Ask Swearengen
Dear Al,
My boss just fired me because I said some stupid things about him in a magazine. Was I over the line?
General Disarray
—
General,
Over time, your quickness with a cocky rejoinder must have gotten you many punches in the face. You want a donkey’s attention, you bring a fucking pole down between his ears. Enjoy retirement.
Al
Ask clusterflock
In my work, we discuss “culture” as comprising the values and norms of an organization. How would you describe the culture of clusterflock?
This is what passes for news these days
Cover of The Hills Have Eyes (Unrated Edition)
Paula Deen, the chef and talk show host, offered an endorsement of sorts for first lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday.
“She is such a good eater,” Deen told the Boston Globe.
This is what Anthony Bourdain wrote about the “chef”:
I’m reluctant to bash what seems to be a nice old lady. Even if her supporting cast is beginning to look like the Hills Have Eyes–and her food a True Buffet of Horrors. A recent Hawaii show was indistinguishable from an early John Waters film. And the food on a par with the last scene of Pink Flamingos. But I’d like to see her mad. Like her look-alike, Divine in the classic, “Female Trouble.“ Paula Deen on a Baltimore Killing Spree would be something to see. Let her get Rachael (Ray) in a headlock–and it’s all over.
Nothing to add.
Hello Dali
One of the hazards of travel across time zones is getting the morning alarms right. Today I rose at what I thought was 5:45 MDT, which would have been 7:45 EDT. Alas, it was 5:45 EDT. Upon arriving to the office at 6:30, I was surprised to find an empty parking lot. Still believing it to be 8:30, I entered a darkened building. It felt like a zombie movie–there was no one at all inside. Very creepy.
Ever done that?
UPDATE: Question answered (sort of):
Andrew Simone via Twitter: So, I just realized that my flight is not tomorrow but Thursday which is to say that unemployment has warped my mind.
Ronya plays the race card
Ronya sent me this card today. Too good not to share.
The Last Meal
If you have not read this, enjoy:
A two-ounce songbird. A lemon-sized tumor. An imperial appetite for death, flesh, and the immortal gesture. It was time for dinner.
By Michael Paterniti
The night before the last meal, I visit a stone church where mass is being said. In the back row, a retarded boy sits with his mother, his head tilting heavenward, watching, in an unfocused way, the trapped birds that flutter and spin in the height of the church vault. About a hundred yards away, in the immense holy hangar, tulips bloom on the altar. It’s the end of December — gray has fallen over Paris — and the tulips are lurid-red, gathered in four vases, two to a side. A priest stands among them and raises his arms as if to fly.
The clusterflock meme
There’s a good chance that you’ve come across the word “meme” at some point or another in the past few years. It’s an arcane academic concept but at the same time it’s also one of those things that you can identify, but can’t describe easily. Richard Dawkins coined the phrase in an effort to help explain cultural evolution in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, where it’s defined as a shared element intended to be passed around within a culture, a societal analog to a gene. Everything from Tamagotchis to “That’s what she said” count as memes.
- via Mashable
My father knows no middle ground
Someone recently passed me a copy of “Shit My Dad Says“. I didn’t expect much. Based on this gem from the first chapter, I’ll keep reading:
“You are four years old. You have to shit in the toilet. This is not one of those negotiations where we’ll go back and forth and find a middle ground. This ends with you shitting in a toilet.”
Torture means never having to say you’re sorry
Guess this is going to be news analysis and outrage day. This comes from Dahlia Lithwick’s painful examination of the Supreme Court’s denial–without comment–to hear the Arar torture case:
A torture lawyer cannot be held responsible for authorizing torture, and an innocent victim of torture cannot get restitution. Torture slowly becomes a singular act for which nobody will ever be held to account and nobody will ever be made whole. [emphasis added]
By comparison, the Canadians have reviewed the case, held their intelligence organizations accountable, and paid Arar almost $10 million. The guy was clearly innocent, and rather than allow him to have his day in court, we delivered him to the Syrians. When in recent history has the United States ever cooperated with Syria on anything?
Our policies toward torture and rendition are an embarrassment, one that challenges the very foundations of what Americans believe their country to be. Worse still, our government has colluded in making certain that torture will not be addressed. As Lithwick notes,
Each of the three branches of government has worked together to prevent a national reckoning over torture. That doesn’t mean such a reckoning won’t happen. It will simply happen elsewhere, without U.S. participation or involvement or acceptance of responsibility. In the end, sending a torture victim abroad to get justice is just as cowardly as sending him abroad to be tortured.
Dick and Jane’s Deepwater Horizon
Okay, I get that one should tailor a message to the audience, but this hit me as more than a little condescending:
President Obama’s speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.
Tuesday night’s speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.
Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence “added some difficulty for his target audience,” Payack said.
What does Payack mean by “over the heads of many in his audience”? This is the sentence he singled out as problematic:
“That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s secretary of energy.”
Makes my lips tired just reading that sentence. Ever seen someone bend down and talk loudly to someone in a wheelchair? Kind of seems like that’s what they think Obama should have done to the American people.
FFDC
Those who have spent time in our nation’s capitol [sic] will be familiar with the odd phenomenon of FFDC: Famous for DC. This is a backhanded compliment that becomes increasingly meaningless in direct proportion to one’s physical distance from the Capitol Beltway. As the cynical, venal vultures at Bravo have elected to do some sort of “Real Housewives of DC” thing, herewith my recommendations for the cast, most of whom should be considered FFDCs:
Six-word memoirs
You’ve likely heard of the six-word memoir or six-word story as putatively made famous by Ernest Hemingway:
For sale: baby shoes, never used.
What’s yours?
Elvis’s inconvenient truth
Listening to “Aloha from Hawaii” this morning I noticed the following amendment to the lyrics of “Suspicious Minds”:
I’ve never lied to you
No, not much…
Heh.
The politics of oil spills and mass transit
Image by Pro-Zak via Flickr
Intended outcomes aside, is this cynical?
“Now I can’t promise folks that the oil will be cleaned up overnight,” Mr. Obama said. “It will not be.” More businesses will be hurt and people will be angry. “But I promise you this, that things are going to return to normal.”
I do understand the context: the president was speaking to people who have lost jobs and paychecks, whose livelihoods are insecure, and whose futures are uncertain. We can only hope that their lives will return to normal as soon as possible.
But these are times, in policy terms, when things should not return to normal. Yet, I am worried that they will.
Ask Swearengen
Dear Al,
Although I don’t usually like to keep secrets, I recently ordered a bicycle in anticipation of moving to a house in the city. While I obviously wouldn’t try to hide my bicycle from my partner, I did neglect to tell her about the purchase at the time. I wanted to have the bike so that there would be something tangible associated with the expenditure. Alas, the vendor–who had promised discretion–mailed a postcard to our current home thanking me for the purchase. While the discovery was coincidental, I feel remorse over withholding what was a happy moment for me. What should I do?
Pussywhipped in Parsippany
—
Dear P’Whipped,
Oh, a turn of events. Your partner calls it a coincidence. So, what with this coincidence and turn of events starin’ me in the fuckin’ face and five other fuckin’ things I’m supposed to be payin’ attention to, I still make you a sensible proposal and you answer by insulting me in my own joint. Fuck off.
Al
overheard just now
“Dat Beverly Hills Chihauhau–I love dat movie.”
Justice on the Farris wheel [sic]
Found this whilst searching for something else related to human-canine relations. The man on the left is my father.
Courts Moved to Fairgrounds
The Farris wheel and the carnival moved out August 28 making way for the General Sessions and Circuit Courts of Carroll County to relocate to the Fairgrounds. Criminal court is being held in the Exhibit Building at the Fairgrounds while the second floor courtrooms at the Carroll County Courthouse are being renovated. Court will be held at the Fairgrounds up to seven months as the $1 million renovation is in process. The court clerks’ offices will remain open on the first floor of the courthouse.
Pictured is General Sessions Judge Larry Logan hearing a criminal case as defense attorney Michael Ainley pleads his client’s case.
Damn shame about that “Farris wheel”. For more on the courthouse, this letter from my late Uncle Ray may prove illuminating.
Confederate crotch rocket
Only two remain:
oh.
…libel per se refers to a statement that is defamatory on its face; libel per quod covers statements that are defamatory only in context, and requires proof of actual monetary damages.
Drill, baby… what…?
Presumably spoken without irony:
Despite the intense speculation on some blogs, the former Republican vice presidential candidate told Fox News she has not had breast implants and attributed such chatter to “bored, idle bloggers and reporters with nothing else to talk about.”
“I think some of those folks too need to perhaps grab a shovel, go down to the gulf, volunteer to help, clean up and save a well or something,” Palin added.
Common life problems
This made me laugh ten years ago. Still does today.
S O M E C O M M O N
L I F E P R O B L E M S , W I T H
P O S S I B L E S O L U T I O N S .
BY TIM CARVELL
- – - -
1. Have you ever noticed how, if you are with a friend — let us call him Gary, because I don’t actually know any Garys — and he is doing something annoying, like cracking his knuckles, and you say, “If you crack your knuckles one more time, Gary, honest to God, I’ll kill you right here and now”, and then, of course, Gary — because it would be funny — deliberately cracks his knuckles, and then what you do is, you lunge at his neck and scream this sort of exaggerated, joking scream, because that is what people do in this situation in cartoons. But then there’s always an awkward moment, once you’ve lunged, because you then need to stop lunging and sort of withdraw and compose yourself, because you’re not really going to kill him just for cracking his knuckles, but you did have to follow through on the premise of your joke. And now you’re both in this weird state of not having the joke followed through in a satisfactory manner, like it would be in a cartoon. I have a solution for this. I would suggest that, instead of saying, “If you crack your knuckles one more time, Gary, honest to God, I’ll kill you right here and now”, you should say, “If you crack your knuckles one more time, Gary, honest to God, I’ll gouge your eyes out with my thumbs.” And then, once he’s cracked his knuckles and smirked, you can wipe that smug fucking smile off his face by gouging out his eyes, and you’d be totally justified. Is my thinking.
The Wisdom of Friday Night Lights
It’s an old truism that each of us has to make our hardest decision twice.
Sustainable
What does this word mean to you?
Ask Swearengen
Dear Al,
I’m having problems at work. The people I work with are petty, dishonest, and sleazy. They undermine each other and attack people for the tiniest things. They put meetings and pointless documents ahead of their families and their own health. A day at work is almost entirely about dealing with politics and incompetence rather than getting anything meaningful done. I realize that a lot of this is just part of the organizational culture, but what causes people to abandon basic human values to behave so unnaturally? I really feel like I need to take drastic action.
Cockblocked by my Coworkers
—
Dear Cockblocked,
Now it’s not for me to tell anyone in this camp what to do, as much as I don’t want more people gettin’ their throats cut, scalps lifted or any other godless thing that these godless bloodthirsty heathens do. Or even if someone wants to ride out in darkest night. But I will tell you this. I’d use tonight to get myself organized. Ride out in the morning clear-headed. And startin’ tomorrow morning, I will offer a personal $50 bounty for every decapitated head of as many of these godless heathen cocksuckers as anyone can bring in. Tomorrow. With no upper limit! That’s all I say on that subject, ‘cept next round’s on the house. And God rest the souls of that poor family. And pussy’s half price, next 15 minutes.
Al
found fragments
Blame shared equally is a myth
One you believe because you need it
Helps you sleep
Alludes toward absolution
Salves your conscience
But it is a myth
She held my head as I cried about you
Her need was my peace
We slept and she forgave
Love shared equally may be a myth
But sometimes believing the myth
Makes it real
