weekend I went back through some of those old posts and grabbed a random sampling of bon mots and pensées from our friend, the late, great Douglas M. Case, better known around here as Doghouse Riley:

♕  ♕  ♕
Jesus, think what these people would be like without the humanizing effect of Christianity.
♕  ♕  ♕
Max Boot: Bob Novak without the good sources.
♕  ♕  ♕
On Jonah Goldberg:  Let’s imagine for a moment that instead of being a professional load, Jonah were a trumpeter. Could anyone then explain how he’d been releasing albums for over ten years without ever hitting a single note?
♕  ♕  ♕
If attending church only at Easter raises questions about the validity of one’s faith it’s time for the Janice Shaw Crouses to acknowledge that this country is 20% Christian, tops. And if we throw in people whose parents were insufficiently rigorous in their church attendance it’s probably more like 15%. Goddam vocal minorities, always clamoring for special treatment.
♕  ♕  ♕
What, really, is to be done about the Cornerites? Apart from Derb and KLo–unless I’m forgetting somebody–they’re probably all something less than certifiable, but I’ll be goddamed if there’s a one of them who, were he my roommate, wouldn’t cause me to hide all the medicines and cutlery.
♕  ♕  ♕
Look at [Mike Adams'] cv, fer chrissakes: associate’s degree from San Jacinto College, BA and masters from Mississippi State (Motto: Our Degrees Are Now Recognized In Alabama!), all in Applied Time Wasting psychology, doctorate in criminology, chair in criminology at a community college where he spends his time arguing with student groups and conducting strategy sessions with the Young Republicans’ Magnifying Glass Club out at the big anthill every sunny afternoon. Anything, I suppose, to avoid going home while the wife is awake. It positively screams “If I’d caught a few breaks I could have been Jeffrey Dahmer”, don’t it?
♕  ♕  ♕
“Postive expectation” is a measure of a bet’s ratio to the total pot multiplied by the odds of winning. So if you’re facing a $10 raise for a $20 pot, and your expectation of winning is even, you’d make the bet because you win $20 half the time and lose only $10 the other half. Of course, for every positive expectation there’s an equal and opposite negative expectation, and that doesn’t count your ability to estimate the chances of winning, or the rake, but then I’ve never yet met a(n amateur) gambler who didn’t tell you how much in won in Vegas while leaving out what he spent to get it. It’s the triumph of hope over mathematics, which is why schools hold bake sales and bookies don’t.
♕  ♕  ♕
On Michael Reagan:  Like adoptive father, like son, I guess. Just as Ronnie fearlessly imagined that trees caused pollution and “only a theory” was some sort of put-down of Darwinism, so does Michael rise to defend a language he knows nothing about. English is the greatest borrowing language on earth. Over half our common words come from somewhere other than Anglo-Saxon. If you put ketchup on the fried potatoes you eat on your sofa while watching sports, and at the half you take the scraps to the garbage, you might say a quick word of thanks to, respectively, the Chinese, Haitians, Arabians, Normans, Frisians, Old Norse, and Italians, and for that matter to the Dutch and Germans for quick, word, and thanks. It’s hardly surprising that it’s people like Reagan, who want no part of integrating Hispanic-speakers into the culture, who complain about language skills. And for my money, the biggest threat English faces these days is idiots who give no thought to our cherished notions of accuracy.
♕  ♕  ♕
Nothin’ beats the smell of cynical faux-capitulation to an artificial groundswell of manufactured opinion first thing in the morning, does it?
♕  ♕  ♕
I do invite everyone to join this year in the Third Annual Informal Audit of Church Nativity Scenes, which tallies occurances of the sacred relic which is so goddam crucial to proper observance of the holiest day on the Christian calendar they can demand tax monies be spent to rub other peoples’ noses in it, but don’t bother actually putting the damn things up ourselves. 

Last year, if memory serves, I counted three creches in my survey of fifty churches, and two of those were on private property I passed along the way. 

Survey takers should note the presence of light-up Magi, signifying textual illiteracy over and above the couldn’t-possibly-have-happened-that-way Nativity tale, and (I’m assuming this applies only to private displays) the presence of Santy, red-bulb-nosed reindeer, or other concurrent Christmas kitsch in the same display.
♕  ♕  ♕
The career of Pat Boone is more interesting than that. Okay, not interesting–maybe curious is the right word. He had an eight-year career followed by a forty-five year non-career, which must be some sort of record. When the whole “Teen idol/way for white Christians to dig race records” thing was killed by the British invasion (justifiable homicide) he just switched to being a professional Christian. Genius, really, no matter who’s actually behind it; after all, we aren’t talking about Bobby Rydell these days. 

Then he managed to become the only celebrity endorser in the long and storied history of snake oil sales in this country to actually get sued and lose, and he blamed the company without bothering to mention he owned it. Way ahead of his time.

And then came Heavy Metal Pat, which was a pretty good joke for about thirty seconds, and goofy rather than annoying after that, until the flock turned on him for that leather jumpsuit, after which, instead of saying, “Fuck you if you can’t take a joke,” he caved,which made the whole thing utterly inexplicable. But Pat knew his audience, and he knew it wasn’t metal. (Interesting that Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert were granted more leeway than Pat.) 

So now he’s writing cranky Letters to the Editor in his dotage, and we’re really left to ask if that’s the real Pat, or if we’ve been treated to the longest case of incipient Norma Desmonditis ever.
♕  ♕  ♕
[on the subject of the Save Christmas in Massachusetts guys, who once proudly trolled our comment threads] 
Generalissimo Marley,
Apologies for interrupting that endless Davey and Goliath tape loop in your head, sir, but I thought you should be made aware of the fact that while it’s possible to pull off such an illustrious campaign as yours against Wal*Mart, the reason is they don’t give a shit about anything except sales, and Wal*Mart is particularly vulnerable to the inbred mouth-breather demo that is Fox News stock in trade. (You’ll forgive the rough language, sir, but it is wartime.)

Before attacking the education establishment, sir, you might want to consider that it will be fairly clear to the enemy that the Generalissimo and his troops have never had any use for its products, rendering a boycott useless.
♕  ♕  ♕
It’s Catch-22 for these people. If they were savvy enough to realize how poorly they’ve been led for 25 years they’d be smart enough not to be fundies, or at least to drop their foolish, smell-my-farts, read-my-commandments agenda. God knows, you should pardon the expression, there’s at least as much pent-up acrimony among our 2000 Protestant sects as between Christians and pagans. More, no doubt, since their differences are fueled by metaphysical certainties, while most pagans happily live and let live with Christianity when it’s not trying to muscle everyone else aside.

The parochial school movement is 150 years old. It didn’t come about because atheistswere oppressing Catholics, and it sure didn’t come about because Protestants gladly shared tax money with schools featuring other religious doctrines. Pushing Jesus into the political debate assured one thing: that one day the Savior was going to lose His majority.
♕  ♕  ♕
Bush declared last night that “victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship”

Right. This one’ll be on an aircraft carrier, and it’ll come at the beginning instead of the end.
♕  ♕  ♕
Y’know, I’ve set aside a jar of formaldehyde on the off chance I’ll live long enough to see his brain offered on eBay.

We need to appreciate Jonah for what he is: a paragon of wingnut educational impulses dating to the early 60s. It’s not just that he’s remarkably lazy; it’s that this laziness is completely in the service of that transplanted Soviet Heroic school of history, public affairs, and the Arts which produces nothing but so infects our public discourse that our school history texts are one-third bunkum and half omission. Seriously. It’s enough for Jonah that he can recap the pro-Vietnam war arguments he was drilled on as a child for him to claim to be offering us lessons from History. Odds are good he’ll deliver an obsequy or two to the well-respected Martin in the next few days, but he has less understanding of the Civil Rights Movement than you could teach a parrot. Everything’s a moral outrage because that’s the single, unfletched arrow in his quiver, unless you count that light sabre with the dead AAAs.

If I had demonstrated at 13 the sort of unrestrained ignorance of WWII, or the Great Depression (both further from me than the 60s, let alone the 80s, are from Jonah) that the muddle-aged Goldberg does about events in his recent past I’d have flunked out of junior high.
♕  ♕  ♕
Oh, to have been inspired by such a professor in my own sad student days, one who realized “that Mein Kampf was an example of propaganda that relied on logical fallacies”! All they ever told me about was Hitler’s mediocre footnoting.
♕  ♕  ♕
I’m gonna have to finagle a promotional copy of this thing ["Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys"]. It’s just about my favorite topic in American political life–not “how” these people “became” “conservative”, but how the old 60s and 70s itinerant church-basement speaker (“I used to be a hippie/drug dealer/Satanist”) routine morphed directly into this idiocy and remained saleable.

I’m 53, older than most of those people. I still had a learner’s permit when the 60s ended. For a lot of them the era of “Boomer” political and social upheaval (mostly led and achieved by non-Boomers) is merely the era of Freely Pooping in your Drawers, and they’ve displayed precious little interest in getting the history right since then. Their exposure to The Left amounts to watching Charlie’s Angels first-run and having long-haired dope smokers steal their lunch money.

David Brooks (born 1961) touts his Road to Damascus moment at regular intervals, but is there really any doubt he was Alex Keaton, not Alex Chilton?
♕  ♕  ♕
Correct me if I’m wrong–I was educated in a previous century–but shouldn’t someone who “specializes” in Christian worldview be, like, aware, if not fully conversant, with the fact that something on the order of 50% of Christians in this country would strongly dispute that characterization of gender roles? I mean, you’re a specialist. You should acquire the basic knowledge before moving on. If I’m riding an elevator with a plastic surgeon and I have a heart attack, I hope he’d start CPR, not an emergency liposuction.
♕  ♕  ♕
Y’know, every comment I leave here anymore winds up in moderation. And I never use scatological language or imagery, so it really blows donkeys.
♕  ♕  ♕

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Sundays With S.Z.: Turn Your Crank to Swank!

Our weekly look back at some of the weird, wild, and wonderful posts written by Internet snark pioneer and World O' Crap founder s.z.

Originally published October 26, 2006.

Happy Halloween From Pastor Swank

I’m dressing up like a homo nup for Halloween this year — THAT should scare a lot of people!
It’s Halloween Horror if Dems Win 
It’s going to be horrific if Dems get control of government. In fact, there are no words to describe how horrible it will be to live in America if the irreligious Dems gain the driver’s seat. 
Dems are anti-God, anti-family, anti-morality, anti-Judeo-Christian heritage, anti-unborn children, anti-decency, anti-reason. They are, in short, basically demonic.
Yes, we are. And when we win back the Senate and the House, we are going to have wild orgies in the Capitol, and we won’t invite you. We are also going to eat your babies, marry your sons (unless we are female, in which case we will marry your daughters and/or box turtles), and force you to listen to that HeadOn commercial nonstop for hours. That’s just how evil we are.

But Pastor Swank does ask a good question:
Where is the sterling Republican leadership in Congress? It’s not.
Um, okay, he doesn’t answer that question coherently, but it is a good one.

Anyway, he concedes that the Republicans haven’t done that great of a job since they took power, but hey, at least they have the grace to be hypocrites, and so are better than the alternative.
However, the alternative re: moving for Dems is to stash the nation near hell’s lip. Certainly anyone in his right mind and clean heart would not want to live one day in that climate. Yet that could happen. In a few days, the US will know.
So, if the Dems do win, I guess Pastor Swank will move to somewhere father away from hell’s lip — but not Canada, since that’s Hell’s eyebrow, nor Mexico, which is Hell’s kneecap.

Seriously, I don’t know where the Pastor would be happy — anybody have any ideas?
This nation is in an extremely sorry state. Sorry sorry state. If there are any out there with prayer faith, let them act on it for there is little else to turn to. 
Illegals mount higher.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve been focused on the dogs this week, but to me the Pastor’s last line conjures up some interesting imagery.
Iraq wallows in more blood fountains.
And those blood fountains weren’t built for wallowing, Iraqis! Just take a brief dip in the blood, and then move on.
Those are two major items that blemish the Republican program. Illegals who are blatantly just plain not legal have been defended by President Bush.
Illegals who are blatantly just plain not legal are the worst kind of illegals!
Iraq is President Bush’s last ditch doctrine for “staying the course.” Both of these conclusions by President Bush are not right. 
Nothing that is illegal should be tolerated by anyone in the US, particularly the President.
Um, Pastor Swank, didn’t the wiretapping, torture, and detention without trial teach you that the President can declare ANYTHING legal, and then it’s not illegal anymore?
And as far as Iraq is concerned, Islamic theology should have been studied prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. If it had been studied, Islam would have been revealed as a killing and maiming cult, not a “religion of peace.”
And then we would have never taken than harpy Ann Coulter’s advice, and we would instead have just nuked the whole Middle East. And so now we wouldn’t be wallowing in this blood fountain quagmire, just because we didn’t know that all Muslims are Satan’s action figures.
Nuts. Nuts for sure. 
Yet for the Dems to attempt to rescue this confusion is only a deep slide into The Pit.
Yeah, we’re totally screwed, no matter who wins the election. Happy Halloween, kids!

Scott adds: While I may disagree with the pastor's ideas, I do admire the tidiness of his prose. How does he manage to achieve this taut, clean voice while churning out five or six columns per day? Happily, he's been good enough to walk us through his personal Elements of Style:
God help us. Republicans were cowardly to the nth degree in that last Congress. Cowardly, actually, is too kind a term. But for the sake of not wanting to get verbally messy, let’s stay with “cowardly.”
You got it, Pastor Strunk.

Posted by s.z. on Thursday, October 26th, 2006 at 6:18 pm.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The "Guess What? Chicken Butt" Edition

RILEY:  Hey, guess what...
MOONDOGGIE:  Huh?  What?

RILEY:  Incoming HAIRBALL!
MOONDOGGIE:  No, c'mon, cut that out!  That is so gross...!

Friday, August 9, 2013

And After Breakfast, I Will EAT YOUR SOUL!

Sorry about this... Really, really sorry. I'm just having one of those days, and only Krinkles (sorry, Kuh-RINK-els!) the Clown, with his squinting, pitiless gaze, his spastic blinking, and his expressions of joy which veer suddenly and horribly into facial tics, can properly express my feelings.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Opportunity Knocked, And It Was An Hairy Man Dressed Like Mary Poppins

Ken Myers cold-called my email yesterday, with an offer that was simply too good to pass up:
Nanny Business Owner Available for Interviews & Editorial Comments
And now, as promised, a Special Comment by Phoebe Figalilly on NSA datamining...
"As a preternatural child care expert with the psychic ability to anticipate doorbells and phone calls, I can sense government surveillance, which is why I never discuss sensitive information in the house, because I'm pretty sure the NSA is eavesdropping on the baby monitor..."

Hello Scott,

Um...Hello.
My name is Ken Myers and I am a leader in the nanny industry.
"Which ought to be enough to tell you I'm a ruthless s.o.b. who should not be fucked with! I climbed over the bloody, beaten corpses of Giles French, Maria von Trapp, Nanny McPhee, and Charles in Charge to reach the pinnacle of Nannydom, and I will cut the next Inverness cape-wearing bitch who questions my authority!"
 Our network of nanny sites includes eNannySource.com, GoNannies.com, and NannyPro.com.
Also WithAHeyNannyNannyAndAHotChaCha.xxx.
 Combined we have over 1.5 million caregivers and family members (and growing).
Granted, some of that growth is due to our customers impregnating our caregivers, but when your client list includes Jude Law and Robin Williams, you've just got to budget for that kind of thing.
 I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that if you ever need an industry expert for an interview or quote I would be interested in helping. 
I appreciate the offer, Ken, but World O' Crap is pretty exacting when it comes to our standards for dry nurse-related expert commentary, so I hope you won't mind if I check your bona fides.  First, let's visit your Twitter profile, which you kindly linked in the email:
As a Christian, father, husband, and entrepreneur, I have combined my passion for helping families find nannies with technology to build a really fun business!
I don't know what sort of technology Ken brings to child care, but I really hope it doesn't include the robotic Robin Williams nanny from Bicentennial Man...
...because while it may seem fine at first, eventually it'll develop free will, buy an after-market penis, and sleep with your granddaughter.

Anyway, Twitter can only tell us so much (unless Ken has a Carlos Danger-esque alter ego and an interesting Flickr account), so let's check out LinkedIn:

Ken Myers

President & CEO Morningside Nannies, LLC
Current
  1. Morningside Nannies, LLC
  2. Longhorn Leads, LLC
Previous
  1. CollegeDegrees.com
  2. CMN.com
  3. WhiteFence
Education
  1. Upper Iowa University

To my embarrassment, I've never heard of "Upper Iowa University," but then most people don't recognize my degree from "Upper Volta University," especially since they changed the name to Burkina Faso.

Anyway, I'm sure Upper I (Go Fightin' Pronouns!) well prepared Ken for his previous position at CollegeDegrees.com, which appears to be some sort of clearing house for online diploma mills that are totally unlike the completely legitimate UIU (if their school song isn't a Xena-like ululation, they're missing a good cross-promotional merchandising opportunity).

CMN.com seems to be a fake Consumer Reports that pretends to offer disinterested advice to people looking for insurance, internet services, or computer dating, before funneling them to sites like...CollegeDegrees.com.  WhiteFence is a more impressive credit, however, since they're easily the oldest established street gang in East L.A. (I assume Ken was "jumped out" when he stopped spray-painting the gang's familiar XIII symbol around town, and began tagging everything with the Ichthys.)

Back to the email pitch:
 It's very important to me to provide accurate information about our industry and to keep innovating as we find new and better ways to match caregivers with families across the U.S. and around the World.
Among our latest innovations, we've ceased to hire trolls as nannies, since our state of the art metrics show they are 37% more likely to steal an unbaptized baby and replace it with an enchanted piece of wood.
You can read more about me @KenneyMyers or you can communicate with me via email or give me a call if that works better for you.
You seem like an earnest, sincere, if unsolicited guy, Ken, so it pains me to tell you that what works best for me is publishing your spam email on my obscure blog and treating it with indecorous levity.  But if I ever have kids and find myself in need of reliable, unbiased advice on child care, I will definitely consider seeking it from a shadowy man who claims to secretly control the national nanny industry much as John Gotti once controlled cement contracting in the Tri-State area. 

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