Art Imitates Life
The Daily Show has video of the liberal blogosphere explaining “funny” to the masses:
For good measure, the opening monologue was one of the best:
See also, Gary Kamiya.
The Final Word On The New Yorker Cover
Goes to Jon Swift:
I don’t even understand the point of satire. If the editors of the New Yorker actually believe that Barack Obama is not a Muslim, Michelle Obama is not a dangerous revolutionary and that they do not actually burn American flags, as Remnick now claims, couldn’t they have just said that? Wouldn’t it have been simpler and clearer to run the illustration with a big X over it so that we knew what they were trying to say? We are not mind readers. It doesn’t make much sense to say the opposite of what you mean and then attack people for being unsophisticated because they thought you were sincere. Do New Yorkers always say the opposite of what they mean and then expect you to understand? Real Americans, I think, prefer straight talkers, like John McCain, who means what he says when he tells us that he doesn’t know very much about economics, can’t figure out how to use a computer and believes that we will be in Iraq for 100 years.
Satire, I believe, is supposed to be funny, though I don’t see how being dishonest is humorous. I think it’s just sad. If the New Yorker wanted to run a humorous cover that showed Obama is not a Muslim, they could have accomplished that goal by depicting him slipping on a banana peal on the way to church. That would have made the same point and it would also have had the virtue of being funny.
***The illustration might also have been acceptable if the New Yorker ran it on the inside of the magazine where people who are sensitive to mockery would not have run across it casually on a newsstand. Or they might also have enclosed this issue in a brown paper bag the way pornographic magazines sometimes are to keep it away from the eyes of children and people with heart trouble (how many children have been traumatized for life and how many deaths this cover has caused will only be known in the coming weeks). While the cover may have met the community standards of a place like New York where people apparently don’t mean what they say, there are some parts of the country where satire is just not acceptable in public.
I was laughing out loud.
Open Thread
Because you need some Monday morning funny:
Angel Food Cake (White) and Devil’s Food Cake (Dark) are Racist
A follow-up to John’s “Black Hole” post awhile back. The councilmember who described the use of the term “black hole” as racist has a few other things he thinks are racist. You can watch the video with this buffoon here.
Other things that could be racist:
- Whitesnake: An utterly horrible metal band of the 80’s. Even so, ever heard of Blacksnake?
- Gandalf the White: Helps save Middle Earth
- Conrad Black: Evil Canadian media mogul
- White-tailed deer: Only half that tail is white. The other half is kinda brown.
- Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker: Self-explanatory.
- White Chocolate: Smooth, sweet, and creamy.
- A9: Black and unpopular. Google: White and very popular!
- Dark Chocolate: Comes in several varieties – many are bitter.
- Black Sabbath: I used to think they were awesome, but kinda dark and evil.
- White Russians: More popular in bars than Black Russians.
- Black Tuesday: Why are stock market crashed named “Black?” Totally about African Americans.
- The night sky: Totally black and gloomy, except for the pretty white stars and moon.
- Black coffee: Kinda harsh (to me), but add a bit of delicious white cream…
- Reggie White: Famous black football player – needs to change last name
- White tigers: They have black stripes, so why not black tigers? Because Sigfreid & Roy are racist, that’s why.
…that’s just a start, of course.
And you know the white stuff in the middle of the Oreo is totally what people buy them for.
Update: Video link fixed.
Angel Food Cake (White) and Devil’s Food Cake (Dark) are RacistPost + Comments (37)
My Day Is Complete
Words can not express the joy I am experiencing right now
Some far-right sites that subscribe to the Associated Press feed, for example, will use auto-correct to change “Democratic Party” to “Democrat Party.” This, of course, is because they have the temperament of children.
But the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website takes the phenomenon one step further with its AP articles. The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word “gay” in the articles with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.
The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.
Win!
Well, We Called That
Me, last week, discussing the Larry Sinclair arrest at the National Press Club:
Question: Who will be the first to claim that if you speak out against Obamessiah, you get arrested? The Free Republic or No Quarter?
Via Sullivan, this from NoQuarter (I refuse to link them):
Tonight political prisoner Larry Sinclair is spending his fourth night in the DC Jail, the victim of a Gestapo-style enemies’ list operation carried out just three blocks from the White House last Wednesday afternoon.
Like shooting fish in a barrel. And just because it is so awesome, let’s revisit the Reason recap:
It had been a difficult morning for Sinclair. The Politico’s Ben Smith published a short feature on Sinclair’s 27-year criminal record of fraud and petty crimes; Greta Van Susteren linked the story, and told viewers/readers why she has ignored him. “While the internet is a great communication and educational tool, it is also viral when it comes to smearing people,” she wrote, prompting commenters to call her a cover-up artist and an agent of Barack Obama. It got worse when Sinclair’s lawyer Montgomery Sibley—whose license is currently suspended in D.C. and Florida—showed up in a kilt and told reporters that his above-average endowment made slacks tight and uncomfortable. The Rev. James David Manning, who gained web celebrity in April for a YouTube’d sermon in which he called Obama a “long-legged mack daddy,” sat in the crowd of 50 or so with his family. He didn’t take questions.
That, much like Hunter S. Thompson’s Nixon Obit, never gets old.