Parade
An intellectual review that is the Bible of the faculty at
Harvard State University asks President George H. W. Bush to
slander a great American and, alas, he takes the bait:
Thoughts on the “no new tax” pledge from Grover Norquist.
PARADE: During your presidency you gave in on your “no new
taxes” pledge. You’ve been vindicated in many respects for that
decision. I wonder how you view the “no new tax” pledge from Grover
Norquist that seems to be requisite for GOP political
candidates.
GB: The rigidity of those pledges is something I don’t like. The
circumstances change and you can’t be wedded to some formula by
Grover Norquist. It’s—who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?
(July 13, 2012)
Newsoxy
On the Web’s equivalent to the New York Times, evidence that
in Canada the brain drain continues:
Canadian model Shera Bechard, the ex-girlfriend of
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and creator of “Frisky
Friday,” was granted a special genius visa the U.S. government
gives to “individuals with extraordinary ability.”
Thanks to the help of her immigration lawyer Chris Wright,
Bechard was bestowed the O-1 visa, commonly referred to as the
“genius visa” by the U.S. government, “an internationally
recognized award, such as a Nobel Prize.” Wright argued that her
accomplishments in modeling and business earned her consideration
for the visa.
(July 2, 2012)
New York Times
The editors of the estimable Times choose the work of Miss
Maggie Shipstead, an obvious idiot, for its featured op-ed. What
are they trying to tell us?
Three years ago, at a wedding in Prague, I met an Englishman
with whom I had an immediate and powerful connection. We e-mailed
for two months, and then I joined him in the Bahamas for a weeklong
second date. At first, the match seemed fated, the product of a
romantic version of paying it forward. [sic] You see, my cousin
Luke, who grew up in Michigan, started things off by marrying a
woman from Prague named Kaja. At their wedding, my cousin Beau met
Tereza, Kaja’s younger sister. They had an immediate and powerful
connection, e-mailed and Skyped for a while, and then Beau moved to
Prague. I met my Englishman at their wedding.
This is where the international matrimonial chain reaction ends,
however, because we broke up in less than a year, driven asunder
not by the 5,000 miles that separate London from Palo Alto but,
mundanely, by our own incompatible personalities.
Had we met under different circumstances, I doubt we would have
dated at all, but weddings impair judgment. It was 4 in the
morning; it was Prague. We weren’t alone in behaving imprudently.
After I walk-of-shamed the length of Wenceslas Square back to the
apartment I was sharing with the groom’s sisters, I found a dress
soaking in the bidet. One of these sisters, ordinarily an elegant
and selfpossessed woman, had gotten the giggles so severely while
stumbling back from the bar that she had executed a
kindergarten-style collapse-andpee on the sidewalk.
(July 19, 2012)
NewYorkTimes.com
A sad missive from someone named Lowin addressed to an
aspiring Times blogger of tender years named Dick Cavett, sitting
at home in his underpants:
Dear Mr. Cavett, The occasion of my comment is, of course, sad
since it relates to the death of [Nora Ephron,] one of our greatest
wits and talents.Nonetheless, the event has caused you to write
again and for that I, and no doubt many others, are and will be
always grateful. Your columns remind us all of an era when there
was hope for progress and respect for intellect in the land. Now,
as the empire crumbles under the weight of forty years of right
wing policies, anti science, anti intellectual, flat earth,
fanatical, and, not to put too fine a point on it, fascist in
nature, looking back on you and your show and revisiting the
glowing personality that powered it, I smile.
Eric Lowin
Pleasant Hill, CA
(June 29, 2012)
Washington Times
A bizarre sexual ritual, as reported in the infallible
Times of our nation’s capital:
SALT LAKE CITY—A man spotted dressed in a goat suit among a herd
of wild goats in the mountains of northern Utah has wildlife
officials worried that he could be in danger as hunting season
approaches.
Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said
Friday the person is doing nothing illegal, but he worries the
so-called “goat man” is unaware of the dangers.
“My first concern is the person doesn’t understand the risks,”
Mr. Douglass said.
(July 23, 2012)
The Progressive
The lonely fate of soon to be ex-Congressman John Conyers,
the scamp who promised on C-SPAN to turn the Feds on The American
Spectator as a consequence of its merry investigation of the
Clinton outfit—more evidence of the Spectator’s curse. To
think he would end up with his own Monica scandal!
Now Conyers’s congressional career is on the brink of closure.
He was touched by scandal when his wife, Monica, was sentenced to
thirty-seven months in prison in March 2010 for taking bribes while
a member of the Detroit City Council. Although he was innocent of
any involvement in the affair, his reputation took a hit
nonetheless.
(August 2012)
Daily Beast
A highly agitated Michael Tomasky, one week before the
Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare, proffers his delusions of
recent American history before heading off for his weekly meeting
with his anger management counselor:
The main thing that changed between then [40 years ago] and
now,Instead, is that rabidly right-wing billionaires started
throwing many millions of dollars into politics, forming and
funding groups like the Federalist Society, which have managed to
assert their will. They represent about the same 30 percent they
represented back when Barry Goldwater won the GOP nomination. It’s
just that now they’re organized and lavishly backed, whereas before
they weren’t. In the 1960s, Nino Scalia would’ve ended up teaching
at Notre Dame law school (where he belonged)—a crackpot speaker on
a marginal rubber-chicken circuit that mainstream America could
have blissfully ignored, instead of sitting on the highest court in
the land imposing his 16th-century will on the rest of us.
And so: If we get a 5–4 ruling against the Affordable Health
Care act or any part of it, this is the context to keep in mind. It
will be another in a series of ferociously ideological
one-vote-margin decisions from the court that we do not need
history’s perspective to decide is far and away America’s most
ideological.
(June 21, 2012)
Village Voice Blogs
Indignant fulminations from Mr. Michael Musto, a hitherto
unknown, who apparently has wandered in from the local Occupy
movement and found a cubicle at the once venerated Voice:
I always thought that any gay who backs a candidate that doesn’t
support equal rights must have some very scary death wish.
It’s self-defeating and downright creepy!
And though they’ve rationalized that gay marriage is just one
issue, and the economy is a more important one, I’d have to say (A)
Romney has no better answer to our economic woes except for general
pronouncements and promises: (B) Whether we’re in a good economy or
not, I’d rather have my rights, thank you.
So, here’s to you and your bizarre contradictions, GoProud.
You’re like Jewish Nazis!
Black Klan members!
Women who campaign for Rush Limbaugh!
Mexican Republicans!
Roaches who moonlight for ex term inators!
Blech, go away.
(June 25, 2012)
From the Archives
Timeless Tosh from Current Wisdoms Past
(September 1992)
Washington Post
At the podium of the tear-drenched, lowbrow, exploited,
humiliated, down-and-out-in-Amerika Democratic national convention,
the Rev. Jackson puts in a good word for Herod, the
ur-Republican:
Lastly, there’s a lot of talk these days about family values.
Even as we spurn the homeless on the street, remember, Jesus was
born to a homeless couple, outdoors… a child of a single mother.
But when Mary said Joseph was not the father, she was abused and
questioned. If Mary had aborted the baby, she would have been
called immoral. If she had the baby, she would have been called
unfit, without family values.
But Mary had family values. It was Herod, the Quayle of his day,
who put no value on the family. When Dan Quayle tries to ride both
sides of this private religious moral issue, he is above his
potato.
(July 17, 1992)
