Turning And Turning In The Widening Gyre
Above: So okay, some of the worst also lack all conviction
Ross Douthat, The New York Times:
Telling Grandma ‘No’
- It is not conservatives who are derailing health care reform, but rather the seniors whom they have succeeded in scaring, for seniors love the Medicare benefits that Obama is scaring them into being scared by conservatives about the taking away of them by him. [pops an Altoid, blinks twice] Republicans should go after seniors’ Medicare benefits.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Cf. William Butler Yeats, who was referring in the second stanza — to the degree that well-conceived poems ever simply refer to things — to Aleister Crowley as the lion-shanked entity, and as the infant to a number of contemporary characters who can be loosely categorized under the general name, “Charles Stansfeld Jones.” Or, if this isn’t hopelessly obscure already, to the equivalent postwar category, “Jack ‘Boomer’ Parsons.” While Yeats often comes off as a bit of a rube these days, it is to be remembered that he lacked our own 21st century experience with Teh Vampire Toxin.
Ross’s previous inability to tell Grandma “no” may explain some of his current sexual predilections. Doily fever is just embarrassing.
How exactly is that last name pronounced? Looks like “douche hat” to me.
Normally, Gavin, I find your analysis to be quite in tune and on the mark; however, regarding your note re: Yeats, I’m afraid I’ll have to reserve judgment until Jeff Godlstein has weighed in. Authorial intent, internet traditions and all that rot, y’know…
“Jack ‘Boomer’ Parsons.”
Also known as “Sharon” and “Number Eight.”
If Ross’ insurance covered boner pills, he’d lose his last flimsy excuse for avoiding the embrace of his unkissed bride.
Angry Ewok thinks he knows what Obama dreams about? Obama dreams about watching a rocket headed toward the heart of the sun with Angry Ewok and his ilk aboard it. Obama probably has a nocturnal emission when his dream-self hits the big red button and those Saturn V boosters spark up and he screams “Liftoff, motherfuckers!”
Or maybe he just dreams about shooting hoops with a cigarette dangling from his lower lip and not a care in the world. How would I know?
There may be no better metaphor for Douthat than a Honey Bucket achieving low orbit.
Douthat (to me one more time) was on Bill Maher this week. He’s exactly the creepy douchenozzle you’d expect.
In reference to the pic:
Worst. Doctor Who villain. Ever.
Aleister Crowley as the lion-shanked entity
GAWDDAMIT, what’s with this shiznit?
I’m reading a critical history of Scientology last night and come across a reference to Hubbard and his interactions with Crowley and Parsons… now I stand here and read this out of the freakin’ BLUE!
GAVIN GET OUT OF MY BRAIN
Maybe almost achieving low orbit, before falling back to earth. Luckily, his fall is broken by a large cactus patch.
Shedding and shedding on the shrinking hairline,
The head hair cannot find the hairstylist,
Strands fall all over, the Rogaine cannot hold,
Mere baldness is loosed upon the Douthat….
Jack Parsons stole L. Ron Hubbard’s girlfriend once. He was one smooth son of a bitch.
The piece is unique in at least one respect. Here we have a wingnut blowhard essentially saying, “We should abandon our anti-health-care tactics because they seem to be working too well. Instead, we should embrace tactics that are guaranteed to remind the people who just voted us out why they voted us out in the first place”.
That approaches an actual principled argument, albeit based on the principles of a sociopath. I didn’t know they were capable of such a thing.
Only read the title so far, and I gotta say this for Douthat – he’s pretty inclusive about his anti-sex crusade.
Probable Douthat:
Was I close?
Jack Parsons stole L. Ron Hubbard’s girlfriend once. He was one smooth son of a bitch.
She wasn’t the one he summoned up, was she?
Quite frankly, though, if I was so inclined, I’d leave L. Ron Doughy Guy for the muscular hawt rocket scientist, too.
It’s not like all the provisions conservative wingnuts have been going nuts about were put there by conservatives…
…Oh, wait, they were.
I have reviewed Ross Douthat’s works, and considered the potential cost to society as a whole if he were lost.
Please report to the nearest available suicide booth.
He only has he one tune and he doesn’t even play that well.
now I stand here and read this out of the freakin’ BLUE!
You should probably go back to reading sitting down
Notice the moon on that lil’ building? That means it’s a Intercontinental Muslim Terror Shithouse! That ups the terror threat level to, I don’t know, runny brown or something.
Completely off topic, I think critical history of Scientology is the funniest phrase I’ve heard all day.
HA HA LIBS! OBAMA IS BACKING OFF THE PUBLIC ACTION SO THAT PROVES…SOMETHING!
(Just though I’d share everyone the tedium of sorting though actual comments by Troofie and assorted trolls.)
I meant spare, not share, of course. (Although they both work…)
It’s hard to get word to Douthat directly, so I’ll leave this correction here, in case he wanders by looking for a beer: Medicare only takes care of the elderly, who have a disproportionate number of medical conditions, so it costs a lot, compared to insurers of relatively young, healthy (employed) persons. The waste in our “system” is in the profits wrung out this other pool of insured and placed in the pockets of pencil pushers, paper shufflers shareholders and CEOs. Take all that private insurance money, eliminate the unnecessary overhead, combine it with Medicare/Medicaid/VA/WorkComp, and you’ve got twice as much dinero per person to spend for actual healthcare than any other industrialized country.
Pere Ubu–
I’ve said this before here, but anyone interested in the history of Scientology is urged to read Barefaced Messiah, a bio of L. Ron, by Russell Miller. En toto, w/ addenda, for free, here:
http://www.xenu.net/archive/books/bfm/bfmconte.htm
Amazing, well-written, and funny.
Forget Yeats. That’s a very Lovecraftian image you’ve conjured. I’m not sure why, although there’s something to be said for imagining Ross as on the side of the Elder Gods.
HA HA LIBS! OBAMA IS BACKING OFF THE PUBLIC ACTION SO THAT PROVES…SOMETHING!
Troofie, hell. There’s ginormous wads of bunched panties all over the fucking place this morning. Jeezus.
En toto, w/ addenda, for free, here
I’ve read a couple books from there but I’ll have to queue that up next, and the copy of L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? I got from the library. AND the copy of Scientology 8-80 from Paperback Swap.
Rotsa raughs to be had among those all.
BTW, on-topic, I’d really like to encourage Douchehat and his wingnut friends to continue on this winning track of repealing Medicare and Social Security, in the same spirit as I’d like to encourage them to draft Palin and Joe-The-Not-Plumber for 2012.
Ok, so is that a multi-stage assrocket or just single?
Does it run on solid or liquid fuel?
What’s the total pa(y/nt)load?
And other poop jokes.
And anyway how the hell is it I never heard of Charles S. Jones before, with all the reading I’ve done by and about Unca Aleister?
I loved the Newt Gingrich quote that Rachel Maddow dug up where Newt was salivating over the prospect of saving $33 billion by cutting short granny’s life.
Been away for a few days. Has Troofie returned? Who won the pool?
On topic, Douthat’s rising influence hopefully signals an ebb of elected conservatard effluence.
Pretty much Douthat is complaining that conservatives are embracing Medicare and should not because the conservative goal is to kill grandma, grandpa, mom and dad themselves first chance they get.
the conservative goal is to kill grandma, grandpa, mom and dad themselves first chance they get
Only by killing ourselves FIRST can we defeat the Islamofasconazibolshies in their EVIL PLOT to kill us all!
LOL! What’s Douthat’s slogan going to be? “Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Just say NO! to living.”
Worst. Doctor Who villain. Ever.
Heh! Just needs a plunger arm…
Pretty much Douthat is complaining that conservatives are embracing Medicare and should not because the conservative goal is to kill grandma, grandpa, mom and dad themselves first chance they get.
They’re against government death panels because they favor free market granny killings.
Douthat’s a turd. But the good news is he is a conservative turd.
Thinking bumper stickers:
“Who needs Grandma?”
“Squish the kittens and puppies.”
“Kids: No work–no food.”
and of course…
“Fuck YOU! I’ve got mine.”
Last Friday Bill Maher joked his show was dominated by sexy men with Brad Pitt, Ashton Kutcher, and General Anthony Zinni. The exclusion of Ross from the mention was not missed by Ross. He looked crestfallen.
OBAMA: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by the electorate with a sacred quest. If he will give us 60 votes in the Senate and sway some Congressional Blue Dogs he can join us in our quest for Health Care reform.
CONSERVATIVE: Well, I’ll ask him, but I don’t think he’ll be very keen… Uh, he’s already got one, you see?
OBAMA: What?
MAX BAUCUS: He says they’ve already got one!
OBAMA: Are you sure he’s got one?
CONSERVATIVE: Oh, yes, it’s very nice-a (I told him we already got one)
If I read it right, Ross is threatening virtually everyone over 50 or so, as well as standing against democracy.
The question at hand, therefore: Would a jury convict me if I acted in self-defense? Hell, would the D. A. even bother to charge me?
OK, so, like, I don’t READ Douthat or anything, but I thought his whole schtick was supposed to be that you appeal to the yokels by being all “Hey Hank and Sally, we will prevent fags from marrying each other, but the gummint will still give you free shit!” Y’know, “populism.” I don’t know how you square that idea with getting tough on granny.
Again, I don’t read him enough to actually know anything, but it would be irresponsible of me not to speculate that he’s exactly like every other right wing douchebag and just made up a disingenuous philosophy in order to market a book.
Ross is threatening virtually everyone over 50 or so, as well as standing against democracy.
The trouble with democracy is, people are sometimes tempted to vote for their own interests and not the interests of their betters.
Jack Parsons stole L. Ron Hubbard’s girlfriend once. He was one smooth son of a bitch.
On the other hand, Jack Parsons blew himself up trying to create the homunculus, while L. Ron Hubbard made a killing selling his silly books to already-created homunculi piece by piece as some secret society cult bullshit.
So, who’s the bitch now, Jack Parsons?!
And anyway how the hell is it I never heard of Charles S. Jones before
Wasn’t he Bugs Bunny’s favorite director?
Why do I always think of Ishmael, circling the whirlpool atop the coffin, when I read this poem?
That’s a very Lovecraftian image you’ve conjured.
I’m getting a Robert W. Chambers vibe- Douhat is advocating “Government Lethal Chambers” for the geriatric set. I wonder if his malaise is due to reading The King in Yellow.
Of course, by expanding Medicare to all, the risk pool increases, which is the whole point of insurance-type dealies.
Lovecraftian… OMG THEY’RE GOING TO FEED GRANNIES TO CTHULHU!
Republican response: meh, as long as it won’t raise taxes.
I just don’t get what the Times is doing. Why publish this idiot? If they require a paleoconservative, there are plenty of them around. This guy can barely string out an 800 word essay. His premise is weak, his conclusion essentially just a restatement of the premise, and the stuff between wouldn’t make a Fluffernutter sammich. And everything he writes is like that. He’s just not very bright.
To paraphrase A.E. Pessimal: What is Ross Douthat for? Why would anyone employ a known cobag?
There is so much lying crap in these two sentences, it’s hard to know where to start. First off, medicare is NOT socialized medicine, not even close. That would be the VA, in which the government owns the hospitals and employs the physicians, etc, and you do not pay one dime for the care if you qualify for it. Medicare OTOH is an insurance plan that you have to pay for to get the full coverage, and its benefits are often paid out by private insurers who are contracted with the government. Most important, MC most definitely does not just “pay and pay” for anything and everything. It is very strictly administered by the Dept of health and Human Services, which limits (sometimes fairly severely) what medical providers can charge and how much they are paid, and also sets clear guidelines on what is considered medically necessary. I discovered these things by doing like a half hour’s research the other day, but I guess asshat’s too busy stalkin schoolchildren to actually do any research and shit.
Above: So okay, some of the worst also lack all conviction
So if he’s not full of passionate conviction, what is he full of?
Rhetorical questions — where would we be without them?!
Ah, sadly there was a missed connection today:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/ferguson_obama_and_felix_the_c.php
(Scroll down just a bit)
Sadly, No link love!!