Friday, April 15, 2005
AN OLD SHELL GAME MADE NEW. The usual suspects are flogging it, but the debut of Brian C. Anderson's South Park Conservatives book suffers from particularly bad timing: just as Anderson's trying to tell the world how wonderfully hip, fun, and politically incorrect the Right is, it seems all the top conservatives are either professing love for deceased anti-porn scold Andrea Dworkin, or screaming for Jesus, the Pope, and Terri Schiavo.
In fact, when the Schiavo became the subtext of an actual South Park show a few weeks back, the alleged party-boys and -girls of wingnut valhalla were strangely quiet -- not surprisingly, as the episode included the spectacle of Satan mind-controlling pro-lifers. (Swanky Conservative did gush, "I can’t wait to see where Trey & Matt take this," then never followed up.)
South Park conservatism attempts to play both ends against the middle -- like when Rupert Murdoch uses page-3 tits and tabloid sensationalism to finance political shills who denounce a decline in public morals. More than anything, perhaps, it reflects the pathos of political operatives -- or people in any line of work, for that matter -- who try to win advantage by announcing how very hip they are.
10:40 AM by roy edroso
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Thursday, April 14, 2005
HIGH CHURCH, LOW CHURCH. The Crazy Jesus Lady tries her hand at dramaturgy, envisioning the Catholic Cardinals at dinner:A Cardinal from South America says, "I had a thought. When the crowd kept applauding during the Mass--to me, looking out at them, it seemed as if they were saying: 'We're not just observers anymore, we're the Church, Hear us!' It seemed to me possibly quite significant."
Silence as they all considered this.
An old cardinal with what seemed a German accent cleared his throat.
"What they want, I believe, is a healthy church. For all John Paul's illness, they thought he was a healthy man. Emotionally and psychologically healthy in a way modern culture is not.
"It seems to me the meaning of the crowds, the meaning of the cries at the mass, is this: 'We loved this hero of truth, and we want a hero of truth.' They want someone who won't bow to the thinking of the world. They want someone who will clean the stables, too. The corruption and worldly values of the church, the sex scandals--these must be dealt with." Nice touch, that throat-clearing. Adds a bit of what Mike Hammer called "the old sincerity."
Funny, when I envision Red Hats at dinner in Rome, I see a different scene entirely:CARDINAL MAZEPPA: More young boy, Cardinal Umlaut?
CARDINAL UMLAUT: Danke! We ought to get together more often, fellows. Not just for funerals!
CARDINAL SPAGHETTINI: Can't you get up here more often?
CARDINAL UMLAUT: Ach, they keep me chained to my desk in Bremen. Fortunately I have a Herman Miller chair. The only one in existence made of gold, they tell me!
CARDINAL M'TUMBE: Do what I do – offer to donate your frequent flyer miles to the poor!
(General laughter)
CARDINAL WENCES: So what do you think? Ratzinger is a lock, no?
CARDINAL M'TUMBE: Too creepy. Yesterday he told me his first act as Pope would be to have John XXIII exhumed and tried post mortem for the heresy of Vatican II. He said he looked forward to striking off Roncalli's blessing fingers himself. I suspect he would do it with his teeth.
CARDINAL SPAGHETTINI: What about Arinze?
CARDINAL M'TUMBE: Come now, Spaghettini! You do not think the punters will accept a black face on the throne of Peter?
CARDINAL WENCES: And why not? They accepted a Polack!
(General laughter)
CARDINAL WENCES: Hey, you know how Wojtyla first put on the shoes of the fisherman?
(Stands, puts one foot on his chair, bends to tie his other shoe. General laughter.)
CARDINAL UMLAUT: Sorry, I missed that. This boy is squirming overmuch.
CARDINAL WENCES: I fix.
(Cuffs boy, yells in Sponish)
CARDINAL M'TUMBE: We may see a wide-open conclave, with incense-filled back rooms and the like.
CARDINAL MAZEPPA: The deadlock will not last. Serious cash is changing hands. A little red bird offered me the Ark of the Covenant for my support.
CARDINAL WENCES: Ridiculous!
CARDINAL MAZEPPA: Why? I can deliver 20 votes on the strength of blackmail alone!
CARDINAL WENCES: Because I have the Ark of the Covenant! At least that's what that bastard Martini told me.
CARDINAL MAZEPPA: Ha ha! Played for a chump, you were! You know, I like this Martini's style. Maybe I will make a call to the IMF and see if he is acceptable to our global overlords.
CARDINAL UMLAUT: (Wiping his brow with a handkerchief) Ah, that was refreshing. You know what I could go for? Some consecrated wine.
CARDINAL M'TUMBE: (Pouring out a fresh round) Accepite, et bibite ex eo omnes.
ALL: Salute! Well, it ain't Chronicles of Hell, but I've had a busy morning.
11:35 AM by roy edroso
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
BIG BROTHER, BIG DADDY, AND BIG MOMMY. I guess most of you by now have seen arch-conservative David Frum's obit for Andrea Dworkin:Politically she belonged to the far, far, far left, but she had little use for an antiwar movement that made excuses for Saddam Hussein or Islamic extremism. And in one respect at least, she shared a deep and true perception with the political and cultural right: She understood that the sexual revolution had inflicted serious harm on the interests of women and children – and (ultimately) of men as well. She understood that all-pervasive pornography is not a harmless amusement, but a powerful teaching device that changed the way men thought about women. She rejected the idea that sex is just another commodity to be exchanged in a marketplace, that strippers and prostitutes should be thought of as just another form of service worker: She recognized and dared to name the reality of brutality and exploitation where many liberals insist on perceiving personal liberation. David Frum misperceives a lot of things, and Dworkin is better known (certainly in my case!) by reductive popular commentary than by her actual work -- for a corrective of her alleged straight-sex-is-rape trope, see here, and see also this gentle and informed abstention to the Dworkin version of feminism -- but his moment of solidarity with Dworkin is tellingly useful to his purposes.
It was Dworkin's idea that our society turns sex into a commodity -- which notion should be unobjectionable to anyone possessing a TV -- and that as our society is male-dominated, women will tend to be the object rather than the subject of the transaction.
This analysis is of course Marxist to the core, whereas Frum is a gleeful capitalist. But Frum is a Republican functionary -- though one now plying his trade at National Review rather than as a Bush speechwriter, thanks to a spectacular PR fuck-up -- and he knows that religion is a big part of the Republican future. And he surely also knows that sexual shame is a big part of the power of religion the Republican Party relies upon for votes. As Paris was worth a Mass to Henry IV, so for Frum the GOP cause is worth a kind word for some feminist.
He's not alone in grasping hands across the funky chasm. Ross Douthat love-taps an alleged "centrist" who " dislikes," as he does, "few things more than the smug mix of cultural permissiveness and see-no-evil economic centrism that defines upper-middle-class, Emerging-Democratic-Majority liberalism." Douthat's hero, like Dworkin (but in a much, much lower key), blames capitalism (personalized here by the gap and Tommy Hilfiger) for all that offensive "ass-cleavage" and "visible midriffs" out there, and invites the Democratic Party to abandon its "injudicious defense of Hollywood violence, mainstream pornography, and bad art," and stand strong against ass-cleavage and visible midriffs for the good of... well, what he does not say; values, one imagines.
As mentioned before, it is no shock that, in our berserk marketplace, sexual titillation is used to sell products. So are patriotism, love of family, fear of abandonment, and as many other natural emotional equities as Madison Avenue can identify. That in itself does not make these things wretched -- not to me, nor, I am willing to bet, to Frum and Douthat. But you will wait a very long time before either of those gentlemen complain so strenuously about any other form of commodification on God's green earth other than that of sex. Because no Bible-beater is going to fill a church, or sway an electoral constituency, by denouncing Clydesdales who kneel before the fallen Twin Towers in the service of beer sales, but a million Elmer Gantrys have made a comfortable living by making their flocks feel bad that their pussies juiced or cocks engorged at the sight of a pair of underdressed models on their Magnavox.
Frum says that, when he met her, Dworkin was "grimly entertained by the opportunism of Bill Clinton’s feminist supporters." If there is a Hereafter, and she can see his column, how much more grim her entertainent must be now!
UPDATE. Marriage scold Maggie Gallagher has also penned a loving farewell to Dworkin. It has to be read to be believed, but the money shot, so to speak, is Gallagher's bizarre read of Dworkin's relationship with John Stoltenberg:Andrea lived with a man whom she introduced as John. "Every day I wake up and realize that tomorrow John may not be there," she told me.
She was describing a kind of unmarital bond, endorsing the special kind of relationship produced when two people know they can leave and yet each morning still choose to be together. Once again, Andrea put her finger on my truth. For as she spoke, it occurred to me that everything I had written about (as everything I've done since) was a deliberate and desperate attempt not to live in her kind of world. I longed to find marriage ties as binding as the ties between mother and child... When "two people know they can leave and yet each morning still choose to be together," that's love. "Ties as binding as the ties between mother and child," when applied to two adults, is something verrrrry different.
That Gallagher prefers the latter sort of relationship is no shock if you've read her before. And God go with her; just keep your bondage/infantilization trip safe, sane, and consensual, Maggie! What pisses me off is that she wants this sort of relationship not just for herself and whatever male she might ensnare in her own binding ties, but for you, me, and everybody (excepting homosexuals of course). And she just doesn't care whether we swing that way or not.
No means no, Maggie.
12:07 AM by roy edroso
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Tuesday, April 12, 2005
THE BLOGOSPHERE FURTHER ELEVATES THE TONE OF OUR DISCOURSE. There used to be a bumper-sticker gag to the effect that Jesus is alright but the people who work for him are assholes. This distinguishes the Prince of Peace from wrestler-turned-wingnut-speaker Ultimate Warrior whose emotionally stunted approach to human relations is apparently emulated by at least one member of his staff, a "Director of Communications" who, after threatening to sue Something Awful for making fun of UW (and receiving appropriately unserious replies), went to work on his Lifetime movie villain act:Did you know that for only $1 someone can go to the post office, fill out a simple form, and find out the street address of the individual who rented the box?
I also know that your wife's name is Megan, and that you two were married on February 13, 2005. I've also tracked down a street address and telephone number for "another" Richard Kyanka. I actually called this telephone number. This was either you or your father. A terrible shame that you don't have the balls to claim your own name, little man. Speaking of little man, I've also managed to track down a couple of pictures of you, which I've attached to this email.... Link followed from Jonah Goldberg, always a good source for lunacy, though not usually second-hand as in this case. Goldberg declines to choose sides between the funny website and the dangerous lunatic, perhaps sensing that the Ultimate Warrior represents the future of conservative commentary.
11:28 AM by roy edroso
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Monday, April 11, 2005
GUARD ASLEEP AT BULLSHIT QC. Jonah Goldberg tells us, through the medium of a "reader," that Republicans are unworldly types pushed around by tuff Democrats:Mr. Goldberg - Something I have noticed, regrettably, for the last thirty years or so, is that Republicans are almost always too slow to react to attacks, appear to be on the defensive most of the time, and lack something I call the "Atwater gene". Lee Atwater was, of course, the Republican master of dirty politics. Atwater worked for Reagan and Bush I -- well within the 30-year timeframe posited by Mr. X.
Sometimes I suffer an existential crisis over this blog. I mean, if they're not even paying attention, why should I?
11:09 AM by roy edroso
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IT'S THOSE LITTLE TOUCHES THAT MAKE A CHARACTER LIVE. Hugh Hewitt:Apologies to Sodakmonk, the spelling of which I got wrong yesterday. That is the very first time that's ever happened on this blog. Further down in the same post, Hewitt refers to Arizona's "Snator McCain."
The great comic characters rarely disappoint, because they just can't help themselves.
UPDATE. Hmm, maybe he was kidding; people tell me he has a sense of humor. Who knew? Usually selling them short is a can't-lose proposition.
10:40 AM by roy edroso
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Sunday, April 10, 2005
THE GREAT DIVIDE. From USA Today:The middle of the country squared off against the coasts this weekend at theaters, and the heartland pushed Sahara to No. 1 at the box office...
The film exceeded most analysts' expectations by about $2 million and topped the romantic comedy Fever Pitch...
Pitch, the story of a man torn between his love for his girlfriend and his devotion to the Boston Red Sox, was hoping to lure women with the romance and men with the sports angle.
Sahara, meanwhile, geared itself toward action-hungry audiences, particularly in the middle of the country...
Though Pitch was the top film in several big-city markets, including Boston and New York, Sahara took the No. 1 spot in cities like Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Mo. You see the significance of this. The red states gave a clear mandate to a dopey movie starring Matthew McConaughey, while the blue cities endorsed a dopey movie starring Jimmy Fallon.
I could go on, but I have decided to leave analysis of this major cultural indicator to experts. Maybe after Jonah Goldberg has finished reproducing correspondence claiming that engineers are turning liberal because they have been brainwashed by English professors, he can make a column of it.
9:05 PM by roy edroso
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