Latest Newspaper Column:
One of my all-time favorite science fiction short stories is R.A. Lafferty's "Slow Tuesday Night." The basic premise of the story is that humanity has removed a mental block that slowed down action and decision-making, and people now live at a freakishly accelerated clip.
"Transportation and manufacturing had then become practically instantaneous," Lafferty writes. "Things that had once taken months and years now took only minutes and hours. A person could have one or several pretty intricate careers within an eight-hour period." One character makes and loses four fortunes in the course of the night, "not the little fortunes that ordinary men acquire, but titanic things."
The story's a clever satire on how life seems to keep moving faster - and it was written in 1965. One wonders what Lafferty would make of the speed of life now. We haven't quite gotten to the insane pace of his fictional world yet, but sometimes things happen that make it seem like it's not that far off.
The most recent example is the rise and fall of the catch phrase "That's a clown question, bro," which apparently was coined, had its vogue, and was declared dead in the course of a week. And I seem to have missed the whole thing.
It seems there's a young player for baseball's Washington Nationals named Bryce Harper. Harper, after hitting a game-winning home run against the Toronto Blue Jays, was being interviewed in the locker room. A Canadian reporter stepped forward and asked, "Bryce, you know, in Canada you're of legal drinking age. A celebratory Canadian beer would seem to make sense after a hit like that. Favorite beer?"
Now, as noted above, Bryce is a young fellow. Nineteen, to be exact. And he's a Mormon to boot, so drinking beer, Canadian or otherwise, is not likely to be on his agenda. The team's PR man tried to step in, but Harper fielded the question (so to speak) with an aplomb far beyond his years. Giving the reporter a disgusted look, he delivered the smackdown: "I'm not going to answer that. That's a clown question, bro."
Of such humble beginnings, it seems, are Internet memes born. Within a day, "clown question, bro" became the top "trending topic" on Twitter. T-shirts appeared for sale with the catch phrase on them. A beer company in Denver - called, appropriately enough, the Denver Beer Company - announced that it was bringing out a Canadian-style lager called "Clown Question, Bro."
It's too bad, I guess, that Harper didn't have the presence of mind to immediately contact an intellectual property lawyer and have his phrase trademarked. Or perhaps not. *
Because a week later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was being quizzed by a reporter regarding President Obama's announcement that the administration would not be trying to deport the children of illegal immigrants who were of good moral character and didn't pose a threat to national security. The reporter asked if Reid intended to bring the defunct DREAM Act back to the Senate (where it had been strangled in its crib by Republican filibusters) to "put people on the record." Reid paused for a long while, then smiled and told the reporter, "That's a clown question, bro."
At that point, blogger Dan Amira of New York Magazine declared the phrase dead after only seven days, "the victim of a brutal and obviously premeditated attack" by Reid - who was, Amira said with tongue planted firmly in cheek, under investigation for "meme-slaughter."
I guess if an old politician like Reid is saying something, it can't possibly be cool anymore. Kind of a shame, actually. "Clown question, bro" is the perfect dismissal for those questions that are just too stupid or slanted to be answered any other way. Like the now-standard "Isn't this (insert absolutely anything the president does or says from now till November) just being done for political gain?"
Maybe if Sarah Palin had answered Katie Couric's "What newspapers do you read?" with "That's a clown question, bro," she would have seemed less dimwitted. At least until the next question.
But who knows? Maybe the reports of its death are premature. Maybe the phrase will go on and have a long and happy life in our culture. I hope so. And I hope I can keep up with the next thing to come along.
*UPDATE: It seems I spoke too soon.
Showing posts with label dumbasses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dumbasses. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Sunday, 27 May 2012
The Birthers Are Back!
Latest Newspaper Column: There's no link because the Pilot has, once again, forgotten to put my column up on the web site. But I'm getting crazy people e-mailing me about it (we'll have more on that soon), so I know it ran.
If you thought the ridiculous movement known as "birtherism," which holds that Barack Obama has not sufficiently proven his U.S. citizenship, was dead, then think again.
A person of normal intelligence might think that the whole kerfluffle had been put to rest by the long-demanded release of the President's "long form" birth certificate, a document which I'll wager 99% of Americans never knew existed before the birthers asserted that that was the only proof they'd accept (except as it turns out, that didn't make them happy either). But if you think that, you've forgotten one of the basic tenets of the right wing: if something fails miserably, then it's just because we didn't do it enough. If the economy tanked despite eight years of tax cuts under The President That Must Not Be Named, then the solution is clearly more tax cuts. If poorly regulated investment houses lost billions of their clients' money and/or failed to disclose risks to their clients, then clearly what we need is less regulation. And so on.
And so, apparently on the theory that that birtherism failed because they just weren't crazy enough, it returns, this time in the presence of no less an august personage than The Honorable Ken Bennett, Secretary of State of Arizona, a state which is apparently trying to supplant Florida as the nuttiest one in the Union. (I heard Dave Barry is thinking of relocating there because of the wealth of material). Mr. Bennett recently called up a deputy attorney general in Hawaii and requested "verification" of the President's birth record. After a few days (and, one imagines, a fair amount of eye-rolling), Deputy AG Jill Nagamine e-mailed Bennett back, apologizing for taking so long while pointedly noting that she had "been tied up with some legislative deadlines that take precedence." She then provided Bennett with the sort of links any half-bright person with access to Google could find, links to official websites that covered the whole issue. In short, Deputy Attorney General Nagamine told Bennett: "look, pal, I got a lot of stuff on my plate here, we've been over this a hundred times, look it up yourself." But politely.
Unable, apparently, to take a hint, Bennett e-mailed back, again requesting verification of the President's American birth. He did not, it should be noted, ask for a similar verification of the birth records of Millard Mitt Romney. Maybe Mitt had already given him one in person, since Bennett is the co-chair of Romney's campaign in Arizona. I'm sure that's just a coincidence, right?
Nagamine's e-mailed response was a classic: she turned the tables and demanded verification that Bennett was eligible to make the request. She also asked a slew of other questions, such as what list he was updating and if he was asking any other candidate this information. He would also, of course, need to send verification of all of that.
Bennett sent back references to various Arizona statutes, which he claimed gave him the right. Nagamine, displaying the sort of mulishness that would make a birther proud, said "nope, not good enough." (Politely). None of those cites, she said, "establish the authority of the Secretary of State." But, she said, Hawaii "stands willing to provide you with the verification you seek as soon as you are able to show that you are entitled to it."
Later that day, Bennett went on AM talk radio and suggested that, if Hawaii didn't do as he asked, President Obama may not appear on the Arizona ballot this year. Meanwhile, just to add in an extra dollop of lunacy, Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio dispatched a deputy from his "threat unit" to Hawaii's Department of Health on the taxpayer's dime. Arpaio refused to identify the "threat" or to explain exactly why a division of the state government of Hawaii should do anything for a county Sheriff's deputy from another state except show him the door. Politely, of course.
Finally, Bennett gave up and pronounced himself satisfied that the President was, indeed, born in the USA and would appear on the ballot. That is, until the next opportunity arises for the right wing lunatic fringe to drag that poor dead horse out of the barn and flog him again. Because in the land of Wingnuttia, if a dead horse won't run, it's because you didn't beat him hard enough.
If you thought the ridiculous movement known as "birtherism," which holds that Barack Obama has not sufficiently proven his U.S. citizenship, was dead, then think again.
A person of normal intelligence might think that the whole kerfluffle had been put to rest by the long-demanded release of the President's "long form" birth certificate, a document which I'll wager 99% of Americans never knew existed before the birthers asserted that that was the only proof they'd accept (except as it turns out, that didn't make them happy either). But if you think that, you've forgotten one of the basic tenets of the right wing: if something fails miserably, then it's just because we didn't do it enough. If the economy tanked despite eight years of tax cuts under The President That Must Not Be Named, then the solution is clearly more tax cuts. If poorly regulated investment houses lost billions of their clients' money and/or failed to disclose risks to their clients, then clearly what we need is less regulation. And so on.
And so, apparently on the theory that that birtherism failed because they just weren't crazy enough, it returns, this time in the presence of no less an august personage than The Honorable Ken Bennett, Secretary of State of Arizona, a state which is apparently trying to supplant Florida as the nuttiest one in the Union. (I heard Dave Barry is thinking of relocating there because of the wealth of material). Mr. Bennett recently called up a deputy attorney general in Hawaii and requested "verification" of the President's birth record. After a few days (and, one imagines, a fair amount of eye-rolling), Deputy AG Jill Nagamine e-mailed Bennett back, apologizing for taking so long while pointedly noting that she had "been tied up with some legislative deadlines that take precedence." She then provided Bennett with the sort of links any half-bright person with access to Google could find, links to official websites that covered the whole issue. In short, Deputy Attorney General Nagamine told Bennett: "look, pal, I got a lot of stuff on my plate here, we've been over this a hundred times, look it up yourself." But politely.
Unable, apparently, to take a hint, Bennett e-mailed back, again requesting verification of the President's American birth. He did not, it should be noted, ask for a similar verification of the birth records of Millard Mitt Romney. Maybe Mitt had already given him one in person, since Bennett is the co-chair of Romney's campaign in Arizona. I'm sure that's just a coincidence, right?
Nagamine's e-mailed response was a classic: she turned the tables and demanded verification that Bennett was eligible to make the request. She also asked a slew of other questions, such as what list he was updating and if he was asking any other candidate this information. He would also, of course, need to send verification of all of that.
Bennett sent back references to various Arizona statutes, which he claimed gave him the right. Nagamine, displaying the sort of mulishness that would make a birther proud, said "nope, not good enough." (Politely). None of those cites, she said, "establish the authority of the Secretary of State." But, she said, Hawaii "stands willing to provide you with the verification you seek as soon as you are able to show that you are entitled to it."
Later that day, Bennett went on AM talk radio and suggested that, if Hawaii didn't do as he asked, President Obama may not appear on the Arizona ballot this year. Meanwhile, just to add in an extra dollop of lunacy, Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio dispatched a deputy from his "threat unit" to Hawaii's Department of Health on the taxpayer's dime. Arpaio refused to identify the "threat" or to explain exactly why a division of the state government of Hawaii should do anything for a county Sheriff's deputy from another state except show him the door. Politely, of course.
Finally, Bennett gave up and pronounced himself satisfied that the President was, indeed, born in the USA and would appear on the ballot. That is, until the next opportunity arises for the right wing lunatic fringe to drag that poor dead horse out of the barn and flog him again. Because in the land of Wingnuttia, if a dead horse won't run, it's because you didn't beat him hard enough.
Friday, 1 July 2011
Letters, Oh I Get Letters
Today in The Pilot:
Dusty Rhoades’ petulant column attacking Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney (June 19) displays a prepubescent proclivity (for name-calling), when rational, cogent analysis would be the most powerful way to pose one’s argument.
Indeed, character assassination is the last refuge of a mind sadly bereft of ideas.
Dixie Chapman
Pinehurst
I always love the people who write in, excoriating a satirical column for not being serious enough.
Hey, Dixie, I do cogent analysis and argument, but for a hell of a lot more money that The Pilot pays me. For these prices, snark and mockery are what you get.
In conclusion, let us remember the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka:
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