Democrat Campaign Ad

Hey, I saw you, Zuck!

Space Buns?

Always wondered what the proper name of that hairstyle was.

This will really make you think of what it's like to be a space princess in Manhattan. A female space princess, I mean.



I hope this makes male persons of color and non-color reconsider their horrible treatment of space females. I know Lando is a person of color, but so is Yoda. Darth Vader is not a person of color, but he is black and is... challenged. I think.

"Desperate they'd run any cretin"

Yay! 3BP enabled embedding. Read the lyrics here.

Parody: "The Wreck of the Edward Fitzgerald"

Third Base Politics has come up with an awesome parody, The Wreck of the Edward Fitzgerald, based on the Gordon Lightfoot song. But they've disabled embedding of the video, which makes me sad. Almost as sad as Fitz gets when you forgot to capitalize the "G" in his last name.

You know, way back when the capital "G" thing came out the Democrats should have wondered about this guy. You don't do it the way he did. Besides, you can set up your name to have multiple spellings be official so there are really no big worries about this like the PD claimed.

"He was close; I could smell the cookies."

I know. It's so wrong. But so funny.



Awwww, the wittle baby penguin....

A little bizarre, yet cute and funny

Some observations about blogs

I was reading through the old Contra Crunchy blog last night, especially focusing on the light bulb post, and I was struck by a whole bunch of thoughts at once. Firstly, just the spontaneous awesomeness of the whole venture, secondly the pure irritation of the crunchies who, lacking arguments, hurled invectives, calling us rodents and nematodes, and lastly but not leastly, all the great friends I made over there many of whom comment on my own blog to this day.

I always seem to see something new over there whenever I check it out from time to time. I found a link to this blog entry which I don't think I'd read back in '06. Basically Daily Duck came to the same conclusions as we did. He included a damning passage from Caleb Stegall:

It was not until later, when I moved into the wider world of business, high-stakes law, and Evangelicalism, that I discovered that all conservatives were not like this. That instead, there existed a kind of upwardly mobile coldblooded rationalizing self-serving conservative mind that struck me, still strikes me, as sterile and not quite human.

In response, Duck concludes:

I find it hard to admire the moral compass of a man who can let his aesthetic values lead him to question the humanity of his fellows. This is what I meant by the dangers of moralizing aesthetics. Can he point to anything immoral that these one-time business acquaintances have engaged in, other than career ambitions? It is an extreme judgment of personal qualities that society as a whole finds admirable. If this is the face of crunchy conservatism, then it will be seen as no more than a scolding kind of snobbery and holier-than-thou elitism. . . .

Again, our thoughts exactly. I bring this all up because another observation I had was that all these links to small, local, particular blogs like ours are still good, whereas most of the links to big, global, abstract blogs like NRO Crunchy Con blog and the Beliefnet Crunchy Blog are pretty much dead. So we actually value The Permanent Things more, if by that term you mean "things that stay in one place", which is the obvious meaning.

I sort of wonder if this is not to some degree by design on the part of the big, global, abstract bloggers. Yes, Rod Dreher's famous Orthodoxy and Me post is still available via the Wayback Machine and Fisheaters post, but the original document which was widely read and reacted to has been crumpled up and tossed into the garbage, in a virtual sense. So when you read old posts commenting on it, the link to it doesn't point to the original Roman Catholic to Eastern Orthodox conversion story as penned by Rod Dreher. But like I say, this is a desirable feature if the piece as originally written has points that the the writer would rather bury than have people reading and continuing to comment on in the present. Another good example would be the aforementioned Caleb Stegall, who I think is on Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's legal staff currently. He also might not want his comments questioning the humanity of rich, successful Republicans to be brought up again, even if he didn't mention the nose size of those whose humanity was in question. So it's good news to him that NRO deep-sixed the Crunchy Con Blog.

The excuse of the publishers for ditching links is probably that the format needs to be updated from time to time. Remember the old Haloscan commenting host which so many bloggers were in love with? I wished I'd have archived more of those threads, both from the Beliefnet Crunchy Conservative blog and from Mark Shea's old blogspot blog; they were some of the most amazing examples of silliness I'd ever read. But the publishers' main concern is always hits and page-views—i.e., ratings for advertisers—and once the initial burst of popularity wears off, they care less about residual pennies. Hence the scrapping of Haloscan by Beliefnet, bringing all the copy into one page and providing many more page updates which keeps content "fresh". In fact, my hypothesis is that the big, gobal, abstract publishers like Patheos and Beliefnet would much rather have these old posts "disappear", especially from writers who generate popularity from controversy rather than insight or writing skill. Even those friendly with Rod used to wonder aloud why Rod would post on things like "Hanna Montana's slutty new pictures" or items of a gross or scatological nature. The answer is obviously hits and ratings. Things advertisers care about.

Of course if this were true, it is about as ironic as it could possibly get. The hue and cry of Crunchy Conservatism and all the other boutique ideologies labeled "conservative" by the amconmaggers and their ilk has been "Don't trade your birthright for porridge! Don't compromise important social principles for filthy lucre promised by the so-called free market! Don't sacrifice culture and the Permanent Things for material wealth!" And on and on, usually concluding that the damage is already done, the mainstream has caved, Rush Limbaugh is on commercial radio stations therefore we've all sold out and become libertarians posing as conservatives. The fact that Amconmag regularly advertises for Purina and Kitchenaid isn't seen as noteworthy, I'm sure ("We've all got to eat, you know!!"), but because Rush moves more product and is more successful, he is seen as the epitome of commercial crassness. If you doubt me on this, please link to a positive remark about Limbaugh or Hannity or Fred Barnes any successful "mainstream conservative" person over there. Then I'll partially apologize, even as I regale you with 5 or 10 negative comments from their site about the same persons.

A smaller irony is that people doing this for free are more respectful of the free-market economy, big internet advertising models included. And our words stay around until the apocalypse or until Google goes under, which feels sort of like an approximation of the apocalypse at this point. True, we are hobbyists and not wordsmith intellectual careerists, but that seems to be the healthier choice both culturally and for the interests of economic stability.

As usually, the operative principle for the content provision of the know-it-all class isn't any eternal principle at all, but merely a content provision industry with an advertising model. And the operative principle for their attitude toward those with a more successful venture is the ol' green-eyed monster.

All the Blogs Which Might Have Been

It's too bad I don't have an infinite amount of time. If I did, I would no doubt spend waste most of it creating random blogs of senseless beauty. Or perhaps, meaningful blogs of random accuracy. I’d probably make some place-mats also and weave some baskets. But my blogs would be so unique, so full of fantastic assertions, so solipsistic and so pointless so as to make the mind reel and stagger and pour itself another drink. They would feature many uses of the word “so” both at the beginning of sentences and in the middle so that no one would mistake them for anything other than authentic blogs.

Here are a few of the blogs which I would pen. In reading these, you will no doubt weep that they should never be, for alas, I have better things to do with my time. But perchance they will inspire you—yes, even you, dear reader—to aspire to the beautiful random senselessness to create something on your own. After all, you are already wasting time reading this post. Please feel free to plagiarize from these awesome ideas.

1. Frodo did not offer her any tea. This would have been an incredibly deep and satisfying read for the brainy, know-it-all English literature types. The title is, of course, a rather obscure sentence from a mundane passage in J. R. R. Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring.

The tagline would be "A journal about religion, culture, humanoid scaled economies, home-made beer, fancifulness and living at peace with the furry animals in this Middle Earth." It would explain how to make the cities of the world more like the Shire described by Tolkien in his writings using a minimal amount of bulldozers, wrecking balls and cultural displacement. Comments to each post would be greatly encouraged, however anyone misusing the comment boxes to poke fun at or to question the serious ideas presented would have their comments deleted IMMEDIATELY, as would anyone suggesting that the Lord of the Ring series was a work of fiction.

2. My House Is So Cool. If you've ever read a few pages of the now defunct Cottage Living magazine, you might be able to prepare yourself for the tremendously irritating combination of pretentiousness, self-importance and domestic narcissism presented in this would-be blog. The upside for me would be advertising; Cottage Living—sample copies of which were sent to my business address before its demise circa 2007—basically contained 140 pages of advertising. Of course, it is curious that all that advertising didn't keep them in business. I think you also need readers for that. But, hey, I probably would at least get all the readers of the also defunct crunchy blogs by including words like craft beer, conviviality, bungalocity and chestertonianistical . (By the way, I do have a cool house, and the fact that it is usually beat all to hell by kids just makes it cooler.)

3. “Will I still suck at math in Heaven?” – These would be my musings on the ultimate questions about the meaning of life. They would be set forth in a question and answer format, the questions being from kids ranging in age from 4 to 11. I would try to balance the outright heretical ideas by including a number of passages directly plagiarized from the Catechism so it would contain some correct answers. The posts about where babies come from will be the most interesting, but I’ll have to look up a lot of that material; I’m always forgetting how that stuff works.

4. How Green and Orange was my Valley. Tagline: "Oooh, I'll take that crispy little one!" Yes, this would be the crown jewel of all my theoretical blogs, and it would contain nothing but the inside jokes my wife and I have come up with since 2000 when we started dating. The explanations would be tedious, oblique, self-referential and unfunny to most. They would also be especially embarrassing to my wife if she found out I was publishing these. But she would only be embarrassed for a short time before fierce anger set in as she realized I was doing this instead of hacking into the long list of projects she has assigned me. I have no doubt that if I were to do this blog, it would truly be my swan song and that I might never publish another blog again after I, ummm, got caught redhanded.

So there it is—my list of so very excellent and so-so blogs. So. If you do decide to steal any of these ideas and start pouring your imaginative energy into it, good for you! I certainly won’t read it, but a bunch of other idiots will. And you will be well on your way to blog-awesomeness.

Anyone play the banjo?

Here's a little bit of humorous verse collaboratively written by Kathleen and myself. Naturally it is to be sung—with a slight lisp—to the tune of the Beverly Hillbilles theme song, which is also known as "The Ballad of Jed Clampett".

The Ballad of Rod Dreher

Come listen to a story 'bout a man named Rod
A poor crunchy blogger, used to write about God
Then one day when his sister bought the farm
His bigwig agent didn't have to twist his arm.

Money, that is. Greenbacks, college edumacations...

Well the first thing you know ol' Rod's a millionaire,
The kinfolk said "Ray's a-movin' back here!"
Said Ray, "Loweeziana is the place I ought to be!"
So they loaded up the truck and moved a-southerly.

His hometown's a buzzin'...
"Money, you say?
Don't we all get some?"

Well now it's time to read about Ray-rod and all his kin.
And heap big thanks to Davey Brooks for getting him an in.
Did ya hear there's fancy dancers in this here locality?
A mighty fine example of Southern hospitality.

Here's a dollar, honey.
Set a spell...
...keep your leg on.

Y'all buy the book now, y'hear?

"We also have Stegosaurus..."

Crocs and Community

Reading articles by folks who overuse the word "community" always elicits the same response from me: "What a crock." So I had to snicker at this parody article about Crocs wearers from a disgustingly funny electronic rag named The Daily Rash. Excerpt:

“When I walked into our community center for the ‘Sustainable Alternatives to Mass Produced Organ Meats’ symposium and saw other people wearing their Crocs, I had to run to the restroom where I cried happy tears!” – Carol L. from Seattle, Washington.

“Crocs allow the average Joe to become a part of his community, without worrying that everybody else is better than him. I know that when others in my neighborhood began wearing Crocs, it was as if the dark cloud that had been hovering over me my entire life…evaporated! And when that bright, happy sun broke through, I saw for the very first time that there were others like me!” – Andrew S. from Carrboro, North Carolina.

Wonder why they wouldn't publish it?

I'm intrigued. I just got this email back from the intellectuals Urban Dictionary informing me that they decided not to publish my alternate definition for concerned parent. Here's the content of the letter:

Subject: Urban Dictionary - concerned parent was not published

Thanks for your definition of concerned parent!

Editors reviewed your entry and have decided to not publish it.

To get a better idea of what editors publish and reject, sign up as an Urban Dictionary Editor here: http://editor.urbandictionary.com/

Urban Dictionary

-----

concerned parent

The person who just killed one of your friends for messing with his/her kids. Don't worry; it was most likely painless. Parents don't have a lot of extra time to enjoy this sort of work.

concerned parent: That was for f*cking with my kids. Think you'll try that again?
dead person: (no reply)

You don't think it's too violent? If so, how do you explain this, or this? (Warning: very, very offensive material.)

I think I'm just going to keep submitting this from time to time. Their "editors" probably die from AIDS and drug overdoses a lot, so maybe someone will indulge my specific mode of parental sarcasm.

Teen World Savers 2

This was awesome!

I cracked up at the part where we learn that Glenn's character's name is Disaster. I was wondering what his name was.


The wizard reminded me of the "Sphinx" character played by Wes Studi in Mystery Man.

Great job, Joshua. The soundtrack rocked.

Great production and concept