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I get email

Mostly unsolicited. But sometimes from royalty. To wit, this, from the proprietor of the third funniest blog in the universe (source: Wizbang People’s Choice Blog Awards, 2007):

Dear Mr. Goldstein:

I have written a rave review of your performance piece “How To Guarantee That I Will Never Be Offered a Better Job at a Big Name School.” You can read it here:

link

Take care,
Jon Swift
http://jonswift.blogspot.com

Without having to read Mr Swift’s “rave review,” I can guess that the comedic force of the attack takes the following rhetorical form: Goldstein, by allowing unreconstructed stalkers and purveyors of the hate speech like Dan Collins to post on his already execrable site, has assured himself that he’ll never get a job at a Big Name School.

Which, given how blind conservatives are to their inveterate faults, Goldstein will likely blame on liberal bias in the Humanities, or on some sort of organized academic cabal that has taken aim at him specifically.

But what Mr Goldstein misses — and here is where the deftly understated irony of the Swift post will reach its carefully crafted (and, I daresay, brilliant!) crescendo — is this: rather than placing the blame where it truly belongs, namely, on his own sub-par intellect, and his piercing hatred of Muslims, gays, blacks, women, the differently abled, etc. (as evidenced by those rare blog posts of his that rise to a level of passable coherence), he will blame the Left for his self-made constraints, sadly — and perhaps even tragically — unaware that he is the author of his own inexorable failures.

— Assuming, that is, he believes himself to suffer from any, which he simply must. Else the joke falls flat. So, you know, for the sake of argument, let’s just pretend.

That the blog acts as its own condemnation, then — that it is self abnegating as an intellectual endeavor — is what makes it a “performance piece” of the kind Mr Swift describes. Which, of course, the high brow readers of Mr Swift’s site will immediately appreciate — whereas you conservatives who don’t watch “The Daily Show”, or who missed the entirety of Andy Kaufman’s career because you were busy giggling at Rich Little, probably need a bit of a primer on how irony operates (see also, Hutcheon, Linda; Irony’s Edge). Hence the explanation.

Of course, I could be wrong about Mr Swift’s post — as I say, I haven’t read the thing — but the clues are all there, from the self-satisfied fact of the email itself to the boldly declarative titular description of the performance piece, which I’m guessing is intended to evince a second level of ironic self-awareness, the peg upon which Swift no doubt hangs his humble claims to genius, and which likely gave him an additional fillip of comedic satisfaction as he banged it out, his fingers all atwitter, knowing that it was so very nearly Colbertian in its magnificent layering.

That, and every other leftwing comedy site has at one point or another written the same exact post. Which really shouldn’t make my blind feat of interpretation any less impressive, should it prove correct. After all, I’m quite high on NyQuil at the moment.

At any rate, here is my email reply:

Dear Mr Swift —

Were I at all interested in anything you write, I’d read your website. That I don’t is not so much a reflection on your predictability, mediocrity, or remarkable lack of originality as it is a testament to my good taste and famous judgment of talent.

And because I wouldn’t presume to compel you to follow an outside link, you read that assessment right here — live, as it were.

Which I feel brings us closer together as people.

Best regards,
Jeff

Tomorrow: “Ernie the Ornery Bunny visits the Dairy Queen, and, thanks to an unfortunate semantic misunderstanding, is arrested and charged with a hate crime”

Until then, I have re-runs of Monk to watch.

149 Replies to “I get email”

  1. Jeffersonian says:

    This whole Collins thing is boring. Basta, chega, genug. Dan’s a good, witty, funny blogger who made a questionable call…if he hadn’t known the lass it would have been an innocuous, PW-worth post. The port-siders are beating up on him for who he is, not what he’s done.

    Back to PW, and that’s an order.

  2. happyfeet says:

    Me and this bunny is kind of like Charlie Brown and the football I’m starting to think, but I’m totally psyched.

  3. thor says:

    I’d rather punch myself in the balls than read Hutcheon, and only those who’ve read Hutcheon know why. Matter of fact, if you’ve read Huthcheon, by all means, you’re going to have the better angle; punch ’em for me, please.

  4. SarahW says:

    I think you do the sleeves first.

    Right?

  5. Jeff G. says:

    Just interests me that the kind of people who shriek in indignation if you tie them to, say, something Ward Churchill or Cindy Sheehan says or writes, are so cavalier about dragging me into a problem they have with a post of Dan’s. Not that Dan is a fringe lunatic, you understand. Just — well, Nyquil. Analogies are hard to reach for just now.

    Anyway, I already expressed my thoughts on Dan’s post. I disagreed with it, but the post doesn’t make Dan a bad human being, just as Mr Swift’s post doesn’t make him (or her) a particularly funny or creative human being.

    And in fact, I find it strange that someone presuming to model himself of one of the English language’s greatest ironists would miss that his own post (again, I’m guessing here) sets up for derision someone who is quite blameless in all this — even as it uses as an occasion for its composition showy outrage over the derision heaped on a blameless party.

    But enough. I’ve got an Irish baby that needs eatin’. Not so much to fight poverty and overcrowding. But rather because the little fucker just crapped on a $900 Pottery Barn wool rug.

  6. happyfeet says:

    TBogg was actually like less petty about the whole thing, which is kind of remarkable. I though Jon Swift’s post was condescending and that part where he gets the biographical facts wrong means he doesn’t even know you well enough to write convincing smack. I’m not sure why he was so proud of it as to email you. I guess he really really aspires to second-funniest status and just wants some attention.

  7. Ghost of Jon Swift says:

    Jeff – you’re not free from blame in all this. You know that, I know that, the Irish baby by which means I’m about to assuage my hunger knows that, too.

    ProteinWisdom is a Jeff Goldstein Joint – Collins is your co/guest blogger. By way of analogy, if Joey Bishop starting calling the Jews “Zionist Kike Baby eaters” on the Tonight Show while guest hosting for Johnny, you wouldn’t expect Carson to start explaining that Joey wasn’t Johnny.

    You should’ve deleted that post and put in place a marker post. Or own up to it in full. Giving Dan a wet sloppy kiss in public would be appropriate.

    Or cohosting a RightTalk Radio show with him.

    Your choice.

    Enjoy the irish baby.

    Cheers.

    Jon. Swift decd.

  8. happyfeet says:

    But Scott Beauchamp doesn’t reflect on l’il Frankie, just so we’re clear.

  9. Attila Girl says:

    I must say, bringing it all back to a certain modest proposal makes me happy–like God is in his/her heaven, and all’s right with the world.

    Except, of course, for the fact that I had to make my own pasta tonight, due to the fact of being married.

  10. Jeff G. says:

    Now I know why they put those ridiculous disclaimers on DVDs with commentary tracks about how the views and opinions expressed by so and so don’t necessarily reflect the views of Lionsgate or its affiliates.

    Were I not lazy, I’d add such a disclaimer at the top of the site. For the next time the trolls decide to drop by, wagging their fingers in mock horror.

    But being lazy, I’m just going to leave such a disclaimer implied. I’m edgy that way.

  11. his own post (again, I’m guessing here) sets up for derision someone who is quite blameless in all this — even as it uses as an occasion for its composition showy outrage over the derision heaped on a blameless party

    Not really, Mr. Goldstein. This is your blog, and on this blog you’ve allowed Dan Collins to keep up a (redacted and delinked) post — as well as a number of followups — that will stand as one of the most gratuitously vicious and thoroughly deranged things anyone has seen on the Internets in recent memory. (Remember, everyone, you’re dealing with a post about a woman Dan hasn’t known for over twenty years. Lots and lots of people know what’s wrong with this.) Mr. Goldstein, if you’re not man enough to do the right thing and take down those posts, so be it. But don’t whine about your blamelessness in all this. Just take some personal responsibility for your blog.

  12. thor says:

    Comment by Ghost of Jon Swift on 11/18 @ 9:23 pm #
    You should’ve deleted that post and put in place a marker post. Or own up to it in full. Giving Dan a wet sloppy kiss in public would be appropriate.

    I once tried to cut in the long line of those waiting give Dan Collin’s a wet, sloppy kiss. Half-a-dozen boozing women tried to suffocate me with their gargantuan melons.

  13. B Moe says:

    “Remember, everyone, you’re dealing with a post about a woman Dan hasn’t known for over twenty years.”

    So how long has it been since you have hung out with her, Mike? How frequently do you need to stay in contact with someone to presume to speak for them?

    “…one of the most gratuitously vicious and thoroughly deranged things anyone has seen on the Internets in recent memory…”

    Unless by recent memory you mean the past 30 seconds, that is an utterly absurd statement.

  14. thor says:

    Penn State offers class on the internet. You don’t, Mr. Berube.

  15. fahs ibair says:

    gratuitously vicious

    Methinks Mr. Berube has a problem with boobs.

    PURITAN!

  16. andy says:

    Bravo. I have to say when I started out this weekend, i didn’t realize we were heading toward the Grand Unified Theory of Wingnuttia. There’s been outside help and prompting, but Dan [see “Stalking”] and Jeff have really delivered.

  17. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    that will stand as one of the most gratuitously vicious and thoroughly deranged things anyone has seen on the Internets in recent memory.

    Really.

    More “deranged” and “gratuitously vicious” than this, say?

    Do you have any idea how foolish that statement sounds?

    Mr. Goldstein, if you’re not man enough to do the right thing and take down those posts, so be it.

    Perhaps Goldstein believes in letting the record stand, good or ill, rather than simply putting inconvenient texts down the memory hole. Quaint, I know, and horribly out of fashion in the academy, but there it is.

  18. Jeff G. says:

    Oh, do give it a rest, Michael B. I expressed my displeasure with the post when I first read it, and the links to any identifying information have since been removed.

    However, I don’t monitor my site 24 hours a day. I didn’t see the original post until 29 comments in, and even at that point, I wasn’t able to reach Dan to find out if the person in question really was an ex of his.

    I also don’t like to delete posts, pretending they haven’t been written and reacted to. It’s a bit too much like airbrushing history for my tastes, and while that may be something people like you cheer on (in the name of “tolerance”), it’s not something I find generally agreeable. On the other hand, I have, in similar instances, redacted personal information. In this case, Dan did that himself.

    But so long as we’re preening, allow me to point out that your outrage — expressed here and elsewhere — coupled with the outrage of many of your compatriots, has done more to fuel this ridiculous dustup than my decision not to pull down a post whose genesis and meaning I can’t (and still don’t) presume to fully understand.

    I’m not convinced that “manliness” has anything whatever to do with my allowing the posts to remain. Nor am I convinced that your indignation is anything more than a kind of self-serving, ostentatious attempt at bringing about shame — which I’d venture is an outcome you hold in higher regard than the feelings of the now unlinked woman Dan and you once knew, and whom you pretend to be championing.

    And of course, my pointing out the irony of Swift’s attack on me (this, despite my disagreement with the original post) is hardly “whining.” It’s rather more descriptive, I think.

    I’d expect someone of your pedigree to know the difference. And I’m sure you do. What I’m not surprised by is that you’d pretend not to — as a way to purchase a bit of cheap grace. Such is, after all, what you do — and is the most frequently trotted out horse in your entire rhetorical stable.

    Time to put it out to stud. Really.

  19. Diana says:

    It’s late here. I could have sworn you wrote “hangs his humble chins to genius”.

  20. Chuck Norris's Nads says:

    Damn! Attaboy, Jeff!

  21. Very well then, Mr. Goldstein. I don’t know what it would take to get you to do the right thing, so I’ll leave it at this.

    But the point (and B Moe should try to grasp it too) remains that what Dan did here was truly gratuitous. Sure, I’ve seen much more vicious stuff on the Intarweb, like the stalking of cancer patients, but never something like this, something with no plausible motive whatsoever. Remember, folks, Dan’s ex-girlfriend isn’t a public menace, like that nasty fat Michael Moore; she’s just someone Dan broke up with in 1984, and – as you, Mr. Goldstein, seemed to acknowledge at the outset – Dan’s ancient personal demons aren’t really suitable for this blog.

    Twenty-odd years ago, I liked Dan, and counted him among my friends. I still respect him enough to suggest that he’d be better off if these posts were taken down. But I have to agree, Mr. Goldstein, that you know your intentions better than I do.

  22. Jeff G. says:

    Andy —

    Try being less coy and glancing. Step up. Say something concrete for once. Or else sit this one out. I beg you.

  23. happyfeet says:

    I still respect him enough to suggest that he’d be better off if these posts were taken down.

    All the identifying stuff is gone. Dan apologized. Jeff never condoned of any of this. There’s no reason to do the white knight thing anymore. It just looks silly and self-important.

  24. happyfeet says:

    And also Ernie’s JooLatte is getting all melty while you carry on.

  25. thor says:

    Comment by Michael Bérubé on 11/18 @ 10:17 pm #

    Remember, folks, Dan’s ex-girlfriend isn’t a public menace

    Seems her peers at the state medical review board disagree. Maybe you can’t remember what to forget, but these doctors who stand in judgment of such matters are unforgiving and clear that Dan’s ex-girlfriend is/was, indeed, much more than a menace, and her actions nor name not better forgotten, sir.

    Did you just wake up from a long slumber?

  26. Jeff G. says:

    Very well then, Mr. Goldstein. I don’t know what it would take to get you to do the right thing, so I’ll leave it at this.

    Oh, come now. Isn’t the assertion that I haven’t done the right thing what is under debate here?

    As for what serves Dan’s best interests…I guess I just don’t see myself as presuming to protect him for his own good.

    There’s something so very progressive about that. Not to mention arrogant and presumptuous.

    But then, I repeat myself.

    Dan is a big boy. And unless he’s suffering from some mental illness to which I’m not privy (and I haven’t received an email from you detailing any), I don’t think he needs my tending.

    My own way of handling this is to express my opinion, and then let these posts make their way off the front page, where they will be forgotten by those who truly admire Dan — even as they are forever used against him by those for whom this was always simply an opportunity to turn Dan’s post into an emblem of rightwing hate.

    Or, to put it another way, the people now pretending to care about Dan’s ex will dredge this up over and over again from here on out, ostensibly as a condemnation of Dan (or as a way to preemptively discredit him on non-related topics), but in effect (and, judging by your desire to see the posts removed, you’ll surely agree), these revisitations will serve only to open anew the wound this woman has suffered (if indeed she even has; I don’t know her, so I can’t say).

    When that happens, I’ll be sure to drop you a note. Meantime, you might get to work on having Tbogg, Kevin K, jon swift, et al, remove their posts on the subject. Your opinion is held in high regard among that set — and if your goal really is to protect both Dan and his ex, I feel your services could be put to better use elsewhere.

  27. B Moe says:

    “But the point (and B Moe should try to grasp it too) remains that what Dan did here was truly gratuitous.”

    Dan doesn’t think so, and I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. You still haven’t answered any questions regarding your motives, or your qualifications to speak for the woman in question. How long has it been since you socialized with this woman? How do you know she would find Dan’s sentiments embarrassing or offensive?

  28. thor says:

    Blurring lines is post-modernist crap. She wasn’t wounded. She abused the license to practise so much so that it was yanked. The victims remain un-named, ye menders of wounded souls.

  29. happyfeet says:

    I would so kill for a chocolate Butterfinger Blizzard right now.

  30. tbogg says:

    Hey. All I’m doing is providing play-by-play like a mid-level celebrity covering a particularly bad parade. Not all of us are blessed enough to witness crashing M&M balloons…

  31. fahs ibair says:

    Someone got brained? Think of the ratings! At least tbogg has the decency to admit he doesn’t give a shit.

  32. Jeff G. says:

    Nobody covers blogosphere dustups quite like you do, tbogg. It’s both your gift and your curse.

    Mine is having a great throwing arm, and friends who take it personally when I throw them out trying to tag up.

    Though maybe those really aren’t the same thing.

  33. B Moe says:

    “At least tbogg has the decency to admit he doesn’t give a shit.”

    Snake oil salesmen never do, son, it is kind of a job requirement.

  34. The Lost Dog says:

    “Not really, Mr. Goldstein. This is your blog, and on this blog you’ve allowed Dan Collins to keep up a (redacted and delinked) post — as well as a number of followups — that will stand as one of the most gratuitously vicious and thoroughly deranged things anyone has seen on the Internets in recent memory. (Remember, everyone, you’re dealing with a post about a woman Dan hasn’t known for over twenty years. Lots and lots of people know what’s wrong with this.) Mr. Goldstein, if you’re not man enough to do the right thing and take down those posts, so be it. But don’t whine about your blamelessness in all this. Just take some personal responsibility for your blog.”

    C’mon. give me a break! I can’t say I understand or condone what Dan did, but we must take into consideration the gamma rays coming from D.U., and Kos.

    Either one of these sites (along with a host of other lunatic landing sites)make Dan’s post look very amateurish in comparison.

    I am sorry that Dan posted this on PW, but he is a beginner compared to the posters and commenters (common taters) on Kos, Huffpost, D.U., and all the blogs that really do survive on raw hate.

    Dan fucked up here, but use your own eyes. This kind of crap is par for the course on the moonbat blogs. I always get a kick out of bipolar “I hate my parents” babies screaming about “hate” on the right, while in the same breath, wishing destruction on anyone who disagrees with them.

    PW can be scathing, but I rarely see any hate here. A lot of humor, but hardly any hard core loathing.

    Sometimes (no – most times) it seems to me that those on the far left have had their anger at their lives channeled into despising anyone who thinks for themselves.

    And guess who is best at doing that?

    Could it be the people who promote racism? Could it be the people who promote class envy? Could it be the people who promote government as a better mommy than your own?

    Just asking…

  35. Darleen says:

    Oh criminey … it had to be this weekend to trot down to San Diego to spend time with the in-laws

    So much I haven’t read, but gut instinct tells me when Lefties start speaking like the gamine with round heels grasping the lapels of her boyfriend’s Gatsby tux squealing “You must do the right thing” I should insist on seeing the pregnancy test before taking them at their word.

  36. thor says:

    Think of all the Save The Night parades that had to be cancelled so the angry humanists could take time to snarl at Dan Collins.

    The horror unknown: Who’ll pass out syringes to the prostitues when the peace-loving mob comes for my neck?

  37. wishbone says:

    “How To Guarantee That I Will Never Be Offered a Better Job at a Big Name School”

    Now there is something to live for.

    Sheesh. Move on. (Heh–I didn’t even intend the irony until it was already out.)

  38. JohnAnnArbor says:

    Who’ll pass out syringes to the prostitues when the peace-loving mob comes for my neck?

    Those aren’t in vending machines yet?

  39. Good Lt. says:

    I see that the Church of the Perpetual Progressive Outrage disciples are all atwitter over this latest Goldsteinian crime against the world and teh children.

    Impressive. Unprecedented. Newsworthy.

    Also, the sun came up where I live this morning.

  40. CraigC says:

    I don’t know what the hell Dan was thinking when he wrote that post. Even if his intentions were benign, it was stunningly thoughtless. Or should I say, not thought through. But it’s not even in the same solar sytem as the deliberately vile and hateful crap that’s spewed from lefty blogs on a daily basis, and seeing the squeals of faux outrage from the very same people is laughable.

  41. CraigC says:

    Argh. Hello, mangled syntax. Did someone once say that preview is your friend?

  42. Jeff G. says:

    Just went over to the Swift place — read the comments, not the post.

    Lo and behold, who visited?

    You guessed it. TimmyB! Who is apparently still very angry at me for rejecting his advances:

    Tim said…

    I agree. You seem way to rational and intelligent to be a conservative. Besides, everyone knows the height of comedy is making jokes about junior high school girls’ locker room AND cock-slapping a critic. Until you can work that in, Jon, you can never be mentioned int he same breath as the hilarious, exceptionally hilarious, Jeff Goldstein.

    Nothing funnier than what happened to Padilla, just ask the “classic liberal” Goldstein.

    PS On a relatively serious note, Protein Wisdom traffic had been tanking for weeks….I’m sure this little spat helps Jeff pay his bills.

    If not, he could always beg for money again.

    I would say I find it strange that Tim is checking my traffic (while even I haven’t checked it in a month or so, given that I haven’t been around much), but then, I’d be lying.

    He really is acting like a lover scorned. I think he must google my name, then go wherever lefties are talking smack about me to join in.

    Gives him that feeling of belonging and love that he must not be getting playing XBox games against online opponents.

    ***
    notes: 1) it’s “classical liberal,” timmy. Look it up, and tell me where I’m off in my self-assessment. 2) were I concerned with traffic, I’d be posting more regularly. I have found an interesting correlation between new content and readership. Sounds counterintuitive, I realize, but there you have it. Still just an hypothesis, though. Somebody really should do a scientific study.

  43. happyfeet says:

    How do you solve a problem like Padilla?

  44. Jeff G. says:

    This is all reminding me why I stay away from blogging more and more. It makes me feel all filthy after.

  45. CraigC says:

    And you don’t even get a good orgasm in between.

  46. happyfeet says:

    What are better are reminders of why you come back I think. I don’t really know what those are though.

  47. happyfeet says:

    Danny Zuko said that’s my name, don’t wear it out.

    There’s wisdom in that.

  48. happyfeet says:

    crap. wrong thread there.

  49. Pablo says:

    Tomorrow: “Ernie the Ornery Bunny visits the Dairy Queen, and, thanks to an unfortunate semantic misunderstanding, is arrested and charged with a hate crime”

    Needs a tad more sizzle. Say, why don’t we have Ernie waterboarded? For kicks!

  50. Sean M. says:

    You know, “Swift” is really a remarkably inapt name for that guy.

  51. Sean M. says:

    For instance, I just now noticed that he left part of his “review” nearly word for word in the comments to this post. What a maroon.

  52. Jeff G. says:

    Looks as though timmy B found tbogg, as well:

    Shalimar….News FLASH, Goldstein’s a prick. If you had spoken to him one more time, the would have threatened to beat you up. Trust me.

    Be glad you don’t meet his 5’5″ ass in person as he’s quite versed in Flannery O’Connor, pan-handling, and most forms of martial arts….the latter so he could re-live “Red Dawn” when the terrorists invade Colorado. He’d threaten you in Iambic Pentameter AND Semiotics! He’s very frightening.

    WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!
    tim | 11.18.07 – 11:22 pm | #

    If Dan is supposed to still be pining away for this ex of his, Timmy’s constant attacks on me at every site where I’m mentioned must mean he’s writing these comments while fucking a sugar donut he’s named “jeffy”.

    Really. It’s creepy.

    And reminiscent of a certain other fan of mine.

  53. Jeff G. says:

    Then there’s this:

    I’m still kind of stunned that Jeff Goldstein, who writes online about cock-slapping on a weekly if not daily or even hourly basis, thinks I’m obssessed with dicks because I made one joke 4 months ago to the effect that if he was allowed to ask one question at a Republican debate it would definitely have something to do with whether cock-slapping was torture. Which isn’t even funny because it’s kind of pathetic how true it is. Jesus the man can project.
    Shalimar | 11.18.07 – 10:31 pm | #

    Amazing, isn’t it? Regular readers of this site know that the only time cockslapping is mentioned here is when it refers back to this lefty obsession with my supposed obsession with the act.

    And I don’t believe it’s mentioned all that often, even by those standards.

    So maybe Shalimar simply dreams about me using the cockslapping bit “on a weekly if not daily or even hourly basis”.

    That’s dedication. And hope. Made manifest.

  54. Jeff G. says:

    In fact, let’s put paid to this right now:

    cockslap

    cockslapping

    cockslapped

    Why, it’s pandemic!

  55. Topsecretk9 says:

    Church of the Perpetual Progressive Outrageâ„¢

    …it was that good.

  56. Jeff G. says:

    Oh. And I’m just shy of 6′. Maybe Timmy got confused because I only post pictures of my head.

  57. Topsecretk9 says:

    Is it just me, or is Jon Swift really just one big DougJ blog? His blog roll is um conspicuous to say the least and some of his post just have that special spoofy brand of stupid the balloon people trade in. Or is this well known and I didn’t get the memo?

  58. Pablo says:

    Timmah is a creepy little fuck, isn’t he?

  59. Sean M. says:

    If Dan is supposed to still be pining away for this ex of his, Timmy’s constant attacks on me at every site where I’m mentioned must mean he’s writing these comments while fucking a sugar donut he’s named “jeffy”.

    Personally, I pictured it as a hollowed-out melon that he microwaved for a minute prior to the…unpleasantness, but that’s just me.

  60. OHNOES says:

    *Yawn* More leftie bleating. Wake me when it is over.

  61. Attila Girl says:

    Oh, man. I kind of liked Michael a few threads ago, but he sure is beating a deceased horse.

    Do the right thing, Goldstein: come out to CA again with your amazing wife, and party with the West Coasters. We need you.

  62. Sean M. says:

    I’ve got to say that I loooove Prof. Mike’s testimonials. I found this, linked from his website from some of his (dispassionate, I’m sure) Ivy League colleagues:

    The book is informally divided into two parts. In the first, Bérubé critiques conservative complaints about liberal bias on college campuses in a witty argumentative style to which many of today’s best-selling political tomes aspire. Faced with conservative pundits, like David Horowitz, waving cherry-picked studies claiming an eleven-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives in college faculties (Bérubé claims the actual ratio is closer to three-to-one), he remarks that “the data are tastier when the data are cooked.”

    Well, at least the good perfesser admits that three quarters of our betters at institutes of higher learning are leftists. That’s a start. But I guess we’ll have to pony up a few bucks to buy his book to learn where he got the data which supposedly contradicts Horowitz, since the reviewer can’t be bothered to provide a link.
    e willing to bet
    And you can call me cynical, but I’d be surprised if the “cherry-picked” data meant that Horowitz was referring to Liberal Arts lecturers, as opposed to the whole of college professors. That might just be an important distinction.

  63. Darth Bacon says:

    He’d threaten you in Iambic Pentameter AND Semiotics!

    Erudite little snapper, isn’t he? I didn’t realize one could speak in ‘semiotics’.

    Timmy, you may as well have simply said, “I don’t know these words, so here’s a bunny with a pancake on it’s head.”

    It would have been a similar waste of electrons, never to be recouped.

  64. alppuccino says:

    “How do you solve a problem like Padilla?”

    Julie Andrews showed her boobs in a movie once. nipples ‘n all.

  65. Darth Bacon says:

    Julie Andrews showed her boobs in a movie once. nipples ‘n all.

    I’ll bet that was a sight.

    Half a century ago.

  66. B Moe says:

    “Be glad you don’t meet his 5′5″ ass in person”

    What is hilarious about that is tbogg is a short fucker, judging both from the pictures I have seen and his blogging. He seems to me to have a classic case of “little man’s disease”.

    When I first read the post in question, I was a bit taken back, but one of the first things I thought was that Collins does have a fucked up sense of humore (meant as a complement, Dan) so most likely anyone he dated would have too, and I just filed it under Dan being Dan. I think this is probably the problem with the tbogg bunch, they can’t comprehend a joke in plainclothes. They are used to tbogg, Swift, et al blowing their jokes up with helium, painting them blaze orange with a target and JOKE in large block letters on the side. Wearing clown shoes.

    And a funny hat.

  67. Sinner says:

    A Comically large hat.

  68. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I’ll bet that was a sight. Half a century ago.

    Only 26 years, actually. I remember seeing that scene in my formative years — spectacular. Mary Poppins just wasn’t the same after that.

    Side note: the jailbait girls in that movie were played by a very young Rosanna Arquette and Jennifer Edwards (daughter of director Blake, and step-daughter of Julie).

  69. alppuccino says:

    Blake Edwards was clearly a boob-guy. God rest his soul.

  70. Techie says:

    I had the internets off all weekend. What’d I miss?

  71. BJTexs says:

    Mr Berube says:

    This is your blog, and on this blog you’ve allowed Dan Collins to keep up a (redacted and delinked) post — as well as a number of followups — that will stand as one of the most gratuitously vicious and thoroughly deranged things anyone has seen on the Internets in recent memory.

    Methinks his credibility to wax outraged is offset by this from his own site:

    These days, I can occasionally be found blogging at Crooked Timber, Pandagon, or the TPM Café.

    No doubt Mr. Berube still waits with bated breath for St. Mandy’s apology for smearing Duke lacrosse players, both male and female.

    Considering the unending ooze of scatalogical, hate filled broad brush characterizations, so insensitive and over the top that not even Edwards could handle, and Berube’s need to trumpet his active participation in that persistent cesspool I’m going to step out on a limb and suggest that no matter how he feels about the appropriateness of Dan’s original and follow up posts, he should not saddle up a high horse as it’s actually mangey burro with rabies and a tapeworm.

    Now it’s possible that I feel this way due to my status as a Godbothering Christofascist (but, thankfully, not Catholic, which spares me the worst of the torments) for which I apologize in advance, being subhuman and patriarchal and all.

    But before I take my intolerance and delusions and leave; one last note to Michael Berube…

    STFU … wait for it …

    BECAUSE OF TEH HYPOCRISY!!!!!

  72. Techie says:

    So, we’ve gotten an infestation of TEH DRAMA!1!?

  73. JHoward says:

    …so I’ll leave it at this.

    One can hope, Michael Bérubé, one can hope, you pedantic little trollop. How about you take andy out for lattes and, like, roll your eyes at it all. The horror, etc.

  74. JHoward says:

    Seems her peers at the state medical review board disagree. Maybe you can’t remember what to forget, but these doctors who stand in judgment of such matters are unforgiving and clear that Dan’s ex-girlfriend is/was, indeed, much more than a menace, and her actions nor name not better forgotten, sir.

    It could be noted (at the very real risk of offending one Michael Bérubé and his accessory bag/toy poodle andy) that if/when a State Board of Examiners takes action against one of it’s own, it’s a most rare event indeed, as are all such inside jobs, from disbarrment to discipline, whether in law or in general psychiatric circles.

    I’m aware of a particular 30-page complaint formally leveled against a local MFT, one based on any number of clear state statutes and that warranted an audience at the State’s AG, that never made it past the circular file in my state’s Board. Fuckers never raised an eyebrow, that despite enormous damage done.

    Professional abuse, in whatever form it may have occurred here (I don’t recall) is a serious matter among us mere mortals. Except when it’s not, which within such organizations, is most of the time.

  75. Phil Smith says:

    This entire episode reads more and more like Lewis Carroll on ‘shrooms.

    http://www.sundials.org/about/humpty.htm

  76. mojo says:

    Mmmmmm, baby. Irish baby, the finest. Lean and tender, sliced paper thin.

    Hold the mayo.

  77. JD says:

    Good Allah, for the love of all that is holy and good. All we have left to look forward to is Gren Gleenwald denouncing Dan, Andrew Sullivan hyperventilating that neo-cons are closet homophobes as evidenced by Dan, and Oliver Willis sitting in the back chanting “you go, girl” while shoveling lard into his pie-hole.

  78. Semanticleo says:

    Comments from the Swift link……………………….

    ” said…

    Oh Jon, you don’t come out of this blogspat looking very conservative at all. You are supposed to express understanding and reflect on how many people could reasonably make a mistake and post some contact information for an ex-girlfriend and uncomfortable details of her history on their blog.

    It’s something to keep in mind… you never know when your personal details may be published by an ex- on a high-traffic some decades later.

    It really isn’t good for this woman that Left Blogistan decided to point everyone to the contact information for the purpose of pointing out how awful this Collins fellow is. I think they were already pretty much convinced of that based on his political views anyway.
    11/18/2007 7:09 PM
    Sister Nancy Beth Eczema said…

    Mr. Swift: I agree with commenter A above, that you have failed Conservatism. Is everyone so cowed by feminism that they’re afraid to blame the victim here? Surely she must have done something — going to medical school, getting a job, having breasts — to incite this cri du coeur from Mr. Collins. It’s high time The Left drop their moral posturing and acknowledge how their aggressively anti-family social engineering caused all this. Praise Him!
    11/18/2007 8:05 PM
    Tim said…

    I agree. You seem way to rational and intelligent to be a conservative. Besides, everyone knows the height of comedy is making jokes about junior high school girls’ locker room AND cock-slapping a critic. Until you can work that in, Jon, you can never be mentioned int he same breath as the hilarious, exceptionally hilarious, Jeff Goldstein.

    Nothing funnier than what happened to Padilla, just ask the “classic liberal” Goldstein.

    PS On a relatively serious note, Protein Wisdom traffic had been tanking for weeks….I’m sure this little spat helps Jeff pay his bills.

    If not, he could always beg for money again.
    11/18/2007 8:06 PM

    This is better than American Idol.

  79. Jeff G. says:

    Uh, Semanticleo? If you’d bothered to read through the thread, you’d see that I’d already quoted our old friend timmy B.

    Anybody have a crayon? Semanticleo needs a map drawn, stat!

  80. The Ouroboros says:

    Ok, the playground name calling was was mildly entertaining over the slow weekend but it’s gotten old.. It’s Monday now… Time to move along.. A little less time responding to the feigned indignation of every halfwit whining troll on the web and more time dreaming up PW’s excellent original humor content and news commentary…. Gawd, these comments filled with veiled Nancy-boy insults hidden like DiVinci code inside a barrage of fifty cent words come off like an argument among the the chess club dweebs.. Just flip ’em the bird and cut to Billy Jack, Leif or The Dolphin for some commentary…

  81. Semanticleo says:

    I know. I just admired the use of language. You should recognize the stolen style.

  82. Jeff G. says:

    Ugh. Feeling all dirty again.

    I think it’s time I find a better hobby. It’s difficult being reminded daily just how craven and petty most people really are.

    Plus, I hate getting all Hobbesian right before Thanksgiving. Makes my skin breakout.

  83. Jeff G. says:

    You should recognize the stolen style.

    I don’t get it. Is there a dig at me in there somewhere, Semi? If so, out with it.

    Are you saying I’ve stolen somebody’s style? Do you even know what you’re saying?

    Why are you here, anyway? I mean, I kinda have to be. But you — one would think you would have better things to do with your time.

    I know I do.

  84. happyfeet says:

    When you say things like that I have to use my inhaler and go to my safe place.

  85. Jeff G. says:

    How about you write your own posts, Ouroboros? That way we can both do what we feel like doing, and it’s win/win!

  86. Semanticleo says:

    ‘Stolen’ might have been too harsh. ‘Borrowed’ could be too charitable but the style of HST is ummistakable. Anyhew, it’s not the style which is objectionable, it’s the objectives and agendas you drive with such prose that might cause the good Dr. to cry out;

    “Exterminate the Brutes!”

  87. Jeff G. says:

    Interesting. I read one HST book years ago while living in Italy. I never read his columns.

    The head of the writing program at U Denver likened me to Jeffrey Eugenides — whom I hadn’t read at the time. And, now having done so once (I taught The Virgin Suicides), I don’t really see the similarities.

    As for my objectives and agenda, I very much doubt you’d know them even were they to visit your intestines by way of a cardboard spaceship they’d somehow managed to launch into your rectum from a takeoff platform somewhere inside your toilet.

    — Which is quite Tom Robbinsy, I think.

  88. Mikey NTH says:

    HST is Hunter S. Thompson.
    For a minute there I thought Cleo was referring to Harry S Truman, and I was getting very confused.

    I’m still confused at what Cleo is trying to get at, but not very confused any longer.

  89. Semanticleo says:

    “I very much doubt you’d know them”

    Interesting that you would liken your O&A as the HemoOccult specimen I just delivered to the lab. I don’t want them to share the analytical details, just tell me if it’s positive or negative.

  90. mojo says:

    The “Why I Don’t Feel Sorry for the Writer’s Guild” comment
    or: “Yeah, it’s off-topic. So friggin’ sue me.”

    “Writers on a prime-time TV series like “Desperate Housewives” earn a minimum of 30,823 USD for writing a story and teleplay per one episode.

    If the network requires a rewrite, the applicable minimum is $8,634 per episode. The writer earns a minimum of $4,324 for polishing a script.

    The writers are paid a minimum of $2,890 to $3,688 per week on week-to-week term employment basis. If they work in additional capacities they could earn a minimum of up to $6,879 per week (based on the number of weeks they are employed).

    If they are asked to come up with a ‘bible’ (an outline of up to 6 storylines for an upcoming season) the writers earn a minimum of $44,353 per bible plus an additional $4,435 per storyline if the bible contains more than 6 storylines.

    Each prime-time rerun earns the writer credited for writing the story, the teleplay or both a minimum residual payment of $8,431 to $21,078 per episode.”

  91. happyfeet says:

    I hope you’re ok. HemoOccult sounds so cthulhuy.

  92. Jeff G. says:

    If you have doctors suggesting you ram a cardboard spaceship up your ass, you might want to check to see if they’ve ever gotten themselves into trouble with the AMA.

    Just don’t post your findings. Because of the privacy.

    It’d be just like you raped them or some such.

  93. The Ouroboros says:

    Ouch..! No need to snap at your own supporter and fan.. No insult to you was intended.

  94. BJTexs says:

    I’ve found that snapping your supporter with a fan is bad business.

  95. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    “Timmah is a creepy little fuck, isn’t he?’

    Quite. I’ve been saying for months that timmah is acting like a lover scorned. Unrequited love is a terrible thing and for a semi-retarded jackass like timmah, it has to hurt worse.

    Jeff, I know you don’t me, or anyone, to tell you this, but you have acquitted yourself more than fine in this little dustup. They fear you. It’s as simple as that.

  96. The Ouroboros says:

    I’ve found that snapping your supporter with a fan is bad business.

    Yea.. and it leaves unsightly welts that are hard to explain, too..

    At least it wasnt a cock-slap…

    (on a side note.. The whole “cock-slap” running joke has a rich history going back at least as far as Jeff Gannon in ’05.. Obviously some of the trolls dont know their PW history.. Time for an update maybe.. D’you know Gannon’s 50’ish now?)

  97. Karl says:

    OUTRAGE is ginned-up as more good news rolls in from Iraq.

    I question the timing.

    After all, isn’t that what the Left does?

  98. Topsecretk9 says:

    –OUTRAGE is ginned-up as more good news rolls in from Iraq.–

    Karl nailed it.

  99. Kevin says:

    I’m furious about this whole dust-up. Mostly because I have no idea what you guys are talking about. What the hell did Dan supposedly do?

  100. Phil K. says:

    This is your blog, and on this blog you’ve allowed Dan Collins to keep up a (redacted and delinked) post — as well as a number of followups — that will stand as one of the most gratuitously vicious and thoroughly deranged things anyone has seen on the Internets in recent memory.

    Ain’t no dudgeon high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t river wide enough…

  101. Andrew says:

    Ugh. People still don’t read HST, do they?

    A second-rate (albeit parsable) Burroughs, who was himself nothing more than a stoned version of Raymond Chandler (if Raymond Chandler had suffered a stroke and could dribble out nothing more than puddles of dated slang).

    Can’t wait for Rolling Stones’ next fellating of retrospective on his career.

  102. mojo says:

    Thompson’s earlier stuff was quite amusing, but after “Fear & Loathing” he had a hard time trying to out-do his best. Never managed it, never even got close.

  103. Andrew says:

    I can’t even stand Fear and Loathing. Take the drugs out of it, and there’s no story at all, just a couple of twerps who go looking for sarcasm and find it. In Vegas. Hard as that might seem.

    That said, I do harbor fantasies of flying to LA and renting a muscle car to burn across the desert to Sin City. But that may be equally due to Swingers.

  104. Cowboy says:

    Hunter Thompson? That’s a low blow, even from Cleo.

    Next thing you know it’ll be telling JG he writes like a Beat–same shit, clever, but no soul.

  105. alppuccino says:

    “I think it’s time I find a better hobby. It’s difficult being reminded daily just how craven and petty most people really are.”

    Being a hitman would be a cool hobby. Or cataloging all the bare-boob scenes in the history of movies. Driftwood sculpture is another goody.

    definitely something that involves boobs though.

  106. BJTexs says:

    I know this is going to be difficult for our faux outraged, gentle heart liberals but this was a two step program.

    One dealt with Dan’s “ex” post which was pretty well reviewed and commented on by various and sundry, including Jeff. IMHO, the less hysterical criticisms had some validity.

    On the other hand, the screeching hoards of patriarchy warriors and damsel in distress wanna be heroes lost all sense of nuance and balance in their headlong rush to whip saw Dan and, as a blog guilt by association, wag their collective fingers at Jeff.

    This whole thing has been so feverish and overblown as to be like a Bee Gee’s style retrospective, complete with goldfish platform shoes and swirly floral polyester shirts.

    NTTAWWT

  107. Slartibartfast says:

    hordes

    Just sayin’.

  108. happyfeet says:

    Hordes of stupid, really. And then poor blinkered Berube melting wax and putting his seal on the whole thing right and proper. I bet he’s calling Ira Glass this morning. I really do.

  109. Slartibartfast says:

    You forgot the accent ague, provincial lout!

    Berub&#233

  110. Slartibartfast says:

    Ah, crap. Comments are HTML-distressed.

  111. JD says:

    Since Gren Gleenwald has not yet denounced this, is it safe to assume that he condones, nay, endorses this?

    I am almost sorry that I was not online this weekend. Hell, there was a troll taking pot shots at me, and I was not even around to laugh at it.

    My 2 chuckling cents? I know Dan, and therefore he benefits from the assumption of good faith and good intentions on my behalf. I also tend to take him at his word, as his word has been good in my experience. His critics, not so much.

    Had they not gone batshit crazy about the post in question, they would have found a reason sooner or later. This reminds me of the blogger in Nashville who Jesus’ General tried to get fired because she was insufficiently critical of a link. Manufactured faux outrage.

  112. BJTexs says:

    I’m hoarding the hordes. (heh)

  113. Chris Chittleborough says:

    You know Dan, JD? You’ve broken bread with him? Hung out? Or by “know” did you mean, I read him on the Internet? If so, you and I must be best friends….

  114. BJTexs says:

    Chris:

    I’m a gonna guess that JD knows Dan better than any of the above trolls know Jeff. Not that that’s stopped ’em from hyper analysing him from paste to slap…

  115. happyfeet says:

    The guy down the hall always stops in the guy across the hall’s office to talk about stupid guy down the hall stuff. He thinks the guy across the hall and he are friends. But actually the guy across the hall hates the guy from down the hall. This has gone on for years.

  116. happyfeet says:

    I can’t stand either of them.

  117. Benedick says:

    So be it, happy, but more often than not we’re talking shit about you.

  118. happyfeet says:

    But… you don’t even know me. We haven’t broken bread. No fairs.

  119. JD says:

    Chris – Yes, I do know him. You, on the other hand, I do not know. Do you only “know” someone if you have shared a meal with them? By that definition, I do not know my next door neighbor, despite speaking to him almost every day for the last 6 months. Do you only “know” someone if you have hung out with them? By that definition, I do not know my boss, since we do not hang out socially. Since I do not post or guess post, you could not read any posts of mine on the internet. But, it is apparent that you are not actually interested in a real discussion about this, just more leftwing snark.

  120. JD says:

    Chris, via BJ

    Ya gotta love a guy who snarks that you don’t “know” someone well enough to defend him while a large group of rampaging trolls don’t need to “know” him well enough to slather him with every diagnostic and legal conclusion …

    Introspection is not taught at troll school.

  121. Chris Chittleborough says:

    Didn’t know asking me a question would send me to the JD doghouse, but that’s because I don’t JD any better than JD knows “happyfeet” or Dan Collins.

    Also, didn’t know that teasing JD meant I was a troll. Is there a rule book somewhere where I can peruse the rules regarding asking JD a question? Is he the only commenter who cannot be questioned, or are there others?

    By the way, Happyfeet, Grandpa Simpson tells stories like yours too. You’ll both witty and cool (see that was snark)

  122. BJTexs says:

    JD: I think that Chris Critten wants to know if you know Dan.

    I mean, do you know Dan?

    Which would (ahem) provide an entirely new level of credibility, IYKWIM.

    Chris is a little voyeuristic that way…

  123. happyfeet says:

    I hate you.

  124. BJTexs says:

    Hmmm, it appears to be the timmah crappy grammer and missing words and the timmah puffed chest faux outrage.

    If it walks like a timmah and bloviates like a timmah…

  125. BJTexs says:

    Happyfeet:

    We love you, man, even if we don’t know you, KWIM?

    Because all the world needs now is love, sweet love. IGNORANCE IS BLISS!

  126. happyfeet says:

    Thanks BJ. Back at you. All of you. Even Tiny Tim. It’s gonna be the bestest Thanksgiving EVER!!!!

  127. The Ouroboros says:

    I was married to a woman when I was younger.. Broke bread with her.. Shared a bed with her.. Made three kids with her.. We made all the usual long range family plans together.. I thought we had a pretty decent marriage…

    One day out of the blue she didnt come home.. She’d left me and the kids for a Lesbian lover (nttawwt)..

    Guess I never really knew her…

  128. BJTexs says:

    Happyfeet: AND A BESTEST THANKSGIVING, EVERY ONE!

    Ouros:

    I know what you mean … um … actually … ah … no I don’t.

    Look! Drumsticks!

  129. mojo says:

    IYKWIM

    Hey, how can I know what you mean? It’s metaphysically absurd, man…

  130. BJTexs says:

    Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?

    Is Chittleborough a pretentious faux outraged little floating turdlette?

  131. alppuccino says:

    When I go to Home Depot or Big Lots and all of a sudden there are 2 40ish pear-shaped ladies with matching mullets behind me in the checkout, I always think of how many kids are somewhere wondering what the hell got into Mom. Oh well, kids only matter when there’s free health care to be legislated. Otherwise, a lesbian must be true to herself first and foremost.

    Not making light of your story TO. There’s nothing funny about it.

  132. Slartibartfast says:

    My take on all of this is, as ever:

    I don’t care what Tbogg thinks, or (if you’re unwilling to stipulate thought) says. I care even less what this Swiftoid fellow has to say, and Chris Chittleborough is an uninvolved party thrice removed, so: completely not worth any consideration.

  133. happyfeet says:

    Seems there was a rash of late-blooming lesbians after that Sarah McLachlan cd first came out and a whole lot of highly unsatisfying cum hoc ergo propter hoc that I don’t think was ever resolved.

    But this is interesting.

    The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented.

    Guess who?

  134. mojo says:

    “If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic!”
    — Tweedledee

  135. The Ouroboros says:

    No problem.. poke all the fun you like, I dont mind laughing at myself.. I didn’t mean that story to be pathetic.. I just meant it as a weird rebuttal to the statement that one has to break bread with someone in order to know them… It WAS weird and kinda funny in a Jerry Springeresque kind of way.. Plus the connections comes in handy at parties when we’re play Six Degrees of Seperation from Lou Diamond Philips…

    Plus I rationalize it by figuring she was really lesbian all along and I was just so hot that I made a straight girl of her for 10 years…

  136. JD says:

    TO – I sympathize with ya, as I am unable to empathize. That whole break bread with someone to know them is kind of ironic, given their ability to diagnose and condemn someone and they are not even familiar with them.

  137. BJTexs says:

    I think we ought to go with the Australian concept of knowing wherein one doesn’t really know someone until you’ve gotten cotton ball drunk and beaten the living crap out of each other.

    Saves a whole lot of interpersonal back and forth.

  138. JD says:

    BJ – But then what would all of the girls on the MTV and VH1 realtity shows have left to say. All you ever here is “You don’t know me”, don’t go there, etc …

  139. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    But then what would all of the girls on the MTV and VH1 realtity shows have left to say.

    Sounds like a natural segue into mud wrestling to me.

  140. BJTexs says:

    Mudwrestling! YES!!!!

  141. JD says:

    I am pretty sure that Tila Tequila already did jello wrestling this season, with 10 str8 guys and 10 bisexual girls.

  142. JD says:

    Holy shit. I denounce myself for pointing out that they were bisexual when in fact they are bisexual. I may have been encouraging some moonbat to stalk them.

  143. B Moe says:

    “When I go to Home Depot or Big Lots and all of a sudden there are 2 40ish pear-shaped ladies with matching mullets behind me in the checkout, I always think of how many kids are somewhere wondering what the hell got into Mom.”

    Most of them know what got into Mom, al. They are trying to figure out how it got in there.

  144. JD says:

    BMoe – I think I am lucky. It seems that all of the thespian women I see are of the lipstick thespian variety.

  145. so, if I’m eatin’ dinner while reading this does that count?

  146. JD says:

    But, do we really know you, Maggie ?

  147. Swen Swenson says:

    You can even know someone in the biblical sense and not really know them, no?

  148. JD says:

    So very freakin’ true …

  149. Stackie says:

    Great post, thanks for the info

Comments are closed.