Political Corrections

Political correctness is both simple and benign. It's telling someone who's being a dick (to people who don't deserve it) that they are being a dick. That's all. Yet the response is generally along the lines of, "Boo hoo hoo! I'm so oppressed! I was being a dick, but you called me a dick! Boo hoo hoo! You're worse than Hitler!"

Sack up, dick. You apparently see yourself as mentally tougher than the crybabies who can't handle mean words, but this "poor, poor me" tantrum casts doubt on that, to say the least. You're being a dick. Own it. Otherwise, you're also a pussy.

Political correctness can be tedious at times, but the backlash against it is both tedious and pathetic.

I'm not going to claim to be politically correct, but I hope I never whine about how oppressed I'm being. You know, by those jackbooted thugs with their... disapproving looks and wagging fingers. Or something. What kind of weapon of authority is it that they wield? I forget. Maybe it's too horrifying to remember.

Nerdy notes about the term and its history

If Wikipedia is to be believed, the term was coined at a time when Communist Party members in the U.S.S.R. were being criticized by Socialists for keeping to the "correct" position on political matters "regardless of their moral substance". In the seventies it was picked up in the western world by the New Left as a joking "guard against their own orthodoxy in social change efforts."

In the nineties, conservatives picked up the ball and ran with it. "Political Correctness" is a perfect term to use when you want to paint your opponents as being intolerant. As, sweet irony! "I'm not being intolerant by not tolerating [group]. You're being intolerant by criticizing my intolerance!" It's practically guaranteed to work, not because it makes sense but because it takes the burden of guilt off the shoulders of your ideological followers and places it squarely on anyone who criticizes their philosophy.

A Case of Legitimate Incredulity

There's been an awful lot of digit ink spilled over the comments of some random old politician I'd never heard of before. I had no intention of spilling any more. But.

There's a Japanese world news program that my wife and I like to watch in the mornings. She likes it because it's a very good program. I like it because the man announcer's head is shaped exactly like an egg and that amuses me.

The story started off with video of the old politician dude making his crazy comments, with subtitled translation. Then it cut to woman announcer who said:

What the f*ck!? Holy living f*ck did that stupid old f*ck just say what I f*cking think he said? Is there some kind of bad f*cking translation issue, here? Seriously: what the f*ck?

That's a very loose translation, but what her lips weren't saying of that, the rest of her face definitely was. When the time came to move on to the next story she had to pause, take a deep breath, and say, "next..."

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Victoria Jackson's head looks exactly like a thumb in a wig with a face painted on it. Don't believe me?

Maybe in the Minor Prophets Nobody Reads?

That it was written at all is sad beyond measure. That it was written by a professor at Yale makes it loop all the way past sad to hilarious and then back again to sad.

Here it is. Make sure you're sitting down and there are no fluids in your mouth.

The idea of America– freedom, equality, democracy, and America as the promised land–grew straight out of the Bible.

It sure did.

See full article here. If you dare.

Gah. Have to cleanse my brain now with something a million times more intelligent, like YouTube comments.

Think Tanks

It's not that I don't get why think tanks exist. I do. They exist for the same reason lobbyists and serial killers exist: some people have uncontrollable urges to do the wrong thing. No, what I don't get is why anyone listens to them without either laughing or replying with their bum parts.

And that's all I have to say about think tanks. What I have to say to think tanks involves my anus.

Letter to the Letter to the Editor

I was reading the Province newspaper at my favourite soup and sandwich place today when I read a very interesting letter to the editor. Interesting in the negative sense of the word.

Cartoonist Dan Murphy has every right to make fun of the Queen as a freeloader, with zero relevance to Canada.

Such anti-monarchy sentiment is increasing as Canada chooses to sever all ties with Britain. Perhaps B.C. should drop the “British” from its name, and look for allegiance elsewhere? Perhaps China — a one-party dictatorship — is a better alternative?

John Clench, Vancouver

The Poll of God

I despise the sort of breathless, self-righteous emails that get forwarded around the ethernets just slightly more than I hate penis-enlargement SPAM¹. They're terribly written and seldom have even a nugget of truth in them. The few times they hold a bit of truth, it's so surrounded by bullshit that it hardly matters.

Here's a case in point.

It's Stifling in Here!

Photo by David Shankbone

Said Fox News chief Roger Ailes of the reasons behind Glenn Beck's departure: "Advertisers who get weak-kneed because some idiot on a blog site writes to them and says we need to stifle speech, I get a little frustrated by that."

I spent a little time wondering what he meant by "stifling speech". It's obviously not about Beck's ability to speak. That's unchanged. And he can do it in public, too. Then there are the books that he publishes. He's losing his TV show at Fox, but I haven't heard that his radio show is over. Oh, and he has a website.

So what does stifling speech mean to Roger Ailes? I guess it means that nobody is willing to pay Beck millions of dollars to speak on TV. With that it mind...

Stop stifling my speech!