30 May 2012

Zen and the Art of AstroTurf™bagging


Dear Dr. Bones,

Here's the very latest in dogmatic slumberware, just in from Neohaven:

Meanwhile, the time is late. We all have work to do and it is not bickering with each other or wondering whether our candidate is conservative enough or whether he will betray us. You have already had three and a half years of Barack Obama. Do you have any idea what another four and a half will bring? I for one do not want to know. The question is not whether to change people or whether they can be changed. The operative question is HOW they can be changed. We here at PJMedia think about this every day. One of the things we consciously attempt to do is provide you with some ammunition, talking points across the table or at the water cooler. I’m not saying we’re so great at it, but we try. And speaking of trying, let me leave you with this little mindbender from the Zen monks: “You can’t get there by trying, but you won’t get there if you don’t try.” Don’t ask me to explain it, but it works for me.

I think the Squire of Simon Pajama’s ever-selflovin’ fan club ought to snip an’ stuff an’ mount "You can’t get there by trying, but you won’t get there if you don’t try." Then place it beside that nifty oracle about his freelordship bein’ "a lousy judge of character."

Comment being superfluous, let us turn to the tactics, operations, an’ strategy of the rest of the whight-wing pack. The Squire seems to feel that he has perverted to a pack kiddiemastered by incompetents, which cannot be a good feelin’. Though I guess this scribble *could* be just a cheapjack YaleoDrama™ic shtyk designed to enhance his freelordship’s neovalue in the eyes of his now Owners.

Before the Squire suddenly saw The Whight (© ® Pat. Pend.) an’ fell off his camel on the road to Rio Limbaugh, his freelordship presumably thought the said Owners were no great shakes in the bestembrightness department. Maybe not all of Them rank way down there with Don Donaldito de Trump, but not all that far above that inimitable, D. V., señorito either. Very few Lieberals and Demoncrats think otherwise, and unfortunately (¿?) the Squire does not have it in him to be much of a non-conformist. Never did have it.

In a way, his freelordship thinks so still, for the traditional G.O.P. Geniuses would have to be freedumb suckers indeed to think as highly of the Squire as the Squire thinks of himself. Gloomy Gus of Hippo did get to the very top of his chosen neoracket, but Gus was one in a zillion, bestembrightnesswise. Run-of-the-mill perverts are only layin’ up disappointment for themselves if they won’t settle for a whole lot less fatted calf than Brother Gus got.

Whatever the Squire may think currently of Their Firstlordships, Paddy and Eye would certainly say that the Owners know what they are up to.

The analytical trick is that their firstlordships mostly don’t know what they are up to consciously. If the success of the Great Whightist Cause depended on the explicit verbalizations of Karl Firstlord Rove an’ other such Owners as occasionaly deign to grace the op-ed columns of The Wall Street Jingoe, well, the jig would soon be up for the dear old G. W. C.

When Firstlord Rove is not tryin’ to deepthink, however, he is mostly out fundin’, and that is what makes his firstlordship, an’ the Stupid Party as a whole, formidable at times.

The explicitness hang-up is hard to miss. There is no really respectable way to say "¡Fundin’ Works!" Any formula that comes within ten klicks of it backfires, givin’ aid an’ comfort to us humble, their freelordships’ Class enemy, an’ it also annoys the "small people" of Pajama Junction NJ an’ Rio Limbaugh/Port Ste. Lucie FL, tinyvolks who don’t care to be thought of as a purchasable commodity more than anybooby else does. [1]

Though we ourselves are not urgently interested in looking respectable, still, as long as we do not propose to go and do likewise, it is safe enough to put it on the record, strictly as outside-the-monkey-house analysis, that fundin’ seems to work pretty well for the Classmates of Rove. If nothing else, their firstlordships must think so, who throw so much moolah in that direction. Even discounting their mere crank godzillionaires (like Firstlord Adelson) who are too much loners to be called Classmates, fundin’ works for the TopPercenters. Clobber the kiddies over their whight-haired little dittopans long enough with bags full of AstroTurf™, an’ they really *do* turn into tractable wads of Tee Putty. a lot of ’em.   Not enough of ’em to satisfy the Squire of Simon Pajama, maybe, but quite enough to be gettin’ on with electorally.

So, then: if the Squire were payin’ better attention, his freelordship would call for more of the same, not go about obscurely--an’ selfpromotin’ly-- hintin’ that HE knows of some completely different Peruna that would work much better.

Happy days.
--JHM

___
[1] Whether Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla are whight not to relish bein’ accounted venal is a curious question of dogmatic mythology. At times AEIdeologues an’ Heritagitarians an’ Hoovervillains of Palo Alto (&c. &c.) make it sound as if bein’ a purchasable commodity were the Chief End of Man, or a close runner-up. It has even been claimed that if mostvolks were not purchasable, the whole Baincapitalism shebang would grind to a halt.

Paddy and Eye have tentatively decided that this line is mostly a professional deformation, assuming one admits tankthinkin’ as a profession: your ‘conservative’ ‘intellectual’ señoritoe is pretty close to consciously aware that she, at least, has been bought an’ paid for; she would not like to think herself in a small minority. Master Wally an’ Mizz Cindy, however, are no more likely to think like that, even subliminally, than to independently reinvent differential equations.

Still, Paddy and I are not so certain that our view is sound that we would not welcome input from the Muses and yourself.

You all might address the following peripheral question: when somebooby comes up to Master Wally in broad daylight out in the Naked Public Square (Pat. Pend.) brandishin’ a Spiro Agnew Brand (®) paper moneybag an’ says "I’ll give all this to you, sir, if you will just please thnk . . . " so-an’-so, say ". . . that only Tricklenomics™ can ever lift ALL the boats," the Party neocomrade really would not get what he is solicitin’, should Wally make the deal. He’d only get Master Wally pretendin’ to think so, verbally assertin’ that he has always been a trickledowner, an’ Mizz Cindy too--which is probably not quite enough as long as we still put up with those silly secret ballots.

On the other hand, ¿What about this pertinent suggestion from our favorite moralist?

Suivez la manière par où ils ont commencé : c’est en faisant tout comme s’ils croyaient, en prenant de l’eau bénite, en faisant dire des messes, etc. Naturellement même cela vous fera croire et vous abêtira. — Mais c’est ce que je crains. — Et pourquoi ? qu’avez vous à perdre?

As you know, Paddy and Eye always prefer to dodge questions of subjective sincerity if at all possible, above all as regards the pious viennasausage emitted by hack pols. In this case, though, which is a case of the dupes rather than the dupers, we are not sure it is dodgeable.

Please advise.

19 May 2012

Nothing to Trash but Trash Themselves


Dear Dr. Bones,

¡Feliz paleosábado!

Speaking of which, it seems to me that it is, ultimately, the Eclipse of Christojudæanity that brings us the pious baloney ossía blasphemous viennasausage

5 Behaviors That Make You Trash
Posted By John Hawkins On May 18, 2012 @ 1:10 pm (...)

People aren’t trashy because of who they are, they’re trashy because of how they behave. That means the cast of Jersey Shore, Perez Hilton, and the Kardashians didn’t pop out of their mamas’ wombs wrong. To the contrary, they all had to learn how to be as trashy as a Louisiana landfill. Now trashy people have always been around, but the difference is that in our “any attention is good attention,” 15-minutes-of-fame society, a lot of people consider “trashy” to be an asset if it gets more people looking in their direction. Having every eye in the room on you isn’t worth it if the word “trash” is going through every head at the same time. The good news is that it’s easy to avoid the sort of behavior that gets you labeled as trash.

1) Profanity in Public. (...)
2) Letting Your Brats Run Wild. (...)
3) Having a Nasty Yard. (...)
4) Sleeping Around. (...)
5) Dress for Failure.

Ever seen a slut walk? The whole “idea” behind it is supposed to be that dressing like a slut doesn’t mean you “asked for it” if you get raped. That’s very true. But it does mean that you’re asking to be looked at as trash. If you’re a woman walking out of the house in an outfit that would fit right in at a Hollywood Halloween party — or if you were to stand on the corner for five minutes, the odds are high that some guy will stop and offer you money for sex — then you’re dressed trashy.

On the other hand,
 men tend to go in a different, but possibly even more disturbing, direction. When I was a couple of years out of college, I worked at a group home and was highly amused that some of the kids there complained that security always seemed to follow them when they walked through a store. Well, they were juvenile delinquents. If security was following them, they had their eyes on the right people. This gets into the whole Trayvon Martin “hoodie” controversy. If you dress like a thug, people will treat you like you’re potentially dangerous. If you want your neck tattoo, your hoodie pulled up over your head, and your pants sagging down below your behind, expect people to get nervous when you get in line behind them at the ATM machine. It’s not a race thing. If you’re a white guy dressed like a punk extra from Mad Max, you’re going to get judged just as harshly. People pay attention to the messages you send them with the way you dress. If that message says “slut,” “thug,” or even just I would fit right in at the people of Wal-Mart website, expect to be treated that way by people around you.

graciously hawked to us by John Freelord Hawkings.

Back in Ye Goode Olde Days when the Revs Mather, Increase and Cotton, made sure that every little Sassenach in New Iceland, nay, children of every age all across the Heimatland G*ttes from ME to NA [*], knew all her goodstuff, his freelordship would have been put down as an Arminian instantly.  Papism, even Pelagianity, cannot altogether ruled out.

Young Goodman Brown and Little Goodie Twoshoes may not have known a mobile home from an Initial Public Offerin’ (whether by devout Aztecs or by Hire Mammonites), but when it comes to systematized dogmatic mythology there has never been a generation like unto theirs. It's been all downhill since, with "the (selfblurbed) blogosphere's premier interviewer" only the latest milestone marking our sad decerebration in divinity. "¡Jamestowne, thous hast conquered!"

Removing a few stylistic caps and bells in memorary of the said Revs’ sadly failed attempts at sumptuary legislation, Paddy and Eye would have you mark, Dr. Bones, how his freelordship takes for granted, quite in the manner of the late Brother [2] Pelagius, that it is ‘behavior’ that has caused so many trailers to be crammed with trash.

Increase and Cotton and everybooby else orthodox in Massachustetts knows better, knows, as Brother Kilmer might have sung it,


that Only [Father Zeus] can make a tr[ash].

The most one can admit without damanable error is that somevolks do appear to be engagin’ in strenuous efforts in the trash-selfcreation direction.   Such appearances must, however, be deceptive. They are to be disregarded, even when one cannot spot the flaw. Either disregard, sir, or have the decency to go back to the Religionism-of-the-Month Club and try another lucky dip.

Of the five specific freelordly hawkings, only Articles I and IV, I think, would make sense primâ facie to the Revs. Mather as matters to be thundered against from the bullpit. They, too, did not much recommend usin’ Ye N*me in vaine and sleepin' around.    To be sure, ‘profanity’ covered a lot less turf with them than it does with his freelordship, and they insisted on a jesuitical (so to speake) distinction between ‘adultery’ and ‘fornication’ that his freelordship an’ the vast majority of selfservative kiddies have long since evolved ’round the bend an’ well out of sight of. Lemme see, that leaves the lovely Cindy from Wasilla, paramour to Master Wallace Wombschool III, with (II) her brats runnin' wild, an' (III) a well-littered space in front of the trailer where the formal garden ought to be, an’ (V) "walkin’ out ... in an outfit that would fit right in at a Hollywood Halloween party." [3]

All very deplorable, I guess, and I further guess Increase and Cotton would have guessed so also, but if they had, it would have been rather on grounds of the general unseemliness and unsightliness of the thing rather than specific violation of MA Orthodoxy. [4]

Happy days.
--JHM

___
[1] New Amsterdam. Obviously. ¿What else could it be?

[2] "Jerome (Praef. in Jerem., lib. I & III_) ridicules him as a "Scot" (loc. cit., "habet enim progeniem Scoticae gentis de Britannorum vicinia"), who being "stuffed with Scottish porridge" (Scotorum pultibus proegravatus) suffers from a weak memory.. . . weighty reasons for the hypothesis that the true home of Pelagius must be sought in Ireland, and that he journeyed through the southwest of Britain to Rome. Tall in stature and portly in appearance (Jerome, loc. cit., "grandis et corpulentus"), Pelagius was highly educated, spoke and wrote Latin as well as Greek with great fluency and was well versed in theology. Though a *monk* and consequently devoted to practical asceticism, he *never was a cleric*  &c. &c.

(( ¿That is too much of that to quote at a School- an'’ perfesser-hatin’ hole like Pajama Junction NJ?

(( I know, I know. But ¡Ain't we got fun, O Bones! Begorrah, ’tis ¡a heresiarch Mac-and-O was behind all those splendidly fuss-filled teacupa and centuries! Maybe even a proto-pajamaclad, if the reader can be persuaded to lean extra heavy on corpulentus and imagine a Dan Quayle brand (©) potatoe couch in the background. ))


[3] Amateur whight-wing Social Scientism does not often come our way, apart from Don Davidito de Brooks y Podhòretz of the New York Times Company. Rarely if ever do we get the product in a quality this inferior to the Brooksian. ¡Talk about ‘rotgut’! So Paddy and Eye think we should take advantage of our opportunity and mark even small details of the Hawkin’site M. O. as potentially memorandumbworthy:

(3a) Observe how his freelordship assumes that Ms. Cindy is in fact pulchritudinous, able to excite concupiscience under Article IV an' (Eye believes) deliberately attemptin' to do so under Article V. "Dressed for failure" cannot refer to failure to get as far as the concubitus. If it did, Article IV would be so pointless that even a Johannes Freiherr von Hawkingen would have to notice that he has painted himself into a verbal and conceptual corner.

(3a.01) Considered as factious agitprop rather than wannabe SocSci, the intent of the freelordly scribble is a little puzzling to Paddy and Eye. Uncertainty of targetin’ comes out at a number of different seams, here in the form of Massa Wally becomin' a target too  By the last paragraph, poor Mizz Cindy has lapsed out of sight altogether, which would inspire one to say "That is no way to treat a lady," except, of course, that ....

Workin’ in Comrade Trayvon is the *immediate* occasion of this rhetorical genderbender. Our friend Internet Critic advises us that it would take a truly remarkable occasion to justify derailin’ the whole previous train of ‘thought’ (let's call it) just as that train is about to cross the bottom line. What his freelordship seems to be tryin’ to do with his smash-up at the caboose end *could* be done well, we assume, but if it were, there would have to have been clues planted along the tracks in advance.

(3a.01.A) It would probably have been a better scribble technically if his freelordship had zeroed in on Comrade Trayvon all through an’ given Mizz Cindy a pass, partial or total.

To win the applause of the pajamaclad masses, ever yearnin’ to take back their Freedumb, by shootin’ at Cindy from Wasilla is a very tricky _shtyk_, one that only a great virtuosoe of agitation-propaganda could pull off. The audience at Pajama Junction NJ is full of [*] self-narcissistic ladyvolks only too likely to suspect that the "Ms. Cindy" up on stage may have somethin’ to do with themselves in reallife. Whereas the distance between such less exalted Party neocomradesses an’ a fiend like Trayvon Martin can be measured in dozens, even hundreds, of astronomical whightyears.

[*] Well, no, not "full of."

Here at the all-effulgent Dawnin’ of the Age of Breitbartius, cuttin’-edge whightism such as his freelordship hawks is an ideoproduct decidedly more marketable to males. There are A LOT of frathouse babes inside the frathouse, but not so many as to warrant "full of." Should the tippin' point ever be reached at which the whight-wing frathouse becomes a whight-wing ‘sorehouse’, all bets would be off. We students of Neocomradology would have to start over almost from scratch. Fortunately for almost everybooby, the North Atlantic will have turned into vintage Château Fourier before that ultimate genderbender coms to pass.

[4] At this juncture one could really give Dame Digression her head, and trot off after Herr Prof. Dok. Max. Weber, inventor/discoverer of the Prod Ethic: "¿How comes it, exactly" wondered the jesting pilot, "that carnal prostitution cannot be practiced with edification in the spirit of innerweltliche Askese?"