From Jonah Goldberg, writing in the Corner: Please read this post by Garance Franke-Ruta over at Tapped on what “movement-building” demands of liberal bloggers. It certainly reads to me like she’s upset that liberal bloggers are being too intellectually honest. The upshot of Franke-Ruta’s position seems to be that deliberately distorting Bill Bennett’s intent and meaning is a small price to pay to villify him unfairly and for the added
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October 2, 2005
The “The trouble with Oktoberfest” post
The trouble with Oktoberfest, if you happen to be of a certain disposition, is that you may very well find yourself at evening’s end drunk on St Pauli Girl, sitting in the bathroom with a pair of professional-grade hair clippers and no idea how properly to use them. Which means that when you wake up in the morning to urinate, you could very well frighten yourself half to death simply
October 1, 2005
Portrait of the artist as a crazed lunatic Kos diarist with passive agressive homicidal impulses
Is a progressive jihad in the offing? You be the judge: We need terror. We need horror. We need the streets running awash in rivers of blood of these thugs and criminals and zealots. Activism didn’t prevent 60,000 deaths in Vietnam. All the activism of the Civil Rights era has gotten African Americans precisely nowhere. Segregation may not be the law of the land anymore, but it’s still the de
October 1, 2005
First, they came for the Burger King swirly cone wrappers and I did not speak out because I’m more of a Dairy Queen Blizzard kinda guy. Then they came for my ham sandwich…
From the Sun UK: Novelty pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office  in case they offend Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. Bosses acted after a Muslim complained about pig-shaped stress relievers delivered
October 1, 2005
Bennett and the linguistic turn, redux
In response to my post yesterday about intentionalism as it applies to the Bill Bennett dustup, Politechnical Institute writes: There are two factors at work here—one, an intellectual understanding of how communication works, and two, a political understanding of how the current reality works. First, communicators must ALWAYS be aware of how their messages may be interpreted. This is standard business and political doctrine. If this were purely about intent,
September 30, 2005
It’s Friday. Bring on the dancing armadillo!
What is this, a minstrel show? The armadillo will not dance for the Man. Period.
September 30, 2005
My eighth brief conversation with the ghost of John Merrick
Merrick: “I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!” Me: “Oh yeah? What are you trying to say—that you hate black people?” Merrick: “I AM A HUMAN BEING!” Me: “Uh huh. Not really an apology, is it? You twisted, lumpy, racist hater.”
September 30, 2005
Morning in (racist Rethuglican) America: an intentionalist perspective
On his “Morning in America” radio show a few days back, Bill Bennett—in the context of responding to a caller who’d suggested that making abortion illegal would create more workers 20 years hence—said: But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.
September 30, 2005
Judging Alberto
“‘The President wants Gonzales. That’s what is dragging this thing out. They’re sending out people to say he is conservative as if by telling us that enough we will say,“‘sure, he really is one of us.” That is not going to happen.’” Indeed. I appreciate the President’s loyalty to his pal, but unless he’s thinking he’ll put Gonzales up as a sacrificial lamb he believes will be filibustered—and I doubt
September 30, 2005
a very short conversation with my ninth pint of Guinness
me: “So, I’m thinking about giving my ex-girlfriend a call –” Guinness: “Bad idea.” me: “Yeah?” me: “…Eh, you’re probably right. Maybe I’ll just make a sandwich instead.”