I suppose it's just not possible in this day and age to get through a summer without a massive display of insanity and idiocy in Washington, DC. Last year it was the Voter Values Summit, a surreal circus parade of the worst of trailer-trash culture, who proudly displayed their complete disregard for personal grooming and acceptable clothing styles, and demented, confused senior citizens, carrying signs that showed they are blissfully unencumbered by arcane, elitist notions like grammar, logic and spelling.
This year did not disappoint, as we were treated to a comprehensive exhibition of just about every kind of psychological disorder there is, led by obviously-mentally-ill, right-wing jaybird Glenn Beck. Now, I can't stand to watch Glenn Beck for more than three seconds. Part evangelical preacher, part Ronald McDonald on bad acid, and part Freddie Kruger in clean clothes, Beck seems to have cornered the media market on histrionic, embarrassing rhetoric, punctuated by episodes of blubbering, over-wrought emotionalism that would be deemed too over-the-top for even a dinner-theater production of Steel Magnolias. Very skilled in the use of wide, sweeping, and ultimately meaningless generalizations and evidence-free predictions of dire consequences if people don't straighten up and listen to him, Beck has understandably found a huge audience in the millions of Americans who choose to let Fixed News, I mean, Fox News do their thinking for them and provide them with their opinions and talking-points served pablum-style, in easily-digestible dollops.
It seems to be an indictment of the failure of the political system that so many people feel so detached and disenfranchised from it that they think their only reasonable alternative is in feel-good, us-against-them, hate-mongering, racist political organizations such as the Tea Party. That's like if someone sets your house on fire or murders your spouse you decide to go to the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus for help. Everything that Beck says is designed to wrap his mindless followers in the mantle of righteousness and religious infallibility, since they take every opportunity to remind everyone that God is on their side, and all who disagree with them are dirty, bearded Islamic terrorists who are ready to fly a squadron of jet aircraft into buildings in every major city in the U.S. Beck even went to so far as to say at his rally something like "Today is the day that America turns back to God!"
Really, Glenn? Just because you say so? Did you bother to ask God if He goes along with that? Oh excuse me, I forgot: you and your followers have regular conversations with God and He most definitely is on your side. How did you get the power to make that statement for an entire nation? Did you bother to ask the Muslims and Buddhists and atheists and Jews and Hindus and all the millions of devout non-Christian believers who make America their home? Don't you think that was just a teeny bit presumptuous of you to speak for an entire nation? Personally I don't think you're qualified to speak for a Rotary Club in rural Nebraska, but that's just me. Now I know your followers aren't exactly the most inclusive group in the world, and I wonder just how many African-Americans or Asian-Americans or gay/lesbian Americans are welcome in your lily-white masses? Or is it that only your fundamentalist, Republican, Caucasian "sheeple" (more on that word later) are the ones who feel they have to "turn back to God." Do you think maybe it's God that has turned away from you since you embarrass Him so?
But this was not a "political" rally, according to Beck. Of course not, despite the fact that it was held in the most political city in the United States and - what a surprise! - on the 47th anniversary of the civil rights March on Washington that gave the world the transcendent "I Have A Dream" speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. What an absolute abomination and desecration of King's memory and legacy to have a puffy-faced, cartoonish buffoon like Glenn Beck prancing and parading around on the steps of the monument where King once stood and changed the world with the power of his simple words and heartfelt ideas. Forty-seven years later, people are still inspired and thrilled by King's powerful statements. Twenty-four hours later, no one really remembers or cares what was said at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday. And that's the way it should be.
And, not that there weren't enough annoying, embarrassing and pathetic creeps already in attendance yesterday, but the loathsome, vile and execrable Sarah Palin had to be hauled down from the meth-infused garbage dumps of Wasilla, Alaska to bleat out another round of moronic ramblings and faux-populist drivel. It just took seeing a video clip of her dragging her bony, scrawny ass across the stage to nearly make me have a second look at the dinner I had an hour before. She apparently left 15 minutes after finishing her speech - and presumably after collecting her six-figure fee - but she still had the nerve to get onto Twitter (the pre-eminent Theatre of the Damned for the Internet Age) and blather about how the "sheeple" (presumably a homemade contraction of "sheep" and "people", now that "refudiation" has been thoroughly discredited) of the "main stream media" underestimated the crowd size and downplayed their coverage. Oh, would these "sheeple," as you derisively call them, be the same media people who for some reason follow you around and give your special brand of inbred ignorance a national platform wildly out of proportion to its value? And how without them you would be a nobody - a shrill, brittle harpy trapped in a loveless marriage with poorly-raised children who can't stand the sight of you - with absolutely no hope that tomorrow will be any less wretched and meaningless for you than today. Without them, Palin would be a dollar-store Ann Coulter whom everyone would ignore and dismiss as a crazy, crack-addicted skank.
How did it happen in this once-proud nation that we have come to celebrate, elevate and in fact encourage stupidity, idiocy and mediocrity in our political system? How is it that pathetic, miserable pieces of crap such as Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and at least 100 other cultural cesspits still manage to pollute the airwaves and intellectual discourse in this country? That's one of the drawbacks of a free society - you have to put up with the profoundly stupid people that invariably make up the population, as well as the profoundly inspiring ones. The problem is, in this cruel, mixed-up and hateful universe in which we live, the good really do die young and the evil, psychopathic people seem to live on, and on, and on.
Showing posts with label palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label palin. Show all posts
Monday, August 30, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Summertime, and the Livin' is Crazy
As we start our long, slow descent into Hades, otherwise known as summertime around here, we begin to feel the fear and loathing as we anticipate the inevitable 110-plus-degree days sure to come. This discomfort is made a tad bit worse due to the craziness which still envelops us like a sweltering, humid monsoon afternoon.
The blowback from the passage of SB 1070 continues unabated and even the Gulf oil spill can't knock it out of the top news story position. For anyone who's been living in a cave, SB 1070 is the new, get-tough illegal immigration law recently passed by our fair state. I was all ready to jump on the liberal bandwagon and condemn this law as racist and unconstitutional, but when some of its opponents catagorized it as "un-Christian," well, they lost me. Since when do our laws have a Christian aspect to them? Like we have to get the Catholic Church to approve them before passage? This is just one more of the annoying and vexing instances of the church-state separation being breached as part of some group's agenda.
Also on this topic, our lovely governor-without-a-mandate Jan Brewer is trying to counter the anti-SB 1070 furor and push back on all the boycotts and economic backlash that have been directed at us by holding a press conference and dredging up that chirpy, detestable Sarah Palin to come in and talk to us about something or other. The second I saw that pinhead's face and heard her fingernails-on-a-blackboard voice I changed the channel, but you know things are going to hell whenever you have to trot out an ignorant, inbred hillbilly to make a point. Brewer has also been taking to the airwaves in support of Proposition 100, which would add 1% to our state sales tax, ostensibly for education and public services. I am so against any new taxes because I feel I pay my share and so much of our money is wasted on stupid nonsense, but I would definitely be in favor of kicking in a couple of bucks to get that woman a face lift. She always looks so horrible on the news, like she is over 200 years old. The phrase "rode hard and put away wet" fits her perfectly and her face truly does look like 100 miles of bumpy dirt road.
President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court and everyone seems to agree (or can't find evidence to the contrary) that she is a pre-eminent legal scholar and would make a good Justice of the Court. But, in a development that is completely incomprehensible to me, some people are moaning about the fact that there will be no more Protestants on the Supreme Court, only Catholics and Jews. Is anyone actually serious about that? Why would the religious make-up of the Supreme Court matter to anyone? Again, to run the point into the ground, our government is not supposed to be about religion. The Founding Fathers made no provision for religious balance on the Supreme Court, and in fact if there is ANY arm of the government that needs to be free of religious influences, it should be the Supreme Court. Remember, there's this little something called "equal justice under law" that says our legal system should not, and CANNOT, take into account religious affiliation when interpreting the Constitution. If people are so wound up about some kind of religious "balance" in the highest court in the land, why are there no Buddhists, Muslims, Quakers or atheists on the court? Another of the really loathsome and distasteful incursions of religion into the lifeblood of our democracy, and it is very shameful and disgusting.
And, last but certainly not least, we have been subjected to a really obnoxious political ad by the eternally creepy Senator John McCain, an incumbent who is facing an uphill re-election campaign against opponent J. D. Hayworth this fall. Only this wretched state could come up with someone even more repellent and repulsive than McCain, but more on that in a future post. The television ads in question shows McCain doddering along the Arizona-Mexico border fence with Pinal County sheriff Paul Babeu, discussing the sorry state of illegal immigration and how we need to "complete the danged fence". Since when does the word "danged" enter into political discourse among adults? Babeu is wearing his full sheriff drag, but an amusing little disclaimer on the bottom of the screen quietly notes that he is "appearing only in his personal capacity." That means that despite wearing his uniform, we should ignore that fact that he is head of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, wink wink nudge nudge, and is only granting us the benefit of his own personal opinions. Then why isn't he wearing civilian clothes? Maybe because no one would give a crap if they thought he was just a civilian expressing his own views, but do pay attention if they think he's a law enforcement officer. I'm sure there are some legal prohibitions against a county sheriff using the power of his office to endorse a candidate, and this is the McCain committee's underhanded, cynical way of getting around that. And the very saddest part of this is that it will work with a number of voters who are too gullible and dimwitted to realize they are being played.
So, life here continues to swirl around the toilet bowl and each passing day brings a new load of baffling, confusing and demoralizing examples of people being stupid morons. It is really going to be a long, hot, depressing summer.
The blowback from the passage of SB 1070 continues unabated and even the Gulf oil spill can't knock it out of the top news story position. For anyone who's been living in a cave, SB 1070 is the new, get-tough illegal immigration law recently passed by our fair state. I was all ready to jump on the liberal bandwagon and condemn this law as racist and unconstitutional, but when some of its opponents catagorized it as "un-Christian," well, they lost me. Since when do our laws have a Christian aspect to them? Like we have to get the Catholic Church to approve them before passage? This is just one more of the annoying and vexing instances of the church-state separation being breached as part of some group's agenda.
Also on this topic, our lovely governor-without-a-mandate Jan Brewer is trying to counter the anti-SB 1070 furor and push back on all the boycotts and economic backlash that have been directed at us by holding a press conference and dredging up that chirpy, detestable Sarah Palin to come in and talk to us about something or other. The second I saw that pinhead's face and heard her fingernails-on-a-blackboard voice I changed the channel, but you know things are going to hell whenever you have to trot out an ignorant, inbred hillbilly to make a point. Brewer has also been taking to the airwaves in support of Proposition 100, which would add 1% to our state sales tax, ostensibly for education and public services. I am so against any new taxes because I feel I pay my share and so much of our money is wasted on stupid nonsense, but I would definitely be in favor of kicking in a couple of bucks to get that woman a face lift. She always looks so horrible on the news, like she is over 200 years old. The phrase "rode hard and put away wet" fits her perfectly and her face truly does look like 100 miles of bumpy dirt road.
President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court and everyone seems to agree (or can't find evidence to the contrary) that she is a pre-eminent legal scholar and would make a good Justice of the Court. But, in a development that is completely incomprehensible to me, some people are moaning about the fact that there will be no more Protestants on the Supreme Court, only Catholics and Jews. Is anyone actually serious about that? Why would the religious make-up of the Supreme Court matter to anyone? Again, to run the point into the ground, our government is not supposed to be about religion. The Founding Fathers made no provision for religious balance on the Supreme Court, and in fact if there is ANY arm of the government that needs to be free of religious influences, it should be the Supreme Court. Remember, there's this little something called "equal justice under law" that says our legal system should not, and CANNOT, take into account religious affiliation when interpreting the Constitution. If people are so wound up about some kind of religious "balance" in the highest court in the land, why are there no Buddhists, Muslims, Quakers or atheists on the court? Another of the really loathsome and distasteful incursions of religion into the lifeblood of our democracy, and it is very shameful and disgusting.
And, last but certainly not least, we have been subjected to a really obnoxious political ad by the eternally creepy Senator John McCain, an incumbent who is facing an uphill re-election campaign against opponent J. D. Hayworth this fall. Only this wretched state could come up with someone even more repellent and repulsive than McCain, but more on that in a future post. The television ads in question shows McCain doddering along the Arizona-Mexico border fence with Pinal County sheriff Paul Babeu, discussing the sorry state of illegal immigration and how we need to "complete the danged fence". Since when does the word "danged" enter into political discourse among adults? Babeu is wearing his full sheriff drag, but an amusing little disclaimer on the bottom of the screen quietly notes that he is "appearing only in his personal capacity." That means that despite wearing his uniform, we should ignore that fact that he is head of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, wink wink nudge nudge, and is only granting us the benefit of his own personal opinions. Then why isn't he wearing civilian clothes? Maybe because no one would give a crap if they thought he was just a civilian expressing his own views, but do pay attention if they think he's a law enforcement officer. I'm sure there are some legal prohibitions against a county sheriff using the power of his office to endorse a candidate, and this is the McCain committee's underhanded, cynical way of getting around that. And the very saddest part of this is that it will work with a number of voters who are too gullible and dimwitted to realize they are being played.
So, life here continues to swirl around the toilet bowl and each passing day brings a new load of baffling, confusing and demoralizing examples of people being stupid morons. It is really going to be a long, hot, depressing summer.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Lost In Space?
News came this week that NASA's Constellation program is being stopped. Constellation was supposed to be the next generation of space shuttles. The current shuttle program is scheduled to end after 3 more flights. After that, NASA will have to rely on Russian rockets to get material and personnel back and forth to the International Space Station. It seems that the trend now is toward unmanned, robotic space missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. Manned missions have become too dangerous and expensive.
Actually, it seems to me that space missions have always been dangerous. A couple of days ago was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission, which very nearly ended in horrendous disaster as a fuel tank exploded on the command module. It was only through the raw, sheer courage and grit of the onboard team and many more support personnel on the ground that the astronauts were safely returned to Earth. You would think that after 40 years of technological improvements it would be less dangerous to go to the moon now. So, what's changed?
Unfortunately, it's the "expensive" part. Things are so much different now. Everything is much more costly, and the recent recession and the dizzying, catastrophic bail-outs have dried up the supply of ready cash. A manned mission to Mars would cost billions. In fact I remember reading a story a while back which suggested the next mission to Mars would be a one-way mission; that is, astronauts would leave Earth and go to Mars without any intention of returning, since it would be impractical to carry enough fuel for the return voyage. As chilling as that is, Mars remains our next frontier, with the moon and all its recently-discovered water deposits a close second.
Robotic probes certainly have done very well in expanding our scientific horizons. The Cassini probe to Saturn has returned many thousands of astounding photographs of the most beautiful planet in the Solar System. The MESSENGER spacecraft has revealed the sun-blasted surface of Mercury in incredible detail. And most exciting is the New Frontiers mission to the vicinity of the dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon, speeding along at over 70,000 mph and set to reach Pluto in 2015. And who can forget the Hubble Space Telescope, which has revolutionized our view of the universe and consequently, our view of ourselves.
But manned missions to space and to the moon have been such a rallying cause, a way for the entire world to unite and experience the wonder of exploration not as a collection of separate nations but as a species, a race, a planet. People who were alive at the time will always remember when Neil Armstrong took his first step onto the surface of the moon in 1969. Even the normally unflappable Walter Cronkite was clearly overcome with emotion and, for a while, speechless. That only happened to him one other time that I recall - when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
The scientific work behind the space effort was directly responsible for hugely important advances in science, engineering, technology and medicine, to name a few fields that have benefitted. Without manned missions we would not have the surreal and amazing picture of space-suited astronauts jauntily hopping across the lunar surface in gravity one-sixth that of Earth, and raising a pole with a slightly-crumpled American flag, as if it were flapping in the breeze. And the famous photograph of the "big blue marble," taken of the planet Earth as it hung motionless in the infinite blackness of space, all flawless and serene and most of all, small and insignificant. It was the perfect picture for the times, and really changed a lot of minds about the fragility of the planet we inhabit and the grave importance of taking care of it. You could argue that the current "green" movement got its start with that famous picture.
I'm sure that future robotic missions will continue to rewrite the pages of science but somehow, there is not the personal impact of following a number of brave men and women as they take tentative, dangerous steps off our planetary cradle and into the cold and the dark of space. Neil Armstrong took a "giant leap" for us, and it seemed as if we were there with him. We don't get that kind of buy-in with a robot. I don't fault Obama for making the tough call - maybe we should blame the greedy dirtbags in Congress and on Wall Street which have brought misery to so many and nearly plunged the entire world into a deadly serious financial depression. But by "oursourcing" our tradition of exploration to machines, we lose a little bit of the best side of humanity. I hope we get back into space again, soon.
In other news, the level of batshit-craziness in the world took a giant leap with the recent pairing of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in some ridiculous, stupid Tea Party flatulence festival. It's hard to put up with the hokey, phony folksiness of Palin. It's even harder to understand how anyone could take her seriously, being that she is so far beyond idiotic it's not even funny anymore. But Michelle Bachmann is even more profoundly mentally ill than Palin. Bachmann is truly ignorant and a menace to anyone who has the least interest in saving the tradition of meaningful political discourse in this country. Some women think that having these two dimwits on the national stage is somewhat of a triumph for women's rights but ladies, take it from me, it does the worthy cause of women's liberation a grave disservice. It is not an advancement if women set themselves up to be as stupid, venal, obnoxious and vile as men. It is not raising your gender up to new heights - by emulating and imitating all that is petty, ignorant and loathsome about men, you do nothing but lower yourself to their level. And that is not liberation.
Actually, it seems to me that space missions have always been dangerous. A couple of days ago was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission, which very nearly ended in horrendous disaster as a fuel tank exploded on the command module. It was only through the raw, sheer courage and grit of the onboard team and many more support personnel on the ground that the astronauts were safely returned to Earth. You would think that after 40 years of technological improvements it would be less dangerous to go to the moon now. So, what's changed?
Unfortunately, it's the "expensive" part. Things are so much different now. Everything is much more costly, and the recent recession and the dizzying, catastrophic bail-outs have dried up the supply of ready cash. A manned mission to Mars would cost billions. In fact I remember reading a story a while back which suggested the next mission to Mars would be a one-way mission; that is, astronauts would leave Earth and go to Mars without any intention of returning, since it would be impractical to carry enough fuel for the return voyage. As chilling as that is, Mars remains our next frontier, with the moon and all its recently-discovered water deposits a close second.
Robotic probes certainly have done very well in expanding our scientific horizons. The Cassini probe to Saturn has returned many thousands of astounding photographs of the most beautiful planet in the Solar System. The MESSENGER spacecraft has revealed the sun-blasted surface of Mercury in incredible detail. And most exciting is the New Frontiers mission to the vicinity of the dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon, speeding along at over 70,000 mph and set to reach Pluto in 2015. And who can forget the Hubble Space Telescope, which has revolutionized our view of the universe and consequently, our view of ourselves.
But manned missions to space and to the moon have been such a rallying cause, a way for the entire world to unite and experience the wonder of exploration not as a collection of separate nations but as a species, a race, a planet. People who were alive at the time will always remember when Neil Armstrong took his first step onto the surface of the moon in 1969. Even the normally unflappable Walter Cronkite was clearly overcome with emotion and, for a while, speechless. That only happened to him one other time that I recall - when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
The scientific work behind the space effort was directly responsible for hugely important advances in science, engineering, technology and medicine, to name a few fields that have benefitted. Without manned missions we would not have the surreal and amazing picture of space-suited astronauts jauntily hopping across the lunar surface in gravity one-sixth that of Earth, and raising a pole with a slightly-crumpled American flag, as if it were flapping in the breeze. And the famous photograph of the "big blue marble," taken of the planet Earth as it hung motionless in the infinite blackness of space, all flawless and serene and most of all, small and insignificant. It was the perfect picture for the times, and really changed a lot of minds about the fragility of the planet we inhabit and the grave importance of taking care of it. You could argue that the current "green" movement got its start with that famous picture.
I'm sure that future robotic missions will continue to rewrite the pages of science but somehow, there is not the personal impact of following a number of brave men and women as they take tentative, dangerous steps off our planetary cradle and into the cold and the dark of space. Neil Armstrong took a "giant leap" for us, and it seemed as if we were there with him. We don't get that kind of buy-in with a robot. I don't fault Obama for making the tough call - maybe we should blame the greedy dirtbags in Congress and on Wall Street which have brought misery to so many and nearly plunged the entire world into a deadly serious financial depression. But by "oursourcing" our tradition of exploration to machines, we lose a little bit of the best side of humanity. I hope we get back into space again, soon.
In other news, the level of batshit-craziness in the world took a giant leap with the recent pairing of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in some ridiculous, stupid Tea Party flatulence festival. It's hard to put up with the hokey, phony folksiness of Palin. It's even harder to understand how anyone could take her seriously, being that she is so far beyond idiotic it's not even funny anymore. But Michelle Bachmann is even more profoundly mentally ill than Palin. Bachmann is truly ignorant and a menace to anyone who has the least interest in saving the tradition of meaningful political discourse in this country. Some women think that having these two dimwits on the national stage is somewhat of a triumph for women's rights but ladies, take it from me, it does the worthy cause of women's liberation a grave disservice. It is not an advancement if women set themselves up to be as stupid, venal, obnoxious and vile as men. It is not raising your gender up to new heights - by emulating and imitating all that is petty, ignorant and loathsome about men, you do nothing but lower yourself to their level. And that is not liberation.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
14 Minutes and 59 Seconds of Fame
In the great pop-culture septic tank we find ourselves involuntarily swimming, occasionally something will surface that will cause even the most jaded amongst us to shake our heads in disbelief. One such baffling eruption is the continued presence of one Levi Johnston on the cultural radar. A sorry by-product of the John McCain/Sarah Palin debacle which began in the presidential election of 2008, he has been popping up here and there in the news like a really annoying rash. Apparently mildly retarded, his road to national prominence started with a detour to the bed of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, whom he knocked up.
Hauled from the vast, meth-infused redneck wasteland of Wasilla, Alaska, Johnston was unwilllingly paraded in front of the national media at Sarah Palin's coming-out party during the Republican convention. His squirmy discomfort at being trotted out as the sperm dispenser responsible for the first Palin grandchild was deliciously obvious, but astonishingly this shame was not shared by the Palins or the McCains or practically anyone else at the convention. For being such harsh, unyielding critics of contemporary morals and staunch advocates for sexual abstinence before marriage, the Republican spinmeisters chose to portray the Palins as just another typical, average American family, doggone it, with a pregnant, unwed daughter and a mother who looks and sounds like a flight attendant for Dumbskank Airlines. I'm sure Sarah Palin understands that you can put lipstick on a soccer mom, but she's still a pig.
To absolutely no one's surprise the make-believe relationship between Johnston and Bristol Palin collapsed, which has allowed Johnston more freedom to capitalize on his notoriety and provide us with a front-row seat to the deep, icky dysfunction which defines the Palin family, much to our delight. You can always count on him to blurt out some uncomplimentary tidbit about them, most recently the (totally unsurprising) allegations that Sarah Palin left her position of governor to more easily cash in on the lucrative media deals being sent her way, and that she and husband Todd have been having marital problems for a long time. Not that the Johnston family has much room to criticize, since a while ago his mother was arrested on some drug trafficking charge. They really sound like a family that makes the Connors, the fictional white-trash-deluxe family made famous on the Roseanne television series, seem quite classy.
Johnston showed up at the recent Teen Choice Awards squiring around the acerbic and usually-amusing comedienne Kathy Griffin. Johnston's presence at the awards can be somewhat justified, him being born in 1990 and coming to the end of his teen years. The 48-year-old Griffin, whose teen years are but a very distant, fuzzy memory, decided he was her ticket to an orgy of media-whoring, and she is working it to the very end. Now I love Kathy Griffin; I saw her in person in Phoenix earlier this year and had a great time, but she is really pushing her luck with this latest gig. I can't make up my mind whether she's being incredibly savvy and is orchestrating a brilliant pop-culture satire while jabbing Sarah Palin in the side with a sharp stick, or just saw an opportunity to jump on a passing train to Tacky Town and temporarily rise to the forefront of the celebrity/media gossip industry, which seems to be somewhat disoriented lately in the wake of the month-long Michael Jackson soap opera.
Bottom line, I am definitely in favor of anything which tweaks and annoys Sarah Palin, as any appearance by Johnston undoubtedly does, since it brings up old perceptions of her skeevy family along with new revelations of their bottomless stupidity and loathsomeness. It makes a pleasing counterpoint to her recent Facebook blatherings about Obama's health care reform plans and the "death panels" which are going to dispatch Grandma and Grandpa to the great Socialized Medicine State in the sky whether they're ready to go or not. I am both fascinated and repelled by how a slow-witted good-ole-boy from a seedy Alaska backwater town is somehow navigating successfully the fickle currents of the national media. He has somehow parlayed a snogging session with the daughter of a fourth-rate political hack into a grand tour of the slimy depths of American culture, and that has to be somewhat of an accomplishment. Even worse, it may be the highest achievement of his entire life, which is simultaneously extremely hilarious, pathetic and appalling.
Hauled from the vast, meth-infused redneck wasteland of Wasilla, Alaska, Johnston was unwilllingly paraded in front of the national media at Sarah Palin's coming-out party during the Republican convention. His squirmy discomfort at being trotted out as the sperm dispenser responsible for the first Palin grandchild was deliciously obvious, but astonishingly this shame was not shared by the Palins or the McCains or practically anyone else at the convention. For being such harsh, unyielding critics of contemporary morals and staunch advocates for sexual abstinence before marriage, the Republican spinmeisters chose to portray the Palins as just another typical, average American family, doggone it, with a pregnant, unwed daughter and a mother who looks and sounds like a flight attendant for Dumbskank Airlines. I'm sure Sarah Palin understands that you can put lipstick on a soccer mom, but she's still a pig.
To absolutely no one's surprise the make-believe relationship between Johnston and Bristol Palin collapsed, which has allowed Johnston more freedom to capitalize on his notoriety and provide us with a front-row seat to the deep, icky dysfunction which defines the Palin family, much to our delight. You can always count on him to blurt out some uncomplimentary tidbit about them, most recently the (totally unsurprising) allegations that Sarah Palin left her position of governor to more easily cash in on the lucrative media deals being sent her way, and that she and husband Todd have been having marital problems for a long time. Not that the Johnston family has much room to criticize, since a while ago his mother was arrested on some drug trafficking charge. They really sound like a family that makes the Connors, the fictional white-trash-deluxe family made famous on the Roseanne television series, seem quite classy.
Johnston showed up at the recent Teen Choice Awards squiring around the acerbic and usually-amusing comedienne Kathy Griffin. Johnston's presence at the awards can be somewhat justified, him being born in 1990 and coming to the end of his teen years. The 48-year-old Griffin, whose teen years are but a very distant, fuzzy memory, decided he was her ticket to an orgy of media-whoring, and she is working it to the very end. Now I love Kathy Griffin; I saw her in person in Phoenix earlier this year and had a great time, but she is really pushing her luck with this latest gig. I can't make up my mind whether she's being incredibly savvy and is orchestrating a brilliant pop-culture satire while jabbing Sarah Palin in the side with a sharp stick, or just saw an opportunity to jump on a passing train to Tacky Town and temporarily rise to the forefront of the celebrity/media gossip industry, which seems to be somewhat disoriented lately in the wake of the month-long Michael Jackson soap opera.
Bottom line, I am definitely in favor of anything which tweaks and annoys Sarah Palin, as any appearance by Johnston undoubtedly does, since it brings up old perceptions of her skeevy family along with new revelations of their bottomless stupidity and loathsomeness. It makes a pleasing counterpoint to her recent Facebook blatherings about Obama's health care reform plans and the "death panels" which are going to dispatch Grandma and Grandpa to the great Socialized Medicine State in the sky whether they're ready to go or not. I am both fascinated and repelled by how a slow-witted good-ole-boy from a seedy Alaska backwater town is somehow navigating successfully the fickle currents of the national media. He has somehow parlayed a snogging session with the daughter of a fourth-rate political hack into a grand tour of the slimy depths of American culture, and that has to be somewhat of an accomplishment. Even worse, it may be the highest achievement of his entire life, which is simultaneously extremely hilarious, pathetic and appalling.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Go Away and Stay Away, Sarah Palin
So it hasn't been a miserable enough week with all the celebrities dying and that frizzy-haired whack-job in North Korea shooting off missiles just for the hell of it, when that complete waste of a life known as Sarah Palin sees fit to inflict one of her political bowel movements on this country the day before we celebrate our independence.
That she waited until the day before Independence Day to announce her "independence" from her elected office shows a grasp of subtlety and symbolism that is on a par with a second-grader marching around town with a "TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY" sign. Also if she would have announced today, July 4th, absolutely no one would have paid attention. Palin never, ever says or does anything that doesn't have an ulterior motive behind it. To say she is calculating, cynical and duplicitous is an enormous understatement. To pretend that she has anything interesting or useful to say is pathological.
In a completely rambling, disjointed, stream-of-consciousness news conference - which is much more indicative of someone who is very much used to having other people tell her what to say as opposed to saying what she actually means - Palin blathered on and on about a variety of subjects, which covered a bewildering range from a simple-minded basketball metaphor to complaining about people making fun of her disabled child, Trig. Really? People saying bad things about a child born with Down Syndrome? I want to know who they are, because even I have a problem with that and I pretty much hate children. To me it's much more objectionable that Palin is invoking her own disabled child to make her point about what a terrible, awful, horrible thing national politics and the media are, and how it has been just grinding up her and her family who are really good people and don't deserve such treatment, even if we ignore their completely dysfunctional trailer-trash qualities. It was a surreal news clip: Palin droning on, making less sense with every passing second, while seagulls or geese or something honked and cackled in the background, like they were laughing and making fun of every word she was saying.
Well Sarah Palin, you most definitely deserve all the abuse, degradation, humiliation and derision that you get, and much much more. And if it spills over onto your family, that's too damned bad. You're the one that puts them in the media spotlight every single day, so deal with it, you moron. You are the one who cynically and unashamedly uses them and does anything to further your own political ambitions. Like the saying goes, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." If you don't have the courage and the intellectual integrity to stand up to your legions of critics and take responsibility for the outrageous idiocy that seems to come as naturally to you as breathing does to everyone else, don't blame it on the media. If you're looking to blame someone, take a look in the mirror.
Palin sold her soul to the right-wing lie factory when she became a candidate, and she gladly and willingly acquiesced to every single idiotic thing they had her do and say. EVERY word that came out of her mouth at political rallies and appearances was staged and scripted down to the smallest detail. This was very graphically shown when Palin was interviewed by CBS' Katie Couric who asked her a perfectly innocuous question about newspapers she has read and Palin completely went off the rails, sounding like a dolt who was totally incapable of forming a coherent thought. After she had her emperor's-new-clothes moment and was unequivocally shown on national television to be a dimwitted moron, her Republican handlers blamed the media for doing a "gotcha" interview. Well if she wasn't such a blathering, brainless dope she wouldn't have gotten "caught" with a question that a nine-year-old could answer. That is a time-worn and much-used page from the Republican playbook: when your candidate proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how ignorant and unqualified they are, always blame the media.
You can only cover up stupidity for so long, and it became clear after about two weeks that Palin would not be able to keep her dismal lack of intelligence under wraps much longer. The rest of the campaign just reinforced how incredibly unqualified she is to hold any form of national office, let alone one so close to the Presidency. That John McCain even brought her on the national scene is just one more reason in a very long series of reasons why that senile old scumbag needs to spend all eternity burning in hell.
America deserves so much better than McCain/Palin, and I wake up every morning thanking the universe that they were defeated. It's somewhat of a mystery as to Palin's motives behind stepping down from the Alaska governor's office. I can't imagine how that could possibly help her if she is considering a White House run in 2012. After all, we can just make the point that if she bailed out on the people who voted for her because being governor was too difficult or stressful for her, what is she going to do as president or vice-president when the going gets really rough? Will she get stressed and bail out then, too?
Sarah Palin is the Britney Spears of American politics. Actually more like Britney Spears circa 2006 when she was shaving her head and beating cars with umbrellas. It's really hard to determine a motive behind her actions yesterday, which on the surface appear to be a form of political suicide, but you can be sure she is up to no good. We should never underestimate the power of a stupid, dead-headed, loud-mouthed moron who has a large number of other stupid morons supporting her. It mystifies me to my very core how anyone could see any good in her. She is profoundly and genuinely stupid, intellectually and morally bankrupt, a smarmy liar, a hater of wildlife and a despoiler of the environment, supremely cynical, absolutely devoid of anything resembling class, and more than willing to whore herself and her family out if it means advancing her agenda. She is the incredibly annoying little lap dog of the conservative right, always ready to degrade herself in any way her masters tell her to, and is rapidly carving out a niche for herself right next to other right-wing septic tanks like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Sarah Palin is a world-class blight and an acute embarrassment to this country. Without a doubt the best thing she could ever do is take a long, long walk out into the Alaska wilderness and never, ever come back.
That she waited until the day before Independence Day to announce her "independence" from her elected office shows a grasp of subtlety and symbolism that is on a par with a second-grader marching around town with a "TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY" sign. Also if she would have announced today, July 4th, absolutely no one would have paid attention. Palin never, ever says or does anything that doesn't have an ulterior motive behind it. To say she is calculating, cynical and duplicitous is an enormous understatement. To pretend that she has anything interesting or useful to say is pathological.
In a completely rambling, disjointed, stream-of-consciousness news conference - which is much more indicative of someone who is very much used to having other people tell her what to say as opposed to saying what she actually means - Palin blathered on and on about a variety of subjects, which covered a bewildering range from a simple-minded basketball metaphor to complaining about people making fun of her disabled child, Trig. Really? People saying bad things about a child born with Down Syndrome? I want to know who they are, because even I have a problem with that and I pretty much hate children. To me it's much more objectionable that Palin is invoking her own disabled child to make her point about what a terrible, awful, horrible thing national politics and the media are, and how it has been just grinding up her and her family who are really good people and don't deserve such treatment, even if we ignore their completely dysfunctional trailer-trash qualities. It was a surreal news clip: Palin droning on, making less sense with every passing second, while seagulls or geese or something honked and cackled in the background, like they were laughing and making fun of every word she was saying.
Well Sarah Palin, you most definitely deserve all the abuse, degradation, humiliation and derision that you get, and much much more. And if it spills over onto your family, that's too damned bad. You're the one that puts them in the media spotlight every single day, so deal with it, you moron. You are the one who cynically and unashamedly uses them and does anything to further your own political ambitions. Like the saying goes, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." If you don't have the courage and the intellectual integrity to stand up to your legions of critics and take responsibility for the outrageous idiocy that seems to come as naturally to you as breathing does to everyone else, don't blame it on the media. If you're looking to blame someone, take a look in the mirror.
Palin sold her soul to the right-wing lie factory when she became a candidate, and she gladly and willingly acquiesced to every single idiotic thing they had her do and say. EVERY word that came out of her mouth at political rallies and appearances was staged and scripted down to the smallest detail. This was very graphically shown when Palin was interviewed by CBS' Katie Couric who asked her a perfectly innocuous question about newspapers she has read and Palin completely went off the rails, sounding like a dolt who was totally incapable of forming a coherent thought. After she had her emperor's-new-clothes moment and was unequivocally shown on national television to be a dimwitted moron, her Republican handlers blamed the media for doing a "gotcha" interview. Well if she wasn't such a blathering, brainless dope she wouldn't have gotten "caught" with a question that a nine-year-old could answer. That is a time-worn and much-used page from the Republican playbook: when your candidate proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how ignorant and unqualified they are, always blame the media.
You can only cover up stupidity for so long, and it became clear after about two weeks that Palin would not be able to keep her dismal lack of intelligence under wraps much longer. The rest of the campaign just reinforced how incredibly unqualified she is to hold any form of national office, let alone one so close to the Presidency. That John McCain even brought her on the national scene is just one more reason in a very long series of reasons why that senile old scumbag needs to spend all eternity burning in hell.
America deserves so much better than McCain/Palin, and I wake up every morning thanking the universe that they were defeated. It's somewhat of a mystery as to Palin's motives behind stepping down from the Alaska governor's office. I can't imagine how that could possibly help her if she is considering a White House run in 2012. After all, we can just make the point that if she bailed out on the people who voted for her because being governor was too difficult or stressful for her, what is she going to do as president or vice-president when the going gets really rough? Will she get stressed and bail out then, too?
Sarah Palin is the Britney Spears of American politics. Actually more like Britney Spears circa 2006 when she was shaving her head and beating cars with umbrellas. It's really hard to determine a motive behind her actions yesterday, which on the surface appear to be a form of political suicide, but you can be sure she is up to no good. We should never underestimate the power of a stupid, dead-headed, loud-mouthed moron who has a large number of other stupid morons supporting her. It mystifies me to my very core how anyone could see any good in her. She is profoundly and genuinely stupid, intellectually and morally bankrupt, a smarmy liar, a hater of wildlife and a despoiler of the environment, supremely cynical, absolutely devoid of anything resembling class, and more than willing to whore herself and her family out if it means advancing her agenda. She is the incredibly annoying little lap dog of the conservative right, always ready to degrade herself in any way her masters tell her to, and is rapidly carving out a niche for herself right next to other right-wing septic tanks like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Sarah Palin is a world-class blight and an acute embarrassment to this country. Without a doubt the best thing she could ever do is take a long, long walk out into the Alaska wilderness and never, ever come back.
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