Al Jazeera has discovered a copy of the top-secret mainstream media dictionary, and the letters A and B are posted. Some samples:
accident. n.
Airstrike in Afghanistan by NATO/ISAF forces usually killing scores of men, women and children.
atrocity. n.
Act of mass murder. Only Arab, Asian, African and Balkan leaders capable. See genocide.
Bahrain. n.
Nothing happening here, move on.
brown. adj.
See suspect.
Here’s an open thread for the other 24 letters or anything else worth discussing.
arguingwithsignposts
Torture. noun
for U.S., see Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.
PeakVT
Which BJer got hired by Al Jazeera?
scav
mistake. noun
Impeachable offence when performed by a republican.
forgiven. past participle of forgive (verb)
The permanent state of being for all pious evangelical republicans, especially signaled by the presence of a wife during a hastily arranged press conference.
Ghanima Atreides
R
Reacharound, n. defn– how libertarians keep the conservative boot on liberals necks in America.
C
COIN, n. , defn— the mistaken belief among the US military brass that muslims will welcome freedom of speech, jehovah witnesses, mormon missionaries, saddleback megachurches, the Jersey Shore, fast food, factory farming and Big White Plastic Freemarket Jeebus.
cleek
t : troll. an intentionally inflammatory post designed to stir emotions in the hope of generating web traffic.
BO_Bill
r: Religion., n.
Man can close the achievement gap as he is God, despite the fact that 30,000 out of 30,000 school districts show nearly identical data sets. Barry can stop the seas from rising for the same reason, except his chin is held higher than that old stale God. Temperatures are trending lower because of Global Warming. Evolution in humans ended 30,000 years ago.
taylormattd
Funny, genocide used to mean something different. But now that Naderite Paultards are in charge of the dictionary, I guess people like Ted Bundy committed genocide.
Joe Bauers
Interesting to get the different perspective. There was one entry that jumped out at me though. The sarcasm directed at Amnesty International is… noted. I guess they’re a bit prickly about having Arab governments’ appalling human rights records described as such. Good to know that intellectual blind spots when it comes to one’s self are things that don’t just exist for Americans…
BO_Bill
B: Butt Plug, n.
A disturbingly hot seller of widely ranging Geometries, some grotesque. Persons laboring in the presence of these commodities seek enlightenment as to the physical appeal of this article and Logically broach the question at Balloon Juice.
It’s my Friday +5.
Mr Stagger Lee
Guilty- what AA’s, Latinos and Muslims are in American Justice system even before the trials begin, also in the eyes of American Law enforcement from inner city and barrio kids to athletes to Harvard Professors (see Gates, Henry Louis)
NobodySpecial
Constitutional: adj.
1)Describing the state of a law in relation to the constitution of a sovereign nation.
2)Describing the state of any presidential action in the US that any lawyer says is ok.
p.a.
science (n); fraudulent empiricist knowledge-base being used in attempt to scare real’murkins into smaller cars, boats, and homes. most common on non-Bible based college campuses.
Chris
@ Joe –
I think they’re painfully aware of their own governments’ human rights shortcomings. (The local governments mostly despise Al Jazeera because it’s not quite the puppet on their strings that they’re used to). They’re just irritated by the fact that Western governments never have to pay for their crimes.
As for the human rights community, I suspect they’re also irritated by the sense that Westerners feel entitled to tell everyone what is and isn’t okay (read any of the ABL white-privilege related threads – this is the same thing on an international scale).
Your mileage may vary, and that’s fine too, but it’s not as simple as just “we don’t want to face the truth about our governments.” In that respect, Al Jazeera’s been better than most groups in the region.
Xenos
From the original diabolical lexicographer:
ABORIGINIES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
Poopyman
@ #8 Joe Bauers:
So yeah, much as I like them, you need to be cognizant of who pays the bills and has hold of the off switch.
(ETA — That quote is from the Wikipedia entry.)
Xenos
And perhaps Bierce’s greatest:
Alex S.
Interesting stuff on Al-Jazeera’s site, not only about the Arab world. (Fukushima)
Joe Bauers
@ #13 Chris
Good points. I think their irritation is 100% justified in the case of transparently hypocritical Western governments, much less so with AI. AI does not as far as I know denounce human rights abuses while simultaneously perpetrating them.
I enjoy AJ’s perspective, which is one we don’t get from other media in the US. That I have a generally favorable opinion of them made their unexpectedly (to me at least, could be my ignorance) harsh criticism of AI jarring.
Ed Marshall
@Joe
You would have to ask the author, but the usual critique of AI that I hear from an Arab perspective is that they are uniquely sensitive to security concerns of Israelis where they scoff at the Russians or Chinese when they act similarly.
justawriter
Oh great, Beck or Limbaugh or one of the other of the ravening horde is going to see this eventually and see the entry for the U.S. president. Then we will see headlines all of the series of tubes that “Al Jazeerah names Obama their messiah.” I’d offer to take bets on this but I don’t want that kind of blood money on my hands.
dadanarchist
Here’s a plug for the excellent British blog, Encyclopedia of Decency, which specializes in these sorts of definitions.
Joe Bauers
@ #19 Ed Marshall
@ #15 Poopyman
Did not know those things, glad to learn them.
Chris
@ Joe –
I think “the West” tends to all mesh together, for a lot of people in the Middle East. And the fact that “human rights” are an often invoked excuse for wars which, justified or not, clearly have nothing to do with human rights (the Afghanistan war and the two Iraq ones for starters) probably doesn’t play well for human rights centric organizations.
It’s unfair to a lot of good Westerners and I don’t defend the stereotype, but I can see how it happens.
Ghanima Atreides
B
Bush Doctrine, n., defn
The Epic Fail of the Manifest Destiny of Judeochristian Democracy (aka Missionary Democracy) in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cost to date of the Bush Doctrine.
A
Arab Spring, n., defn.
The advent of social media in MENA, resulting in the popular overthrow of tyrannical American propped-dictatorships and monarchies.
American Fall, n., defn.
Comes after the Arab Spring.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
Joe Bauers: For years, Amnesty gave Western governments a pass while decrying abuses in the Middle East, China, and Africa. And some of what they called abuse was, but was also local custom. People don’t take that well.
Frankly, there was a ton of Western condescension and definitely more than a hint of outright racism in who they chose to criticize.
They’re better about it these days, but one can’t help but notice that they still don’t apply anything like a universal standard as to who gets criticism and who doesn’t.
stormhit
Have I mentioned how much this place sucks shit now?
Roger Moore
@stormhit:
Thanks for doing so much to make it better. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
sukabi
hypocrisy – getting busted for the very things you supposedly work to stop…
John McGee -(R), Idaho State Senator, Arrested For Drunk Driving, Grand Larceny
Dennis SGMM
balloon-juice.com/2011/06/20/open-thread-the-devils-dictionary/#comment-2638473
And after all of the contributions that you’ve made to the place.
catclub
Whiskey @ 25
I suspect, ( but don’t actually know) that Israel has no love lost for Amnesty International.
It actually seems almost universally disliked by those in power when it pays attention to the acts of same. Sounds like a recommendation to me.
OzoneR
This would explain CNN’s suddenly right wing tilt, they were all interviewing for jobs at Fox.
deadline.com/2011/06/cnns-ed-henry-jumps-to-fox-news-to-become-chief-white-house-correspondent/
p.a.
well after all, he is an authority!
o/t- is the ‘reply’ function gone? or has my recently trojan-virused netbook lost that capacity?
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
stormhit: This seems to be your first comment here.
This is going to be an odd Monday.
Roger Moore
@p.a.:
The reply function is gone. Yes, the authorities have been made aware and they promise that something will happen about it. Eventually. In the mean time, if you really want to have the nice link thingy it’s possible to do it by hand using copy, paste, and the “link” button. Or you could just not link; it’s not as though there aren’t plenty of posts not using the reply button even when it’s working.
bryanD
G is for GABBY, proper noun
Mascot name for Gabrielle Giffords used by presumptuous putzes to dress their own political exploitation of the lady in baby blue Care Bear scrubs.
Yutsano
Thank you for proving, once again, what a complete and total asshole you are.
kindness
Open thread hijack. Who else liked the Game of Thrones last night? I can’t believe I have to wait until next spring to see season 2. C’mon HBO, we pay good money for you. Step up to the plate and give us our nourishment now, not next year.
Cris (without an H)
Even I think those AJ posts are a little shrill.
Cris (without an H)
Haven’t watched it yet, the torrent came in too late.
El Cid
Thing about that is that Al-J has covered the Bahrain situation in much less detail and with less emphasis — and that that you would attribute to its base in Qatar.
This individual writer — the anchor — is therefore doing the opposite of what many have seen (myself included) as going easy on the Bahrain government’s murder and repression.
Or, as no one in power seems to care to notice, the Saudi-occupied protectorate of Bahrain.
opal
@kindness
I was slow to warm to it, but yeah–it’s up there with The Wire.
Peter Dinklage deserves an Emmy.
kindness
I agree Opal. Pretty cool newborn dragons too.
Ghanima Atreides
D
Democracy promotion, n., defn.
The attempt to fool, force, or bribe indigenous muslim populations into accepting faux-secular Israel-friendly American client dictators and monarchs, as opposed to electing muslim democratic populists.
Ghanima Atreides
the books are orders of magnitude better.
Mandramas
Hehe, that is Ambroce Bierce level material.
Silver
They haven’t even started filming the next season yet, iirc.
Hopefully, they don’t fuck it up and cheap out like they did with Rome and ruin it. The first season was amazing, and yes, Peter Dinklage was born to be the Imp.
nightshift66
@kindness
Complete agreement. Last few series I really enjoyed are (a) all on pay channels and (b) subscribe to this new ’10 shows makes a season/call it a year’ rule. Rome, Carnivale, The Borgias, The Tutors, Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood, and now GoT. Is it really that expensive/time-consuming to produce shows that good?
LanceThruster
Zionism – Working to keep everyone else out of their country club due to the fact that at one time they were not allowed into anyone else’s country club.
Cris (without an H)
I imagine it is. Probably nowhere near as expensive or time-consuming as producing a feature film, but quality-wise it’s getting hard to tell the difference.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Religion:
ORIGINALLY: The belief that one could negotiate with the weather.
NOW: The belief that said negotiator is intimately concerned with one’s genitalia and their moral status.
TomG
I loved the show Game of Thrones very much myself, and will be reading the books soon.
For any of you that have already read them (aSoIaF), check out George R. R. Martin’s incredible vampire novel Fevre Dream. I am hoping that his new visibility might give us a feature film of that story.