The Settling Darkness, Part 2 - The Dusk in Washington:
Dick Cheney's gout is acting up this night in Washington, D.C. Forced to spend the night at the Vice President's home rather than his palatial Maryland estate, Cheney feels the pain in his big toe, the crystallized uric acid settling in the joint there. The ache is tremendous, no matter how many anti-inflammatories he downs with a Chateau Petrus Bordeaux. Lynne's remarked that Cheney's been really hitting the claret and the single malt lately, that perhaps it's contributed to the spiky crystals now stabbing his toe joint. Cheney dismisses her with, "Go write another happy fuckin' kids book, make 'em feel good about the war, call it 'Operation Freedom Fries' or some such shit. And tell the maid to bring up a bottle of le Bon-Pasteur. My fuckin' toe hurts."
Cheney, the news blazing in the background featuring the charred remains of Iraqi vehicles and homes, stares at the mantle, at the trophies he has, the skulls of ex-Ba'athists; the jar of Punjab testicles floating in formaldehyde like so many figs, taken from their owners in the sheds and cells of Baghram Air Base; the photo montage, cut and pasted by his grandkids, of the Abu Ghraib pictures the public hasn't seen - the raped children, the nude women, the beaten and dog-bitten men. The TV flashes constant images, of the Iranian President declaring that his nation won't back down, and of Bin Laden. The future and the past, right there, always present. Cheney puts his foot up on a stool that had been owned by Benjamin Franklin, borrowed from the Smithsonian.
"Benjamin Franklin had gout," Cheney muses to himself. The fight for freedom in this world is rugged, and those who fight it deserve the rewards of the rich life. But the body fights back, says you're not virtuous enough, stabs you in your fuckin' toe joint for the act of relaxation. Cheney's cell phone rings. It's the President. Cheney answers, wincing at the sound of the voice on the other end.
"I took your advice, Dick, but it didn't work," the pinched, patrician whine, so effete, so effected, says. "I put on the Bin Laden speech and dropped my pants. I took out my peter and tried again and again to imagine jackin' off on Osama's beard, but it didn't work. I...I couldn't even get a hard-on. I hate this impotence."
"Mr. President," Cheney says, his stomach turning at the very words, "you need sleep. It's hard for me to talk now. My toe, it's buggin' the fuck out of me."
"Doesn't seem fair."
"How's that, Mr. President?"
"Your name's 'Dick.' Seems like you should have the erectile dysfunction."
"I do have erectile dysfunction, Mr. President."
"Oh. Does it have anything to do with Osama Bin-Laden?"
"No, it has to do with my heart condition. Pull up your pants and go to bed, George." And the President hangs up.
Cheney is tired. His heart, his toe, his mind. His speech in New York yesterday was another affair where he defended everything the administration is doing. He's sick of the bob and weave on the past. Cheney's a man of the future, a man who makes plans. Yesterday is detritus, shit residue on his shoe, to be wiped on the carpets of the Vice President's residence.
Ben Franklin never looked back, he thinks. We revolutionaries are always thinking forward. Cheney smirks, thinking about Iran, about Syria, about so much that can be done in a little less than three years, when there's no one to answer to. Franklin would have wished for such complacency, Cheney thinks. Ben Franklin and me, he ponders as he falls asleep, spilling his glass of Bordeaux all over Franklin's stool.
Friday, January 20, 2006
The Settling Darkness, Part 1 - France Says It May Nuke "Terrorist States":
The Rude Pundit realizes that miners, kidnapped reporters, and Bin Laden are important news. But when the President of France says that "terrorist states" should not have doubts "about our will and our capacity to use nuclear arms," while at the same time Syria says that Iran's nuclear pursuits are a-okay, is it not time for concern and perhaps a moment or two in the mainstream media to look up and say, "What did you just say, Jacques?"
Jacques Chirac was speaking at the L'Ile-Longue Submarine Base when he made the shift in France's defense doctrine, a way of saying to critics that he was not about to give up its nuclear arsenal, no matter how much it costs the cash-strapped, but still romantique, nation. As a way of outbastarding George W. Bush, Chirac said that nuclear protection was for "vital interests," including allies and "strategic supplies," which anyone paying attention took to mean "oil." This is mauvais, tres mauvais. In Washington, the White House reacted with, "What a minute-we could maybe just nuke some dark people for oil? Fuck, that'd save time."
Actually, so far the reaction in Washington has been along the lines of, "C'est la vie." At yesterday's State Department briefing, when spokesperson Sean McCormack was asked about the speech, he responded straight from Scott McClellan's script: "[D]ecisions and actions that involve use of force and the military are the greatest decisions any leader can take in defense of a country and defense of a people. But those decisions are for that country to make and those leaders to make." McCormack said he hadn't seen or heard about the speech, so it would have been easy to say, "Dunno." But then he wouldn't have been offering an ass slap to the administration's policies.
The Rude Pundit realizes that miners, kidnapped reporters, and Bin Laden are important news. But when the President of France says that "terrorist states" should not have doubts "about our will and our capacity to use nuclear arms," while at the same time Syria says that Iran's nuclear pursuits are a-okay, is it not time for concern and perhaps a moment or two in the mainstream media to look up and say, "What did you just say, Jacques?"
Jacques Chirac was speaking at the L'Ile-Longue Submarine Base when he made the shift in France's defense doctrine, a way of saying to critics that he was not about to give up its nuclear arsenal, no matter how much it costs the cash-strapped, but still romantique, nation. As a way of outbastarding George W. Bush, Chirac said that nuclear protection was for "vital interests," including allies and "strategic supplies," which anyone paying attention took to mean "oil." This is mauvais, tres mauvais. In Washington, the White House reacted with, "What a minute-we could maybe just nuke some dark people for oil? Fuck, that'd save time."
Actually, so far the reaction in Washington has been along the lines of, "C'est la vie." At yesterday's State Department briefing, when spokesperson Sean McCormack was asked about the speech, he responded straight from Scott McClellan's script: "[D]ecisions and actions that involve use of force and the military are the greatest decisions any leader can take in defense of a country and defense of a people. But those decisions are for that country to make and those leaders to make." McCormack said he hadn't seen or heard about the speech, so it would have been easy to say, "Dunno." But then he wouldn't have been offering an ass slap to the administration's policies.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Why the Democrats Have To Filibuster Alito:
Let us say, and why not, that you're a guy who has a favorite bar- you're not a strong guy, just kind of average, but you're someone who has a lot of friends who'll forgive you your faults. And let's say that your favorite bar used to be a quiet place, especially early in the evening, a place for yuppies like you, where you could bring your dates, your women, hell, you'd even welcome the occasional gay couple. It's one of those great off-the-map bars, the kind that don't get mentioned on Citysearch or some such shit because it's kept alive by you, your after work crowd, your parties. It ain't a depressing corner bar, but it ain't an oh-so-stylish in-crowd kind of place.
Let us say that the bar is "discovered," one of those little places that, overnight, it seems, gets the reputation as the last hip place in the city, and once that happens, well, it's all changed. The crowds, the jacked-up prices, you name it. The worst, though, is that the former frat guy assholes show up. It changes the whole zeitgeist, you know? When twenty-something jerk-offs with MBAs and no scruples start downin' Heinekens or Coronas, ready to try to continue to pathetically act as if life is like the DKE house. You tolerate. You complain, you try to have a good time with your friends, but you tolerate. Except, you say, one thing. If one of those assholes starts hittin' on your girlfriend, that's it. Yer gonna go apeshit. Oh, you talk a good talk, a rap that entertains the shit out of the office gang, sayin' all the ways you're gonna take out a jerk-off, how you're gonna grab him by his tiny balls and slam his face into the refinished bar, how you're gonna get all Gitmo on his ass. The owner overhears you and tells you that if you start a fight, he's gonna throw your ass out - for good. Everyone laughs, but you're serious, you tell them, you don't care. There's only so much a man can take when someone walks into his bar and takes it over.
Then, of course, it happens. Anonymous Asshole #2 not only hits on your woman when she's gettin' another round for you, he does it slyly, caressing her arm, putting the coy-but-hard sell on her. She's lookin' over at you, like, "Well, what are you gonna do?" And everyone at your back table's lookin' at you, like, "Well, motherfucker, put the fuck up or shut the fuck up."
If you're the Democrats in Congress, faced with filibustering Samuel Alito, you apparently throw up your hands and say, "Hey, c'mon, he wasn't grabbin' her ass or anything'. Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's a nice asshole." As Tim Grieve writes in Salon, "[F]or years now, Democratic senators like [Dianne] Feinstein have justified their existence by warning voters about the possibility of a court full of Scalias: Send me back for another term in the Senate -- send money to get me there -- and I'll stand up for an independent judiciary and protect a woman's right to choose. So here we are, confronted with another Supreme Court nominee who shows every sign that he'll roll over for the executive branch and roll back Roe the first chance he gets, and the Dianne Feinsteins of the world say the nomination doesn't rise to the level of a filibuster." Or, in other words, put the fuck up or shut the fuck up.
The Rude Pundit has said it before and he'll say it again: Democrats need to think of themselves as an organized resistance, an insurgency against a dictatorial government, an uprising with popular support among the citizens of the United States. A resistance doesn't succeed unless it actually, you know, resists. And if not on Alito, then what? Dianne Feinstein-leaning Democrats need to take a page from the anti-abortion movement: if you believe it's about life and death, then act like you wanna save lives.
But the flaccid Alito battle ain't just about Roe v. Wade, although, as so much else in this country, the story of Alito on the Supreme Court will be written on women's bodies. No, it's about the spine of the Democratic Party and the legs of democracy itself. To say that unless one finds out something horrendous about a nominee to the Supreme Court, like, say, they eat puppies alive (did anyone ask Alito that?), then a President ought to "get" who he nominates to the Court is to willingly give the Executive branch more power. "Advice and consent" means, like every parent will tell you, that the answer can be "No." It also misreads the purpose of the Supreme Court. The Court ain't about a single president. It's about the nation and its history and its future. If Democrats allow it, the Court will become another political arm of the White House.
Doesn't the Democratic leadership understand what's going on in the nation outside of Washington? The majority of the country is behind them. We want the fucking fight. We want to see the bullies get their comeuppence. We want some smashed nutsacks and some kicked asses and some bloodied noses. Resistance is not only noble, it's the most goddamned American thing you can do. So what if Alito was soft-spoken and not a raging lunatic? The scariest lunatics are the quiet ones - at least a screaming Bork'll let you know he's gonna shiv you when you turn your back. Creepy-ass Alito stares at you blankly and makes you think he's benign. Those're the nutzoids who'll gut you the second they get the chance.
In the end, if you don't stand up and fight for the one thing you've said you'll throw down on, then you may as well say that you don't actually believe in anything. You gotta be willing to get up out of your seat and tap that asshole on the shoulder and tell him to step outside.
(And, by the way, the same thing goes for so-called "moderate" Republicans. You're either tools of the President or individuals elected by the citizens of your state for your "moderate" beliefs.)
Let us say, and why not, that you're a guy who has a favorite bar- you're not a strong guy, just kind of average, but you're someone who has a lot of friends who'll forgive you your faults. And let's say that your favorite bar used to be a quiet place, especially early in the evening, a place for yuppies like you, where you could bring your dates, your women, hell, you'd even welcome the occasional gay couple. It's one of those great off-the-map bars, the kind that don't get mentioned on Citysearch or some such shit because it's kept alive by you, your after work crowd, your parties. It ain't a depressing corner bar, but it ain't an oh-so-stylish in-crowd kind of place.
Let us say that the bar is "discovered," one of those little places that, overnight, it seems, gets the reputation as the last hip place in the city, and once that happens, well, it's all changed. The crowds, the jacked-up prices, you name it. The worst, though, is that the former frat guy assholes show up. It changes the whole zeitgeist, you know? When twenty-something jerk-offs with MBAs and no scruples start downin' Heinekens or Coronas, ready to try to continue to pathetically act as if life is like the DKE house. You tolerate. You complain, you try to have a good time with your friends, but you tolerate. Except, you say, one thing. If one of those assholes starts hittin' on your girlfriend, that's it. Yer gonna go apeshit. Oh, you talk a good talk, a rap that entertains the shit out of the office gang, sayin' all the ways you're gonna take out a jerk-off, how you're gonna grab him by his tiny balls and slam his face into the refinished bar, how you're gonna get all Gitmo on his ass. The owner overhears you and tells you that if you start a fight, he's gonna throw your ass out - for good. Everyone laughs, but you're serious, you tell them, you don't care. There's only so much a man can take when someone walks into his bar and takes it over.
Then, of course, it happens. Anonymous Asshole #2 not only hits on your woman when she's gettin' another round for you, he does it slyly, caressing her arm, putting the coy-but-hard sell on her. She's lookin' over at you, like, "Well, what are you gonna do?" And everyone at your back table's lookin' at you, like, "Well, motherfucker, put the fuck up or shut the fuck up."
If you're the Democrats in Congress, faced with filibustering Samuel Alito, you apparently throw up your hands and say, "Hey, c'mon, he wasn't grabbin' her ass or anything'. Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's a nice asshole." As Tim Grieve writes in Salon, "[F]or years now, Democratic senators like [Dianne] Feinstein have justified their existence by warning voters about the possibility of a court full of Scalias: Send me back for another term in the Senate -- send money to get me there -- and I'll stand up for an independent judiciary and protect a woman's right to choose. So here we are, confronted with another Supreme Court nominee who shows every sign that he'll roll over for the executive branch and roll back Roe the first chance he gets, and the Dianne Feinsteins of the world say the nomination doesn't rise to the level of a filibuster." Or, in other words, put the fuck up or shut the fuck up.
The Rude Pundit has said it before and he'll say it again: Democrats need to think of themselves as an organized resistance, an insurgency against a dictatorial government, an uprising with popular support among the citizens of the United States. A resistance doesn't succeed unless it actually, you know, resists. And if not on Alito, then what? Dianne Feinstein-leaning Democrats need to take a page from the anti-abortion movement: if you believe it's about life and death, then act like you wanna save lives.
But the flaccid Alito battle ain't just about Roe v. Wade, although, as so much else in this country, the story of Alito on the Supreme Court will be written on women's bodies. No, it's about the spine of the Democratic Party and the legs of democracy itself. To say that unless one finds out something horrendous about a nominee to the Supreme Court, like, say, they eat puppies alive (did anyone ask Alito that?), then a President ought to "get" who he nominates to the Court is to willingly give the Executive branch more power. "Advice and consent" means, like every parent will tell you, that the answer can be "No." It also misreads the purpose of the Supreme Court. The Court ain't about a single president. It's about the nation and its history and its future. If Democrats allow it, the Court will become another political arm of the White House.
Doesn't the Democratic leadership understand what's going on in the nation outside of Washington? The majority of the country is behind them. We want the fucking fight. We want to see the bullies get their comeuppence. We want some smashed nutsacks and some kicked asses and some bloodied noses. Resistance is not only noble, it's the most goddamned American thing you can do. So what if Alito was soft-spoken and not a raging lunatic? The scariest lunatics are the quiet ones - at least a screaming Bork'll let you know he's gonna shiv you when you turn your back. Creepy-ass Alito stares at you blankly and makes you think he's benign. Those're the nutzoids who'll gut you the second they get the chance.
In the end, if you don't stand up and fight for the one thing you've said you'll throw down on, then you may as well say that you don't actually believe in anything. You gotta be willing to get up out of your seat and tap that asshole on the shoulder and tell him to step outside.
(And, by the way, the same thing goes for so-called "moderate" Republicans. You're either tools of the President or individuals elected by the citizens of your state for your "moderate" beliefs.)
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
While Gore Walks Upright, Gonzales Hunches in the Ditch:
Man, someone spiked Al Gore's coffee with spinach yesterday, 'cause he went all Popeye on the Bush administration's Bluto ass. Here's the Rude Pundit's favorite section from Al Gore's erection-inspiring speech yesterday:
"The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.
"Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.
"Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment's notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march -- when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?
"It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it is up to us to do the same."
Goddamn, it's such in-yer-fookin'-gob rhetoric, innit? Here's Bush, who in speech after speech makes some variation on the same stupid statement, as he did on January 11: "[I] said that after September the 11th, that oceans no longer protected us. You know, when I was growing up, or other baby boomers here were growing up, we felt safe because we had these vast oceans that could protect us from harm's way. September the 11th changed all that." And then here's Gore, calling complete and utter bullshit on that idiotic line, that the oceans couldn't even protect us from the wind-driven ships of the British, let alone Soviet ICBMs.
But the other thing Gore is doing is good ol' locker room politics: he's calling Bush a dickhead. "You want threats?" Gore is saying. "Dude, you only gotta keep track of a couple hundred goatfuckers who shit in holes on the side of a mountain. Try dealin' with a few million Soviets. God, stop being a dickhead about it and just do your job without fucking up the joint too much, a'ight?"
Gore's historical logic could also be extended to this: as repressive as the United States government could be to its citizens during the Cold War, fuck, the Rude Pundit doesn't wanna imagine what Nixon or Reagan would have been like if they'd followed Bush's logic of the power of the president during "war." It'd be like the difference between being gang-raped in prison and being gang-raped in hell by forked-dicked demons with four balls, shooting torrents of fiery spooge into your lacerated asshole.
The rest of the speech is Al Gore representing the injured citizenry of this country, speaking as someone who is not only disgusted by the treatment of a loved one- like the Constitution is in some horrid, rat-infested state-run nursing home -but as someone who is being hurt himself, as, indeed, we all are, every day, by the rampant, anti-American power grab the White House is engaged in, with the complacent Congress just along for the ride. The government is spying on Americans without a warrant or any oversight other than by the spies themselves, Gore says. What the fuck, you know? What the fuck?
Unlike so many of Gore's barnburner speeches of the past, this one had more of an effect than the usual flea fart at a System of a Down concert resonance of his previous efforts. For one thing, Attorney General Alberto "Where's Your Fucking Neck?" Gonzales appeared on Larry King's Zombie Live last night, where Larry King's zombie asked Gonzales about the speech. Gonzales took out the Bill of Rights and said, "Amendments? We don't need no stinkin' amendments" before setting the document on fire with his cigarillo.
King's zombie then asked Gonzales if it was that big a fuckin' deal to get a judge to "sign off on a warrant." Gonzales replied, "Larry, whenever you involve another branch of government in an activity regarding electronic surveillance, inherently it's going to result in some cases in delay." Then he distracted King by offering the zombie host the fresh brains of Sunni children, which King's zombie gratefully engorged. His work there done, Gonzales slunk off, hunched over like a beaten bellringer, to give Sean Hannity's manly jaw a stiff workout.
Gonzales used the much discredited "Clinton did it" excuse to defend the warrantless spying. These were called "black-bag jobs," and they involved physical searches of property without a warrant. The major difference is that, according to the Christian Science Monitor of August 31, 1994, "Unlike their predecessors, Mr. Clinton and [Janet] Reno have encouraged Congress to clear up legal uncertainties over black-bag jobs." This, of course, led to the expansion of FISA to cover physical property searches, passed by Congress. It was not simply done and Congress was informed and told to go fuck itself.
But that's the difference, isn't it? One President respecting the checks and balances of government, another flushing them down the toilet like so much used tissue. One speaker yesterday offered a path back to respect, another continued to advocate stuffing the toilet to overflowing.
Haven't things come to a strange pass when to be "radical" is to merely ask that the government of the nation respect its own laws?
Michelle Malkin's Cuntistry, Briefly Noted:
If one is going to rage against USA Today for distorting a picture of Condi Rice, then perhaps one should not distort a photo of Ted Kennedy for comedic effect on one's own blog.
The Year of Living Rudely Now On Sale at Tower Record Online Store:
In case you don't trust CDBaby.com for some bizarro reason, you can get the Rude Pundit's CD at Tower.com now. Buy, love, drink, buy more.
Man, someone spiked Al Gore's coffee with spinach yesterday, 'cause he went all Popeye on the Bush administration's Bluto ass. Here's the Rude Pundit's favorite section from Al Gore's erection-inspiring speech yesterday:
"The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.
"Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.
"Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment's notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march -- when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?
"It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it is up to us to do the same."
Goddamn, it's such in-yer-fookin'-gob rhetoric, innit? Here's Bush, who in speech after speech makes some variation on the same stupid statement, as he did on January 11: "[I] said that after September the 11th, that oceans no longer protected us. You know, when I was growing up, or other baby boomers here were growing up, we felt safe because we had these vast oceans that could protect us from harm's way. September the 11th changed all that." And then here's Gore, calling complete and utter bullshit on that idiotic line, that the oceans couldn't even protect us from the wind-driven ships of the British, let alone Soviet ICBMs.
But the other thing Gore is doing is good ol' locker room politics: he's calling Bush a dickhead. "You want threats?" Gore is saying. "Dude, you only gotta keep track of a couple hundred goatfuckers who shit in holes on the side of a mountain. Try dealin' with a few million Soviets. God, stop being a dickhead about it and just do your job without fucking up the joint too much, a'ight?"
Gore's historical logic could also be extended to this: as repressive as the United States government could be to its citizens during the Cold War, fuck, the Rude Pundit doesn't wanna imagine what Nixon or Reagan would have been like if they'd followed Bush's logic of the power of the president during "war." It'd be like the difference between being gang-raped in prison and being gang-raped in hell by forked-dicked demons with four balls, shooting torrents of fiery spooge into your lacerated asshole.
The rest of the speech is Al Gore representing the injured citizenry of this country, speaking as someone who is not only disgusted by the treatment of a loved one- like the Constitution is in some horrid, rat-infested state-run nursing home -but as someone who is being hurt himself, as, indeed, we all are, every day, by the rampant, anti-American power grab the White House is engaged in, with the complacent Congress just along for the ride. The government is spying on Americans without a warrant or any oversight other than by the spies themselves, Gore says. What the fuck, you know? What the fuck?
Unlike so many of Gore's barnburner speeches of the past, this one had more of an effect than the usual flea fart at a System of a Down concert resonance of his previous efforts. For one thing, Attorney General Alberto "Where's Your Fucking Neck?" Gonzales appeared on Larry King's Zombie Live last night, where Larry King's zombie asked Gonzales about the speech. Gonzales took out the Bill of Rights and said, "Amendments? We don't need no stinkin' amendments" before setting the document on fire with his cigarillo.
King's zombie then asked Gonzales if it was that big a fuckin' deal to get a judge to "sign off on a warrant." Gonzales replied, "Larry, whenever you involve another branch of government in an activity regarding electronic surveillance, inherently it's going to result in some cases in delay." Then he distracted King by offering the zombie host the fresh brains of Sunni children, which King's zombie gratefully engorged. His work there done, Gonzales slunk off, hunched over like a beaten bellringer, to give Sean Hannity's manly jaw a stiff workout.
Gonzales used the much discredited "Clinton did it" excuse to defend the warrantless spying. These were called "black-bag jobs," and they involved physical searches of property without a warrant. The major difference is that, according to the Christian Science Monitor of August 31, 1994, "Unlike their predecessors, Mr. Clinton and [Janet] Reno have encouraged Congress to clear up legal uncertainties over black-bag jobs." This, of course, led to the expansion of FISA to cover physical property searches, passed by Congress. It was not simply done and Congress was informed and told to go fuck itself.
But that's the difference, isn't it? One President respecting the checks and balances of government, another flushing them down the toilet like so much used tissue. One speaker yesterday offered a path back to respect, another continued to advocate stuffing the toilet to overflowing.
Haven't things come to a strange pass when to be "radical" is to merely ask that the government of the nation respect its own laws?
Michelle Malkin's Cuntistry, Briefly Noted:
If one is going to rage against USA Today for distorting a picture of Condi Rice, then perhaps one should not distort a photo of Ted Kennedy for comedic effect on one's own blog.
The Year of Living Rudely Now On Sale at Tower Record Online Store:
In case you don't trust CDBaby.com for some bizarro reason, you can get the Rude Pundit's CD at Tower.com now. Buy, love, drink, buy more.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Martin Luther King Would Fuck Bush's Shit Up (2006 Edition):
Today isn't only Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, oh, no. This year, King's day falls on Religious Freedom Day. "What the fuck?" you may ask, and, indeed, you'd be correct. See, Religious Freedom Day was ostensibly established to celebrate the passage of Thomas Jefferson-authored Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786.
Jefferson's words are particularly poignant these days because Jefferson posited this: "that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint...That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical...that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right." It's a remarkable document, an amazing expression of the meaning of (and, indeed, the foundation of) the separation between church and state. Indeed, its celebration is rightly noted and all too forgotten, a none-too-prescient exultation of free will as a "natural right."
So, of course, the religious right has to fuck it mericilessly into a meaningless heap.
They're such skeevy bastards, the fundamentalist right, like cretinous little dirt eaters who covertly masturbate in the closets of their sisters, jackin' it like crazed lemurs all over Sis's school skirt and gigglin' about it later when she asks Mom where that stain came from. For them, Religious Freedom Day is just another opportunity to try to use freedom against itself and secret them some Jesus into the public schools.
Think that's an exaggeration? Here's some news from James Dobson's Focus on the (Financial Success of My) Family's Citizenlink: Luis Gonzales, a band teacher, wanted to celebrate Religious Freedom Day at his school. "For many years I have pondered the effect of my Christian walk on my students," he said. "I wanted to be able to give my students some concrete information so they, in turn, can make knowledgeable decisions on their beliefs and actions in the school setting." (What is a "Christian walk"? Is it like a sexy sashay? Or a goose step?)
The website for Religious Freedom Day handily offers oodles of RFD merchandise, as well as guidelines for how students can bring them some Jesus to school, like a teddy bear or an imaginary friend. Oh, how it oozes with sweet, viscous contempt for the act it purports to celebrate. It gives a handy paraphrase of the Statute, for those who can't follow all those conjunctive adverbs and subordinate clauses. And what a fine paraphrase it is. For instance, it takes this unclear Jeffersonian phrasing - "finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them" - and translates it into this: "Truth is a wonderful thing. Truth can defend itself if you just let it be told. People need to be free to talk about what they believe is the truth about God." And the truth shall set you free, no?
And what does this have to do with Martin Luther King and how and why he would fuck George W. Bush's shit up? Because King was like Thomas Jefferson (yeah, yeah, the Rude Pundit knows, but go with it) in his belief that religious worship is part and parcel of freedom. And that religion used oppressively is not genuine faith. Bush has to hide his true faith, except in very specific circumstances, for his Christianity is about condemnation, not celebration.
Check out King in a January 1965 interview with Alex Haley in Playboy:
"PLAYBOY: Can you recall any other mistakes you've made in leading the movement?
"MARTIN LUTHER KING: Well, the most pervasive mistake I have made was in believing that because our cause was just, we could be sure that the white ministers of the South, once their Christian consciences were challenged, would rise to our aid. I felt that white ministers would take our cause to the white power structures. I ended up, of course, chastened and disillusioned. As our movement unfolded, and direct appeals were made to white ministers, most folded their hands -- and some even took stands against us.
"PLAYBOY: Their stated reason for refusing to help was that it was not the proper role of the church to 'intervene in secular affairs.' Do you disagree with this view?
"MARTIN LUTHER KING: Most emphatically. The essence of the Epistles of Paul is that Christians should rejoice at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believe. The projection of a social gospel, in my opinion, is the true witness of a Christian life. This is the meaning of the true ekklesia -- the inner, spiritual church. The church once changed society. It was then a thermostat of society. But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion."
King tells Haley that it's specifically the "white church" that has failed: "As the Negro struggles against grave injustice, most white churchmen offer pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. As you say, they claim that the gospel of Christ should have no concern with social issues. Yet white churchgoers, who insist that they are Christians, practice segregation as rigidly in the house of God as they do in movie-houses. Too much of the white church is timid and ineffectual, and some of it is shrill in its defense of bigotry and prejudice. In most communities, the spirit of status quo is endorsed by the churches."
And if you wanna blather that "that-was-then-this-is-now" kind of nonsense, check out what King had to say about the Supreme Court outlawing school prayer: "I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in God. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken, and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right. I am strongly opposed to the efforts that have been made to nullify the decision. They have been motivated, I think, by little more than the wish to embarrass the Supreme Court." It's statements like this that make King such a shifting figure for the religious right - they wanna embrace him 'cause he talked about Christ, but they can't take his whole large frame in their bony white arms because he simply didn't believe in the same Jesus they do.
The entire interview is pretty amazing - and there's a few free lady nipples on the page for the so-inclined men and women in the house - with King giving his plans for massive government spending on programs for blacks and for the poor in general, as well as memories of the disgraceful Bull Connor and his hoses and dogs out in the days of Bombingham.
For Bush, religion is a language of trickery, a way of fooling people into believing that the evil that he does has some holy meaning. For Dobson, the attempt to center Jesus worship in the public arena is essentially a civil rights movement. When someone blows up Dobson's mansion and then tells him he can't vote, maybe we could talk.
Today isn't only Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, oh, no. This year, King's day falls on Religious Freedom Day. "What the fuck?" you may ask, and, indeed, you'd be correct. See, Religious Freedom Day was ostensibly established to celebrate the passage of Thomas Jefferson-authored Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786.
Jefferson's words are particularly poignant these days because Jefferson posited this: "that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint...That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical...that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right." It's a remarkable document, an amazing expression of the meaning of (and, indeed, the foundation of) the separation between church and state. Indeed, its celebration is rightly noted and all too forgotten, a none-too-prescient exultation of free will as a "natural right."
So, of course, the religious right has to fuck it mericilessly into a meaningless heap.
They're such skeevy bastards, the fundamentalist right, like cretinous little dirt eaters who covertly masturbate in the closets of their sisters, jackin' it like crazed lemurs all over Sis's school skirt and gigglin' about it later when she asks Mom where that stain came from. For them, Religious Freedom Day is just another opportunity to try to use freedom against itself and secret them some Jesus into the public schools.
Think that's an exaggeration? Here's some news from James Dobson's Focus on the (Financial Success of My) Family's Citizenlink: Luis Gonzales, a band teacher, wanted to celebrate Religious Freedom Day at his school. "For many years I have pondered the effect of my Christian walk on my students," he said. "I wanted to be able to give my students some concrete information so they, in turn, can make knowledgeable decisions on their beliefs and actions in the school setting." (What is a "Christian walk"? Is it like a sexy sashay? Or a goose step?)
The website for Religious Freedom Day handily offers oodles of RFD merchandise, as well as guidelines for how students can bring them some Jesus to school, like a teddy bear or an imaginary friend. Oh, how it oozes with sweet, viscous contempt for the act it purports to celebrate. It gives a handy paraphrase of the Statute, for those who can't follow all those conjunctive adverbs and subordinate clauses. And what a fine paraphrase it is. For instance, it takes this unclear Jeffersonian phrasing - "finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them" - and translates it into this: "Truth is a wonderful thing. Truth can defend itself if you just let it be told. People need to be free to talk about what they believe is the truth about God." And the truth shall set you free, no?
And what does this have to do with Martin Luther King and how and why he would fuck George W. Bush's shit up? Because King was like Thomas Jefferson (yeah, yeah, the Rude Pundit knows, but go with it) in his belief that religious worship is part and parcel of freedom. And that religion used oppressively is not genuine faith. Bush has to hide his true faith, except in very specific circumstances, for his Christianity is about condemnation, not celebration.
Check out King in a January 1965 interview with Alex Haley in Playboy:
"PLAYBOY: Can you recall any other mistakes you've made in leading the movement?
"MARTIN LUTHER KING: Well, the most pervasive mistake I have made was in believing that because our cause was just, we could be sure that the white ministers of the South, once their Christian consciences were challenged, would rise to our aid. I felt that white ministers would take our cause to the white power structures. I ended up, of course, chastened and disillusioned. As our movement unfolded, and direct appeals were made to white ministers, most folded their hands -- and some even took stands against us.
"PLAYBOY: Their stated reason for refusing to help was that it was not the proper role of the church to 'intervene in secular affairs.' Do you disagree with this view?
"MARTIN LUTHER KING: Most emphatically. The essence of the Epistles of Paul is that Christians should rejoice at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believe. The projection of a social gospel, in my opinion, is the true witness of a Christian life. This is the meaning of the true ekklesia -- the inner, spiritual church. The church once changed society. It was then a thermostat of society. But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion."
King tells Haley that it's specifically the "white church" that has failed: "As the Negro struggles against grave injustice, most white churchmen offer pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. As you say, they claim that the gospel of Christ should have no concern with social issues. Yet white churchgoers, who insist that they are Christians, practice segregation as rigidly in the house of God as they do in movie-houses. Too much of the white church is timid and ineffectual, and some of it is shrill in its defense of bigotry and prejudice. In most communities, the spirit of status quo is endorsed by the churches."
And if you wanna blather that "that-was-then-this-is-now" kind of nonsense, check out what King had to say about the Supreme Court outlawing school prayer: "I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in God. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken, and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right. I am strongly opposed to the efforts that have been made to nullify the decision. They have been motivated, I think, by little more than the wish to embarrass the Supreme Court." It's statements like this that make King such a shifting figure for the religious right - they wanna embrace him 'cause he talked about Christ, but they can't take his whole large frame in their bony white arms because he simply didn't believe in the same Jesus they do.
The entire interview is pretty amazing - and there's a few free lady nipples on the page for the so-inclined men and women in the house - with King giving his plans for massive government spending on programs for blacks and for the poor in general, as well as memories of the disgraceful Bull Connor and his hoses and dogs out in the days of Bombingham.
For Bush, religion is a language of trickery, a way of fooling people into believing that the evil that he does has some holy meaning. For Dobson, the attempt to center Jesus worship in the public arena is essentially a civil rights movement. When someone blows up Dobson's mansion and then tells him he can't vote, maybe we could talk.
Friday, January 13, 2006
You Can Take the Pom-Poms From the Man, But You Can't Take the Man From the Pom-Poms:
What a strange, bifurcated world our distressingly small George Bush appears to live in. Here he is, our goddamn President, sitting just to the west and south of miles and miles of ruined houses, businesses, and neighborhoods in New Orleans, and here's what he says, under a backdrop of a hideously smiling Mardi Gras jester: "It may be hard for you to see, but from when I first came here to today, New Orleans is reminding me of the city I used to come to visit. It's a heck of a place to bring your family. It's a great place to find some of the greatest food in the world and some wonderful fun. And I'm glad you got your infrastructure back on its feet. I know you're beginning to welcome citizens from all around the country here to New Orleans. And for folks around the country who are looking for a great place to have a convention, or a great place to visit, I'd suggest coming here to the great -- New Orleans."
So, just fer the record here, hundreds of thousands of people who used to live in New Orleans have been scattered to the American wind and those who wanna rebuild not only don't know if they can because of a lack of public services, not only don't know if FEMA or insurance is gonna come through, not only don't even know if their neighborhoods will be allowed to be rebuilt, but, even if they overcome those hurdles, don't know that a year after rebuilding if they're neighborhoods will have reached a kind of critical mass that allows the resurrection of a neighborhood to continue or be halted, according to the new rebuilding plan.
The President praised the progress in New Orleans after viewing it from the interstate on the drive from the airport to the Convention Center. Just about every article about the President's trip and CNN this morning noted Bush's lack of actually looking around the city. Said Ed Reams, WDSU reporter on CNN's American Morning, "When you talk about the president saying that he's seeing pretty dramatic change, it's hard for people who are not back in their homes to think anything is pretty dramatic down here, other than the fact that they're not back in their homes. A lot of people still just trying to get back into the city, trying to figure out exactly what's going on with insurance, trying to figure out what's going on with any kind of grants, just trying to figure out the master plan of the city. Right now people are not getting a lot of answers. So when they hear the president saying that he's seen a pretty dramatic change, a lot of folks who want to come back here and that are here right now just don't see it that way."
But that ain't gonna stop Bush from encouraging everyone, like a pathetic refugee from a Wayne's World video festival, to "Party on." But it's par for the course, is it not? For, as we fondly remember, Bush told us after 9/11 to go shopping. So, like, basically, Bush's solution to major disasters is not unlike the reaction of the members of Deltas in Animal House who, when facing failure or expulsion, responded with "Road trip" or "Toga party." In other words, Bush wants everyone to second line dance on graves, piss hurricanes on ruins, and toss shrimp tails into the toxic streets.
And while Bush's speech in New Orleans was a mercifully short recitation of meaningless numbers just to make him look good, in Mississippi later, Bush was rambling like a Ritalin-snortin' teenager playin' with his XBox 360 while talkin' on his cell phone. Here's a great "what the fuck" moment: "And so what can we do? Well, first thing is we can focus on repairing homes. That's not going to do you very good down here in Waveland. I understand that. Tommy and I and the Governor and Marsha just drove by -- there's no homes to repair. It's just been flattened. That's what the people of America have got to understand." Yet, Bush had said earlier, the people of this flattened area have more hope now: "[T]here's a little bounce in people's step," which might be from dodging all the rubble still on the ground, but, still, and, c'mon, what a bizarre thing to say.
The man was a cheerleader back in his days at Andover. Such formative experiences follow a man through his life, where he knows he's not someone who can do, but only someone who can watch and yell support, even when the score is 35 to nothin'. Someone who can shake his groove thing and lead a chant when his team is being squashed. Cheerleaders have to live in a state of unreality for pyramids would fall and waves would flounder if they lost their enthusiasm. And even when their team's defeated, they just come back, again and again, and cheer for lost causes, hoping everyone in the stands goes along. It's what we see in Bush time and again, on Katrina, on Iraq, on the economy: a failure to demonstrate an understanding of reality, just endless smiling and leading a chant of "Defense" whenever the opposition attempts to say differently. The sad delusion of the cheerleader is believing he or she is actually having an effect on the outcome of the game.
(By the way, for real laughs, check out the New Orleans Time-Picayune's photos of Bush's visit. Look at the last one there. Why the fuck is Bush tenderly caressing the face of Boysie Bollinger, chair of a shipbuiding company? Is he gonna kiss him? Poke out his eyes? Just fuckin' weird.)
(And, by the way, again, here's a couple of places to donate to do some real good for the region: The Northwest Louisiana Food Bank, the Mississippi Food Network, and, of course, Habitat for Humanity.)
What a strange, bifurcated world our distressingly small George Bush appears to live in. Here he is, our goddamn President, sitting just to the west and south of miles and miles of ruined houses, businesses, and neighborhoods in New Orleans, and here's what he says, under a backdrop of a hideously smiling Mardi Gras jester: "It may be hard for you to see, but from when I first came here to today, New Orleans is reminding me of the city I used to come to visit. It's a heck of a place to bring your family. It's a great place to find some of the greatest food in the world and some wonderful fun. And I'm glad you got your infrastructure back on its feet. I know you're beginning to welcome citizens from all around the country here to New Orleans. And for folks around the country who are looking for a great place to have a convention, or a great place to visit, I'd suggest coming here to the great -- New Orleans."
So, just fer the record here, hundreds of thousands of people who used to live in New Orleans have been scattered to the American wind and those who wanna rebuild not only don't know if they can because of a lack of public services, not only don't know if FEMA or insurance is gonna come through, not only don't even know if their neighborhoods will be allowed to be rebuilt, but, even if they overcome those hurdles, don't know that a year after rebuilding if they're neighborhoods will have reached a kind of critical mass that allows the resurrection of a neighborhood to continue or be halted, according to the new rebuilding plan.
The President praised the progress in New Orleans after viewing it from the interstate on the drive from the airport to the Convention Center. Just about every article about the President's trip and CNN this morning noted Bush's lack of actually looking around the city. Said Ed Reams, WDSU reporter on CNN's American Morning, "When you talk about the president saying that he's seeing pretty dramatic change, it's hard for people who are not back in their homes to think anything is pretty dramatic down here, other than the fact that they're not back in their homes. A lot of people still just trying to get back into the city, trying to figure out exactly what's going on with insurance, trying to figure out what's going on with any kind of grants, just trying to figure out the master plan of the city. Right now people are not getting a lot of answers. So when they hear the president saying that he's seen a pretty dramatic change, a lot of folks who want to come back here and that are here right now just don't see it that way."
But that ain't gonna stop Bush from encouraging everyone, like a pathetic refugee from a Wayne's World video festival, to "Party on." But it's par for the course, is it not? For, as we fondly remember, Bush told us after 9/11 to go shopping. So, like, basically, Bush's solution to major disasters is not unlike the reaction of the members of Deltas in Animal House who, when facing failure or expulsion, responded with "Road trip" or "Toga party." In other words, Bush wants everyone to second line dance on graves, piss hurricanes on ruins, and toss shrimp tails into the toxic streets.
And while Bush's speech in New Orleans was a mercifully short recitation of meaningless numbers just to make him look good, in Mississippi later, Bush was rambling like a Ritalin-snortin' teenager playin' with his XBox 360 while talkin' on his cell phone. Here's a great "what the fuck" moment: "And so what can we do? Well, first thing is we can focus on repairing homes. That's not going to do you very good down here in Waveland. I understand that. Tommy and I and the Governor and Marsha just drove by -- there's no homes to repair. It's just been flattened. That's what the people of America have got to understand." Yet, Bush had said earlier, the people of this flattened area have more hope now: "[T]here's a little bounce in people's step," which might be from dodging all the rubble still on the ground, but, still, and, c'mon, what a bizarre thing to say.
The man was a cheerleader back in his days at Andover. Such formative experiences follow a man through his life, where he knows he's not someone who can do, but only someone who can watch and yell support, even when the score is 35 to nothin'. Someone who can shake his groove thing and lead a chant when his team is being squashed. Cheerleaders have to live in a state of unreality for pyramids would fall and waves would flounder if they lost their enthusiasm. And even when their team's defeated, they just come back, again and again, and cheer for lost causes, hoping everyone in the stands goes along. It's what we see in Bush time and again, on Katrina, on Iraq, on the economy: a failure to demonstrate an understanding of reality, just endless smiling and leading a chant of "Defense" whenever the opposition attempts to say differently. The sad delusion of the cheerleader is believing he or she is actually having an effect on the outcome of the game.
(By the way, for real laughs, check out the New Orleans Time-Picayune's photos of Bush's visit. Look at the last one there. Why the fuck is Bush tenderly caressing the face of Boysie Bollinger, chair of a shipbuiding company? Is he gonna kiss him? Poke out his eyes? Just fuckin' weird.)
(And, by the way, again, here's a couple of places to donate to do some real good for the region: The Northwest Louisiana Food Bank, the Mississippi Food Network, and, of course, Habitat for Humanity.)
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Alito Tears:
Oh, sweet Martha-Ann Bomgardner, you who would not take the name of Alito as your own, come over here and dry your tears on the Rude Pundit's shoulder. Yes, yes, it is a shame that Sammy had to endure such harsh questions in his hearing, questions like "What do you think?" and "Did you mean it when you said?" and "Why did you do that?" It's so sad, isn't it, that big mean Ted Kennedy wanted to know why Sammy joined the Concerned Alumni of Princeton.
Shhhh, dear Martha-Ann, we all know that you sign up for groups to pad the resume', and, with Sammy applying for a job with the Meese Justice Department, any extra right wing padding would be welcomed. Hell, back in high school, the Rude Pundit briefly belonged to the 4-H Club so he could put it on his college apps. Then he realized he'd have to touch goats and chickens. And when Lindsay Graham sarcastically asked if Sammy was a "closet bigot," well, who could hold back the floodgates for all the implication? It's brutal, the Rude Pundit knows.
Aww, you cry so deliciously, poor Martha-Ann. The Rude Pundit bets that you cry more bravely than that ten-year old girl when she was strip-searched by cops as they probed her ten-year old vagina and anus for packets of drugs. The Rude Pundit bets that you cry more loudly than that retarded guy whose co-workers sodomized him with a broom handle. The Rude Pundit bets that the tears of everyone ever affected by your husband's decisions now and in the future pale in comparison to the tears that streak your face right now.
Hush, Martha-Ann, and let the Rude Pundit comfort you. Let the Rude Pundit love you and make love to you. Cry again when you come. And if you should get pregnant, remember that your husband isn't on the Supreme Court yet.
Oh, sweet Martha-Ann Bomgardner, you who would not take the name of Alito as your own, come over here and dry your tears on the Rude Pundit's shoulder. Yes, yes, it is a shame that Sammy had to endure such harsh questions in his hearing, questions like "What do you think?" and "Did you mean it when you said?" and "Why did you do that?" It's so sad, isn't it, that big mean Ted Kennedy wanted to know why Sammy joined the Concerned Alumni of Princeton.
Shhhh, dear Martha-Ann, we all know that you sign up for groups to pad the resume', and, with Sammy applying for a job with the Meese Justice Department, any extra right wing padding would be welcomed. Hell, back in high school, the Rude Pundit briefly belonged to the 4-H Club so he could put it on his college apps. Then he realized he'd have to touch goats and chickens. And when Lindsay Graham sarcastically asked if Sammy was a "closet bigot," well, who could hold back the floodgates for all the implication? It's brutal, the Rude Pundit knows.
Aww, you cry so deliciously, poor Martha-Ann. The Rude Pundit bets that you cry more bravely than that ten-year old girl when she was strip-searched by cops as they probed her ten-year old vagina and anus for packets of drugs. The Rude Pundit bets that you cry more loudly than that retarded guy whose co-workers sodomized him with a broom handle. The Rude Pundit bets that the tears of everyone ever affected by your husband's decisions now and in the future pale in comparison to the tears that streak your face right now.
Hush, Martha-Ann, and let the Rude Pundit comfort you. Let the Rude Pundit love you and make love to you. Cry again when you come. And if you should get pregnant, remember that your husband isn't on the Supreme Court yet.
Samuel Alito for the Government:
Quick post because Clark Kent duties are slamming the Rude Pundit today:
Here's one of the main reasons that Samuel Alito shouldn't be on the Supreme Court. Check out his bio: motherfucker has only ever worked as an advocate for the government or as a judge. Not once in his career did he have to defend the rights of an individual or group of citizens against the strong arm of the government or the vicious vicissitudes of corporate malfeasance.
It's the Allegory of the Cave, man. Read yer goddamn Plato, that old Greek sodomite. If all you know are shadows, then how will you know what it means to deal with real, actual humans?
More later.
Quick post because Clark Kent duties are slamming the Rude Pundit today:
Here's one of the main reasons that Samuel Alito shouldn't be on the Supreme Court. Check out his bio: motherfucker has only ever worked as an advocate for the government or as a judge. Not once in his career did he have to defend the rights of an individual or group of citizens against the strong arm of the government or the vicious vicissitudes of corporate malfeasance.
It's the Allegory of the Cave, man. Read yer goddamn Plato, that old Greek sodomite. If all you know are shadows, then how will you know what it means to deal with real, actual humans?
More later.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Rude Raleigh Interview:
The North Carolina alternative monthly, the Raleigh Hatchet (get it? A shout out to the Southern rockers in the house), has an extended interview with the Rude Pundit (only available in PDF form for now - click down to page 25). Marco Soto does the writing. Check it out in between banging your head on the wall as if you're a Democrat and the wall is Sammy Alito. (Link fixed.)
CD Update:
Initial sales of The Year of Living Rudely have been sweet, and for everyone who left comments on the CD Baby page, rude thanks. If you've heard the CD and wanna add a word or two (and haven't done so already), toss it into the pile.
If sales are strong enough, Mouth Noise wants to do a second CD for later this year, featuring live tracks and maybe even a radio friendly cut or two. So click on the tongue photo and buy those fuckers for friends, for relatives, for Teddy Kennedy, who could use a larf or two.
The North Carolina alternative monthly, the Raleigh Hatchet (get it? A shout out to the Southern rockers in the house), has an extended interview with the Rude Pundit (only available in PDF form for now - click down to page 25). Marco Soto does the writing. Check it out in between banging your head on the wall as if you're a Democrat and the wall is Sammy Alito. (Link fixed.)
CD Update:
Initial sales of The Year of Living Rudely have been sweet, and for everyone who left comments on the CD Baby page, rude thanks. If you've heard the CD and wanna add a word or two (and haven't done so already), toss it into the pile.
If sales are strong enough, Mouth Noise wants to do a second CD for later this year, featuring live tracks and maybe even a radio friendly cut or two. So click on the tongue photo and buy those fuckers for friends, for relatives, for Teddy Kennedy, who could use a larf or two.
Democrats Are Pussies and They're Getting Fucked:
The Rude Pundit's not nearly as old as Sammy Alito, but he remembers the day a couple of hot Socialist college girls walked into the university newspaper office and asked to talk to whoever would listen about subscribing to The Militant, the Socialist Workers Party newspaper. So the Rude Pundit and a male friend went out for drinks with the hot Socialist college girls, who were touring regional universities to drum up business for the Socialists. At the end of an evening of teasing, pleasing, and free love, the Rude Pundit, who not only flirted with socialists, but with socialism, gladly signed up for a few months of The Militant. Someone told the Rude Pundit that simply subscribing to the newspaper assured the Rude Pundit a file with the FBI - it was the late Reagan era. Which the Rude Pundit took as a badge of honor (and probably wasn't true). After the months were up, the Rude Pundit had moved on to The Nation and mainstream liberalism, and, well, the memory of the evening dimmed when the re-subscribing bill came in the mail.
The point here ain't that the Rude Pundit was blown into socialism. The point is that if someone asked him why he signed up for The Militant, he'd fucking remember it and remember why he did it. So when Sammy Alito says of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton that he has "no specific recollection of that organization," but then says why he may have joined it, he's a fuckin' weasel at best, a craven liar at worst. In fact, why not follow up with, "Well, Judgey, since you have no recollection of the CAP, a racist, sexist organization, might it be possible that you have no recollection of other groups you may have belonged to? Like the KKK? Or the White Aryan Resistance? You are a skinhead, Judge Alito. What about forgotten events? Like that ecstasy-fueled evening where you drove into Philadelphia and pissed on the Liberty Bell after jacking off on Independence Hall, screaming, 'Hey, Sam Adams, here's your beer back'? I mean, c'mon, who'd recollect that?"
But that kind of interrogation would take more than the dull, monotonous, barely comprehensible half-dribble of questions and speechifying the Democrats engaged in yesterday. (Would someone please tell Joe "Behold My Combover of Integrity" Biden to shut the fuck up if he's not gonna ask a goddamn question?) What we got from virtually every Democrat (and the allegedly "moderate" Republicans) was the sight of generously lubricated orifices just begging for a fucking from Republicans. Even Ted Kennedy was reduced to droning sonorously about the cases he wanted to discuss with Alito. Only Russ Feingold and Chuck Schumer got anything from Alito, with Feingold causing Alito to back into a corner like every mob stoolie Alito ever cut a plea deal with. Feingold got Alito to admit that he was wrong when he said that a "computer glitch" caused him to take on a case involving Vanguard companies, with whom Alito had nearly $400,000 invested.
Then there's Alito himself, who, if this was about 18 months ago, would be called a "flip-flopper." To quote Maureen Dowd (from today's column), "Is he the old Sam, who devised ways to upend Roe v. Wade and crimp abortion rights? Or the new Sam, who has great respect for precedent and an 'open mind' about abortion cases?
"Is he the old Sam, who plotted ways to tip the balance of power to the executive branch? Or the new Sam, who states that 'no person in this country is above the law, and that includes the president'?
"Is he the old Sam, who said Robert Bork 'was one of the most outstanding nominees of this century' and 'a man of unequaled ability'? Or the new Sam, who shrugged off that statement as the dutiful support of one Reagan appointee for another?"
Or, in other words, Alito is the typical conservative little bitch, who will lie openly about his beliefs in order to achieve power because he knows that the majority of the country (and the Senate, if so-called "moderate" Republicans actually existed) disagree with them. Goddamn, Ruth Bader Ginsburg fuckin' laid it all out there, love it or leave it, man. The crazed Robert Bork was willing to say, "Yes, I do fuck mothers," which took guts. And Alito is about as nutzoid as Bork; he just spits less when he expresses it. Or he claims he doesn't believe what he believes, which makes him a little yapping bitch.
The most absurd statement came from Senator John Cornyn, who claimed to Alito that Democrats "have already decided to vote against your nomination and are looking for some reason to do so." It's like saying, "Democrats have decided not to shove cucumbers up their asses" while you desperately try to get that green gourd all the way to your anxious prostate.
How about this for a Democratic strategy now and in the debate after - act like the general public is fuckin' sick of the Republicans and how they've led the nation. Act like Americans are begging for someone to stop the crazy train we're on. 'Cause if you can't pull the emergency brake, then you need to get thrown onto the tracks. Slam this motherfuckin' Alito for being the weaselly bastard he is. Stop making him into some noble, nice guy - fucker defended a warrantless strip search of a ten year-old - what more do you need? Remember: no one gives a shit beyond CNNMSNBCFox how badly Republicans slam Democrats for being "obstructionists." No one cares when Bush says the same thing. What the public will remember in November is that Democrats stood for something, that they drew a fuckin' line, man.
Dry yourselves off and slap those hard Republican cocks out of the way, or it's just gonna be another sad right wing rape.
The Rude Pundit's not nearly as old as Sammy Alito, but he remembers the day a couple of hot Socialist college girls walked into the university newspaper office and asked to talk to whoever would listen about subscribing to The Militant, the Socialist Workers Party newspaper. So the Rude Pundit and a male friend went out for drinks with the hot Socialist college girls, who were touring regional universities to drum up business for the Socialists. At the end of an evening of teasing, pleasing, and free love, the Rude Pundit, who not only flirted with socialists, but with socialism, gladly signed up for a few months of The Militant. Someone told the Rude Pundit that simply subscribing to the newspaper assured the Rude Pundit a file with the FBI - it was the late Reagan era. Which the Rude Pundit took as a badge of honor (and probably wasn't true). After the months were up, the Rude Pundit had moved on to The Nation and mainstream liberalism, and, well, the memory of the evening dimmed when the re-subscribing bill came in the mail.
The point here ain't that the Rude Pundit was blown into socialism. The point is that if someone asked him why he signed up for The Militant, he'd fucking remember it and remember why he did it. So when Sammy Alito says of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton that he has "no specific recollection of that organization," but then says why he may have joined it, he's a fuckin' weasel at best, a craven liar at worst. In fact, why not follow up with, "Well, Judgey, since you have no recollection of the CAP, a racist, sexist organization, might it be possible that you have no recollection of other groups you may have belonged to? Like the KKK? Or the White Aryan Resistance? You are a skinhead, Judge Alito. What about forgotten events? Like that ecstasy-fueled evening where you drove into Philadelphia and pissed on the Liberty Bell after jacking off on Independence Hall, screaming, 'Hey, Sam Adams, here's your beer back'? I mean, c'mon, who'd recollect that?"
But that kind of interrogation would take more than the dull, monotonous, barely comprehensible half-dribble of questions and speechifying the Democrats engaged in yesterday. (Would someone please tell Joe "Behold My Combover of Integrity" Biden to shut the fuck up if he's not gonna ask a goddamn question?) What we got from virtually every Democrat (and the allegedly "moderate" Republicans) was the sight of generously lubricated orifices just begging for a fucking from Republicans. Even Ted Kennedy was reduced to droning sonorously about the cases he wanted to discuss with Alito. Only Russ Feingold and Chuck Schumer got anything from Alito, with Feingold causing Alito to back into a corner like every mob stoolie Alito ever cut a plea deal with. Feingold got Alito to admit that he was wrong when he said that a "computer glitch" caused him to take on a case involving Vanguard companies, with whom Alito had nearly $400,000 invested.
Then there's Alito himself, who, if this was about 18 months ago, would be called a "flip-flopper." To quote Maureen Dowd (from today's column), "Is he the old Sam, who devised ways to upend Roe v. Wade and crimp abortion rights? Or the new Sam, who has great respect for precedent and an 'open mind' about abortion cases?
"Is he the old Sam, who plotted ways to tip the balance of power to the executive branch? Or the new Sam, who states that 'no person in this country is above the law, and that includes the president'?
"Is he the old Sam, who said Robert Bork 'was one of the most outstanding nominees of this century' and 'a man of unequaled ability'? Or the new Sam, who shrugged off that statement as the dutiful support of one Reagan appointee for another?"
Or, in other words, Alito is the typical conservative little bitch, who will lie openly about his beliefs in order to achieve power because he knows that the majority of the country (and the Senate, if so-called "moderate" Republicans actually existed) disagree with them. Goddamn, Ruth Bader Ginsburg fuckin' laid it all out there, love it or leave it, man. The crazed Robert Bork was willing to say, "Yes, I do fuck mothers," which took guts. And Alito is about as nutzoid as Bork; he just spits less when he expresses it. Or he claims he doesn't believe what he believes, which makes him a little yapping bitch.
The most absurd statement came from Senator John Cornyn, who claimed to Alito that Democrats "have already decided to vote against your nomination and are looking for some reason to do so." It's like saying, "Democrats have decided not to shove cucumbers up their asses" while you desperately try to get that green gourd all the way to your anxious prostate.
How about this for a Democratic strategy now and in the debate after - act like the general public is fuckin' sick of the Republicans and how they've led the nation. Act like Americans are begging for someone to stop the crazy train we're on. 'Cause if you can't pull the emergency brake, then you need to get thrown onto the tracks. Slam this motherfuckin' Alito for being the weaselly bastard he is. Stop making him into some noble, nice guy - fucker defended a warrantless strip search of a ten year-old - what more do you need? Remember: no one gives a shit beyond CNNMSNBCFox how badly Republicans slam Democrats for being "obstructionists." No one cares when Bush says the same thing. What the public will remember in November is that Democrats stood for something, that they drew a fuckin' line, man.
Dry yourselves off and slap those hard Republican cocks out of the way, or it's just gonna be another sad right wing rape.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Stinking Corpse of Tom DeLay:
Would someone please call Haley Joel Osment so that he can tell Tom DeLay that he's dead? 'Cause, really, and, c'mon, there's few things in this world more genuinely disturbing than watching a corpse decay, although it's awfully hard not to wanna pull up a lawn chair, break out the Bud, and watch Tom DeLay rot.
Sure, sure, one could prop up the corpse of Tom DeLay, seat it in a chair, near an air conditioner in a congressional committee room, perhaps even, if one has a sense of irony, in the same chair as the deceased Duke Cunningham, soon to be starring in "Let's Repeatedly Sodomize Duke Cunningham's Corpse" at a California prison.
But, still, Washington gets ridiculously hot in the spring and summer, so before long, no matter what, Tom DeLay's corpse is gonna end up stinkin' up the joint even more than when Tom DeLay was still alive. Tom DeLay's corpse is gonna go through all the horrific processes of decomposition. The enzymes and chemicals left in Tom DeLay's corpse will essentially chew up his organs and spit them out. Yeah, it's gonna be shocking when Tom DeLay's corpse is in the House Appropriations Committee meeting room and it starts to liquefy, as corpses do, leaking his large intestine all over, say, Kentucky's Anne Northup. And what's John Murtha, who is, without a doubt, a badass motherfucker, gonna do when, perhaps, Tom DeLay's corpse spills his spleen? One good kick in the gut from Murtha, and there's a good chance that Tom DeLay's bloated cadaver would explode, expelling gelatinous rot over the entire Congressional body.
Yes, corpses are filled with bacteria that eat the tissues of the body after death and eventually Tom DeLay's not just gonna bleed out through his orifices, but through the broken down skin tissues. One tear on the corpse of Tom Delay's tender, thinning skin, and Tom DeLay's corpse will leak like a water balloon jabbed with a knife.
There's a good 20 or so gallons of viscous goo that'll bleed out of Tom DeLay as his stinking corpse putrefies. And that's not to mention the other unpleasant and downright disgusting shit that's everyone's gonna have to watch if Tom DeLay's corpse stays above ground: Phorid flies are gonna get into that rotting meat of Tom DeLay's corpse, feeding on it and laying eggs, which will hatch and devour parts of Tom DeLay's corpse. And if those flies bite others in Congress, the diseases of Tom DeLay's corpse may spread, leading to madness, diarrhea, and more corpses. Yep, flies, maggots, beetles, ants crawling out of Tom DeLay's eye sockets. It's only natural, you know.
Otherwise, there's only the smell of Tom DeLay's corpse, which, burst open or just sitting there, will permeate the whole capitol. Tom DeLay's corpse will have the shit smell of hydrogen sulfide, of methane, of other gases. Just catch a whiff of Tom DeLay's corpse and you'll understand the corruption of the body.
The only solution, then, is to embalm that fucker and put Tom DeLay's corpse in the ground. Bury it so that at least it can fall to pieces where we don't have to watch it anymore.
Would someone please call Haley Joel Osment so that he can tell Tom DeLay that he's dead? 'Cause, really, and, c'mon, there's few things in this world more genuinely disturbing than watching a corpse decay, although it's awfully hard not to wanna pull up a lawn chair, break out the Bud, and watch Tom DeLay rot.
Sure, sure, one could prop up the corpse of Tom DeLay, seat it in a chair, near an air conditioner in a congressional committee room, perhaps even, if one has a sense of irony, in the same chair as the deceased Duke Cunningham, soon to be starring in "Let's Repeatedly Sodomize Duke Cunningham's Corpse" at a California prison.
But, still, Washington gets ridiculously hot in the spring and summer, so before long, no matter what, Tom DeLay's corpse is gonna end up stinkin' up the joint even more than when Tom DeLay was still alive. Tom DeLay's corpse is gonna go through all the horrific processes of decomposition. The enzymes and chemicals left in Tom DeLay's corpse will essentially chew up his organs and spit them out. Yeah, it's gonna be shocking when Tom DeLay's corpse is in the House Appropriations Committee meeting room and it starts to liquefy, as corpses do, leaking his large intestine all over, say, Kentucky's Anne Northup. And what's John Murtha, who is, without a doubt, a badass motherfucker, gonna do when, perhaps, Tom DeLay's corpse spills his spleen? One good kick in the gut from Murtha, and there's a good chance that Tom DeLay's bloated cadaver would explode, expelling gelatinous rot over the entire Congressional body.
Yes, corpses are filled with bacteria that eat the tissues of the body after death and eventually Tom DeLay's not just gonna bleed out through his orifices, but through the broken down skin tissues. One tear on the corpse of Tom Delay's tender, thinning skin, and Tom DeLay's corpse will leak like a water balloon jabbed with a knife.
There's a good 20 or so gallons of viscous goo that'll bleed out of Tom DeLay as his stinking corpse putrefies. And that's not to mention the other unpleasant and downright disgusting shit that's everyone's gonna have to watch if Tom DeLay's corpse stays above ground: Phorid flies are gonna get into that rotting meat of Tom DeLay's corpse, feeding on it and laying eggs, which will hatch and devour parts of Tom DeLay's corpse. And if those flies bite others in Congress, the diseases of Tom DeLay's corpse may spread, leading to madness, diarrhea, and more corpses. Yep, flies, maggots, beetles, ants crawling out of Tom DeLay's eye sockets. It's only natural, you know.
Otherwise, there's only the smell of Tom DeLay's corpse, which, burst open or just sitting there, will permeate the whole capitol. Tom DeLay's corpse will have the shit smell of hydrogen sulfide, of methane, of other gases. Just catch a whiff of Tom DeLay's corpse and you'll understand the corruption of the body.
The only solution, then, is to embalm that fucker and put Tom DeLay's corpse in the ground. Bury it so that at least it can fall to pieces where we don't have to watch it anymore.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Friday, January 06, 2006
Katrina Plus Four Months, Part 5 - In Conclusion:
On New Year's weekend in New Orleans, Mid-City is dead. The ride down Carrollton in the center of the Crescent City is like going through an Old West ghost town - you half expect tumbleweeds and coyotes roaming the boarded up buildings and gray, dingy neighborhoods. Frankly, the city looks in many ways as it did in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it was truly a sleazy Old South place, before the 1984 World's Fair, which, while it failed in so many ways, got the town gussied up and ready for guests. Of course, the sleazy streets, so often smelling of crushed magnolia, beer, and rainwater, were teeming with people then. Now, it is the Big Empty.
Other than the neighborhoods across the river, like Algiers and the Westbank, which got through Katrina relatively unscathed, all that really remains of New Orleans is a touristy mini-crescent north of the Mississippi River, encompassing the French Quarter, the Central Business District, and parts of the Garden District and Uptown. The resurrection of New Orleans seems as if it's calculated to create a Disneyfied version of itself, where only the parts that matter to outsiders are developed, those that can be made into simulacra of the real thing.
The latest news is the attempt to stop the bulldozers from razing over a hundred houses in the Lower Ninth Ward. It's noble and understandable, especially with rumors floating around the neighborhood that Donald Trump is interested in buying the land of the Lower Ninth; especially since, as the Rude Brother pointed out, the whiter areas of Lakeview and Gentilly, where other levees broke, while generally screwed, have had the debris picked up off the streets; especially since the partial list of homes targeted for demolition includes a large chunk of the 70117 zip code, the Lower Ninth.
Yes, it is a noble effort, but the neighborhood's a loss, as many people from there realize. More effort needs to be put into what happens next, not on tearing down what's already gone. Make sure the Lower Ninth gets affordable housing, a real economic base, and more. Recreating what's been washed away is defeat, a desperate clinging to a past that Katrina wiped away. Goddamn, the Lower Ninth might have been a place of families and community and churches, but it was a poverty-stricken, forgotten corner that only surfaced in the collective consciousness of the city when there was violence. If the effort is made to keep the greedy sons of bitches away from the land there, something truly amazing can arise. But that starts with bulldozers.
The Rude Pundit left New Orleans feeling much the same about the entire area, or feeling worse - that it's time to abandon New Orleans because if next hurricane season strikes it again, it's done. For the will and energy needed to put this metropolitan area back together are too much for the state, too much for a Washington, DC too concerned with wars and corruption to look back to 2005's ravages. It's too much to ask for responsible environmental policy, and too much to ask for real attention to poverty, and too much to ask for an end to tax cuts so it can all be realistically funded, and too much to ask for a state that was started, in essence, by a pirate, Jean Lafitte, to give up its corrupt ways. It ain't gonna happen. The people here know it. It's a dulling, bludgeoning kind of knowledge, that they've been abandoned. And this crosses party lines for blame. Hell, in Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco's political career is over - she is seen as weak and ineffective. George Bush is mostly despised around here, for he is seen as a liar and opportunist whose promise of billions of dollars of aid will not be fulfilled.
There's no climax here. No solutions. Just the New Orleans night, a darkness encroaching on the last bits of light.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Katrina Plus Four Months, Part 4 - Essay In Black (and White):
There's a good chance there haven't been this many white people in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans since the last time the NOPD busted up a crack house. On this day, four months after the levee broke during Hurricane Katrina and sent a train roar of water heaving through the streets, the Ninth is crawling with white people in this neighborhood that fits Wolf Blitzer's definition of "so poor and so black." The white people crawl along in luxury cars to gawk at the destroyed community, nestled between very white Chalmette and, just on the other side of the Industrial Canal, the Bywater, a mixed race community in New Orleans that gives way to the more gentrified Faubourg that gives way to the French Quarter.
Some white people get out of their cars to walk the shattered, muddy streets. Some take photos, most personal tokens, but some of them obviously for professional purposes. One young white man posed an older black man on a small stool, asking him to put his hands on his knees and lean forward. The young white man wanted to take a picture of the older black man in front of the black man's collapsed house, dotted with his dirt-caked possessions. The Rude Pundit hated that young white man. The Rude Pundit wanted to kick his ass when he made the older black man re-pose. And then the Rude Brother reminded the Rude Pundit that they themselves were walking around, taking pictures, and, really, and, c'mon, were they that many steps removed from the photographer. The Rude Brother, a better angel, surely, if there is such a thing, said, "Isn't it better that people are coming to see this?" This, meaning, of course, everything around him.
To enter the streets near the levee in the Lower Ninth Ward is to witness the magnitude of the force of the floods. And it is to understand why the black people of the neighborhood believe they were abandoned. To put this in context: the Rude Pundit visited the site of the fallen Twin Towers four months after 9/11. That was comprehensible horror - it was horror, to be sure, but it was concentrated, and we could grapple with that and understand it. We could see it all in a single wide-angle picture. Not the Lower Ninth Ward. Because one stationary camera would diminish the extent of the vast wasteland the neighborhood has become, and the fact that virtually nothing has been done in the months since Katrina.
Herbert Gettridge was sitting on the porch of his stucco home, one of the few that remained standing without massive damage. Gettridge sat there as two other men were pulling out all of his belongings and tossing them into a pile. "I've been in this house for fifty years," he said, "raised nine children here. People know the Gettridges in the Lower Ninth." Yeah, he wants everyone to know, the Lower Ninth Ward was poor and crime-ridden, but it was also a community of families and now the crime and families are gone, only leaving the poverty. He had re-built the house once before, after Hurricane Betsy in 1965: "I pulled out the old sheetrock by myself and put in all the new. I'll do it again." Of course, Gettridge is 82 years old now. "I just came back here from Madison, Wisconsin. FEMA sent us to seven different places, all over." He finally ended up with a daughter in Madison, with his wife, "been with the same woman since I was sixteen." His wife's sick, he said. "She wasn't doing too well before the storm and now she's feelin' worse." She remains in Madison.
The Gettridges had evacuated early, but so many others stayed behind or just couldn't leave. The attic of the house next door had a neat square hole cut in it. Gettridge's neighbor had stayed behind. "I told him he was a fool. Was in that attic for four or five days before the helicopter came and cut him out, half dead, no food or water." Another man across the street "lost his mind" because he stayed during the flood.
Gettridge's house was surrounded by the rubble and ruin of other houses. Most of the homes were knocked off their foundations by the rush and churn of the water from the Industrial Canal. Many were simply crushed - nothing but wood, insulation, roofing. A few were roofs on the ground with no house there. Cars were trapped underneath homes. Houses were split open, like walnuts, cracked to reveal what was within, the belongings spilling out. And it has essentially looked this way since the flood came. "Four months, and they haven't even moved the damn barge," Gettridge said.
Oh, yeah, the barge. There's a barge in the middle of the street next to the levee. Some believe the giant barge actually came unmoored in the storm and broke the levee. Some Lower Ninth members say that they had complained about the barge before Katrina hit, that it was knocking against the levee earlier, and because it was Lower Ninth citizens, with no power at all, no one cared. But the barge is there, a huge rusting hulk. The barge, when it came through the levee, smeared the houses right near it, like a gargantuan knife smoothing butter on a slice of toast. The water and barge shoved other houses together into a jammed up pile. One of Gettridge's sons has a house in that pile. If the levee had held, yes, the neighborhood would still have been flooded, but it would have been more like Chalmette or Slidell, with houses turned into shells. Terrible enough, but not this.
Walking near the barge, a large black man, about 30 years old, stepped out of a pick-up truck and just started talking to the Rude Pundit and his brother. "I've been in Oakland for the last three months. I just came back here today with my family. First time since I left on September 7." He hadn't been able to get out before the storm and he and his family rode it out before being taken to the I-10 overpass by someone with a small boat. "We were lucky because we had food and water up there. But it was horrible, man, horrible." He talked about shitting and pissing in front of other people, about old people dying around him. "I got two kids with me, six and ten, and they wanna know what's gonna happen. I wanna cry, but I can't cry, 'cause if they see their father cry, then they're gonna know everything ain't gonna be alright." He shook his head at the barge and walked away.
Back at Herbert Gettridge's house, the Rude Pundit wished him luck, took his picture, and, overcome with white liberal guilt, handed him twenty bucks. "God bless you," Gettridge said. "If I was still drinking, this would buy me two cases of beer." Gettridge said he'd given up drinking three or four years ago. If he was still drinking, he'd have had an awfully long way to go to get a brew.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Katrina Plus Four Months, Part 3 - Chalmette:
If you ask him, JB will admit that he was a goddamned idiot. A lucky goddamned idiot, but an idiot just the same. See, JB decided to stay behind when Hurricane Katrina struck the town of Chalmette, just across the parish line from New Orleans, in St. Bernard parish. JB had himself a hurricane party, alone, gettin' drunk and thinkin' everything was gonna be just fine, as it had been with every other hurricane. "Then, I was standin' there in my underwear, holdin' a beer, and I noticed that the carpet was changin' color," he said, as his powers of perception told him that the flood after the storm was overtaking his small house close to Rocky and Carlos's seafood restaurant.
JB made a fateful decision at that moment, one that would make him put down the beer, one that would make him put on pants. He exited his house into the complete and utter darkness and water up to his waist. Imagine that for a moment here: there is no light, no glow of street lamps, no moon. Imagine being turned, in essence, nearly blind and then imagine being tossed into a river. JB got to his truck, which had one payment left on it. He tried the ignition. It turned over once and was dead.
The water rising, JB grabbed an ice chest that was floating by and he spent the next several hours in the water, "sometimes swimming, sometimes just lettin' the current take me along," the surging waters getting so deep that his feet couldn't reach the ground. Truth be told, JB, who's got a bum leg, nearly drowned many times over the course of that night, but he's a pig-headed son of a bitch, and the same stubborn attitude that made him stay in his home when so many other fled allowed him to continually recover and float on. Finally, he passed by a house that had a boat tied to the second floor window. The people there came out and rescued JB, bringing him back to their place. "But I was so tired, I just fell asleep in the boat. They put blankets on me and let me stay there."
The next day, the floods had receded enough so that JB could make his way to a crowded middle school serving as a shelter. Then began a bizarre odyssey through the "completely unprepared" so-called "emergency" system: to get food, JB headed out to the parish courthouse where, he said, "judges and politicians were havin' a big barbecue while handin' out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to all of us." He was taken to a warehouse, jammed with people, poorly-lit with only a few large box fans to keep the rescued cool in the ungodly Louisiana heat. He was there for four days, "and I saw every kind of behavior - fights, people shootin' up drugs." There were few people of authority to control things. People were shitting and pissing everywhere, bargaining for food, buying drugs with food.
He was eventually removed to Algiers, across the river, and finally to the airport, where, for a few more days he was warehoused. "They gave us one MRE and one bottle of water for every two people." The last part of his Louisiana journey was a fourteen-hour wait in a long line on the hot tarmac, without food or water, to be flown away to San Antonio, where he was taken in by a Baptist church until, a couple of weeks later, his family was able to bring him back to Lafayette, Louisiana. The church, which was housing a number of Katrina survivors, didn't want JB to go because "I had such a positive attitude, I guess they thought it had an effect on everyone else." But JB's with family now, out of Chalmette, which, to all intents and purposes, doesn't really exist.
The Rude Pundit saw one working traffic light in all of St. Bernard Parish last week. There's checkpoints at every entrance to the parish, with police enforcing a dusk to dawn curfew since there's little or no power. The streets of Chalmette, of the whole parish, are ghostly still, with much the same ruin as the neighborhoods of Slidell. Except here there is no line where the destruction ends. It is all endless, endless. Outside of one faded old home is Statue of Liberty lawn ornament, surrounded by debris. Another home is pushed into the middle of the street. And more, more trashed spaces.
Signs are posted all over the town - because, really, it's the only way to advertise right now - signs that offer the services of "House Gutters" and "We Tow Flooded Cars." The only visibly open businesses were liquor stores and some trailer operations, like "Shorty's Po-Boys," essentially a food truck, with a long line of customers wanting to get something other than Red Cross rations.
Which were readily available on the main street, Judge Perez Drive. You see the death of a town on its empty main roads. For on Judge Perez, each and every business you pass is closed and/or gutted. Some of the parking lots of shopping centers were fenced off, creating large camps of FEMA trailers, with seemingly self-maintained checkpoints at the entrances. These would be crowded, traffic-filled roads, and packed parking lots ordinarily. Chalmette's not a sleepy burg, but a bustling suburb. But now, now, four months after Katrina, it is a town of ghosts, living and dead.
And it's still not the worst.
Tomorrow: the devastated Lower Ninth Ward.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Katrina Plus Four Months, Part 2 - Riding Through Slidell:
So the old Check In/Check Out didn't make it. The Rude Pundit had used the promise of a po' boy from that old gas station turned beacon of fried seafood sandwich-dom as an enticement to get the Rude Brother to go along on a trip to the New Orleans area. Surely, the Rude Pundit thought, having heard about how so much of Slidell was fine, the Check In/Check Out would have made it. But, like so much else you've heard about recoveries, it's all relative. It's like saying that if we discover microbes on Mars, we've discovered aliens. Well, yeah, technically, but, c'mon, we were promised little green men.
Slidell is a divided city - an obvious line where the floods from Lake Ponchartrain ended extends across a large swath of the town. On one side, there's a kind of normalcy, as if no gigantic storms had passed right over the North Shore. On the other, there's a continuing degradation of the buildings of the town as you ride from I-12 down to the boarded up businesses of Front Street and finally to the absolute destruction of the area approaching the Highway 11 bridge across the lake. At the Starbucks on the corner of Ponchartrain, people wait for FEMA officials to talk to them about flood insurance, for insurance agents to talk to them about other kinds.
The Rude Pundit headed into the neighborhoods where the homes were of people he knew who no longer lived there. During the ride to Slidell, the Rude Pundit had passed at least a dozen trucks towing FEMA trailers, and in this subdivision, many of them were parked on lawns outside of houses, some with Christmas decorations on them. And when the Rude Pundit says, "Houses," he means it in the sense of structure, for every house - every house - was gutted to the studs and foundation. The dirt in front of the homes, which used to be covered by "lawns," held either the enormous piles of debris, the ruined furniture, decorations, possessions, sheetrock, carpeting, that used to fill the houses; or all the detritus of the carried away debris, life reduced to bits of trash, a broken CD, the pages of a book. The Rude Brother noticed a page in the dirt outside of the house of some of the Rude Pundit's friends: it was titled "The Mystery of Atlantis."
This was much the same in subdivision after subdivision, with shopping centers and churches still merely wrecked shells with piles of garbage outside them. Some churches held services in tents, some in smaller spaces. In the wealthier area of Eden Isles, a similar destruction had occurred, although most of the homes had second stories, which were able to be occupied. Outside of one gutted home, a perfectly clean infinity pool was in working order, complete with a waterfall, ready for a dip. And then the Rude brothers headed out to Highway 11 and quickly realized that those with gutted homes were the lucky ones.
For Highway 11 was just a couple of miles of destruction - crushed buildings, small apartment complexes wrecked, boats on the side of the road. One large trailer had one of those disturbing inflatable elongated demi-humans dancing in the breeze outside it. It was an open business: Jack's Discount Cigarettes.
And as wrenching as this was, when you turn left just before the Highway 11 bridge, you understand, finally, in all its stunning simplicity, what happened here. You see empty piles, those vertical logs, row after row of them on the lake. And if you didn't know what it meant, you'd pass them by, ascribing them to historical ruin. But those piles held fishing camps and houses that are simply gone. The sign remains for Vera's restaurant, which used to extend out to the lake and serve up awesomely crunchy and tender fried catfish. Across the road are boats pushed hundreds of yards ashore, piles of broken woods, a shambles. Nothing to look at, so the Rude Pundit headed back to the bridge and on to St. Bernard Parish, feeling the aching mundanity of seeing ruin after ruin.
Tomorrow: St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Katrina Plus Four Months, Part 1:
The Rude Pundit went to different areas of metro New Orleans this past week, prior to the New Year. What he saw is a vibrant, alive, breathing city transformed into a necropolis. Tomorrow he'll tell stories, of what he saw, of people he spoke to. Today, just some pictures of the area four months after Hurricane Katrina. Take a look. You can ask yourself then if nation-building should begin at home.
Slidell, Louisiana, about 20 miles outside of New Orleans, on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain:
A couple of photos from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, where everything looks like the week after the water receded:
Tomorrow and the rest of the week: Stories, photos, interviews from New Orleans.
The Rude Pundit went to different areas of metro New Orleans this past week, prior to the New Year. What he saw is a vibrant, alive, breathing city transformed into a necropolis. Tomorrow he'll tell stories, of what he saw, of people he spoke to. Today, just some pictures of the area four months after Hurricane Katrina. Take a look. You can ask yourself then if nation-building should begin at home.
Slidell, Louisiana, about 20 miles outside of New Orleans, on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain:
A couple of photos from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, where everything looks like the week after the water receded:
Tomorrow and the rest of the week: Stories, photos, interviews from New Orleans.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
A Few Quick Words From the Readers Before We Bid This Year Farewell (Haiku Version):
The Rude Pundit offered his 2005 re-cap in haiku form. The rude readers have responded with their own three line poems of (more or less) five, seven, and five syllables. Here's a few of the best:
From Dave:
Commander-in-chief
Leading safely from afar
Clean hands, dirty soul
From Thomas:
Smug reality
Check those facts again Rummy
Gin might help today
From Hugh:
Randy Cunningham
Took a million bucks in bribes
What a fucking whore
From Chaz:
Lies, lies, and more lies
Like a sandpaper dildo
In hand of Limbaugh
From Jason:
Condoleezza Rice
Touring the globe in hopes of
Fooling them again
From M. Douglas:
Endless privilege
of skull and bones alumni
rape sweet liberty
From Iris:
Mommy, rub my back,
Condi, tell me I'm great,
Laura, get me a drink
From Lloyd:
Imperial smirk
dismisses lost lives and limbs,
gulf cities, honor.
From Tracy:
My anus is raw
Five long years of ass fucking
Life of a sex slave
'Nuff said. Bye, 2005. May you rot in hell, old man.
The Rude Pundit offered his 2005 re-cap in haiku form. The rude readers have responded with their own three line poems of (more or less) five, seven, and five syllables. Here's a few of the best:
From Dave:
Commander-in-chief
Leading safely from afar
Clean hands, dirty soul
From Thomas:
Smug reality
Check those facts again Rummy
Gin might help today
From Hugh:
Randy Cunningham
Took a million bucks in bribes
What a fucking whore
From Chaz:
Lies, lies, and more lies
Like a sandpaper dildo
In hand of Limbaugh
From Jason:
Condoleezza Rice
Touring the globe in hopes of
Fooling them again
From M. Douglas:
Endless privilege
of skull and bones alumni
rape sweet liberty
From Iris:
Mommy, rub my back,
Condi, tell me I'm great,
Laura, get me a drink
From Lloyd:
Imperial smirk
dismisses lost lives and limbs,
gulf cities, honor.
From Tracy:
My anus is raw
Five long years of ass fucking
Life of a sex slave
'Nuff said. Bye, 2005. May you rot in hell, old man.
Friday, December 30, 2005
More End of the Year Haiku:
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit started turning Japanese by reviewing the year through the magic of haiku. Today, the desecration of this ancient form of poetry continues (but, then again, how much was 2005 a desecration of so many other things? Why should haiku get a free pass?).
Naked
Katrina wrecked lives,
Pickled New Orleans, blew clothes
Off the emperor
A Good Meal
Brownie finished his
Dinner while bloated blacks bobbed
Like large fishing lures
If Then
We won’t think again
About Pakistan until
Spring thaws the corpses
Scenes From a Ditch
Cindy Sheehan asked
For truth and some compassion
From a mute fence post
A Judiciary Comparison
Roberts, Alito.
The only difference is
Who’ll fuck us harder
2005 For the Reality-Based Community
A dry, spiked dildo
Roughly, savagely jammed in
An anxious anus
And here's a couple of haiku for George Bush sent in from rude readers (feel free to play along and submit your own):
From Stuart:
he lied and he spied
high crimes and misdemeanors
impeach the bastard
From Todd:
Strumming cool guitar
Black people die in city
Heck of a year Chimp
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit started turning Japanese by reviewing the year through the magic of haiku. Today, the desecration of this ancient form of poetry continues (but, then again, how much was 2005 a desecration of so many other things? Why should haiku get a free pass?).
Naked
Katrina wrecked lives,
Pickled New Orleans, blew clothes
Off the emperor
A Good Meal
Brownie finished his
Dinner while bloated blacks bobbed
Like large fishing lures
If Then
We won’t think again
About Pakistan until
Spring thaws the corpses
Scenes From a Ditch
Cindy Sheehan asked
For truth and some compassion
From a mute fence post
A Judiciary Comparison
Roberts, Alito.
The only difference is
Who’ll fuck us harder
2005 For the Reality-Based Community
A dry, spiked dildo
Roughly, savagely jammed in
An anxious anus
And here's a couple of haiku for George Bush sent in from rude readers (feel free to play along and submit your own):
From Stuart:
he lied and he spied
high crimes and misdemeanors
impeach the bastard
From Todd:
Strumming cool guitar
Black people die in city
Heck of a year Chimp
Thursday, December 29, 2005
End of the Year Haiku, Part 1:
Everyone is overflowing with words about how awful, fucked up, godforsaken, and criminal this horrid year has been for so, so many people, except, of course, for the inevitable silver-lining finders and the deluded conservatives ranting, "heyyoufuckinliberalsitwasnotasbadasyousayitwas." The Rude Pundit prefers the sublime brevity of the haiku. So today and tomorrow, let's remember 2005 in simple lines of five, seven, and five syllables:
Prison Family Values
Scooter's worth two cigs;
Karl Rove will go for a pack.
Cheney? A carton.
Regarding Terri
Schiavo was like dead.
Congress should be placed in a
Vegetative state.
A Difficult Question
What is worse torture?
A Scott McClellan press meet
Or waterboarding?
Iraq
A ballot box is
Not big enough to hold all
The bloody bodies.
Later today: Bush haiku
Tomorrow: disaster haiku
Monday: the Rude Pundit from New Orleans (in essay form)
Everyone is overflowing with words about how awful, fucked up, godforsaken, and criminal this horrid year has been for so, so many people, except, of course, for the inevitable silver-lining finders and the deluded conservatives ranting, "heyyoufuckinliberalsitwasnotasbadasyousayitwas." The Rude Pundit prefers the sublime brevity of the haiku. So today and tomorrow, let's remember 2005 in simple lines of five, seven, and five syllables:
Prison Family Values
Scooter's worth two cigs;
Karl Rove will go for a pack.
Cheney? A carton.
Regarding Terri
Schiavo was like dead.
Congress should be placed in a
Vegetative state.
A Difficult Question
What is worse torture?
A Scott McClellan press meet
Or waterboarding?
Iraq
A ballot box is
Not big enough to hold all
The bloody bodies.
Later today: Bush haiku
Tomorrow: disaster haiku
Monday: the Rude Pundit from New Orleans (in essay form)
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
One More From the Pre-Bloggy Vault:
If you wanna know the full story on what the Rude Pundit's doing this week, check out Monday's and Tuesday's posts. Suffice to say, he's here on a journey to Red State America, headin' to the New Orleans, and, before doin' the whole "oh-look-at-that-year-that-was-savagely-taken-from-us" review thing tomorrow and Friday, the Rude Pundit's tossin' out some well-aged material from his early 1990s radio program, The Rich Flemball Show, a parody of everyone's favorite bloated bloviator.
Commercials read by Rich Flemball were a big part of the show, with Rich constantly hawking his "books" for his slavering fans. In one more demonstration of how little political discourse (or, indeed, rudeness) has changed in the last decade, here's one ad from 1993 that encompassed most of the Rich Flemball oeuvre:
It's time for a literature update.
That's right, folks. The moment you've all been waiting for has arrived. In your stores right now. Everywhere. From the Wal-Marts in Massachusetts to the 7-11s in the rural areas of Oregon. A fine area of the country, backwoods Oregon. I remember a beautiful day with Tom Metzger and me lock and loading our AK-47's and shooting at deer. All around this country people are lining up at stores to get my new book, See, I Told You I'd Eat It. That's right. A whole new 250 pages or so of new political commentary from me.
I know you loved my first book, The Weight I Ought To Be. And I sure loved bringing you my book of photographs, Pork, featuring nude photos of famous conservatives posed with pork products. Like one of my favorites, Norman Schwartzkopf, in an army barracks, wearing only his cap and his stars, saluting twelve of his top officers who are holding plates teeming with barbecued sausage. And I also showed my tender, giving side with The Rich Flemball Gourmet: A Cookbook for the Wealthy. Like one of my favorite recipes, just perfect for the holiday season, Ross Perot's Brain Stuffing: there's not much there, but it's mostly nuts. And advice for those kitchen disasters: screw it, let's pretend Hillary made it.
Now, in stores in time for Christmas, is my latest and greatest, See, I Told You I'd Eat It. If I may be so bold, it is the single best volume of political essays on this country since William F. Buckley's Clenched Teeth Versus the Epitome. Of course the left wing dominant media culture will try to tell you it's a worthless book. That's because they're running scared. They're exposed in the book for the blatant pack of liars they are. They are afraid of the truth. And the truth is that this book is wonderful and insightful. It contains the most in-depth analysis of the failed Clinton presidency, even though I wrote the book when the administration was barely in office three months. Don't worry. I'm right. It's printed on freshly killed trees with the blood of spotted owls just to drive the environmentalist wackos crazy. It's already number one on the New York Times best seller list. People have already begun shooting their neighbors to reserve it at the library.
This is hot stuff. Take, for instance, my chapter on crime in this country. I quote the Reverend Jesse Jackson saying, "The government has a responsibility to provide people with hope, hope in their schools, hope in their communities, hope in their homes. Only through hope will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential." And then he went on and on to talk about personal responsibility. But, as I show in the book, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's axiom fails completely. Simply change the word "hope" with "souped up white Cadillac" and you'll see what I mean: "The government has a responsibility to provide people with souped up white Cadillacs, souped up white Cadillacs in their schools, souped up white Cadillacs in their communities, souped up white Cadillacs in their homes. Only through souped up white Cadillacs will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential." (Laughs) So, you see what a fraud the Reverend Jesse Jackson is. Over 200 pages of that kind of deep political thinking, enough fodder to send any liberal running for his Bill of Rights.
Hey, also, look forward to my Rich Flemball Calendar, coming soon to bookstores. A whole year of my metaphors for the issues of the day, like, "The feminists are like precious delicate flowers who try to conquer the weeds in the garden. They may call attention to themselves, but eventually the weeds will win." What else needs to be said?
The entire Rich Flemball library should be at the top of your bookcase. It's all you need to know.
And that's our literature update.
(Brief P.S.: Photos from Pork were a running gag on the show, with a new one every month, including "Jeanne Kirkpatrick straddling a globe wearing a crown made of chorizo sausage made in Nicaragua. Margaret Thatcher, wearing only high-heels, looks on approvingly" and many more.)
If you wanna know the full story on what the Rude Pundit's doing this week, check out Monday's and Tuesday's posts. Suffice to say, he's here on a journey to Red State America, headin' to the New Orleans, and, before doin' the whole "oh-look-at-that-year-that-was-savagely-taken-from-us" review thing tomorrow and Friday, the Rude Pundit's tossin' out some well-aged material from his early 1990s radio program, The Rich Flemball Show, a parody of everyone's favorite bloated bloviator.
Commercials read by Rich Flemball were a big part of the show, with Rich constantly hawking his "books" for his slavering fans. In one more demonstration of how little political discourse (or, indeed, rudeness) has changed in the last decade, here's one ad from 1993 that encompassed most of the Rich Flemball oeuvre:
It's time for a literature update.
That's right, folks. The moment you've all been waiting for has arrived. In your stores right now. Everywhere. From the Wal-Marts in Massachusetts to the 7-11s in the rural areas of Oregon. A fine area of the country, backwoods Oregon. I remember a beautiful day with Tom Metzger and me lock and loading our AK-47's and shooting at deer. All around this country people are lining up at stores to get my new book, See, I Told You I'd Eat It. That's right. A whole new 250 pages or so of new political commentary from me.
I know you loved my first book, The Weight I Ought To Be. And I sure loved bringing you my book of photographs, Pork, featuring nude photos of famous conservatives posed with pork products. Like one of my favorites, Norman Schwartzkopf, in an army barracks, wearing only his cap and his stars, saluting twelve of his top officers who are holding plates teeming with barbecued sausage. And I also showed my tender, giving side with The Rich Flemball Gourmet: A Cookbook for the Wealthy. Like one of my favorite recipes, just perfect for the holiday season, Ross Perot's Brain Stuffing: there's not much there, but it's mostly nuts. And advice for those kitchen disasters: screw it, let's pretend Hillary made it.
Now, in stores in time for Christmas, is my latest and greatest, See, I Told You I'd Eat It. If I may be so bold, it is the single best volume of political essays on this country since William F. Buckley's Clenched Teeth Versus the Epitome. Of course the left wing dominant media culture will try to tell you it's a worthless book. That's because they're running scared. They're exposed in the book for the blatant pack of liars they are. They are afraid of the truth. And the truth is that this book is wonderful and insightful. It contains the most in-depth analysis of the failed Clinton presidency, even though I wrote the book when the administration was barely in office three months. Don't worry. I'm right. It's printed on freshly killed trees with the blood of spotted owls just to drive the environmentalist wackos crazy. It's already number one on the New York Times best seller list. People have already begun shooting their neighbors to reserve it at the library.
This is hot stuff. Take, for instance, my chapter on crime in this country. I quote the Reverend Jesse Jackson saying, "The government has a responsibility to provide people with hope, hope in their schools, hope in their communities, hope in their homes. Only through hope will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential." And then he went on and on to talk about personal responsibility. But, as I show in the book, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's axiom fails completely. Simply change the word "hope" with "souped up white Cadillac" and you'll see what I mean: "The government has a responsibility to provide people with souped up white Cadillacs, souped up white Cadillacs in their schools, souped up white Cadillacs in their communities, souped up white Cadillacs in their homes. Only through souped up white Cadillacs will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential." (Laughs) So, you see what a fraud the Reverend Jesse Jackson is. Over 200 pages of that kind of deep political thinking, enough fodder to send any liberal running for his Bill of Rights.
Hey, also, look forward to my Rich Flemball Calendar, coming soon to bookstores. A whole year of my metaphors for the issues of the day, like, "The feminists are like precious delicate flowers who try to conquer the weeds in the garden. They may call attention to themselves, but eventually the weeds will win." What else needs to be said?
The entire Rich Flemball library should be at the top of your bookcase. It's all you need to know.
And that's our literature update.
(Brief P.S.: Photos from Pork were a running gag on the show, with a new one every month, including "Jeanne Kirkpatrick straddling a globe wearing a crown made of chorizo sausage made in Nicaragua. Margaret Thatcher, wearing only high-heels, looks on approvingly" and many more.)
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
More Clinton-Era Rudeness:
Hope everyone enjoyed last night's final Monday Night Football featuring Frank "Stewardess Fucker" Gifford and the grotesquely reanimated skull of Howard Cosell. Oh, what a party.
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit decided he was taking a few days of downtime to relax a couple of the folds of his brain, so he'd do something a little different in lieu of, say, a post that said something along the lines, "Donald Rumsfeld is a crazed, lying piece of worm vomit who'll say anything to make him look like more than the vile murdering horror masking as something vaguely human that he is." No, instead the Rude Pundit is offering prime rudeness from the 1990s, when he produced a parody radio program called The Rich Flemball Show, based on, well, fuck, you know.
The program would open with the first part of "My City Was Gone" by the Pretenders, and Rich saying things like, "A man who can't be stopped, not by five tranquilizer darts, not even by an elephant gun" or "A Godly man, who believes in Christian values, yet has Jewish friends and Muslim friends, and keeps two South American pagan pygmies in his penthouse for his own private use." Then, as with the real man himself, Rich would launch into some self-righteous monologue. Yesterday's post was all about Bill Clinton's threat to invade Haiti to depose a dictator. Today, in the name of history repeating itself and the more things change..., here's some pre-bloggy rudeness from 1994 - Rich Flemball's take on "feminazis":
It's time for a feminazi update.
A new book called Who Stole Feminism by Christina Hoff Sommers has hit the stands and, boy, I'll tell you, it just rakes the NOW Gang over the coals. The book researches the statistics feminists have touted for years as demonstrations of the bias in society. For instance, feminazis proudly proclaim that 150,000 women die annually from anorexia. Well, folks, the truth is that less than one hundred actually die. That's it! That's nothing, a drop in the bucket. There are 150,000 cases of anorexia a year. So what? Hey, like I always say, fat chicks don't get dates. Sommers shows this and many other false statistics.
And what a book like this does is cast into doubt the entire business of statistics for the feminist movement, a corrupt movement if there ever was one. For instance, we hear all the time about the thousands of spousal abuse cases. But how many of these are real? Could it not be that a husband gives a love tap, like he does to his buddies at the bowling alley, but when he does it to his wife, she may be at a tender time of the month, and she just goes ballistic, calls the cops, shoots her husband and then declares she's been abused for years. And then everyone rushes to her side, saying we never knew, gee, he threw his bowling ball awful hard, gosh, we really, really believe you. Yet no one questions the woman. How hard was she being hit? Was she just not taking it like a man?
And spousal abuse isn't the only area where women are using trumped-up statistics to prove their point. Look at rape. Feminists declare that "a huge percentage of rapes go unreported." Now why is that? Well, a feminazi will say that this male-dominated society will call the alleged victim into question. And why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't we? If a woman doesn't report a rape, well, maybe it's because she enjoyed it. Now, I know I'm going to get into trouble for that, but statistics are statistics, and they can be interpreted any which way. Maybe she enjoyed it.
Who among us has not had the rape fantasy? Who among us has not dreamt of the night that a swarthy stranger, dressed in black leather and red rhinstone chaps and cowboy hat, appears at our bedroom window, and says, "Be quiet, and this won't hurt a bit," and when he undresses, he reveals a washboard torso and is so well-endowed that he has bruises on his thighs from . . . well, anyway, who hasn't dreamt of that man? Who hasn't felt a deep quiver within when thinking about that man who says to call him, "Roderigo, the Latin Love Hombre"? Who hasn't thought of Roderigo and felt his butt cheeks shake in earthy delights anticipated? Who? WHO? WELL, well... (breathes heavily) Oh, Roderigo, when will you visit me again? When, you beautiful gaucho with your lariat of love? . . . oh, excuse me.
So statistics, yeah, statistics. They lie and the feminazis, boy they use 'em a lot.
And -- uh, that's our feminazi update. We'll take a break.--- Lumbago, get in here quick! (moans as he fades out)
Hope everyone enjoyed last night's final Monday Night Football featuring Frank "Stewardess Fucker" Gifford and the grotesquely reanimated skull of Howard Cosell. Oh, what a party.
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit decided he was taking a few days of downtime to relax a couple of the folds of his brain, so he'd do something a little different in lieu of, say, a post that said something along the lines, "Donald Rumsfeld is a crazed, lying piece of worm vomit who'll say anything to make him look like more than the vile murdering horror masking as something vaguely human that he is." No, instead the Rude Pundit is offering prime rudeness from the 1990s, when he produced a parody radio program called The Rich Flemball Show, based on, well, fuck, you know.
The program would open with the first part of "My City Was Gone" by the Pretenders, and Rich saying things like, "A man who can't be stopped, not by five tranquilizer darts, not even by an elephant gun" or "A Godly man, who believes in Christian values, yet has Jewish friends and Muslim friends, and keeps two South American pagan pygmies in his penthouse for his own private use." Then, as with the real man himself, Rich would launch into some self-righteous monologue. Yesterday's post was all about Bill Clinton's threat to invade Haiti to depose a dictator. Today, in the name of history repeating itself and the more things change..., here's some pre-bloggy rudeness from 1994 - Rich Flemball's take on "feminazis":
It's time for a feminazi update.
A new book called Who Stole Feminism by Christina Hoff Sommers has hit the stands and, boy, I'll tell you, it just rakes the NOW Gang over the coals. The book researches the statistics feminists have touted for years as demonstrations of the bias in society. For instance, feminazis proudly proclaim that 150,000 women die annually from anorexia. Well, folks, the truth is that less than one hundred actually die. That's it! That's nothing, a drop in the bucket. There are 150,000 cases of anorexia a year. So what? Hey, like I always say, fat chicks don't get dates. Sommers shows this and many other false statistics.
And what a book like this does is cast into doubt the entire business of statistics for the feminist movement, a corrupt movement if there ever was one. For instance, we hear all the time about the thousands of spousal abuse cases. But how many of these are real? Could it not be that a husband gives a love tap, like he does to his buddies at the bowling alley, but when he does it to his wife, she may be at a tender time of the month, and she just goes ballistic, calls the cops, shoots her husband and then declares she's been abused for years. And then everyone rushes to her side, saying we never knew, gee, he threw his bowling ball awful hard, gosh, we really, really believe you. Yet no one questions the woman. How hard was she being hit? Was she just not taking it like a man?
And spousal abuse isn't the only area where women are using trumped-up statistics to prove their point. Look at rape. Feminists declare that "a huge percentage of rapes go unreported." Now why is that? Well, a feminazi will say that this male-dominated society will call the alleged victim into question. And why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't we? If a woman doesn't report a rape, well, maybe it's because she enjoyed it. Now, I know I'm going to get into trouble for that, but statistics are statistics, and they can be interpreted any which way. Maybe she enjoyed it.
Who among us has not had the rape fantasy? Who among us has not dreamt of the night that a swarthy stranger, dressed in black leather and red rhinstone chaps and cowboy hat, appears at our bedroom window, and says, "Be quiet, and this won't hurt a bit," and when he undresses, he reveals a washboard torso and is so well-endowed that he has bruises on his thighs from . . . well, anyway, who hasn't dreamt of that man? Who hasn't felt a deep quiver within when thinking about that man who says to call him, "Roderigo, the Latin Love Hombre"? Who hasn't thought of Roderigo and felt his butt cheeks shake in earthy delights anticipated? Who? WHO? WELL, well... (breathes heavily) Oh, Roderigo, when will you visit me again? When, you beautiful gaucho with your lariat of love? . . . oh, excuse me.
So statistics, yeah, statistics. They lie and the feminazis, boy they use 'em a lot.
And -- uh, that's our feminazi update. We'll take a break.--- Lumbago, get in here quick! (moans as he fades out)
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