And Now, Your Adam Yoshida Moment of Zen
Feel the love pumping right from Adam Yoshida’s groin heart:
It may not be a popular or politically correct thing to say – though I’ve never courted popularity or embraced political correctness – but the editors and reporters at the New York Times ought to go to be put to death for their crimes against this country.
Predictably, the terror-loving left and their confederates among the Vichy right were cheered by the Supreme Court’s decision to bar war crimes trials for the terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay. As this war has progressed on a global scale, it’s become increasingly clear to me that the major impediment to victory is the moral cowardice of fifth columnists within our own societies who refuse to sanction justified and necessary measures to deal with the enemies of all decent men. The most difficult thing about this war is not the defeat of the enemy on the battlefield – it is dealing with whiners, complainers, and traitors who obstruct and object to any sort of reasonable plan to win the war.
Compare and contrast this passage with Jon Swift’s clever parody of wingnuttery. Are there any detectable content differences?
In the long term, there is only one way to win a war: to physically destroy the capability of the enemy to wage war and, at the same time, to defeat and humiliate the enemy so thoroughly that it will be generations before they even think of challenging you again. That is how you win wars. Not through “precision� bombing and efforts to limit civilian casualties. While in many cases there is no reason to deliberately cause civilian casualties, efforts to avoid them typically end up being counter-productive in the long run.
In other words, we should be indifferent to civilian casualties. Why should they have the right to live, anyway? Who do they think they are, blastocysts?
The problem is that we live in a society of sissies.
So says a Twinkee-devouring Canadian Trekkie who lives in his mother’s basement.
I mean that in the most literal sense. In talking to opponents of the war or particular measures taken to win the war, I get the general sense that their primary objection – whatever rhetoric they may use to conceal it – is that they think that war is mean and that, if wars have to be fought, they ought to be fought in as gentle a fashion as possible.
I believe the opposite to be true – and I believe that history is on my side on this one. I don’t like war anymore than the next person.
Indeed. You seem to like it a great deal more than the next person.
I would much rather our enemies surrender before we fire a shot. I’d much rather live in a world of strong, sensible, and friendly nations – a world where an American superpower co-exists with a British Empire and a Japanese Empire would be something like my ideal.
Above: Adam’s Dream World. The Yellow Area is America, the Blue Area is England, the Green Area is Japan, and everywhere else is a big internment camp for undesirables.
Anyway, let’s skip to the punchline:
Forget trials. Forget evidence. By mere fact of association, they’re all guilty. Anyone who serves with al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group in any way, shape, or form deserves to die – they’ve forfeited any right to life they may have had. Just kill them all.
How to do it? After all, shooting them might be difficult – it might lead to mass violence in the camps and, without a doubt, would be rather messy. Hangings or any other process of phased execution would, likewise, be problematic. Luckily, there’s an obvious solution: poison them.
It would be fairly easy – after all, the Americans have been feeding them for years. Few, if any, of them would have time to react once they realized what had happened and those who did – who refused to eat or proved resistant to the poison – could simply be shot.
Of course, there are other alternatives. One might be to make the whole thing an exercise in civic participation. If you held a lottery to give individuals a chance to execute a terrorist personally, I imagine there would be plenty of applicants. Personally, there are few things on this Earth that I would like more than to kill Omar Khadr, the Canadian-born Jihadist who treacherously killed an American medic with a grenade.
What makes this worse is that you know Adam was masturbating while he typed this.
“After all, shooting them might be difficult – it might lead to mass violence in the camps”
And we wouldn’t want to have mass violence disrupt the wholesale gunning down of 380 people.
Meh. the problem is that he’s so fucking sick that it’s not even really satisfying to make fun of him.
At least some American soldiers are throwing of the shackles of political correctness and are raping and murdering Iraqi civilians as God and Adam Yoshida demand.
Unfortunately Iraqis tortured and beheaded a couple of soldiers from the same platoon in retaliation.
Meh. the problem is that he’s so fucking sick that it’s not even really satisfying to make fun of him.
Says you!
Yeah, happy Canada Day to you too, Brad.
True fact: On this day, we sacrifice a virgin to one of our Ice Gods. And, well, lookey here…
Canada Day. Bah humbug. That’s the most useless holiday since Flag Day.
Poisoning them is so…..inefficient. You have to wait for them to eat, and as soon as the second group sees the first group drop over dead, foaming at the mouth and screaming in agony, they’re going to drop their felafel and refuse to eat it.
If only there were some way to kill lots of them en masse…..I dunno, like spraying them all down with poison gas, or something. I hear Zyklon B works well for that.
And then there’s the bodies: what are you going to do with them? I suppose cremating them might work.
What do you guys think?
Forget trials. Forget evidence. By mere fact of association, they’re all guilty.
Um, without any evidence, how did we come up with the “fact” of association?
Also, how far does that association go? Do we round up the cab driver who gave an Al Qaeda member a lift? The waiter who served him at a restaurant? The kid on the corner who sold him a newspaper? The fucked-in-the-head Canadian who obsesses over him on the Internet?
Don’t even fall for it.
The wingnuts are all stamping their feet hoping to raise a big cloud of dust just to obscure media coverage of the Supreme Court ruling against Bu$hCo’s war crimes.
“Commander Codpiece’s policies are unconstitutional”… that’s all we should be talking about.
Just kill them all.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican platform in a nutshell. That could easily be a campaign slogan.
Except unborn womb babies. NEVER kill those. Everyone else though.
While in many cases there is no reason to deliberately cause civilian casualties, efforts to avoid them typically end up being counter-productive in the long run.
Huh? In many cases?? I guess that would mean that in some cases there is a good reason to deliberately cause civilian casualties. I’ll bite, Asshat. What would those reasons be? Convenience? Anger? Afraid they’ll tell on you after you rape them? And this “efforts to avoid them typically end up being counter-productive? So what? What part of HONORABLE do you simply not undertand? What part of CIVILIZED? Jesus christ’s tits in a mason jar dood, if you become as bad or worse than your enemies then you have NOT won! Look carefully. The germans had the final solution. They lost. The japanese had nanking. They lost. Stalin had the gulags. The soviets are kind of not around anymore. Can you even fucking read?? Is this really the kind of society you want to live in? Think it all the way through, fer cryin out loud!!
Personally, there are few things on this Earth that I would like more than to kill
OK, lemme take a wild guess here. I’m gonna guess that this yoshida prick has never even had a bar fight, let alone killed anyone. You’ve all got friends or relatives who have gone to war. If you know someone who saw combat, and they are close enough to you to ask, ask them how they feel about killing. Ask them if they’d really like to kill somebody. You’re going to find out that, if it’s something you’ve done, something you live with, something you’ve had to find a way to come to terms with, it simply is NOT something you have any desire to do. Just as in war, you learn to love peace, in war, you learn to hate violence on a truly visceral level. The wanabes like this idiot just make me nauseous…
mikey
Are you sure that this person is not a parodist? Because I still find it difficult to believe that anyone can be insane enough to write shit like this without getting binned.
Hey! I like Canada Day. And not just because it’s my and my partner’s anniversary. (It was a pagan thing. Deal.) Sixteen years together and still having a ball. So to speak.
In any event, I’m surprised Adam thinks we should put the poison in the camps’ food. Surely there’s a more efficient delivery system. I’m just spitballing here. And then we need to figure out how to get rid of the bodies…
Also, to be completely pedantic, it’s Twinkie. Named after a billboard for Twinkle Toes Dance Shoes. I’m not making this up. I assume your more masculine wingnuts stick with Ding Dongs. Of course, we give them Ho-Hos.
OK, lemme take a wild guess here. I’m gonna guess that this yoshida prick has never even had a bar fight, let alone killed anyone. You’ve all got friends or relatives who have gone to war. If you know someone who saw combat, and they are close enough to you to ask, ask them how they feel about killing. Ask them if they’d really like to kill somebody.
mikey- you’re not being fair. Adam has fought tirelessly to save Middle Earth from vile orc infestations.
Holy shit. How’d I miss Jillian’s comment? My bad. Jillian, I grovel.
Brad is that a graphic of rocket robin hood with Yoshia’s head on it? Or is Canada Day gettin’ to my head?
I didn’t think it was possible for my country to make people crazier than David Frum. Big, Big, Big mistake. Youse’all is right, with him in charge we would have death camps for any people that Yoshida thought aided the terrorists. Considering how pretty much anyone who doesn’t stand up and cheer at his suggestion to poisen the terrorist’s food is in his mind aiding and abetting the enemies of the united states, that’s probably 5 or six billion people give or take.
Thankfully, Yoshida carries with him at all times a 2D6 knife, with a +6 bonus for taking out Islamofacists.
Is that a graphic of rocket robin hood with Yoshia’s head on it?
Yup, I made it for Adam’s Moon dicator fantasy.
Aw, you know I love you, Sidhe.
Happy Anniversary!
salvage- yeah, sorry i shoulda given credit. It was the first thing that popped up on a Google Image search. You should be proud.
“In the long term, there is only one way to win a war: to physically destroy the capability of the enemy to wage war and, at the same time, to defeat and humiliate the enemy so thoroughly that it will be generations before they even think of challenging you again.”
He’s right, you know. That’s what we did with Germany after The Great War, and looked how swimily THAT turned out! Hooray!
I think Adam forgot a sentance, though. “Carpert nuke any nation that’s so much as LOOKED at a mosque, much less built one.”
Salvage–great graphic. Although to be fair, Adam’s plans sound more like the diabolocal rantings of the Sheriff of K.N.O.T.T.
So far, by clicking around Sadly, No! and hairy fish nuts, I have learned (among other things) that:
Adam wishes to take over the Moon and Mars.
Miranda Rights readings lead to explosions.
Nuking North Korea without provocation isn’t warmongering.
Death Camps for suspicious
brown peopleAl-Qaeda members guity by association is a good thing.Civilian casualties isn’t something one wishes to avoid.
Damnit something’s wrong with the local education system if this guy managed to graduate highschool.
I’m stunned senseless by the sheer insanity of Yoshida’s post. I don’t know anything about the guy. Does anyone take him seriously?
It may not be a popular or politically correct thing to say – though I’ve never courted popularity or embraced political correctness – but the editors and reporters at the New York Times ought to go to be put to death for their crimes against this country.
What did the New York Times ever do to Canada?
Seriously, what a fucking whacko this guy is.
Adam has fought tirelessly to save Middle Earth from vile orc infestations.
Ahh. Did he set up an Elvish Guantanamo Bay? Complete with poison?
We should remind Adam of the old middle-earth saying:
First they came for my orcs, then they came for my hobbits, then they came for AAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!!
mikey
I’m having real irony problems here. Are you sure the Adam Yoshida site isn’t a parody, a la adamnagourney.com
Of course, if someone tells me that *that* is for real, I’ll just get back to drinking heavily, as I had been since the England Portugal game.
I can’t lose, really.
Brad
Oh no prob, I have a brace of lawyers loading up all kinds of kittens for my retaliation.
And I am way proud, it is a highlight of my blogging career, that and this.
His Grace
And he’s Canadian! You have no idea how proud we are to have such a premiere wingnut up here. Hardcore wingnuts are rarer than an albino polar bear around these parts.
Kobie, don’t you know? The NYT systematically put all the Ultra-Reactionaries in Canada to death (or so they thought…) decades ago.
Adam’s out to avenge is forebearers– not as a furriner projecting himself on the US of A, but as a proud Canadian eager to repopulate his nation with Wingnuts that the Times has denied her. He already has jars of the necessary materials for mass artificial insemination, ladies.
GG — that is nasty. Although I think a couple of those jars are just Twinkie filling.
It may not be a ‘popular’ or ‘politically correct’ thing to say – though I’ve never courted popularity or embraced political correctness — but with the potential for treason and leaking of information all around us, I’m not sure we can any longer afford those among us who can “read” and “write.”
I think all good, patriotic Americans can agree that the alphabet is a minor sacrifice we can give up in order to embiggen our nation.
I’m stunned senseless by the sheer insanity of Yoshida’s post. I don’t know anything about the guy. Does anyone take him seriously?
Not anymore. Even the Perfesser disavowed him at one point. Note how all of his commenters are snarky lefties.
That said, he’s only *barely* and I mean *barely* crazier than Powerline and Malkin, who are legitimate heavywieghts in our national discourse.
What did the New York Times ever do to Canada?
Rejected the polite suggestion that it end every editorial with “eh?”
Luckily, there’s an obvious solution: poison them. It would be fairly easy –
Gee, do ya think the cops would want to question the writer of this if any acquaintances are struck with a sudden illness?
At least he let’s the British Empire and the Japanese Empire play in his game.
salvage- yeah, sorry i shoulda given credit. It was the first thing that popped up on a Google Image search. You should be proud.
So it was an homage to Canada after all, wasn’t it, Brad? Canada’s favourite genocidal wingnut, illustrated with a stolen graphic based on Canada’s cheesiest and most inept cartoon ever (albeit with a rather stirring theme song).
Good God, Brad…if your obsession with Canada gets any more acute and, quite frankly depraved, I think I’ll start worrying about the virtue of our sugar maples. Especially with those suggestive sap spouts. and everthing…
Hey!
Where’s Gary Ruppert?
I bet he gets paid A LOT to defend wingnuttery like this!
Come one, Gary! I know you can write something really funny for this thread! And you’ll make $ too! It’s win-win!
¡Arrima tu prima!
Thees weengy-nutbar should take advantage of Canada’s fine healthcare system and have hees head examined.
soon.
so.
Hey!
Where’s Gary Ruppert?
I bet he gets paid A LOT to defend wingnuttery like this!
Less, than you’d think, dude, less than you’d think.
All the heart’s gone out of me since the administration announced its plan to draw down troop numbers in Iraq before the midterm elections and to grant amnesty to insurgents involved in killing American troops. I feel so… used somehow….
Nice touch by whoever’s running the Garybot (TM) this weekend to link to Ben Shapiro off his username. How bad is it when Benny is only the 50th-least-objectionable wingnut on the blogosphere?
You can have most of the writing skills of an adult and still be a ten-year-old occupying an adult’s body. Along about the third-to-last paragraph there was a sense that, y’know, he’d have people like Mengele shaking their heads and laughing sadly. It’s not the juvenile bloodthirstiness, it’s the mental picture he must have of the rest of the world as a dollhouse whose occupants stand still as he moves them around and tips them over.
All the heart’s gone out of me since the administration announced its plan to draw down troop numbers in Iraq before the midterm elections and to grant amnesty to insurgents involved in killing American troops. I feel so… used somehow…
Oh, God the desperate psycho-drama. Hey, Gary…I heard Barbara Streisand thinks Burkas go great with her nails.
There. That oughta be good for a bit of Ruppertwood.
It’s not the juvenile bloodthirstiness, it’s the mental picture he must have of the rest of the world as a dollhouse whose occupants stand still as he moves them around and tips them over.
Remember, this is the guy a couple of months ago who was advocating the immediate nukage of Iran, and it was apparent that he had no idea how nuclear weapons work, just like he has no idea of the international backlash, and the heightened danger our soldiers in Iraq would be in, if we started fucking gassing prisoners at Gitmo.
I honestly think this dipshit thinks you can do something like this and if it doesn’t work out, just hit reset and go back to your previously saved game.
There are quite a few people like Adam Yoshida, although few manage to follow the eliminationist rhetoric to its logical conclusion as stupidly as he does. They see no consequences to their actions and when those bad things happen, they then pin the blame on someone else who (usually) thought things through and tried to point it out beforehand. The unintended consequence of the lack of seeing consequence is that rather than studying what would likely happen if people did as he suggested, he focuses on turning UP the rhetoric to fulfil his wingnutt dystopian masturbation fantasies.
Speaking of Canadians, that Spanish kid Nadal has ALL the moves, doesn’t he? Damn, I haven’t seen a kid play at that level that fast since, well, maybe Agassi. Listen, here’s what you do. Yer gonna have to trust me on this one. Nadal’s next match? Put on Triumph’s Allied Forces or Never Surrender , put the TV on mute and turn the volume up. There’s something about Nadal’s precision backhand passing shots and tactical acumen and Rik Emmett’s guitar forays that just work together. Don’t ask me, I didn’t invent it. Just give it a go, hoser…
mikey
Mikey,
I’d rather look at Maria Sharapova’s precision backside, but that’s just me!!11!!oneoneoneone!!!
Kobie, that’s OFF the court. In play, Maria is conservative and predictable. Beautiful, sure, but check out Stephie in her prime. Innovative, creative, heartless. A joy to behold. And this Nadal kid? With the smile and the guns? He’s gonna do real well…
mikey
Stephie? As in Graf?
And yeah, Nadal’s pretty damn good. Unbeatable on clay.
Yeah, as in Graf. That was TWO of the best runs in international tennis, womens OR mens.
And Nadal? Don’t buy the “unbeatable on clay” hype. This kid’s the real deal, neal. Did you see him dispatch Roddick? That was ALL game plan and execution. He kept pulling Roddick up and passing him. Roddick, the best power game in the game today, had to play NADAL’S game, and it cost him. He’ll be out of the top ten. Watch this kid–he keeps it from going to his head, he’s got a real run ahead of him, and Federer better start thinking about what it’s gonna take to keep ahead of Nadal…
mikey
Mikey — Heh I wasn’t saying he’s not good on other surfaces, I was just sayin he’s unbeatable on clay. He is the real deal, and as long as Federer’s at the top of his game that’s going to be a pretty sweet rivalry.
And yes, Steffi was one of the best. Second only to Navratilova IMHO.
Yoshida, dude! You’ve come so far from your 2002 manifesto when you were making your first foray out of yer mum’s basement – you know, when you were running for school trustee in hometown Coquitlam. You were proud to be AGAINST VIOLENCE then (“create zero tolerance policies for violence and drugs in school”). Oh, wait. I get it. “zero tolerance” – code for killing violent kids. I have misread your intentions. But really, why would you want to be so hard on the stoners? Mike from New Zealand
He lost that election really badly. It changed him.
Second only to Navratilova IMHO.
Y…e…a…hhhhhh, I GUESS…I’ve always been more of a Crissy fan. See, Crissy didn’t have Martina’s strength and athleticism. She didn’t have Evonne Goolagong’s skills. She didn’t have the speed of Rosie Casals, or the consistenncy of Billie Jean King. She had a great big steaming pile of “I fucking refuse to lose”. She had her will, and she knew about don’t quit. And she was tougher, steadier and just more committed than her competion…
mikey
Mikey — agreed 100%. She was a gutsy lady.
Mike from NZ — I read something about that on the internets a few months back. Yeah, he got his ass kicked.
I’m tired of reading English and talking about tennis. Can we have post in French and/or Italian about food?
…oh, forget it.
I have a recipe for freedom toast.
Does that count? I could write it out wiz an outrayjoos akzent!
And did you see. Freedomland beat Brazil today!
I’ve never courted popularity
Why am I not surprised?
OK, I tried to post this in one big chunk, and it failed miserably. So, multi-part, part 1:
On topic–Yoshi’s an idiot and his naked lust to murder and torture, so amply documented, should be used to involuntarily commit him to an asylum for the criminally insane. Lock him in a rubber room and toss the key.
Off topic, I’ve just had a rather unpleasant night. I spent this afternoon and evening visiting good friends that I see only 2-4 times a year in rural Wisconsin. I tag along with one of our mutual friends to conserve transit costs and because I’m still unclear about the route northwards–I can rarely learn something like that through directions. I find actually driving while someone who knows how to get there navigates to be most effective, but no one has done this for me yet. Upon arrival, we circulate separately, as there are many people at these things that we rarely see.
First off, one of my friends’ elderly female neighbors asked me if she could tell me a personal story, privately! Evidently, someone had told her about various serious medical conditions that have either afflicted me or are currently doing their best to make my life hell (I’m not angry about her having been told, in person I’m fairly open about these problems–online, not so much). I was getting strong “wacky Christian” vibes off her, and in a moment where the neighbor was out of earshot, I asked the hostess whether the neighbor was foamingly Xian. Why yes, yes she was! I damned well knew what I was to be in for then: tales of how Gawd/Jeebus/The Holy Spirit had greatly improved the neighbor’s life, and how if I got right with the aforementioned, I could, too! Oh, how I love this type of lecture! I looked about to see if there was a broken bottle to slice myself open with, but it was too late.
Yes, yes–she had actually died at some point in the ’60s, tunnel of light, indescribable loving presence of light, look–there’s her late father! She had a choice to either stay with her dad and this mysterious presence, or to go back to her hospital bed and take her chances. The thought of her semi-disabled husband and four children made her choose life, but promise the mystical light that she would try and get right with Him. At this point, she miraculously recovers from the fatal disease that had had her in its grip, even though doctors had assured her that she would die. Not only did she regain her health, she popped out 3 more babies! Hosannahs on her, it seems (why do these religious people always take such great pride in their helping overpopulate the planet?)!
(The Christian-bashing ends soon, I just wanted to share the several annoying things that put me in a foul mood before the actual, really bad thing did)
Continued…
Part 2-It Gets Worse
At this juncture, she begins obsessively reading the Bible, not having bothered before in her life. And, quelle suprise! All the things the loving presence had told her and all the fantastic imagery encountered on her near-death magical mystery tour are located right there… in the Bible! Well, on the spot, she decides to become the most Christianest Christian the world has ever seen! Etc., etc., blah blah. I listened as politely as possible, keeping my expression as neutral as I could. I had already determined that should she press me about my own faith that I would say that I find discussing such intensely personal matters distasteful and cut it off there. It wasn’t that I feared approbation if I honestly said that I find all religion silly and unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, it’s just that I feared that it would egg her on to regale me with myriad more tales of miracles and redemption and be utterly incapable of realizing that I desire neither.
Fortunately, her fiancé swept her away before she could apply a full-court press on me, though there were near-misses the rest of the evening. By this time, I noted the arrival of the two young men we refer to as “the Republican Twins.” While the general tenor of my friends and the people who are their friends ranges from moderate to radically leftist, the Republican Twins are ever eager to, well, spout official GOP talking points. Not only do we counter any spin they may be attempting to pass with reality-based, specific facts (they specialize in generalizations), but we often poke fun at the fact that they’re practically inseparable, whereas the other, more progressive men (if they’re hetero) tend to have a girlfriend or a wife. Though I somewhat find using an implication of homosexuality as an “insult” in many ways distasteful, in this case when we observe that they behave like an old, married couple, the funny comes from the fact that they’re so horrified at the thought (or is it excited?). Though everyone at these gatherings knows that I’m gay, I get zero flack for it, so it’s cool (though, as open as I am about it, I’m not entirely certain that the Republican Twins have caught on yet, go figure). Though, needless to note, I’m a little more discreet around neighbors and the like, since my friends have to live amongst these people, and besides, it’s really none of their business. The Republican Twins choose to hang out with us, the universal common denominator being that we’re all comics/sci-fi nerds, so it’s not so astonishing that the RTs don’t have girls, it’s that practically everyone else does.
Though I was somewhat in a bad mood, I had become progressively buzzed on various alcoholic beverages (though I succeeded in sticking to the low-proof stuff–there were numerous opportunities for shots). I wasn’t quite drunk–no slurred speech, no greater difficulty in movement than usual, but I wasn’t going to be driving, so whatever. I had been keeping myself amused, to some extent, by occaisionally needling the Twins, but not excessively. The Twins, BTW, look nothing alike, other than both being twenty-something white dudes, and both fairly thin. The one of them that tends to get his ass handed to him by various other factions is just smart enough to fancy himself a person with “leadership potential,” though he remains unmoved by our pitch to have him join the Army and see
the NavyIraq. He’s a good bit more aggressive than the other one, and frequently ends up in over his head. Also, a good, primary Repub personality trait: smarmy! And if he’s the leader, well obviously the other is the minion. Unfortunately, he’s a minion who’s somewhat cute, and I spend nearly as much time flirting with him as anything else. He’s not as aggressive, and sadly, a bit less bright. So, yeah, I’d fuck him at the drop of his pants, only I’d feel guilty about it the next morning.Continued…
Part 3-In Which Something Bad Occurs
Anyway, to –finally– get to the main point of this post, what I hadn’t noticed was that my ride had been imbibing… quite a bit. He’d been partaking of the shots, but there were a fair number of people there, so I’d barely interacted with him all evening. Earlier, he’d mentioned we were going back down to Illinois that evening, as he had some important stuff on his plate on Sunday (we occasionally stay the weekend). I would have been alarmed if I knew how much he’d been drinking. I’d have likely requested that we stay overnight and leave early the next morning. But, those concerns would have proved moot. He simply disappeared. I think I saw him wander out the front door. Now, mind you, this is a teensy group of houses in an extremely rural area. There is little lighting at night, just vast seas of darkness. There is a nearby lake. While roads are fairly sparse, and lightly travelled at night, the traffic that does go by does so at a terrible velocity. There is also a little local tavern a few blocks away that might seem inticing to someone already well in his cups. Vast, lightless farm fields with accompanying barbed wire fences. And, behind many of those fences, spookable cattle and hungry pigs. Behind the house, a woods. In other words, many ways for things to go horribly wrong.
It took a while for anyone to notice that he was missing. Once it became clear that he wasn’t anywhere in the house, including the basement, and was nowhere to be found in the back yard, we decided to attempt to locate him around the neighborhood. Small groups set out in search–fortunately, several of us carried good flashlights on our persons (yeah, I know–geeks!). By this time, the fellow who had driven me up to Wisconsin had been missing for several hours. Over time, the searchers all reported back. No sign of him. Much as we didn’t wish to raise this to an official incident, we finally called it in to the local police or sherriff’s department (not sure which they are). Fourth of July weekend, and they’re pretty swamped with petty vandalism, drunkenness, and bar fights, so they took our information and promised to get back to us when they had some news. In the meantime, we’d been trying at intervals to call his cell phone. It would go immediately into voicemail, so it seemed not to be on. More time passed, and still no sign. Moreover, this was so unlike this particular person. He’s usually quite responsible. Though at first I hadn’t been all that concerned, as time passed I started getting a bad feeling about the whole affair. I also started hunting around for an alternative ride home, ‘cos many of the guests live fairly nearby me, and some of them were starting to prepare to leave.
As it turned out, the Twins drove me home, both of them being nicer than their norm, though I must admit that the studly one’s penchant for very high-speed highway travel is a wee bit unsettling. I also had the paranoid thoughts: what if they’re planning on dumping me somewhere desolate and remote, and me without a cell phone? Or, what if they saw this as their finest chance to beat the living crap out of a faggot who had been known to mock them? Or, what if they pulled over to the shoulder and demanded head (at least that wouldn’t be so bad, unless it was accompanied with one of the other ones)? Fortunately, other than our rate of travel, the trip was uneventful. I gave them the brief directions to the nearby tollway that would take them home, thanked them, and went inside and wrote this piece. By the time that I left, no news had emerged about our friend, and I don’t really have a good feeling about the whole thing. When I find out more, I’ll post more. To think that early on I had joked to someone, “Four words. Alien abduction, anal probe.” Fuck. Well, at least nothing worse than his mysterious disappearance has been confirmed.
Congratulations, Marq, your comment submission has won you… your very own blog!!! And i would like to hear more of the story, so make sure to leave a link.
Yikes! Very disturbing episode, Marq. That situation would sure freak me out. Let’s hope it turns out that he just fell asleep someplace weird and couldn’t get a ride.
This is one of those situations where I wish I were religious, so that I could say I’d pray for your friend. It makes you feel like you’re doing something constructive, even if you’re talking to somebody who isn’t there (or at least isn’t picking up if he/she/it is there).
Well, I will pray for your friend– take that as you will, old boy.
And seconded on the “start a blog” business– I would read it, certainly.
Well, the situation has been resolved–and for the better, I might add–and thus segued from potential tragedy to something of a farce. My worries of last night relieved, my concern now looks almost silly, but at the time, it was quite upsetting. What happened was the fellow who drove me up there had indeed wandered a bit away to an area on a vacant lot that we were using to park overflow cars from the party, and he was exceedingly drunk. One of the other party attendees, who had travelled up from Central Illinois, and thus had been planning on staying overnight all along, had driven a Jeep that was open-topped. My friend had crawled into the back seat and fallen asleep. I was under the impression that the groups of people looking for him were searching such likely locations, but for whatever reason he remained undiscovered. So, in fact, my life was probably in much greater danger riding home with the Republican Twins, since we frequently exceeded 100mph than my friend’s was. After sleeping it off, he wandered back to the house, and presumably the police have been notified about his re-emergance. So now I am granted the luxery of being fairly annoyed with him for putting all of us through the emotional wringer, certainly not the worst possible ending. *sigh* At least now I have something to use to needle my ride with if I’m feeling vinegary, “Hey, dood, remember the Fourth of July weekend of ’06…?”
I’m glad everything’s turned out okay, Marq.
I’m veering a bit off topic here, but I really, really, really wish that people took alcohol seriously as a drug. There are a lot of really terrible stories that begin, “Well, I was drinking a lot that night . . . .” A drug that suppresses inhibition, impairs judgment, and is commonly used to excess is a dangerous thing. (I hope I don’t sound all moralistic and judgmental, since that’s not at all my intention; what I’m thinking about as I write this is a woman I knew in college who got smashed on prom night, passed out, and woke up naked. She never knew for sure what happened, but she could guess.)
Adam Yoshida is a long-time Usenet troll.
The first thing you should know about Adam is that he is not even an American at all, despite what you might think from his rantings. He is, in fact, a Canadian! Yet he always speaks of “we” and “us” when referring to the United States. Weird.
Adam Yoshida favors “a Greater United States, one which ecompasses [sic] 96 states”. See his breakdown on this Usenet post:
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/e2f0a22a689009d1?hl=en&
Oh, and another great one: “Well let’s face it if I were born in Argentina and I were 17 or 18 I probably would have been working for the Secret Police, ot [sic] been in officer training.”
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/f8b60fb84e0f72f8?hl=en&
I get the general sense that their primary objection – whatever rhetoric they may use to conceal it – is that they think that war is mean and that, if wars have to be fought, they ought to be fought in as gentle a fashion as possible.
I believe the opposite to be true – and I believe that history is on my side on this one. I don’t like war anymore than the next person.
Apparently Sun Tzu’s Art of War isn’t in Adam’s beat mag (Soldier of Forture) stack:
Probably not much of this in Sgt. Rock…
“The problem is that we live in a society of sissies.”
What is it with these people? Have they never developed a conceptual frame more sophisticated than the one they learned on the playground in elementary school? At least in Yoshida’s case, Napoleonic grandiosity and homocidal fantasies aside, he’s still pretty much a kid. Michael Smerconish is a grown man, but a big part of his schtick is blathering about the “sissification” of America.
Projection: it’s not just a concept; it’s a way of life.