Do We Need to Put Bobo on Suicide Watch?

I only ask because I don’t care.

Bobo Brooks, The New York Times is a Meritocracy:
The Thought Leader

I sometimes have this little fantasy.

In this fantasy, I could have a choice between any magical superpower. I could fly or communicate with fish or lift a planet over my head. And in this fantasy, I don’t choose any of them. Instead, I choose the ability to punch through self-delusion and make people see themselves as they really are.

Like many powers, it has its nice uses (aiding those struggling with the confusion of who they are and making it harder to build destructive closets), but they’d be a side-venue to the real satisfying work of making self-delusional bigots have to face themselves as they really are and as their actions have made them.

No delusions of meritocracy, no pretenses at fair-minded ideals, no complex fantasies in order to justify petty bullying. Just a person having to accept themselves and their actions or be destroyed by the weight of it all. It’d be the end of all the rich white people trying to claim they are being oppressed by poor brown people existing. It’d be the end of fucks like my dad trying to argue that not being bigoted in one venue means they should get a free pass to recycle that bigotry against another group*. Hell, it might even end the Republican Party as we know it.

But there is no such power and the fantasy is just that, a comforting thought experiment to ease the stress of living under the bootheel of crazy people.

But if such a power did exist, I think someone might have used a beta version against poor little Bobo.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • God I suck… I mean, God does an imaginary liberal version of me suck… who totally exists, you guys. Sniff, stop staring at me.

Aww. I’d give him a hug if I wasn’t so busy having absolutely no respect for him.

So yeah, apparently little Bobo, insult to brown-nosing courtiers everywhere has hit that part of the mid-life crisis where you start taking long serious looks at your life and what you’ve become and has become horrified at the emptiness he has found.

And in true Bobo fashion, he hasn’t used this new-found awareness to use his considerable connections, wealth, and gravitas to create or fund genuinely interesting works or reinvent himself as so few people get the opportunity. Nope, he’s decided to create a shiny new IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION couch to beat with a tennis racket as if it was filled with tiny gay demons. Because why bother using the wealths of opportunity to change when its so much easier to use self-delusion to remain aggressively mediocre?

Little boys and girls in ancient Athens grew up wanting to be philosophers.

And if they were girls, they were barred from participating except in a few specifically woman-friendly institutions such as the Academy founded by Pythagoras. And even then, they were risking being stoned to death like poor Hypatia.

Also, I know historical revisionism to support class hierarchies that existed when you went to University is kind of your entire shtick, but um… were philosophers really the “rock stars” of Ancient Greece, because honestly most accounts seemed to regard them as a bunch of unwashed layabouts who spent most of their time getting drunk and hanging out and pretending that it was all something deep (so, pretty much the same as modern Philosophy majors… ba dum tish).

In Renaissance Florence they dreamed of becoming Humanists.

Renaissance? Back in the Renaissance, Humanism basically meant “hey, let’s crack open all those old Greek books we’ve got locked away as heresy and see if they tell us anything on how to stop all these plagues and shit”. I mean, that simple step definitely paved the way for the massive scientific, artistic, and queer booms of that era and more formal philosophies of not being a dick to other people that ended up representing modern Humanism as we know it.

ALso, humanism was popular in Renaissance Florence because the civic leader was fond of it. And basically during those times, if your city leader had a fondness of piercing genitals with red hot pokers, you better get yourself a forge and a high threshold for pain right quick if you wanted to live. It’s not like people were going, “I was into Humanism before it was cool” or some such shit.

But now a new phrase and a new intellectual paragon has emerged to command our admiration: The Thought Leader.

Oh yeah, those guys. I mean, that’s all anyone in the Universities are talking about these days. All the kids are like “Thought Leader said X” or “I want to be a Thought Leader when I grow up” and all the schools are strongly pushing “Thought Leader” coursework…

Er… no wait, it turns out that that was complete and utter bollocks.

So, sorry, what the fuck is a “Thought Leader” capital letters dundundun?

The Thought Leader is sort of a highflying, good-doing yacht-to-yacht concept peddler.

Ohhhh. He’s you and the other lucky recipients of cradle-to-grave wingnut welfare. The mediocre minds and talents hired by nervous rich people to ease their minds and tell them that the world totally works the way they want it to and they can safely ignore their lying eyes. Happily hiding their lack of anything behind self-serving bullshit fantasies like “trickle-down economics” or the equally hack work of think-tanks with “counterintuitive new studies” (i.e. made-up bullshit).

Gosh, I’m so sorry that you hate yourself. Speaking as someone who has struggled with depression, it can be rough to be in that psychological state. But seeing as how you have the ample financial resources to get the help you need to aid in coping with this new found realization of what you’ve stood for, you’re in a really good position to-

Each year, he gets to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative, where successful people gather to express compassion for those not invited.

Or you can project all your failings on an imaginary liberal counterpart who possibly goes by the name Bavid Drooks.

That’s super healthy. So speaking as your fake internet therapist, what crimes has Bavid committed that so incensed you?

Month after month, he gets to be a discussion facilitator at think tank dinners where guests talk about what it’s like to live in poverty while the wait staff glides through the room thinking bitter thoughts.

Yesss, that is certainly an infuriating aspect of… Bavid and his friends. I can see, how his callous disregarding of the suffering of those unlucky enough to be poor in our society and the way he is happy to argue for their continued oppression with fantasies of young bucks buying t-bone steaks with their food stamp money.

In fact, how incensed this would make any feeling person is why your sympathies laid with the waiter who video taped Mitt Romney’s conference of ignorant billionaires rather than yelling at the uppity prole who dared report the serious discussions the adults were having amongst themselves.

Right?

He doesn’t have students, but he does have clients. He doesn’t have dark nights of the soul, but his eyes blaze at the echo of the words “breakout session.”

No, we’re going to talk about how “Bavid” is a think tank hack who wants the pretense of the gravitas of the academy, but lacks the skill to actually do anything other than make some “counter-intuitive” powerpoint presentations for rich assholes who think they must be smarter than everyone else and incapable of being fooled because “how else could they have inherited earned all this money?”

Gosh, you’re absolutely right, Bobo, this “Bavid” sure does sound like an insufferable prick.

It must really suck to be- I mean, “have a friend”, who is that much of a do-nothing overpaid stuffed shirt asshole.

Many people wonder how they too can become Thought Leaders and what the life cycle of one looks like.
In fact, the calling usually starts young. As a college student, the future Thought Leader is bathed in attention. His college application essay, “I Went to Panama to Teach the Natives About Math but They Ended Up Teaching Me About Life,” is widely praised by guidance counselors.

Seriously though, it is kind of amazing how narrowly close the self-realization gets to actually sawing through Bobo’s self-delusional empire. Here we have a pretty accurate ripping apart of the idiotic child of privilege, who thinks that a paid-for summer vacation in “one of those poor countries” means they understand it better than the actual residents of the country. And a solid condemnation of the way that children of privilege get to have that self-delusion of competence nervously protected by schools so hamstrung by conservative wars on education to call them out on their ignorance because talking about the reality of world history and contemporary geopolitics is “presenting politics in the classroom” and a big no no.

Hell, I had the misfortune of having that exact bullshit he is talking about here happen at my college graduation. The student speech was about how deigning to look at the poor dusty natives of “The Dark Continent” was like a totally kick ass vacation but like, really deep. Shock of schocks, her big accomplishment making her deserving of delivering the speech was that she was accepted for a think tank position right out of college.

On campus he finds himself enmeshed in a new social contract: Young people provide their middle-aged professors with optimism and flattery, and the professors provide them with grade inflation.

(Look askance)

Yeah, that’s usually the critique of particularly terrible teachers, usually in high school English rather than college courses though you occasionally get a conservative asshole in government or philosophy classes who grades you down if you don’t verbatim repeat their preferred interpretation of their preferred figure’s work.

Such mockeries of education is usually despised by students and teachers both because it reduces an otherwise important broadening of horizons into a form of base parroting.

I know a lot of people who are stuck doing the hard work of unteaching these bad habits in students because of one terrible teacher in the past and the impact passing that class had on them.

That all being said, fuck no is there “grade inflation”. I mean, the problem with said horrible teachers is that you are punished if you try and be an anti-authoritarian punk. That it harshly trains out thinking for one’s self rather than encourage people to form connections about the world and put together pieces, not that you are out-of-the-way rewarded for being a lickspittle.

But hey, I guess ripping apart think tank culture only goes so far and old habits with regards to tearing down actual education so that your bullshit seems more valid die hard.

He is widely recognized for his concern for humanity. (He spends spring break unicycling across Thailand while reading to lepers.)
Not armed with fascinating ideas but with the desire to have some, he launches off into the great struggle for attention. At first his prose is upbeat and smarmy, with a peppy faux sincerity associated with professional cheerleading.

Now, the problem with trying to desperately protect one’s mind from the crippling realization that you are a pet hack, a sad sack with all the funds to do something truly great, but bereft of talent and ambition to do anything other than wish really hard for that “great idea” that will be taught in the type of class one thought would be “good for your career” back in the day, is that there really isn’t a liberal analog to the think tank hack on the liberal side.

I mean, he does his best with little dog whistle digs at Clinton and the loathesome duty of pretending to care about poor people, but there’s just not the same need to pump out an endless roll of rich hacks to make up science in our favor on the left, because reality is already rather obliging in its bias for our positions.

So how to connect this dangerous self-awareness that could cripple him to the people he already hates for being uppity proles who dare think they can gain access to audiences by simply “doing a good job speaking about life experiences or politics”?

And especially against those uppity bloggers who mock him?

Within a few years, though, his mood has shifted from smarm to snark. There is no writer so obscure as a 26-year-old writer. So he is suddenly consumed by ambition anxiety — the desperate need to prove that he is superior in sensibility to people who are superior to him in status. Soon he will be writing blog posts marked by coruscating contempt for extremely anodyne people: “Kelly Clarkson: Satan or Merely His Spawn?”

Of course the writer in this unjustly obscure phase will develop the rabid art of being condescending from below. Of course he will confuse his verbal dexterity for moral superiority. Of course he will seek to establish his edgy in-group identity by trying to prove that he was never really that into Macklemore.

By just straight up jumping to some bizarre hybrid of Perez Hilton and a random Portland hipster as if he was talking about the same hate object.

Bah, who cares about logical consistency of thought! That isn’t what separates one from the evil “Bavid”s of the world!

And besides, those vile bloggers (and yeah, no bets on whether this bizarre amalgamation of snark merchant, TMZ-style gossip rag writer, and disaffected hipster is exactly who he thinks all bloggers are and is the real upsetting thing that got him ranting about “thought leaders” in the first place) are lowly wretches who are impugning the very honor of being a hack journalist for a prominent paper what with actually communicating like a human being and talking about issues that affect more than rich out-of-phase conservative think tank hacks and their employers.

AND THEY AREN’T EVEN OF THE RIGHT CLASS!

Yeah, you can tell the notion of actually having to compete on merit with citizen bloggers is one of those things that keeps him up at night shivering and clutching a giant plush Reagan.

Fortunately, this snarky phase doesn’t last. By his late 20s, he has taken a job he detests in a consulting firm, offering his colleagues strategy memos and sexual tension. By his early 30s, his soul has been so thoroughly crushed he’s incapable of thinking outside of consultantese. It’s not clear our Thought Leader started out believing he would write a book on the productivity gains made possible by improved electronic medical records, but having written such a book he can now travel from medical conference to medical conference making presentations and enjoying the rewards of being T.S.A. Pre.

By now the Thought Leader uses the word “space” a lot — as in, “Earlier in my career I spent a lot of time in the abject sycophancy space, but now I’m devoting more of my energies to the corporate responsibility space.”

And here is the fundamental problem of trying to IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION think tank hack crimes on the snarky underemployed young blogger archetype. You have to somehow morph the disempowered writer stuck on the fringes into a well-connected hack who has been disconnected from anything approaching real work for his entire life.

And when you try and glue it together like this, it completely ruins the vitriol.

The “Bavid” in this example isn’t nearly as loathsome as his real-world right-wing contemporaries because unlike them, he has worked for a living. He has tried to participate as a full human being and has been bullied by capitalism into accepting a fate as a paid hack because being true to yourself doesn’t fill one’s refrigerator or pay one’s rent.

The “Bavid” Bobo presents as basest villain is a truly American tragedy. The story of how capitalism as it is practiced in America robs us of people who could actually provide something of use in order so a bunch of ludicrously wealthy people can buy a horde of writers and “thinkers” to make themselves feel better about hoarding all the wealth and breaking the economy in service to their needs, fantasies, and psychological issues.

“Bavid”‘s story is a condemnation of exactly the kind of world that Bobo spends his time supporting, revealing the rot at the heart of our capitalist machine.

And that’s hilarious, because it shows the tragedy of Bobo Brooks in starkest detail. He’s so incompetent at his chosen profession that he can’t even project successfully.

The middle-aged Thought Leader’s life has hit equilibrium, composed of work, children and Bikram yoga.

So why pretend to be anything other than what he is? Dog whistle about conservative notions about what race-traitor liberal middle class white people are like.

The desire to be snarky mysteriously vanishes with the birth of the first child.

You hear that, you fucking snarkers?!? You won’t be so uppity when you breed like the maggots you are! You’ll become soulless conservatives worried about your IRA too! You’ll see!

Which, yeah, maybe that would have a shot in hell of happening if you actually let our generation participate in this damn economy instead of using us as eternal punching bags for your mid-life crises.

His prose has never been so lacking in irony and affect, just the clean translucence of selling out.

I suppose an eternal hack would envy the hack who had, at one point, something to sell.

He’s succeeding. Unfortunately, the happy moment when you are getting just the right amount of attention passes, and you don’t realize you were in this moment until after it is gone.
The tragedy of middle-aged fame is that the fullest glare of attention comes just when a person is most acutely aware of his own mediocrity.

Oh hai, self awareness, didn’t think we’d see you today.

By his late 50s, the Thought Leader is a lion of his industry, but he is bruised by snarky comments from new versions of his formerly jerkish self. Of course, this is when he utters his cries for civility and good manners, which are really just pleas for mercy to spare his tender spots.

Well, shock of shocks. I never thought I’d see the day when a conservative moved on from denial to the bargaining phase. I just need a moment to appreciate this…

Okay, moment’s done. Ha! It’s hilarious to see a life-long hack beg for a soft treatment because “no, really, guys, I know I seem exactly as I am, a bitter old man who used money and connections to secure a life-long economically stable position assauging the consciences of wealthy assholes with poorly written prose about how the lower classes are filthy upstarts who dare think they can smear your boots with their filthy skulls, but I totally was a rabble-rousing anti-authoritarian snark master from the streets, honestly! Also, you shouldn’t be mean to me, because one day you’ll also be a mediocre hack churning out terrible garbage for egregiously high pay.”

Uh huh, yeah, mmhmm, pull the other one, grandpa, it’s got bells on.

In the end, though, a lifetime of bullet points are replaced by foreboding. Toward the end of his life the Thought Leader is regularly engaging in a phenomenon known as the powerless lunch. He and another formerly prominent person gather to have a portentous conversation of no importance whatsoever. In the fading of the light, he is gravely concerned about the way everything is going to hell.
Still, one rarely finds an octogenarian with status anxiety. He is beyond the battle for attention. Death approaches. Cruelly, it smells like reverence.

I do not envy him the cruel approach of death or the accurate fear that he has produced nothing of worth for no one of any value and has spent a life chasing “status” and is slowly coming to realize that those he has spent a lifetime in service to consider him little more than a dog or worse yet, an easily replaceable servant. Something to take care of the “upleasantness”, his only marker on the world might be if those he fought so hard to piss on spend a few months referring to his replacement as the new “(insert his name here)”.

I get that it’s a hard thing to face and an even harder thing to bear in oneself, especially when one once wanted to “matter”, to be a “big name” and be taught alongside Plato in the college lectures.

But see, I’m just having a hard time caring. Cause, see, a lot of us, stuck in this bitter broken system of capitalism have to abandon dreams. People with actual merit and talent. Brilliant kids who have to abandon college because there’s just no way they can afford it coming from a poor family. Passionate writers who can’t devote any time to the craft because making sure rent happens is the top priority.

And a lot of us have to accept jobs that suck or do things that are borderline illegal and certainly immoral because its the only way to get by. Forced to do things against our codes of ethics or bottle ourselves up into an imprisoning closet because we can’t afford to get discriminated against anymore. And we do so for a hell of a lot less blood money than the Bobo Brooks of the world get.

Bobo is not us. He has funds. He had connections. He had and still has resources all of us dream of. If he wanted to, he could take a year off and devote it to nothing but writing. He could found a program to help people. With his audience, connections, and money, he could make a difference with the slightest bit of effort. He has the safety and security to pursue a dream and really make something of himself.

But he won’t. And it’s not just because he’s a complete hack with no talent and not enough self-awareness and humility to create genuine art.

It’s also because he doesn’t want to better himself. He doesn’t want to do real work. He doesn’t want to risk rejection or criticism by mere proles. He doesn’t want to suffer the social consequences for standing up for someone other than the rich and powerful. He doesn’t want to change and live a life worthy of being remembered.

But he wants to be remembered anyways without doing any work, because he’s always been an entitled piece of shit without any redeeming quality.

Now, if you excuse me, I believe Bavid wanted to show me his collection of vintage records and I don’t want to be late.


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Either spare us your privileged midlife crisis, privilege boy, or spare us the broken economy you cheerlead so we can all become financially stable enough to have our own “woe is me, I’m so rich, but what have I accomplished” whines. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


*On that note…

BONUS PERSONAL LIFE MANGOES

Father of the Year, Email:

My dad, while still disowning me, is trying to vaguely sort of create a reconnection… kinda. The results are kinda worth a post in and of itself and since you all got a shout-out, I figure I might as well let you in on the fun as we do a special holiday edition fisking of family value in action.

(Boy’s Name) and (Partner’s Name),

I appreciate your candid emails. Henceforth I shall attempt to keep my off-the-cuff comments to myself. Clearly you put a great deal of thought into your replies and have done your best to articulate your feelings.

Because apparently calling him on his shit the third time he tried to imply my partner is an evil sorceress who magically made me trans* against my will is a “candid email” that teaches him he should keep “off-the-cuff” comments like disowning me and ducking out of any real conversations to himself.

Now it’s my turn.

What? My dad wants to establish a post-hoc authority because the very existence of trans* people threatens his sense of manly pride? No, you don’t say.

I’ve always been puzzled when labels like “gay”, “straight” and “bi” are lumped together with “transsexual”. The first three seem to be different expressions of the same thing: being yourself, and loving who you will. The last (at least to me) seems to say “I am something not myself – and I will use chemicals and surgery to correct this”. And this I cannot get my head around.

Apparently my dad is channeling the ghost of Janice Raymond. Pretty impressive seeing as how she’s not even dead yet.

We are all born who we are, and the idea of using technology to “change” this – cut my legs to make me taller, darken my skin to make me cool – is, frankly, repulsive.

I’m terribly sorry but you seem to have gotten some ableism and racism in your transphobia there.

I’ve known many, many non-heterosexual persons

Huh, so that’s what the queer version of “but I have black friends” looks like.

and to the best of my knowledge not one of them has seriously thought about changing their sex because they don’t feel feminine or masculine.

Like with many of the things he “knows” about being trans*, this has about as much relation to reality as a pile of dog shit has to the Hubble space telescope.

The few I’ve discussed this with (very few – you can probably guess the names) have generally the same negative reaction as I do.

All my friends are as bigoted as I am! It’s not just me! Did I mention I have gay friends, because having gay friends means I totally don’t have to be accepting to the thing you actually are.

This includes (lesbian friend of his who was warm and supportive when I first came out to them) BTW, so I would be careful using her as a supporting example.

#shitthatneverhappened

But I won’t belabor all this – I’m forced to concede that your choices are not mine to make, and besides it’s all been said before.

All I’m saying is that you are a self-mutilating monster whose very identity disgusts me. I mean, fuck, why do you have to be such a pansy about it. And that’s not homophobic to say, because I have gay friends.

There is a bigger problem here, something that bothers me more than your sexual orientation or lack thereof: and that is that your sexuality has become your defining characteristic. Your obsession, your gestalt.

Huh, wasn’t aware that trans* and queer activism was now literally the only thing I do. And here I was thinking that my days are mostly filled with working seven days a week as a teacher and tutor and being a snarky motherfucker.

That’s the wonderful thing about bigoted rants, you learn so much exciting information about yourself.

And yeah, sure, I’ve had a few tiny, small moments (being disowned and hated by parents, being discriminated out of a job) that kinda sorta make the whole “being trans*” thing stick out a little more than usual, but that’s kind of what happens when you get hit with massive traumas for being the way you is.

Oh, by the way, you’re all about to get a personal shoutout.

Now clearly I don’t know how you spend your every waking moment but what I do see – blogging

Give yourselves all a hearty congratulatory slap on the back everybody! Apparently you are also an evil force that is secretly destroying my life! Pretty damn good for a bunch of denizens of a snark blog!

researching transformative medical treatment,

This would be shipped directly to us c/o his ass. I’ve been out for years and poor. I figured out what I “want” to do years ago and did all the research on what I can afford to do now back in the days when I had a job that actually reliably paid the bills.

My time “researching” medical shit related to being trans* has been reliably zero for a loooooong time now, but hey, I guess assuming that your kid is exactly like the last media depiction you saw rather than asking them directly is one of the keys to edging out the competition to be dad of the year.

role playing,

DUNDUNDUN! You now know my deep dark secret. Turns out I’m a (gasp) neeerrrrdddd.

And as part of my loser nerd ways (it’s worth noting as context that he’s previously latched on to the fact that I’ve played D&D as proof that I am unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality as proven by my making up the “transgender” self-descriptor and all the real world evidence about it, possibly with the same sorceress powers my partner apparently has), I do indeed occasionally roll the many sided dice.

About once a month, maybe twice a month if I’m lucky and one of my seven jobs doesn’t get in the way of the only available times for people, which isn’t all that often, unfortunately.

But apparently, this is an unacceptable theft of time from… myself. Or something.

not pursuing a career

Sure, I may be working seven jobs, building a strong background in teaching science K-12, and spending most of my free time sending in apps (not to mention getting to the final round of a few full time positions that would comfortably put me in the fabled “middle class” range), but meh. If you can’t magically make middle class jobs magically appear out of your asshole, apparently you’re just a lazy shiftless bum who might as well be picking your boogers as you strum the first four bars of “Stairway to Heaven” on your guitar over and over again.

– is worrisome. When you were in college this could all be chalked up to starry-eyed exploration. But you’ll be (age) soon and “starry-eyed” is starting to look a lot like “failure to launch”. Yes, the job market in (location) is tough – believe me, it was tough 20 years ago. That’s why I made the decision to leave, even though I had been working there full time, non-stop since I was 16.

Hilarious context time. When my dad was “my age”, he was a druggie burnout with little ambition other than getting drunk and high and hanging out with friends. He had also managed to knock up a casual acquaintance and was beginning what would be an 18 year long process of paying child support and occasional legal bills as the abandoned kid became a ward of the state. In addition he didn’t have even half the education I have and little more than a high school diploma to his name and even that was a close run thing. He wasn’t working “full time”. He was working about 8 hours a week tops at a place where they didn’t care if you showed up to work high and he did so on many an occasion.

His “leaving the area” decision wasn’t so much a decision as it pretty much landed in his lap. His industry was pretty much hiring people off the street to be paid middle class money to do his style of work and he had the aforementioned child support he needed to be paying into and besides his buddy in the area he was moving to said it was easy work.

I mention this not to shame him, because hey, it should be the case that living that kind of life isn’t a fucking death sentence. But rather to note the raw irony of this bit of transparent fantasy.

Maybe because I had a different obsession: eating, paying the rent, and standing on my own two feet.

Huh, and here I was thinking that I had abandoned most of my long term plans and dreams in service to the short-term panic of trying to collect enough underemployment to add up to the airy-fairy notion of one day my monthly bills being covered.

Guess, I just got distracted by all that “transformative medical treatment” I’ve apparently been researching instead.

Also, I’ve noted it a few times, but there is an acute irony to blaming (let’s be honest) white members of my generation for their failure to live up to the middle class suburban ideals of the previous generations. As if there are decent paying full-time jobs just lying on the street and we’re not competing against all the laid-off members of their generation.

So many of my generation have built up sets of skills that would be considered “genius” level a scant few generations ago, but now is almost enough to secure a part-time grocery clerk position (if you happen to be banging someone on the hiring committee).

I guess for previous generations, it’s necessary to ignore this and just pretend that our generation is a bunch of lazy bastards, lest they feel guilty about the role some of their actions have played in fucking up the economy or how easy it comparatively was to “start their careers” to use my Dad’s vernacular.

I don’t know, but I think I speak for many in my generation, when I say their psychological issues are starting to get a wee bit annoying to take. We’re already spending our every waking moment either searching for work or building new skillsets that will hopefully lead to a single job that can reliably pay the bills. We don’t exactly need more pressure and hatred than we already have to take.

On that note…

So maybe your transgender-ness and career-less-ness are unrelated but from where I sit it’s tough to separate.

Trans* people cause economic depressions. Look it up, sheeple!

Oh, and to my readers in the midwest, apparently my dad doesn’t much care for you.

Consider: if you really want to teach there are lots of openings – if you don’t mind living (in bigoted way to refer to Native reservations), or Madison, WI. For sure not as attractive as (where I live) but then again neither was (partner’s hometown) (no offence (partner name)) though at the time that’s where the job was. But how accepting would the good folks of Madison be toward your lifestyle?

Madison is a college town. One with a pretty decent rep. It’s not exactly Wasilla, Alaska.

Also, “lifestyle”, sweet, I’m only three more recycled talking points from homophobic rants before I win myself an honorary toaster oven.

Also, is it just me or is he actually blaming me for other people being transphobic bigots who would make me life harder just because of who I am and what that represents to them?

You write of facing bigotry – no doubt you have, and that’s in (your area). How many decisions do you make based on (perceived?) acceptance?

Oh phew, I’m glad it was just me.

Also seeking safety is apparently for fags and children. Good to know.

Are you willing to put some things in the closet (pun intended) to make a path for yourself that is more than the sum of your philosophy?

I actually am professionally in the closet right now. Not my first choice, but you know, you gotta make a choice sometimes to suffer in order to eat and getting discriminated out of a semi-decent job in a terrible economy definitely meant having to suffer in order to eat.

The thing though, that seems to escape a lot of people who don’t have to live in a closet is that closets suuuuuuuck. It hurts a lot to pretend to be something that you’re not and to have that feigned persona thrown in your face all time. And it adds a lot of psychological stress that, for instance, increases symptoms of depression, lowers ability to focus on tasks, increases alienation, and increases general anxiety and stress.

Not to mention that closeting has real world consequences. If people don’t think they are encountering queer people in day to day life, it becomes easier to hold bigoted beliefs, believe that media depictions accurately display real world people, and hold onto bizarre afactual notions like my dad and do real world damage to people because of it.

Being out means the myth of monstrosity is defanged and that means less discrimination, bigotry, and negative family reactions for the next generation.

Which is sort of the key problem of any social justice strugle. How to begin that social movement when the social consequences of doing that hard early work is so harsh.

So I ask only one thing: look beyond yourself. Who do you want to be?

Queen of Prussia!

Oh, was that not one of the options?

Also, am I supposed to “look beyond myself” and take professional risks that compromise my safety, but do important work to improve the lives of those like me (not to mention focus more on said aspects and how to perform activism for them) or am I supposed to be selfish and do only enough to make sure I am taken care of?

Because I’m a little confused on that part.

Is it only to come to terms with your sexuality, whatever form that takes? Or is there something more?

My sexuality is asexuality. I came to terms with it about 8 years ago.

Being trans* has fuck all to do with that.

Also, shit like this just makes me want to devote my entire life to pursuing a Trans Studies or Human Sexuality PhD just so I can shove it in his smug face (also because that would be really cool and I think I’d be pretty damn good at it).

I would really, truly like to understand you, and today I cannot.

That is why I have expended a sum total of 0 hours of effort into doing even a basic google search into the thing you are even though you came out to me 3 and a half years ago.

It’s also why I have at no point actually gone to you, the person who is the thing and might know of good resources for information. And why I have looked at exactly zero of the resources you’ve already gathered for me.

Because “really wanting to understand someone” shouldn’t have to mean you put forth the slightest bit of effort or at the very least stop recycling talking points from Renew America writers.

Giving me books and pointing me to web sites will not help. I am not interested in scientific research or soulful prose.

I want to believe hateful ignorant things and treat you poorer because of it and I don’t want to read no lying scienamatists who might change my mind or show you even the slightest bit of respect to even try and understand you.

But it’s not because I’m a bigot. I’ve got gay friends, donchaknow?

I am only interested to see what you become – the only thing any father wants really.

Am I a science experiment? Cause that would at least be a step up from what I’m regarded as now.

I just hope what you become is more than “girl”.

Can you hear what seems to be the sticking point for me? Cause I’m worried you might not be able to tell what is bothering me and preventing a real relationship or even a relationship wherein you are not disowned? Maybe if I crank up the scare quotes, you’ll catch it this time.

Be more, and I will try and do the same.

Offer doesn’t include actual effort, invitations to any holiday events, personal contact, human respect, or even reliable acknowledgement of being your parent.

Please redeem at the nearest ticket window.

But yeah, this is the “step-up” for him. This is how he is when he’s actually trying and he’s smarting from me calling him out on some of his more egregious bullshit. Yeah.

Happy fucking holidays everyone. May you all survive it.

 

Comments: 148

 
 
 

Happy fucking holidays

SATANIST! Merry fucking Christmas to you.

 
 

OK, first off, fuck bobo.

Turns out I’m a (gasp) neeerrrrdddd.

NO WAY!

So maybe your transgender-ness and career-less-ness are unrelated but from where I sit it’s tough to separate.

I can’t IMAGINE why transgender people might have job trouble.

 
 

Oops – forgot to post the required link for any Bobo mention.

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/booboos-in-paradise/

 
 

Geez. So beyond my range of experience that I do not know what to say. Uh, I guess – congrats on getting that stone cold fucker to the point where he’s not intentionally insulting you.

And happy fucking holidays to you too. I hope that Santa leaves the Hohenzollern crown under your tree.

 
 

Never mind chumping projection or self-awareness … Bobo can’t even do self-parody right – not even with a target as gloriously absurd as David Fucking Brooks chained down at point-blank range. The inevitable mark of the Dunning-Krugerite, their Scarlet Letter as it were: every last punchline gets a bigger groan than the tackiest pun when it was supposed to make you guffaw.

there’s just not the same need to pump out an endless roll of rich hacks to make up science in our favor on the left, because reality is already rather obliging in its bias for our positions.

Sadly, all that bogus science gets a lot more respect now than it used to – as ol’ Doc Milgram proved, you can put just about any goober in a lab coat & get them to hold a clipboard & most of us will buy ANYthing that comes out of their piehole unquestioningly, no matter how ridiculous … & the real deal isn’t doing so hot right now, at least if current opinion polls on things like AGW & evolution are to be believed.

Perhaps the Big Bad Left needs to adopt Bokononism & start prosyletizing some foma as its ideological core. If nothing else it might get a few more whackadoodle billionaires on our side.

PS: I think “Cerberus Teh Asexual Sexologist” has a nice ring to it.

 
 

I can’t even figure out what Brooks is trying to say here. He totally phoned this one in.

 
 

Wow. Everybody’s dad is kind of an asshole sometimes — it’s like a dad requirement. Your dad is giving “normal” asshole-level dads a rally bad name. He’s like some sort of ur asshole — an “urshole” if you will.

Happy holidays indeed. Where have I heard that?

 
 

Your dad is giving “normal” asshole-level dads a rally bad name.

I dunno if it’s that, or he’s just struggling with the fact that he shouldn’t take Cerb’s being who she is as some kind of personal affront. He seems very invested in that, if I read it right.
.

 
 

I’m sorry about your dad– I suppose that sounds fatuous, but it’s not like I can go and give him a smack upside the head or anything.

 
Horace Boothroyd III
 

I still miss Seb. Remember when he posted that clip about the German Coast Guard? The guy on the radio was screaming “WE ARE SINKING! WE ARE SINKING!” and the new guy radio operator asked him “What are you sinking… about?”

I’ll never get tired of that one.

 
 

Instead, I choose the ability to punch through self-delusion and make people see themselves as they really are.

uh, could you visit my mom? i’d lay down some serious coin for that…

 
 

offering his colleagues strategy memos and sexual tension
?!

But how accepting would the good folks of Madison be toward your lifestyle?

ehh, pretty fecking okay with it with it, i guess? it’s madison for christ’s sakes!

I just hope what you become is more than “girl”.

Be more, and I will try and do the same.

wtf does this even mean? i’m just not getting that…but how can you just not love your child for who they are? arguably, the worst things my mom has said to me is 1) you’re fat (in a roundabout way) and 2) someday you’ll live in a nice house but to intentionally make your child feel like a failure and a freak is so fucking unconscionable and selfish that i just can’t comprehend it…

i have my trials with my mother, but as selfish and fucked up as she is, i know she does love me…for christ’s sakes if you can’t support your child (meaning if they aren’t doing something illegal or truly self-harming) then just get the fuck out of their lives…

yes, i’ve had whiskey…don’t judge me…i close on a huge fecking gift tomorrow and decided to celebrate a bit early…whoo! merry christmas, shitter’s full!

 
 

Sounds like my dad, Cerb.

Ugh.

How do you build a career, anyhow? Very few places hire from within anymore. Very few certificates teach you what you need to know – most are $1000 rubber stamps that you have some ability to pass an outdated test. It’s like… I dunno.

We’re in a world where corporates can churn those from the countryside like butter, promising them high paying jobs without saying how much it actually costs to live where they’re offering. The new level of wage enslavement, like when corporate script was banned – and before it was re-allowed just a scant couple of decades ago.

 
 

d’oh…just got a little mouthy on teh facebook…srsly? people are that upset that phil robertson got suspended from his dumbass show? if i hear one more time that he isn’t able to have free speech or practice his religion…

 
 

I’m sorry. Am I to understand that this reprobate attempted to use the phrase “yacht to yacht” in an unironic way?
Tumbrels.
Fuck the dumb shit.

 
 

“Be more, and I will try and do the same.”

I’m sorry, Cerb.

 
 

I can’t even figure out what Brooks is trying to say here

Pundits Respected public intellectuals are frauds and charlatans. Brave sir David bravely avoids giving specific examples.

 
 

srsly? people are that upset that phil robertson got suspended from his dumbass show?

The dude is basically an actor in a reality-TV show. He went into character as a bayou alligator-fucker at the wrong time, and went off message, and thereby emperilled his future appearance in the role. So now various senators and governators are arguing that the employer of an actor who forgets his lines should go on employing him anyway because those wrong lines are Protected By Free Speech.

 
 

The desire to be snarky mysteriously vanishes with the birth of the first child.

Ya hear that? I am deadly earnest now. All the time. Offa mah lawn.

 
 

it occurs to me that bobo is approaching swankdom…

 
 

The dude is basically an actor in a reality-TV show. He went into character as a bayou alligator-fucker at the wrong time, and went off message, and thereby emperilled his future appearance in the role. So now various senators and governators are arguing that the employer of an actor who forgets his lines should go on employing him anyway because those wrong lines are Protected By Free Speech.

oh, indeed! i just really wonder about people who are so heavily invested in a fake teevee family…especially when that fake teevee family is making a shitton of money selling them more crappy merchandise that they don’t need…i read someone the other day who said that a & e shouldn’t have suspended the old bugger and should have let him continue to show what a bigoted ignoramus he really is…and he’s right, these kinds of people tend to hang themselves if you give them enough rope…wish i could remember where i read that…i think i found it when linking from something here…

 
 

The dude is basically an actor in a reality-TV show.

Hey, this is that “at-will employment” they’re all supposed to be so fond of.

 
 

i am eagerly awaiting the answer to my question, “just how was phil impeded from using his right to free speech or practicing his religion?’ should be interesting…

 
 

if i hear one more time that he isn’t able to have free speech or practice his religion…

I don’t have a TV show, where my free speech?

 
 

Freedom of speech does not imply an obligation on anyone’s part to park a TV camera in front of your face.

 
 

Just like Jamie Diamon was overpaid while his bank was engaging in outright fraud?

News to me.

 
 

i am eagerly awaiting the answer to my question, “just how was phil impeded from using his right to free speech or practicing his religion?’

Sort of an “address my post, ‘tards” moment.

 
 

I’m baking a strudel. A real one, not the toaster kind.

 
 

Dear Son Who I Don’t Have The Consideration To Recognize As My Daughter:

I am troubled by your lack of a proper career. Why can’t you be more of a success in a society where David Brooks is paid to do what he does?

Sincerely,
Almost Sincere But Still Clueless Dad.

 
 

A damn good writer, taken from us too soon, wrote:

“Do you want to have a good time?” said a voice from a doorway.

“As far as I can tell,” said Ford, “I’m having one. Thanks.”

“Are you rich?” said another.

This made Ford laugh. He turned and opened his arms in a wide gesture. “Do I look rich?” he said.

“Don’t know,” said the girl. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you’ll get rich. I have a very special service for rich people …”

“Oh yes?” said Ford, intrigued but careful. “And what’s that?”

“I tell them it’s OK to be rich.”

Gunfire erupted from a window high above them, but it was only a bass player getting shot for playing the wrong riff three times in a row, and bass players are two a penny in Han Dold City.

Ford stopped and peered into the dark doorway. “You what?” he said.

The girl laughed and stepped forward a little out of the shadow. She was tall, and had that kind of self-possessed shyness which is a great trick if you can do it.

“It’s my big number,” she said. “I have a Master’s degree in Social Economics and can be very convincing. People love it. Especially in this city.”

 
 

Easy for me to say, but your dad is an utter ass. He’s more invested in the idea that his son isn’t some manly he-man than in the fact that his child is having a rough time and could use all of the understanding and support he can provide. I mean I don’t understand the feeling of being born the wrong sex, but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? I don’t have to. I can see the figures on how many people who identify as trans- commit suicide or die by violence and it becomes painfully obvious that that there’s is a huge problem and it isn’t something the trans- community can fix on their own, because if they could, they would have done it long ago. I can see that members of the trans- community are subject to the same or worse levels of violence that previous out groups got to endure, and that shit needs to stop. And if that means next week we get to fight the same fight all over again on behalf of the furries or the otherkin, well let’s do that too, because this is the freaking 21st century and the persecution of out groups needs to stop.
It’s easy for him to say “try to be something more” because this shitweasel doesn’t have people persecuting him for his most fundamental identity. He’s got energy left over, because every sex and gender related choice he makes isn’t being second guessed by every mouth breather in the room. Sex and gender color everything we do, from which clothes we wear, what colors those clothes should be to what roles we are ‘expected’ to play in in society and family, to which bathrooms we are allowed to use when we are out in public. And people should be free to define themselves anywhere on the plane of sex and gender identities and not be forced into one or the other of rigidly defined gender roles regardless of their own preferences and heedless of the damage it may cause.

 
 

What author was that Austin? Sounds like something I’d like to read.

 
 

Never mind, looked it up. Douglas Adams. It’s been so long since I read that I’d forgotten.

 
 

I always make strudel at this time of year. Lately plum/poppy seed has been my favorite. It’s a big strudel, they’re just giant camellias.

 
 

The attitude toward trans people seems similar to that expressed by the Duck Dynast — there’s a basic lack of empathy and imagination, a type of willful self-absorption. If *I* don’t want hormone treatment, if *I* think surgery sounds horrific or disgusting for me, then it’s bad, period: what’s to understand? In Robinson’s case, he’s all “I think a vagina is better than a man’s anus, but that’s just me” (I’m barely paraphrasing) but misses the significance of “that’s just me” in a free and tolerant society that’s complex and full of hard-to-understand stuff.

I think the idea of shooting animals with a gun and butchering them is disgusting, and I would not do it unless I was starving, but I haven’t given a moment’s thought to whether the Duck dudes are bad folks and/or making distasteful choices (until recently).

 
 

Phil RobERTson, I mean. The old bigot.

 
 

Not a Segway. I suppose it’s okay but I WANT MY GODDAMN JET CAR!

 
 

Not a Segway.

If that was s’posed to be a working link, it isn’t.

Also: Helmut@16:59 speaks the truth.

 
 

And here I was thinking that my days are mostly filled with working seven days a week as a teacher and tutor and being a snarky motherfucker.

You got another teaching gig? Congrats! Shame your dad’s such a shitmuffin, but at least you’re working to make the next generation that much less ignorant. And know this: someday, people will look back at the idea of LGBT individuals having to stay in the closet in order to keep their jobs much the same way people today look back at Jim Crow: perplexed and embarassed that anyone thought it was a good idea.

 
 

Alas DateSnake there are plenty who do think Jim Crown was a good idea and not all of them are part of the Duck Dynasty. Still it would be a step up if homophobes had to resort to dog whistles and realized that being an asshole bigot would get them a hard shunning.

 
 

FYWP

rynomotors.com

 
 

the answer to my question, “just how was phil impeded from using his right to free speech or practicing his religion?’ should be interesting…

Are you an entomologist with a special interest in crickets?

 
 

Re self-awareness: my pet theory is that human brains can’t EVER possibly perceive a state of total lucidity due to persnickety things like L-dopa, bradykinin & endorphins. Personally, I’m pretty grateful that there’s no key to that kingdom … from what little I know of neurology, the harvest of said kingdom would be either suicide or permanent catatonia in short order.

In fact, I doubt one’s personal biography, be it dickish or ethically pristine, would even factor in much at all … because I suspect mnemonics wouldn’t be anywhere near the #1 terror you’d have to bust your psychic hump to survive. I bet just perceiving that nifty trick where your brain Imagineers experientially jinxes away the 0.5 second neural gap between impulse & activity alone would fuck one’s shit up sideways HARD … & there’s circa a few dozen more doozies where that one comes from.

Enough to give any poor blighter the collywoggles, that lot.

</n3rdtr0ll1n>

 
 

Ho. Lee. Fuk. “In December 1955, Rosa Parks took a stand against an unjust societal persecution of black people, and in December 2013, Robertson took a stand against persecution of Christians,”

 
 

I always make strudel at this time of year. Lately plum/poppy seed has been my favorite. It’s a big strudel, they’re just giant camellias.

i shall send you my mailing address posthaste…

 
 

Are you an entomologist with a special interest in crickets?

ha! so far, i have one shiite catholic whipping out the ‘blessed are the persecuted for theirs shall be the kingdom of god’ to which i replied, ‘so now he’s being persecuted?! news to me!’ i really wanted to add, ‘i’m sure jesus and the martyrs would be down with the comparison of their persecutions to phil not getting to be on the teevee for a bit, lol!

i also have one, ‘love the sinner and hate the sin!’ to which i replied, ‘love one another and don’t worry about somebody else’s ‘sin’

and y’all, right now i’m soooooooo in love with hubbkf! nearly 30 years of living with me is finally paying off: he has been posting like mad about stfu you stupid people who have no idea what freedom of speech even means and phil is an asshole…

 
 

“just how was phil impeded from using his right to free speech or practicing his religion?’ should be interesting…”

Devil: All I care about is the war on Christmas. If anybody hear can help me out, I’m looking to recruit even more evangelicals to keep posting stuff about this earthy kingdom, Duck Dynasty, and Phil, not the baby Jesus. Thankfully, you’ve taken the spotlight far away from the manger. I’m very relieved this year that none of you evangelicals are mentioning the good news of the Christmas story, or saying things like “Fear not, peace on earth, good will toward men,” this year. Thanks for switching sides on the war on Christmas. Keep up the good work. Say it with me “Body parts, not the baby Jesus.”

 
 

omg, dr. blt…i am mighty smittten with you just now…my fingers are super-twitching to post that on teh book of faces…

 
 

That happens to all of my fans. Just have another beer.

 
 

Devil: All I care about is the war on Christmas.

Bullshit. The fucking Devil didn’t even comment on my post about the recent battle! It’s like he doesn’t even really care anymore. Why should we keep fighting, if we’re gonna get this kind of meager support from the Administration? Distraction is not a winning tactic! We need “holiday” ornaments and “holiday” trees! Slightly adjusted nativity scenes where jeebus is a Lego spaceman. THIS IS A WAR DAMMIT! Get your fucking shit together!

 
 

Now, how about the request from the devil? I know there aren’t too many evangelicals or fundamentalists here, but maybe some of you have some friends who are of that ilk. Or, you could all pitch in by taking the bait out there and keeping the conversation about Duck Dynasty alive. This year, it’s been the fundamentalists that have been most helpful in the war against Christmas, but maybe next year, the devil will stop by and call upon many of you here for a diversion. Duck Dynasty, however will be difficult to top as far as distractions go. You’d have to topple a lot of manger scenes to do this much damage to Christmas, and its message of peace, and good will.

 
 

i posted it…so far i have one ‘like’…

 
 

Devil: “Holiday” ornaments and “holiday” trees are cool with me, but they can’t complete with Phil, Duck Dynasty, and all of the divisiveness the fall of the patriarch is bringing. Instead of the “glory of the Lord shone all around,” this year, their talking about the gory gays, and of all of their of donning of gay attire. Instead of the good news of the gospel, which I despise, which is “peace on earth, and good will toward men,” they are talking about speaking their minds, not matter how offensive. This is the best gift the evangelicals have ever given to me. I’m so pleased that they switched sides on the war on Christmas.

 
 

jim the heretical atheist Pope said,
December 20, 2013 at 20:35

I endorse these thoughts. jim: a helluva guy, however you slice him.

Commonly-chosen superpowers are known to be problematic — children and nerds have discussed these matters — but in choosing such an unusual power, Cerb has suggested a mighty interesting set of drawbacks (for whomever is made differently-aware), as jim has begun to show.

 
 

Devil: “Holiday” ornaments and “holiday” trees are cool with me, but they can’t complete with Phil, Duck Dynasty, and all of the divisiveness the fall of the patriarch is bringing.

Typical fucking generals, always thinking up some stupid gimmick like “Shock and Awe” when honest, hardworking grunts are in the trenches, day after day, bleeding for the cause with no recognition.

 
 

Devil: Duck the Halls. It’s time to celebrate!

 
 

I WANT MY GODDAMN JET CAR!

And my Pan Am flight to the moon colony.

 
 

I’d like a jet or rocket backpack please.

 
 

The problem with the fucking holidays is post-holiday regime of penicillin.

 
 

Christmas Carols have very catchy strains.

 
 

Heard that Uganda passed a slightly watered down version of the “Kill The Gays” bill. It’s only life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Of course, you can still be jailed for failing to report homos. So the news reader said something about the involvement of American Fundiegelicals in organizing and financing and promoting the bill. I had an image of those fuckshits watching, with absolute glee, gays go into the ovens.

Then I just saw this: Personally, I’ve always taken comfort in the idea of hell fire — that God truly is just and the unrepentant will be in for a smiting. – Earache son of Earache

I need to start drinking early today.

 
 

The holiday spirit is contagious.

 
 

It is better to give than to receive.

 
 

Then I just saw this: Personally, I’ve always taken comfort in the idea of hell fire — that God truly is just and the unrepentant will be in for a smiting. – Earache son of Earache

That odious little creep. Notice he doesn’t say ‘the wicked’ or ‘the evil’ but the unrepentant. Like everyone that doesn’t subscribe to his particular flavor of superstition deserves to burn forever and further that anyone, no matter how evil or odious gets a free pass to paradise as long as they are in good standing with the imaginary sky daddy.

 
 

Did anyone see Salon’s Hacklist 2013? There’s a great spoof of Bobo, Mr. Mustache and others.

And sorry about your sucky parental relationship, Cerberus. Hope you have a happy solstice anyway.

 
 

PORTLAND PEOPLE:

My middle daughter just got accepted to the Art Institute of Portland–it looks like it’s right in the middle of downtown. Any experience with it? Is it cool?

Her ultimate dream is to open a bake shop–so she’s learning from the Art Institute.

PROUD DAD IS PROUD, K?

 
 

Soooo, there was this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/08/the-hipster-fred-phelps.html

Then this: PDX designer Grant Chisolm says being dubbed “Hipster Fred Phelps” hurt business and his feelings

“I’ve cried a lot about this article,” he said. “The stuff people say about me is so hurtful.”

HAHAHAHAHAHA

 
 

OH NOES – That’s hipster central! DON’T LET HER DO IT

 
 

Why do I march in slavish lockstep with GLAAD?

GLAAD: Lethal Enforcers of the Left’s Tolerance Mob

That’s right, LETHAL. If I don’t toe the line, they kill me.

 
 

Is this Duck Dynasty asshole thing the biggest “meh” moment of the year for you guys?

I mean, lookit here: You take any flea-bitten, booger eating, camouflage wearing religious zealot with a filthy, nasty, long beard and put a camera in front of him, it’s a near certainty that something incredibly dumb is going to come out of his hairy bacon hole.

I’m so much more offended by the fact that looking, sounding and acting like a filthy animal in this country is a thing. It’s NOT OKAY TO BE A STUPID REDNECK.

 
 

OH NOES – That’s hipster central! DON’T LET HER DO IT

Pretty sure any art school is going to be loaded with douchy hipsters and scofflaw stoners and like. I got to let my baby girl follow her dream and support her. If I catch her drinking a PBR, I’ll be sure to smack her hand–HARD.

 
 

Upside: I’ll be making occasional trips to Portland, so you (totally not) hipsters can educate me on your customs.

 
 

Personally, I’ve always taken comfort in the idea of hell fire — that God truly is just and the unrepentant will be in for a smiting.

Nothing says “just” like eternal punishment for the sin of needing a little evidence.

 
 

I love to put my finger in people’s faces and just judge ‘em.”

That’s funny, Jesus said the same thing. Except he likes to do it to people who judge other people.

 
 

You have to love the way people discussed political and theological disputes in 19th Century America.

BOB INGERSOLL

HIS BRIEF SOJOURN IN UTICA TO-DAY

Radiant With Health and Running Over With Good Humor.

“That’s Bob Ingersoll.”
And sure enough it was.
He stepped from the Special this forenoon and went into the dining-room at the depot to exchange compliments with Mr. Lucas and to get half a dollar’s worth of chicken.
“Colonel, how are you?”
“I’m well; what’s your name?”
“My name is so and so, and it was my facile pen that did the Observer’s business for you when you lectured in Utica.”
“Of course you did, but some additional business was done for me the next Sunday.”
“By the clergymen?”
“Yes, by the clergy; isn’t it strange?”
“What?”
“That they should act so.”
“But you don’t complain, do you?”
“No; but it’s so strange they should think they have a patent on guessing. But they do me good – of course I don’t complain.”
“Where did you lecture last night?”
“In Rochester.”
“Big house?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you bound?”
“To Albany. I lecture there Monday night.”
“I notice that all the seats are already taken.”
“I expected it, for the agitation has been marked in Albany – more so than it was in Utica.”
“Do you receive many invitations to lecture?”
“I have now between three and four thousand bids for an evening’s talk. But I can hardly get time to accept more than one in three hundred. I’m not a lecturer by profession. The time devoted to the platform is all stolen from my law practice. I am now on my way to Washington.
“Will you remain there long?”
“Yes, all winter.”
“By the way, Talmage was here right after you left.”
“Talmage the idiot? – the Sargent Bates of the lecture field? How my heart warms towards that man!”
“Did you see Beecher’s sermon on Hell?”
“Yes; good, wasn’t it. But he’s taken it all back. I said in the course of my lecure in Rochester last night that in a moment of supreme exaltation Beecher had given utterance to his views on that subject. Speaking nobly and independently, with the summer eagle in his heart, he had flashed forth his convictions and then he returned in an hour of depression to his orthodox vomit. But he’ll recover; an attack like his last one is only a temporary infliction.”
“Are you coming to Utica again?”
“I have no present intentions of returning to lecture.”
“Have you been invited?”
“No; doubt very much whether I could come anyway. My legal business is so pressing that it will keep me in Washington all winter.”
“Family with you?”
“No; I shall want all this chicken myself. Good-by.”
Conductor Piper said, as the special moved off: “Best-natured man I ever saw on a train.

http://www.funygroup.org/Ingersoll/ny/Utica.html

 
 

Robert Ingersoll was a CHRIST DENYING SATANIST HE’S BURNING IN HELL

“The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith.”
? Robert G. Ingersoll

 
 

“In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.”
? Robert G. Ingersoll

 
 

“And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?”
? Robert G. Ingersoll

 
 

“This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.”
? Robert G. Ingersoll

 
 

filthy, nasty, long beard

That’s not a nice thing to say about his wife.

[badumbum, tssh! Try the week, be here all veal, etc.]

 
 

Not that many years ago the Duck Dynasty guys would likely have gotten the crap beat out of them in the South for looking like a bunch of DFHs.

 
 

If gay marriage AND polygamy are now legal in Utah that means gay polygamy!?!

 
 

I’d beat the shit out of them just for existing and looking like poops with hair stuck all over them. Like those things that get stuck on the butts of extra furry dogs.

 
 

Now now, let’s not get all hatey on beards. I’m still sporting my post victory RedSox beard and there’s nothing dirty or bigoted about it.

 
 

Are you sure? What does your beard do while you’re asleep?

 
 

Wins the World Series AGAIN.

 
tsam is a natural born h8r
 

I’m not hatey on beards that don’t look like a pile of shredded fuck

 
 

like poops with hair stuck all over them. Like those things that get stuck on the butts of extra furry dogs.

I’m not hatey on beards that don’t look like a pile of shredded fuck

…you’ve got to stop holding back, tsam. All this repression can’t be good for your prostate. Tell us what you really think of the Duckersons’ facial ivy, whyncha?

 
 

Jesus said the same thing. Except he likes to do it to people who judge other people.

Nietzsche said that Le Dead Nazarene Hippie was the only real Christian ever.

 
 

gay polygamy!?!

Hmm… if it’s all guys, or all girls, seems like the words “polyandry” and “polygamy” should be sufficiently clear without a “gay” before ’em. Were history different I suppose they would be.

 
 

omg…tsam, congrats to you and the daughter! also, too poops on an extra hairy dog?! and shredded fuck? yer killin’ me here! my daughter is wondering why i am spontaneously cackling…

 
 

gay polygamy!

Polygayny?

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

“I’m the governor of Utta”

“What the…that’s You-ta you moron!”

Sorry, Pocketful of Miracles flashback.

Seriously, this is great news, and completely out of left field. I can’t stop smiling—especially anticipating the freakout. Congratulations to everyone affected by this ruling and those who brought it about.

 
 

I suppose I could also say my dad wrote me a letter like that…

…But was a total bleeding heart liberal. So he eventually came around. He died a few years ago, so I never did get to rub into his face that I bought a car last and was given the super-duper-good interest rate. Why is this important? He rubbed my face in it ten years prior to his death that his credit was better than mine ever would be.

 
 

Okay, pretty much exactly that letter. Ugh.

But we did make up later. Alot later. After we stopped trading letters and I moved away and RDP’d with my current spouse, who was a workaholic, which was something they could bond on.

 
 

Well, we love you Cerb, whatever the situation inside your family.

 
 

Duck Dynasty, however will be difficult to top as far as distractions go. You’d have to topple a lot of manger scenes to do this much damage to Christmas, and its message of peace, and good will.

Last year around this time we had a little thing called Sandy Hook. Seems to me like the devil is just phoning it in this year.

 
 

Happy Solstice! Take THAT O’Reilly!

 
 

I feel the day lengthening as I type with my one hand.

Um, I mean…
.

 
 

He rubbed my face in it ten years prior to his death that his credit was better than mine ever would be.

I am living proof that good credit (for our unexceptional household income) is unrelated to good character or financial prudence.

 
 

I feel the day lengthening as I type with my one hand.

That ain’t the day lengthening, I’ll warrant.

 
 

Since when does PENIS kill the thread? Saturday, Shmaturday, y’all should post more when it isn’t a weekday. (I happen to be in the office today, and doing a bit of work.)

 
 

It wasn’t the day, ’twas PENIS killed the thread.

 
 

Okay, okay … the DAY is lengthening, and nothing else. Recommense.

 
 

Or -commence, I should say.

 
 

Hi , CRA.
You have an OFFICE ! Looxury. All I have is a counter.
It’s nearly midnight here in the beautiful South and sounds of merriment fill the air as the townsfolk celebrate the summer with braais and open air festivities. I, on the other hand, am crouched over my counter with a cat on either hand reading very little on my select blogs. Not invited to any al fresco celebrations because I am an old crazy cat lady. Sigh. Also a teetotaller, also English-speaking, also thought to have a Past involving politix. Also, an anti-social recluse. Sigh. Even misanthropes get lonely.
Somebody could have brought me a lamb chop, dammit.

 
 

I wish I could have a cat in my office Suezboo but I doubt the company or the cat would be amused.

 
 

There is a bigger problem here, something that bothers me more than your sexual orientation or lack thereof: and that is that your sexuality has become your defining characteristic. Your obsession, your gestalt.

Your dad sounds like he’s doing the usual conservative trick where you throw up as many obstacles as possible into the lives of X demographic specifically because they are X demographic, and then bitch that These People are becoming a “hyphenated American” demographic and it’s leading to “balkanization” and why do they have to make such a big deal about being X… (Bonus points if the person talking like this is the same kind of asshole who slaps bumper stickers on his car with a Confederate flag or Robert E. Lee’s face and squeals about the importance of his own hyphenated “heritage.” Which, alarmingly and unsurprisingly often, it is).

And all the crap about lazy young kids these days coming from a former pothead? Would I be off the mark in diagnosing Baby Boomer Entitlement Syndrome? (It doesn’t overlap exactly with modern conservatism, but has left a special mark on it nonetheless).

Oy. Well, on the off chance that Cerb’s pop reads this blog – I must, actually, thank the guy. Sir, people like me may “know” how lucky we are to have parents who act like parents, but we never fully appreciate it until we’ve seen the contrast with, well, people like you.

 
 

Well, my office space is shared with three others, though only two are full-time, and only one was here today. “Looxury,” LOL — I read that in a Python voice.

… crouched over my counter with a cat on either hand reading very little on my select blogs. Not invited to any al fresco celebrations because I am an old crazy cat lady. Sigh. Also a teetotaller, also English-speaking, also thought to have a Past involving politix. Also, an anti-social recluse. Sigh. Even misanthropes get lonely. Somebody could have brought me a lamb chop, dammit.

Aww. Well there’s very little I can do for you. Ironic that you’re bored over there, because here you reliably make things a bit more interesting.

 
 

The dude is basically an actor in a reality-TV show. He went into character as a bayou alligator-fucker at the wrong time, and went off message, and thereby emperilled his future appearance in the role. So now various senators and governators are arguing that the employer of an actor who forgets his lines should go on employing him anyway because those wrong lines are Protected By Free Speech.

I discovered the existence of that show and these people over Thanksgiving (not that I’ve ever seen or heard them, just saw a lot of Duck Dynasty themed stuff in the stores). Barely paid attention, but filed it away under “they’re probably right wing assholes.”

Do I think everyone who dresses and shaves like a redneck is a right wing asshole? No. In real life, you get all sorts of people and the stereotypes very often don’t match up. But I figured reality TV stars who are specifically marketing themselves as the embodiment of a redneck lifestyle are targeting a very specific mindset (which probably has more middle class suburbanites fantasizing about the folksy outdoor Rugged Individualist past they never lived in than actual rednecks, come to think of it) which would overlap with “right wing asshole” to quite an extent.

I was utterly unsurprised to find my first impression confirmed.

 
 

I’m so much more offended by the fact that looking, sounding and acting like a filthy animal in this country is a thing. It’s NOT OKAY TO BE A STUPID REDNECK.

There was a Balloon Juice thread a couple years ago titled “what if Sarah Palin were black?” which yielded a pretty good comment I saved –

I’d say this reflects a more disturbing trend in general: the willingness to sweep under the rug all the social dysfunction among lower-class whites. At least with minority communities, problems such as drug abuse, breakdown of the family, and educational failures are acknowledged as problems. There may not be the political will to do much about the problems, but few “serious” people would be willing to dismiss the idea that the problems exist.

But it seems that the same issues, when afflicting rural and lower-class whites get ignored, or worse, celebrated. The Palin situation, in which ignorance, sloth, and single motherhood are openly celebrated as “authentic” makes me think that a large portion of lower-class white America is going to see its social problems get worse because allegedly serious politicians see it as a badge of honor.

Sat what you want about Jesse Jackson, but I don’t think he’d ever see unemployment, lack of educational attainment, or rampant single motherhood in the African-American community as something to be celebrated.

I still think it’s a good comment on the image “Real American” has come to mean.

 
 

Not to mention that these guys are millionaires. They’re not exactly living off the land in some hard-scrabble Jeremiah Johnson existence.

 
 

Once again I will stick up for the rural southrons amongst whom I live. The suburbanites and country clubbers are the ones I find loathsome and without neighborly humanity.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

Chris:

Do I think everyone who dresses and shaves like a redneck is a right wing asshole? No. In real life, you get all sorts of people and the stereotypes very often don’t match up.

El Manquécito:

Once again I will stick up for the rural southrons amongst whom I live. The suburbanites and country clubbers are the ones I find loathsome and without neighborly humanity.

I remember somebody telling the story during the 2008 election—about the time of the “We’re voting for the N*****!” lady in SE PA—where he took his car to a garage well outside Atlanta, in redneck country, and noticed the owner eyeballing his Obama bumper sticker. He thought: “Oh, oh, am I in trouble?” The guy grinned at him and said: “That sumbitch better win!” Stories like these give me (a very little) hope for the future.

 
 

I’m not saying the good folks I live around are politically enlightened. My county went for Willard 83%.

 
 

Once again I will stick up for the rural southrons amongst whom I live. The suburbanites and country clubbers are the ones I find loathsome and without neighborly humanity.

Plenty of us in urban centers in the Souf in the same boat, trying to afford rents on temp wages, etc.
.

 
 

Once again I will stick up for the rural southrons amongst whom I live. The suburbanites and country clubbers are the ones I find loathsome and without neighborly humanity.

I remember somebody telling the story during the 2008 election—about the time of the “We’re voting for the N*****!” lady in SE PA—where he took his car to a garage well outside Atlanta, in redneck country, and noticed the owner eyeballing his Obama bumper sticker. He thought: “Oh, oh, am I in trouble?” The guy grinned at him and said: “That sumbitch better win!” Stories like these give me (a very little) hope for the future.

Several things;

1) As was mentioned a few threads ago… the whole image of “racist => poor, drunk, trailer-trash redneck” is one that Polite Southern Society seems to love to promote in order to off-load their own past onto the yokels. Conveniently forgetting the fact that the Ku Klux Klan for much of its history was a lot more than just a terrorist group – it was basically that Polite Southern Society’s version of Skull and Bones.

1a) In lesser measure the same is true of upscale conservatives in the better parts of the country vis-a-vis the South. Every now and then I’ll bitch about my 1%er acquaintance who’s a trust-fund baby from the NY/NJ area – I think the most memorable conservation we’ve ever had with her, though, was finding out that her dad’s country club was still segregated (no blacks or Jews) and that she matter-of-factly just thought it was normal. This, mind you, is your “moderate,” “pragmatic” Republican demographic from the “cosmopolitan” East Coast, always assumed to be “socially liberal.”

None of which is to say that rednecks and Southerners don’t have problems or that racism down there is a myth – they totally do and it totally isn’t. It’s just also a convenient narrative for RWNJs in the other social classes and other parts of the country to dismiss their own share of the problem.

2) Considering how much the country’s urbanized in the last hundred years, I’m not even sure how much “rural southrons” matter anymore. What’s the amount of actual rurals left in America, 20% or something like that? Like I said… the redneck mythology nowadays seems to matter a lot more as a fantasy/ideal in the minds of middle-class suburbanites than in terms of actual rednecks.

3) Anecdotally, all the Southerners I’ve met who fit the “Bible-thumping, Republican-voting, racist asshole” stereotype have indeed been suburbanites and country clubbers. The couple people I know who grew up in poor-to-working-class rural backgrounds in the Carolinas and can actually claim the “redneck” label are both well to the left of the political spectrum (on race, on religion, on economics, everything). Granted, since most of these people are college educated and went to my liberal-leaning college in DC, that does skew the sample – but I nevertheless found it interesting that even within that demographic, there’s that skew between them and their richer counterparts.

 
 

Well said Chris. Stereotyping rarely helps though I fall victim to it myself when in Newport or Greenwich.

 
 

If my Appalachian relatives and in-laws are any example, they’re a mixed bag.

 
 

WRT racist assholes, I just have to say that the first time in decades anyone used “the n-word” in my presence was the limo driver in NJ driving me to the airport after a job interview. He knew I was going back to FL, and assumed he knew my attitudes. Or he just didn’t care. Also, as of the late 1990’s, anyway (could still be going on), the Carpenter’s Union in Philly (and living in Philadelphia was one of the requirements for membership)was 100% white.

I have many relatives living in Texas, and while some of them are bigots (one of my great-uncles liked the role of “honest son of the soil” – he was a retired school bus driver, though he had grown up on a farm – he’d casually drop the n-bomb, secure in his superiority as a white man), others aren’t, and the easy assumption of superiority I saw so often in the Northeastern US just chapped me.

 
 

“…it’s a near certainty that something incredibly dumb is going to come out of his hairy bacon hole.”

Consider this stolen…Now I just have to figure out how to wrap a “hairy bacon hole™” around a “War on Christmas Machine-Gun Nest™*”

*WOCMGN concept originated by an old friend and former eschatonian Tena

On a tangential note I think tsam and tena would hit it off famously (channeling my inner Yenta) but alas, she is happily married…

Thanks for the xmas giggles tsam!

 
 

Evidently Cracker Barrel has decided to jump on the gay oppression train by removing Duck Beard products resulting in angry Xtian boycott announcements. Cracker Barrel!

Could it be that Dr SpamLT is right and the Robertsons are this year’s most effective fighters in the War on Christmas?

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

I just very recently heard of Cracker Barrel restaurants, and I’ve been going: “They have restaurants?” I just now realized I’ve been seeing “Cracker Barrel” and reading “Hickory Farms”. How weird is that?

 
 

Cracker Barrel v. angry xtians v. DDynasty v. A&E

I just don’t have a duck in this fight.

 
 

Evidently Cracker Barrel has decided to jump on the gay oppression train by removing Duck Beard products resulting in angry Xtian boycott announcements.

That’s surprising because they (Cracker Barrel) got highlighted years ago for discriminating against gays.

 
 

War on Christmas has destroyed electrical infrastructure here in LEAFS SUCK. The light glazing of a few centimetres of freezing rain has downed power lines and tree limbs throughout the city. Traditional displays of inflatable Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus have fallen and now lie limp in the darkness. Encased in a thick layer of ice.

Surveying the wreckage of tree limbs scattered across my backyard, I am grateful that we had crews in to trim it back this fall. But not grateful enough to give that fallen wood a pass. I raise my fist and yell OFFA MAH LAWN into the frozen pre-dawn. But from inside, those remaining branches look precarious as fuck.

 
 

Even the recondite part of fb that I have has exploded into duck/anti-duck flame wars. One never knows do one. Never been in a Cracker Barrel, though they’re omnipresent roundabouts, nearly every other highway interchange has one and they’ve got a big billboard presence. They sponsor some bluegrass and they tend to favor the ultra-swarmy Momma and Jeezus variety. You’d think their clientele would have a big overlap with the Moulards but from what I see on fb they’ve lost some dead ender h8ers for ever.

Also, 2, ice storms are excellent if you’re not on the highway. The one in Maine in 98 was the most amazing meteorological event I’ve experienced.

 
 

I recall an ice storm that hit Mississippi back around 1984/85 that shut the whole state down for 3 days. They’re not exactly equipped for snow removal down there.

I waited about a day for the locals to weed themselves out of the driving population before I took to the roads.

 
 

I love Cracker Barrel’s “Mama’s French Toast Breakfast.”
.

 
 

Even better, they’ll fix that shit any time of day!

The last bluegrass band I heard was when a visiting Atriot came to town, and we went to the biker bar just down the road from me. They always get a kick out of my scooter. Anyway, this bluegrass quintet fired up a tune about being on acid. I was sold.
.

 
 

Roads are in pretty good shape considering. Now at the in-laws who have power.

There has got to be a way to design a home heating furnace that does not quit during power outages.

 
 

In 98 I was off power for 5 days. There was a light freezing drizzle for more than 48 hours and it froze a solid inch thick on all branches and surfaces. I had a steep driveway and couldn’t even walk to the road for a couple of days. At night the sound of trees breaking and cracking was apocalyptic and full of dread. I had plenty of firewood and no central heating anyway but I did run out of beer.

 
 

The in-laws are closer to the lake. The ice is not as thick here as it is in Scarberia, but there’s still pretty extensive damage. They are on the last street that still has power, looking out the back window are homes without juice.

Another lucky break – it’s that it’s not that cold. It’s only about four degrees below, so de-icing the windshield was cake, once I managed to get the car door open.

 
 

A fate worse than death.

 
 

I refer of course to running out of beer, not sheltering at the in-laws nasty as that may be.

 
 

It was…. character building. The house has a ‘pulpit’ staircase and the shadows thrown while climbing it with a flickering candle will never be forgotten. I did have plenty of booze, all with that great tax free taste. Hard to recall now that I’m deep in a self imposed Sahara of Sobriety.

 
 

Q.O.T.D.

At least when the Emperor Justinian, a sky-god man, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical reason, which he did. It is well known, Justinian declared, that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited. But our sky-godders, always eager to hate, still quote Leviticus, as if that looney text had anything useful to say about anything except, perhaps, the inadvisability of eating shellfish in the Jerusalem area.

Gore Vidal

 
 

I have never experienced any of that dreadful ice & snow & sleet & freezing stuff.
Does it make you feel better or worse if I tell you that I am uncomfortably sweaty in 35degree heat? Sorry – don’t know from archaic F degrees.
Keep safe and warm as possible – I worry.

 
 

New post

 
 

So sorry about your dad’s ignorant attitudes, Cerberus. As a devout atheist, I am constitutionally unable to pray for his enlightenment, but I sure hope he wises up soon.

My teenage niece is currently struggling with gender issues, though she hasn’t chosen to share this with our part of the family yet. So we have just let the young woman’s mother know that we are behind her daughter whatever she ends up deciding.

We have some friends our age (60ish) who went through this with their oldest child, and I remember them telling me about the gay pride parade in Toronto where they stood on the sidewalk with a big sign that said “WE LOVE OUR TRANS SON”

There were a lot of tears shed as total strangers came up to say that they wished their parents loved them and would stand up for them in public.

Maybe if you were to share that story with Dad…?

 
 

Oh yeah, wow, that’s an awesome pair of parents right there. It shouldn’t be a rare thing to have supportive and loving parents, but apparently it’s a really hard thing for a lot of people to do. Thanks for sharing that and thanks to everyone else who left well-wishes and supportive righteous fury. You all rock.

 
 

Evidently Cracker Barrel has decided to jump on the gay oppression train by removing Duck Beard products resulting in angry Xtian boycott announcements. Cracker Barrel!

They gave in, the pathetic wimps.

 
 

The Doktorling’s oldest friend recently decided to begin FTM transition (counselling first, then perhaps hormone treatment). The parents are completely supportive — though slightly surprised to learn that they would be losing a daughter and gaining a son.

I am proudest of the Doktorling, who knew about this for months but didn’t bother telling us because no need-to-know basis.

 
 

“I’m forced to concede that your choices are not mine to make”

Yes, children do have this unfortunate tendency to turn into adults.

 
 

I’d pay to watch that.

 
 

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