Portrait of a Court Jester

Okay, maybe he could also manage being a sandwich artisan.

Meritocracy Spokesman, Jonah Goldberg, National Catnap:
What ‘War on Women’?

Jonah Goldberg legitimately fascinates me.

And I think a large part of it has to do with the unique role he serves in the right-wing writing-whorepit. He’s deliberately lazy and incurious, so much so that he can’t quite commit to the hand-wringing faux-intellectualism of a Christina Hoff Summers or a Ross “I fear women” Douthat, though he certainly does try (for about 3.5 seconds from time to time). Nonetheless, he doesn’t quite have the full lobotomy that leads one to earnestly believe that Obama is a muslim lizardman from Alpha Centauri here to steal our white women though again, he’s willing to pander to that misshapen mass as demonstrated by his successful mass-production of the “nuh uh, you” school of argument.

Additionally, he’s a protected mama’s boy and fancies himself a gen-yoo-ine scholar who thinks really deep thoughts and occasionally like whole dozens of words on his own and like opens a book or two and really wants to be accepted as the super-smart academifyness that he thinks that makes him.

And this all adds up to some legitimately fascinating and unique moments. I mean, at the end of the day, it all adds up to Liberal Fascism and begging people to do his job for him, but between those hallmarks of Jonah, there’s little moments of treasonous thoughts. Little bits where he unwittingly sails dangerously close to actual knowledge or actual acknowledgment of reality and almost falls off the reservation before trusting that his classic laziness will make the bad hurting feeling that causes in his head to go away.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • Man, if reality and the feminazis are right, then this rape culture is fucking insane and brutal and I’d be an asshole for supporting it and shitting on the only people trying to fix it… thus, it must all be make-believe because I as the All-Holy Penis-Bearer know the lives of women far better than any she-creature.

Ah yes, in many ways, this latest Goldbergian tragedy is a resurrection of his “but wah, the reality of oppression would really suck if I acknowledged it instead of assuming that I, as a rich spoiled white man, have had the hardest life possible” shtick that he flopped so hilariously in his old dive out of the way of the reality of racism whine. But it is slightly different in that this time J-Load isn’t even waiting for the inevitable blowback to start pitching a hissy-fit.

Well, in less you count the drumbeats of “war on women, what war on women, we’ll kill any women who says we are waging a war against them” that the collective right has been banging on ever since women starting putting two and two together on the massive eruption of intense anti-women policies enacted by Republicans figuring that beating up on one oppressed group is a good substitute for feeling emasculated by the successes of another oppressed group.

Cause apparently the only thing the right-wing like more than mistreating oppressed group is stamping their feet on the ground and calling foul anytime the filthy lessers DARE NOTICE!

Last Friday, the White House announced its “It’s On Us” initiative aimed at combating sexual assaults on college campuses.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

No seriously, the biggest block there is to fixing the myriad of things wrong with everything in our society is the fact that a dedicated bloc of our populace reacts like winged howler monkeys whenever an ever-growing list of verboten words are invoked. As such, something like this which is literally the least anyone could do about the problems surrounding rape in schools this country the world is deemed instantly bad evil wrong and needs to be destroyed simply because it involves “White House” “college” and “sexual”.

I’m all in favor of combating sexual assault,

Suuuuure you are. You and all the other MRA-fellating assholes who don’t quite want to look like you’re creating a woman-suit in your basement.

but the first priority in combating a problem is understanding it.

Now, a more self-aware man, might have looked over that sentence and thought briefly over a storied career of getting pretty much everything it is possible to get wrong wrong and gone… huh, maybe I am not the right person to be throwing my two cents in.

But then, that’s the beauty of the form of the right that J-Load has come to exemplify. Ignorance is never seen as a reason to avoid bumbling in with half-formed selfish thoughts and casual inherited bigotries. I mean, does he not have skin like alabaster and a penis and does he not have a bank account that will never, ever run out of money? Clearly this means he is the greatest authority on everything!

That’s not the White House’s first priority.

So wait, the White House’s first priority isn’t “understanding sexual assault”…?

Is the White House a feminist studies program now? Or should be? Or…

Oh right, anything the black man sullying our Whitest of Houses does is wrong. Got it.

Roughly six weeks before Election Day, its chief concern is to translate an exciting social-media campaign into a get-out-the-vote operation.

Okay, yes, I get that this is just the usual “boo hiss” two minute hate and a means of continuing to make listening to and respecting oppressed voices sound like some nefarious evil thing, so as to protect the primacy of listening only to what rich white men who live and die by the national casino think, but…

I just have to take a moment and marvel at how much the right-wing has continuously gone all in with trying to pretend that it is somehow unethical or fundamentally wrong for Democrats to campaign. Over and over again, we keep getting these fainting couch routines over the audacity Obama has in not just laying down and dying so as to make the death rattle of the Republican Party sound more life-like.

It’s like, fuck right wing, could you make your allergic reaction to the notion of democracy any more obvious?

Accurate statistics are of limited use in that regard because rape and sexual assault have been declining for decades.

Fuck me with a chainsaw. There is nothing more infuriating than seeing one of these inebriated man-children fumble around a bit of genuine scholarship as if they were a horny virgin trying to paw off their paramour’s clothes.

Yes, indeed, the sexual assault and rape numbers have been declining for decades… because of feminism. Because feminist activists have made consent and sexual assault a major issue and because they’ve fought long and hard to get some real conversations started on boundaries, the way women are treated like public goods, and shit like child molestation and marital rape.

Indeed, having an increased social understanding of the issue has also allowed us to get better not worse stats on the issue, as people are better able to recognize rape and sexual assault and less likely to confuse it with “just the way things are”.

And it’s sad that “better” in this sense still means a world where sexual assault is commonplace and survivors are routinely treated like shit and assumed to be lying in a way no other victim of crimes is. Overall, the success of feminist activism and the painful reality of where we are now is a poignant reminder of the importance of feminist activism.

Of course, right-wing assholes who want the conversation of consent to die so no one asks uncomfortable questions about “traditional” practices of “wooing” a mate have chosen to interpret the data as proof that rape totally isn’t a big problem and will go away naturally if we just get rid of all those feminazis “making sex a buzzkill” and shut up about rape forever.

But hey, I’m jumping ahead of myself. I mean, Jonah went out and did the bare minimum of research (by which I mean he opened up a webpage, which might as well be a marathon for him), so that means we’re about to see him come face to face with his greatest fear… actual information about the world.

So the Obama administration and its allied activist groups trot out the claim that there is a rape epidemic victimizing 1 in 5 women on college campuses. This conveniently horrifying number is a classic example of being too terrible to check. If it were true, it would mean that rape would be more prevalent on elite campuses than in many of the most impoverished and crime-ridden communities.

Yes… yes, it would*.

I mean, not on that whole mess at the end, but yeah, it would in fact mean that rape was painfully common and something that is a constant reality for most women and a good chunk of men (not to mention non-binary folks who often get the worst the rape culture can throw at a person).

Jonah makes noises about it being “too terrible to check”, but the reality of this paragraph is that it’s too terrible for Jonah and those like him to even accept. The reality of just how bad it is, just how common it is that a good chunk of those any random person knows have likely been raped in the course of their life, is commonly run away from.

Those who can blissfully live their life in ignorance and who do not have the flashbacks or the fear find it so much easier to pretend away the millions of survivors so as to protect their own worldview and justify their participation in the systems that allow this type of horror to become common-place.

Indeed, the racist ending is an apt bit, because the habit owes more than a little to the way those who can ignore the horrors of racism hand-wave the narratives of its survivors on the grounds that “it’s a real bummer, dude”.

And frankly, it’s perfectly understandable. I’d absolutely love to be able to ignore the racism that daily befalls the only family members I still care about. And I’d absolutely love to remain ignorant of just how many of my closest friends have been repeatedly violated. So for those who are privileged to have that option, I can see how it can be sorely tempting to just slam the door shut and lock the door rather than deal with what is.

But hey, now that Jonah has decided that reality is too untidy to be aware of, all that is left is to choose which bit of MRA-style hand-waving nonsense he wants to employ.

It comes from tendentious Department of Justice surveys

Reality getting you down? Sum total of information about a subject disprove the “my daddy dun tol’ me” information your gut says just gotta be true?

Well then, it’s clearly time to pretend that all that information is just one single study from an organization you have chosen to hate.

I mean, sure, evolution may seem like settled science, but what if I said that was a wonky survey from Baby Seal Clubbers University?

Yeah, showed you uppity academicals and your nose-in-the-air book thingies! HOW DARE YOU LOOK DOWN ON MY MASTERPIECE?!?

that count “attempted forced kissing” and other potentially caddish acts that even the DOJ admits “are not criminal.”

According to one Department of Justice survey, more than half the respondents said they didn’t report the assault because they didn’t think “the incident was serious enough to report.” More than a third said they weren’t clear on whether the incident was a crime or even if harm was intended. But President Obama uses these surveys to justify using the terms “rape” and “sexual assault” interchangeably.

Flames… on the side of my-

No, just because it’s yet another bit of fucked up rape apologia that tries to use scare quotes and misleading bullshit to a) pretend sexual assault isn’t sexual fucking assault, b) use the fact that rape survivors are frequently punished for seeking legal solutions to their violations as an argument to disprove rape, and c) completely fail to understand fucking anything on the planet and FOR FUCK’S SAKE, HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO DRESS YOURSELF IN THE MORNING YOU COMPLETE NINCOMPOOP?!?!?!?

*hnh hnh hnh*

… I may be slightly tired of this particular flavor of rape apologetics.

And yet those who question the alleged rape epidemic are the ones who don’t take rape seriously?

Bob bless the person who coined the phrase “JAQing off” to describe this particular flavor of nonsense.

I mean, the poor denialists are just asking questions of the official narrative and are treated like some reality-denying bigoted kooks for it. I mean, who’re the ones taking the issue of gun violence in schools seriously? The crazed kooks talking about dead kids at Sandy Hook or the brave patriots harassing grieving mothers to “just ask questions” about how they’re part of an Obama-led black-flag operation to steal the patriot’s guns?

Surely if we put this nonsense in this faux noble pose then it clearly rubs off all nobility and credibility to the people with about as much connection to reality as Charles Manson on an acid trip.

I would think conflating a boorish attempt at an undesired kiss with forcible rape is an example of not taking rape seriously.

A) Forcible rape. Legitimate rape. You know, for a group of dudes who supposedly haven’t raped anyone in their past, rape apologist dudebros sure seem really obsessed in defining a special type of “weally twue rape” that all other rapes somehow magically fail…

B) Okay, I kind of love how wingnuts get so wrapped up in their dog whistles that the idea that words could have any other definition but the dog whistle is completely alien to them. See here where ol’ Whaleguts here tries to envision an alternate world where kissing someone against their will and preventing their escape is somehow not “forcible”… Unless he’s trying to argue that all those sexually assaulting kisses were just anime slapstick routines where the luckless protagonist slips on a banana peel and accidentally lands in such a way that his lips accidentally lock with the easily-enraged main love interest… (how is that even a recurring trope?). In which case… um, Doughy… could you put down the Love Hina box set and join us in the real world for a week or two. I promise it won’t bite.

C) Yeah, sure, it’s the anti-feminists who are really the ones taking rape seriously. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

The “It’s On Us” PR stunt is not an exception; it is par for the course. To listen to pretty much anyone in the Democratic party these days, you’d think these are dark days for women. But by any objective measure, things have been going great for women for a long time, under Republicans and Democrats alike.

Women earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 63 percent of master’s degrees, and 53 percent of doctorates. They constitute the majority of the U.S. workforce and the majority of managers. Single women without kids earn 8 percent more than single men without children in most cities. Women make up almost half of medical-school applicants and nearly 80 percent of veterinary-school enrollees.

I mean, you could all be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and not allowed to get an education because it might interfere with your ability to be sold off to a man at the tender age of 12. I mean, you wouldn’t want to go back to the bad old days, right? So why don’t you lay off this “complaining about the fact that you and all your friends have lingering PTSD symptoms from the time a trusted loved one abused your trust and violated you in the worst possible way” and just agree to shut up.

I mean, just because you finally one some measure of equality by kicking and punching every step of the way doesn’t mean you should keep at it until all of the inequality is gone. I mean, what’s a little rape and being paid way less for the same type of work between friends?

Bob damn are bigots pathetic when they belatedly realize they are losing an issue and there’s no way to turn back the clock and make the old status quo the norm again. Fuck, it’s kind of hilarious to see Goldberg trotting out University stats seeing as how conservatives have been selling bad faith bullshit for decades trying to get women to stop expecting college education and careers and instead reconnect with their “natural” desires to serve as combination sex-slaves/maids for ill-tempered men.

The recession — a.k.a. the “mancession”

Welp… mark it.

October 2nd.

The day puns died.

hit men much harder, and women recovered from it much more quickly.

Yeah, funny how it worked that when women’s work was already devalued to its absolute minimum and painfully short-staffed, it was kind of impossible to layoff women at quite the rate as men.

Somehow, despite this directly being the fault of a Wall Street cabal that’s 99.99% men, this is somehow the fault of women… and black people because of Freddie Mac…

Hey, isn’t there some litany that Republicans always trot out when oppressed groups point out systemic oppression? Something about personal responsibility?

When you account for hours worked and job choices, pay equity is pretty much here already.

Oh HAI MRA dogwhistle, fancy seeing you here.

And for those uninitiated, “job choices” is the new shiny rebranding of the victim-blaming bullshit about how women totally are paid equal to men, except they just keep going off choosing to become pregnant all the time so of course they can’t be promoted and besides, they choose to be paid less money because warble warble natural gender difference, men are from mars, women are from venus, warble warble.

Sure, this is a snapshot, but few serious people think it isn’t a snapshot of a race in which women are surging ahead.

Wow. Jonah must really be het up about this, because he is pulling every single bit of Beltway “both sides do it” rhetorical garbage tactic he can. From the pretending whole fields of study are just one survey to deliberately misinterpreting academic terminology to this bit of “serious people” = people who think just like me.

I guess he’s hoping raw defensiveness will save his ego from another intellectual beating.

He is wrong.

A broad coalition of feminist groups, Democratic-party activists, and the journalists who carry water for them refuse to recognize the progress women have made unless it is in the context of how “fragile” these victories are. Going by the endless stream of fundraising e-mails I get from the Democratic party, EMILY’s List, and other usual suspects — never mind New York Times editorials — we’re always one election away from losing it all. If Harry Reid isn’t the majority leader next year, it’s back to wearing corsets and churning butter for you.

And of course this bit of narrative shift so as to pretend Democrats correctly noting that reproductive rights are under attack and are actually being lost in many states is actually about women somehow being forced out of colleges… pfft, you wish.

But yeah, gotta love this bit of BS as it’s really central to the whole right-wing screamfest about “the War on Women”. People have noticed that all the BS about babies and caring so much about life is really about despising the fact that women dare to have agency and act like they are full and equal people who are allowed to walk around as such.

Hell, it’s a central reason why there’s so much bitter anger about consent becoming a more and more understood and talked about concept. Rape, sadly, has often been used as a tool of punishing insolence and demanding compliance. Does the woman claim to be a lesbian? Asexual? Are they trans*? Are they working outside the home? Leaving their husband? Looking confident and in control of their sexuality? Like they don’t give a fuck about the fragile wilting flower you have turned your twisted idea of masculinity into?

Well, then, why don’t you teach her a lesson, show her her place. Remind her that for all her supposed freedoms and confidence, that her status as woman means she is to be deemed lesser, a soft target?

Whether you call it corrective rape or just the angry glimmer or smug smirk one sees in their rapist’s eyes before they ignore your closed body language or stated refusals, the reality is that rape is common largely because it is a terrorist tactic for keeping the “lessers” in line and reminded of their place.

And they fear losing that power and more importantly the fear just the existing threat carries.

Because at heart, these apologists are such abject cowards that they cannot even proudly stand behind their own monstrous desires. And that may be the saddest thing of all about these pathetic bouts of bullshit and hand-waving.

Obviously, this isn’t all about elections.

Thank you! Finally some sense instead of conspiratorial-

There’s a vast feminist-industrial complex that is addicted to institutionalized panic. On college campuses, feminist- and gender-studies departments depend almost entirely on a constant drumbeat of crisis-mongering to keep their increasingly irrelevant courses alive.

Bob damnitt!

Okay, can we have a moment to just boggle over how completely insane this conspiracy theory is? I mean, supposedly, in wingnut logic land, there’s absolutely nothing to talk about regarding the history and modern reality of gender and the interaction between gender and politics unless there’s a secret cabal of panic-inducing shadowy figures pulling the strings…

Cause, clearly gender-studies professors would have nothing to talk about with regards to the history of how women have been treated or the concept of gender without this vast conspiracy making Republicans look bad for arguing that it’s unnatural for women to go to college or ask not to be raped.

Also, I love the idea of the supposed cabal. I mean, much like other vast conspiracies the right-wing makes up, it makes no fucking sense. I mean, if this evil coven of Andrea Dworkin-lusting witches is so fucking powerful that they can create a simmering unease and decades upon decades of supporting evidence and cover up vast swathes of reality regarding lived experiences for millions of women and so on… why the fuck are they wasting that on keeping a handful of PhD-having women employed at a slightly middle class level instead of… I dunno, ruling the fucking world or hoarding all the money.

I mean, it’s like the crap they pull with regards to anthropogenic climate change where apparently an all-powerful cabal of every single scientist on Earth are wasting their unprecedented level of collusion on publishing a few papers urging us to pollute less instead of turning us all into serfs in their evil robot factory.

… Er… I mean, what evil robot factory… no, Grand Inquisitor of Science, I didn’t mean to let slip Phase II, please, not the pain ray. AIEEEEEEEE!

Abortion-rights groups now use “women’s health” and “access to abortion on demand” as if they are synonymous terms. The lack of a subsidy for birth-control pills is tantamount to a federal forced-breeding program.

A) Yeah, funny that… Almost as if denying women any them-controlled means of preventing unwanted pregnancy and blocking any post-fertilization means of resolving unwanted pregnancy is a de facto forced-breeding program… but then, it’s not like internal anti-choice narratives straight up argue things like “pregnancy is the punishment you receive for caving into your carnal desires” or anything… Oh wait. It’s almost like they’re pissed that they’ve become so unsubtle that people have finally noticed that they are hoping that an elimination of sexual freedom will somehow drag women back into their “rightful role”.

B) “Access to abortion on demand”. Heh. I kinda love this bit of anti-choice rhetorical garbage, because it completely relies on people having a pig ignorant reaction to the dog whistle and having absolutely no understanding of what abortion actually is.

Cause see, abortion is a surgery. One of the most common surgeries in the country in point of fact. Which makes the “access on demand” bit so utterly hilarious, because well, yeah. Most people want surgeries “on demand”.

Oh those corrupt ischemic heart disease sufferers! Demanding “access to open heart surgery on demand”. Why didn’t you think about such things before you spread your mouth open and consumed food? I mean, the nerve of those assholes to expect that we the American people treat such specialized and “controversial” services as some form of “health care” issue. It just makes you sick.

Sure, women still face challenges.

Heh. Pfft. BWAHAHAHAHA!

Ah man, you got to love anti-feminist own-goals like this.

Wah, wah, feminists should shut up. Everything is fixed now. Women are 100% equal and have never been oppressed ever never in the whole history of man. Oh… yeah, there’s still challenges and stuff I guess… But that doesn’t mean we should have anyone noticing or trying to fix these inequalities or challenges in any way, because otherwise you’re an evil feminazi who is the real divorced from reality one!

But the system feminists have constructed cannot long survive an outbreak of confidence in the permanence of women’s progress. The last thing the generals need is for the troops to find out that the “war on women” ended a long time ago — and the women won.

That just sticks in your craw, don’t it?

That women actually have made gains and have been proven right about historic oppression that the earlier versions of you tried to hand-wave away as uppity harridans demanding special rights. Because it makes you feel super nervous about your place in the world and your misplaced pride in your “intelligence” and grasp on the world.

Which is why a brief glimpse into just how bad the rape culture is for women leads to a sandwich-board on the street corner rant about how feminist generals are inventing fake horrors and burying all the evidence and leading vast conspiracies devoted to securing a handful of hyper-educated white women middling middle class jobs.

Because to acknowledge the actual reality and your role in perpetuating it would be to acknowledge not only moral failing, but deep unacceptable ignorance about the world. To the level where any woman or man willing to listen to the women in his life knows far more through simple lived experience than he would ever know through a million begs to his readers to do his research for him.

And that’s kind of the beautiful tragedy of J-Load. He’s a spoiled lazy prince stamping his foot on the ground and expecting reality to conform around his desire to never grow or learn or rise above being a legacy inheritor of a lifetime supply of wingnut welfare. But he wants to be seen as exactly the type of reasoned and intelligent academic personality he constantly puts down.

It’s a tragedy he shares with Bobo in that both men seem to vaguely recognize they are the kept courtesans of corrupt kings who expect nothing more than the bare minimum of endlessly repeated propaganda. And like so many struggling with such gilded captivity, they yearn to escape, only to be brought back to Earth time and time again for the way their intense ignorance and lack of talent make them unsuitable for any other form of work on the planet.

And so they sit, pretty and fuming, cursing the birds who are able to fly free towards the mountains…

Or at least, that would be the analogy if they weren’t fucking millionaires who could easily retire and do whatever the fuck they wanted instead of abused sex slaves treated all their life as literal property.


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Who needs feminism when you have denial? We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


* Okay, I didn’t get into it above, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t slam my hand on the car horn until the battery died over this bit of dog-whistling. I mean, he’s quite literally refusing to believe the unfortunately common reality of rape in this country because it doesn’t fit with his internal narrative that rich white men are paragons of good in the world and all rape happens because of slavering mandingos gangbangin’ in the inner cities. It’s like, but bad crimey things like rape only happen because of black people. No good white person would ever do that! Which yeah, par for the course for wingnut racism, but still pretty disgusting nonetheless. And it’s even dumber when one considers that there isn’t actually much of a difference between the two “regions” as it were as rape is one of those problems that truly is globally horrifying.

 

Comments: 59

 
 
 

I wonder if Jonah is proud to have become the leading proponent of the school of conservatism that says that change must be avoided because actually understanding problems is hard. And furthermore, actually listening to victims of oppression should be avoided because it may lead to making changes, which is hard, and why should he bother because the existing unfairness works in his favor? Is ‘argumentam ad laziness’ a thing? I mean plenty of idiots on the internet wail about social justice warriors and how mean killjoy liberals keep trying to ‘perfect humanity’ by means of ever more ridiculous arbitrary regulations. But despite their appropriated rhetoric of faux oppression, they really are saying, life is unfair in ways that benefit them at the expense of other groups, and they like it just fine. And it really irritates them that people are trying to extend the equal protection of the law to groups that they exploit for fun and profit.

What kind of weak sauce is this? I mean why the hell would you defend unearned privilege and campus rape with passive aggressive ‘change is hard’ willful obfuscation of facts? Passive aggressive defense is for losers who are losing. If he’s going to defend the status quo, why doesn’t he own it? Why doesn’t he just say that he’s comfortable with 1 in 5 college women getting raped? Why doesn’t he say that he thinks women earning 75 cents on the dollar compared to men doing the exact same work is just about right? Why doesn’t he endorse higher levels of violence against women? What kind of coward defends those viewpoints with some weak ass crap about ‘change is hard’, ‘feminism is icky’ and ‘everything is fine’? I wish he’d just own it and say what he really thinks. Which I imagine is something like “The issue of rape on college campuses doesn’t affect me, Jonah Goldberg directly, and I, Jonah Goldberg therefore think that it is lies or exaggerations, and in any case not worth spending time and money to fix, and you should totally not investigate how I, Jonah Goldberg, and my male friends treated women when I, Jonah Goldberg, was attending college”.

 
 

Accurate statistics are of limited use in that regard because rape and sexual assault have been declining for decades I am too stupid to understand them and every time I try to discuss statistics, my stupidity becomes so obvious that even I notice.

Meanwhile, Chunder Boy came into his own by cheerleading a President who used a fucking unjust invasion as his GOTV effort.

 
 

We must beware the rise of a feminist-industrial complex, lest the epidemic of hairy lady-legs & Indigo Girls cover-bands lead to the end of all the freedoms we hold dear.

I CAN HAZ NRO GIG NAU PLZ?

 
 

, they yearn to escape, only to be brought back to Earth time and time again for the way their intense ignorance and lack of talent make them unsuitable for any other form of work on the planet.

An excellent point, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of actual jobs I could see J-Load working at.

So here are some jobs requiring minimal, you know, effort..

TV evangelist? Nope, Pantload’s the wrong religion…

Parking lot attendant? Probably too much shift work…

Walmart greeter? he’d only last an hour before insisting on being promoted to upper management.

School teacher? Wouldnt even last an hour before the kids drove him screaming from the classroom.

The only thing I could think of would be something in Sandwich Sales, not actually making sandwiches, of course, but overseeing the counter staff at the local fast food joint and perhaps lecturing them about the evils of unionization.

 
 

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of actual jobs I could see J-Load working at.

If you count TV evangelist as an actual job, then the answer is elementary: Republican CongressCritter. If that’s too much like work, some sort of high-ranking, low-functioning campaign adviser for same.

Ooo! I know!

SPEECH WRITER!

Ha hahahaha haha!

 
 

An excellent point, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of actual jobs I could see J-Load working at.

He’d fit right in with the Vogons…

 
 

Helmut asks, “Is ‘argumentam ad laziness’ a thing?”

It does now, although Google Translate tells me it would be “argumentum* ex pigritia” (or “ex acedia” if you use the more appropriate “sloth” instead of “laziness”).

(* It actually said “ratio” but whatevs.)

 
 

An excellent point, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of actual jobs I could see J-Load working at.

Does the porn industry still employ “fluffers”?

 
 

Oh the possibilities are endless for a dutiful functionary like Jonah. Telephone tech support for Charter telecom, pawn shop owner, landlord, parking enforcement, pretty much any job where an unjustified sense of superiority is an asset.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

J-Load working at.

Does the porn industry still employ “fluffers”?

AIAIEEEAIAIEEE BRAIN BLEACH, STAT!

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

An excellent point, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of actual jobs I could see J-Load working at.

I could see him working that candy conveyor belt that “Lucy” worked on, with similar results.

Does the porn industry still employ “fluffers”?

No, but right-wing punditry does… and Jonah sure sucks a mean Koch, and those Kochs definitely are mean.

 
 

Whenever I turn on NPR while my spouse is in the car something like this comes on and I have to turn it off again.

I don’t even understand how this guy can exist, other than there really are alot of people out there (47% of the country, apparently), that would rather pay someone to support their ignorance.

It’s just aggravating.

 
 

“In which case… um, Doughy… could you put down the Love Hina box set and join us in the real world for a week or two.”

Sounds like a terrible idea. At least when he’s in imaginary-anime-land he’s not FAAAAARTing near any real people. 🙂

 
 

Also: “There’s a vast feminist-industrial complex that is addicted to institutionalized panic. On college campuses, feminist- and gender-studies departments depend almost entirely on a constant drumbeat of crisis-mongering to keep their increasingly irrelevant courses alive.”

The fact that a National Review writer can, without even a hint of shame, stand up and hand-wring about how OTHER PEOPLE are “dependent on crisis-mongering” is epic. Has Doughy actually *read* the rag he writes for? Opened literally any email sent by any GOP candidate in the last fifteen years? FFS.

 
 

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of actual jobs I could see J-Load working at.

Nuclear reactor shielding.

 
 

“There’s a vast feminist-industrial complex that is addicted to institutionalized panic. On college campuses, feminist- and gender-studies departments depend almost entirely on a constant drumbeat of crisis-mongering to keep their increasingly irrelevant courses alive.”

I believe Goldburp was one of the first men to attend Goucher. I suspect he turned up expecting infinite girls and received infinite scorn.

 
 

Oh, cripes, where to start, where to start?

For Jonah to trot out Conservative NUH-HUH Column #23 i.e. “why you wimmins complain you has it good” just days after that patronizing “candidates as wedding dresses” commercial… well, let’s just say it’s a TAD ironic. Treating women like shallow children isn’t a REAL assault, after all!

And it’s just all rosy for women, as witness.

Secondly –
rape and sexual assault have been declining for decades

So have violent crimes in general, Doughboy – oops, there goes your Manly Crime Stopper anti-gun-control defense.

There’s a vast media-industrial complex that is addicted to institutionalized panic. On so-called “news” outlets, terror– and Orientalism-studies organizations depend almost entirely on a constant drumbeat of crisis-mongering to keep their increasingly irrelevant anti-Muslim bigotry alive.

Fixed.

it’s not like internal anti-choice narratives straight up argue things like “pregnancy is the punishment you receive for caving into your carnal desires” or anything…

I mean, if that were the case, you’d have someone like… oh, say for example Rush Limbaugh going on the radio for fifteen-plus hours every week talking about how, I dunno, someone who defended the birth control subsidy was a “slut” who just wanted to have sex with no consequences.

That never happened, right?

 
 

…pretty much any job where an unjustified sense of superiority is an asset.

Mall cop. BLART!

 
 

Ding! ding! we have a winner!

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Mall cop. BLART!

“We have credible evidence that ISIS has targeted this food court. I’m going to have to eat half of your fries to determine if they have been poisoned. Trust me, I’m a professional.”

 
 

I think J-Bob would make an excellent practice dummy for training attack dogs.
.

 
 

Our SNAP benefits were indeed cut off without explanation and at the worst possible time. Details are here with an update.

 
 

Hannah Arendt: “… the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationships with reality.

“The preparation has succeeded when people have lost
contact with their fellow men as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction {i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false {i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist. ”

 
 

Fluffer involves too much work. Jonah would probably ask the performers to stroke for him while he gives air kisses in their general direction.

I AM NOT SORRY FOR THE MENTAL IMAGE.

 
 

Your lack of remorse will come up during the trial. I plan to sue for cost of 300 gallons of brain bleach.

 
 

“I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of actual jobs I could see J-Load working at.”

Cum eunuch?

 
 

On a hopefully happier note, blogwhore blogwhore; TWO posts today, one a crappy book and the other a crappy idea.

 
 

Huh. I was just getting a “You are banned.” message when I tried to load this site a few minutes ago. Worried I had done something, or worse, S,N! got hacked.

 
 

I don’t know what would make a person suggest that people with ebola should be killed and that entire villages should be firebombed to stop the disease. Whether its genuine bloodlust or some kind of cry for attention, either way it suggests a person whose moral compass is missing completely or is defective to the point of deliberate sabotage. As far as disease control goes, it’s so messed up as to be not even wrong. The last thing the world needs is for every ebola patient, and every person who thinks they might have ebola, and anyone who has cared for them to think they need to start running for their lives. Does he think that aerial bombardment will do anything but make the survivors run to the next town, thus potentially spreading the infection?

OK folks, let’s leave this guy alone for what’s really important. Me. If I ever advocate mass murder as a solution to a public health crisis, could you try and send help? Because I think that would indicate I really needed it. Maybe if I had a stroke or previously undiagnosed mental illness began to manifest, or if I was kidnapped and had to parrot bullshit to save my life, or was whacked out of my skull on tainted krokodil, the point is, I’d need help. So at that point, just send up a flare, or use the monotreme signal, or say something on twitter, and set the wheels of medical assistance in motion please.

 
 

*runs in*

*wheezes, pants*

Guys, I’ve been absent because medical school is way harder than I’d expected. But. I have something for you.

Ross Douthat again demonstrates that he has a “type.”

 
 

Bombing the shit out of non-white folks is a core conservative value.

Hell, I remember during the Vietnam War when conservative yokels of my acquaintance thought it would be great to nuke North Vietnam.

 
 

Of course Ross Douthat has a type. It’s anyone whose mere existence he can use to prop up his joyless worldview. Anyone he can feel superior to. Anyone whose smallest flaw proves they deserve every misfortune to happen to them. Anything that will buttress the just world fallacy that defines his every waking moment.

And FYWP, I am not posting too fast. two comments for me in one morning is not to fast. One column a week in the NYT for Ross is far too fast.

 
 

My dad tried to defend the NYT to me the other day with some sort of half-hearted argument from tradition. “But what about Ross Douthat’s column?” caused him to abandon his line of argument and exclaim, “Well what do you expect me to read then, the damned Washington Post?”

I’m trying to teach him about blogs.

 
 

Just wanted to drop by to note that some spew signed…

Rick Venema
COLONIAL HEIGHTS, VIRGINIA

showed up in the pending comments.

Ah, memories. I wonder if COLONIAL HEIGHTS, VIRGINIA is still home of that giant Arby’s?

 
 

Ol’ Venom Enema is still around?

 
 

Hey, Major, it’s time for our third annual discussion about the delights of strawberries.
This is how I mark off the years now – strawberry season with the Sadlies.I cannot believe how many there have been.Like, whoa, man. Shakes head disbelievingly.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Does he think that aerial bombardment will do anything but make the survivors run to the next town, thus potentially spreading the infection?

Easierated the question for you.

 
 

Oh and, Seize, I have never understood the wisdom and pedagogical intent of running first year medical and legal students into the ground under a load of work. Makes no sense to me.
Good to see you, kiddo. Be of stout heart.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Have you had any strawberries, Suezboo?

I’ve been waiting for the Asian dogwood fruits to ripen, but it’s taking longer than usual.

 
 

Not Yet, B4, but I am reliably informed that they are available at the store. Also, last weekend was the Tulbagh Wildflower and Horse Show and strawberries featured largely. So, planning is on line for this week.

 
 

I have never understood the wisdom and pedagogical intent of running first year medical and legal students into the ground under a load of work.

First year law students do not have it anywhere near as tough as med. school students. If they did, we might see fewer dimwit CongressCritters, since passing the Bar seems to be the gateway drug to running for office.

 
 

Oh, I totally accept what you say, Shake, I have little respect for people able to call themselves lawyers for passing (a low) bar. I just recalled old movies and books where they worked themselves to death in the beginning.

 
 

Yes, I think books like 1L were written by lawyers. 😉

Or maybe it was very hard Once Upon A Time.

Good luck Seize!

 
 

Hey, Major, it’s time for our third annual discussion about the delights of strawberries.

May you have many strawberries this year Suezboo.

 
 

May you have many strawberries this year Suezboo.

Strawberry yields forever!

 
 

okay, which of you smart-asses signed me up for ‘freedom magazine’–the voice of the church of scientology?

 
 

>made from a donor penis

Visions of waking in hotel bathtub missing penis UNWELCOME

 
 

…researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine hope to transplant lab-grown penises into people who need them…

HAWT!

 
 

“It must have been left in the vat too long.”

 
 

Ah, memories. I wonder if COLONIAL HEIGHTS, VIRGINIA is still home of that giant Arby’s?

And “He Who Shall Be Nameless”… Didn’t he come from nearby Midlothian, VA?

Coincidence? hmmmm….?

 
 

Well I guess I’ve found my subspecialty, then. I’ll expect stiff competition.

Thanks for the good juju! Yeah, this med school thing: total infodump. If I’d done undergrad at this pace, I would have finished in 2 semesters! That said, I’m lucky to be doing something I care so much about. Even when I feel like I’m throwing my brain against a wall, I can at least say “hey, this stinks, but I’m doing it for a reason.” That’s more than most folks get.

Y’all are making me want strawberries. It’s more like pumpkin season here. Only place to pick strawberries is the freezer aisle.

 
 

New post.

And uncharacteristic for me, it is filled with some really good news.

 
 

Josh Marshall has only just realised that the professional body to which Ron Paul and Rand Paul belong is a gaggle of quacks, frauds, conspiracists, racists and crank-magnetism denialists.
What is wrong with the US education system?

 
 

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