Simply the Best

CNN is the best. At sucking fat balls. Some toad just opined that Obama would have a hard time winning over Catholic voters because he's too liberal.

...aaaaaaaand black!

Politics 101

ABC News reports, you deci...no, actually, they just say stuff and maybe you'll think up some meaning on your own, or maybe not. They don't care. Whatever. Look, they know a whole lot of extra stuff about every story, like who's got a hidden agenda, who needs publicity most, what the, you know, facts are; but ABC News isn't telling YOU that! Figure it out on your own, lazybones! This is why people think Americans are dumb when it comes to politics. I mean, you people won't even go out and do reporters' jobs for them, while they sit around and get paid to just make shit up, or write about nothing at all. Christ, what do you people want?!

Here's a thought, sorta, from Jake Tapper (which is also the name of a prominent gay porno actor, or at least it should be): it concerns the very mundane observation that Obama is being cited as a "crazy radical" in Republican campaign ads for his "reeee-donkulous!" healthcare plan (don't look at me; that's actual Republican campaign text...apparently they heard that's what the hateful, racist, white, future-business-owners-of-America-in-need-of-tax-breaks are saying).

All Jake Tapper can offer is the beyond-lame cliche "that was then, this is now," with regards to Obama's previous popularity and this apparent belief by Republicans that his name will sink other, local Democratic candidates. Jake, you dumb fuck, you missed the point, which is that Republicans are making a baseless claim in hopes of fooling stupid people into voting the way Republicans want. But, hey, don't look at reporters like Jake Tapper for even that obvious bit of information.

And, certainly, don't look for Tapper to go any further. This is basic, basic politics and it comes straight from the national party. "Obama" and "crazy healthcare plan" are not often phrases that go together; in fact, most Democrats consider Obama's plan to be rather mainstream and sort of weak, especially compared to, say, Clinton's plan. So, in like the first day of poli sci class, we learned that a good way to kill a plan being put forth by a candidate is to just keep saying it's extreme until people believe that and vote against that candidate. This is especially good if, as in Obama's case, he is competing for the nomination with someone pushing a healthcare plan, say, that's actually radical (mandatory). Why? Politics 101: defeat the moderate plan, that would really hurt your fatcat donors, in the primaries, by calling its advocate a wild-eyed radical, and then even if the other Democrat wins, her healthcare plan is so much further left that it will never pass.

Thanks for your help, Jake. You fucking pathetic dumb ass. Send me your paycheck.

Baby with a nail gun!

Stupidest picture lately.

Know Your Audience

I was at the dermatologist's office the other day to get a routine skin check--turns out I don't have skin cancer, despite years of drinking milk from a plastic bottle and not applying sunscreen and sleeping on a pile of radium--and all they had to read was an old issue of The New Yorker. And there it was: a long article about Amy Winehouse, wherein the author attempted to dissect her appeal.

Turning to the person next to me, I asked if he knew who Amy Winehouse is. He said he did. I asked if he subscribed to or read The New Yorker. He said definitely not. I suspected that if he had answered the second question in the affirmative, the first would have been in the negative. Who picked the topic of this piece?

Not to say it wasn't well done; it was. The author, in something less than a revelation, has figured out that Winehouse's "style" is essentially Motown covers, where, like Janis Joplin doing Billie Holiday, she mimics the way black Americans sing a certain form of music. Many critics have proclaimed that her backing band is the difference between Winehouse sounding good and sounding like, well, a junkie acting like a black diva, and maybe that's true. But as the New Yorker writer went on, the article became a commentary on the phenomenon of British white folks thinking they can do black music better than black people do it. Eric Clapton, no matter how slurry he gets, or how randomly he accents certain syllables, will never fool anyone into thinking he's a blues musician. Amy Winehouse, maybe because she's a junkie (have I mentioned that yet?), also puts on a bizarre gloss of "blackness" every time she gets on stage, and were it not for her chemical impairment I think we would rightly call it minstrelsy and dismiss her.

In any case, what the fuck, The New Yorker?

Heston Finally Dead

...and with him, perhaps, also the "gimme mah gun!" movement.

Contrary to what Gay Josh Gibson thinks, the Second Amendment, no matter how you don't parse it, is not clear. And what's more, the easiest way to understand an historical document is always to read it as though you lived at the time it was written; in which case, the Second Amendment pretty obviously is not an endorsement of private gun ownership for reasons of personal freedom, but rather for the reason that the people, plural and together, make up the best defense of the Republic. It's theirs, after all. This theme, which many historians have tried to show was specious, permeates the entire Constitution. So, you might be able at this moment to own a gun "because you feel like it," but that has everything to do with capitalism and nothing to do with constitutionalism.

But back to Chuck..uh...ton and his untimely (in the sense that it came way too late) death. Fuck him. He was a bad actor. "Gimme mah shovel" and I'll throw dirt on him.

That's it.

Peace Out

This blog is on hiatus until further notice. Which is to say, until I feel like writing again. I'll grant any request for a guest spot in the interim, by the way.