In a tradition that started at Rumproast several years ago, I like to wind up the year in blogging by saying a hearty “fuck off!” to five people / trends / things that really need to go away in the coming New Year and invite readers to add their own picks and thoughts.
The competition is fierce every year, but I’m not sure I’ve ever contemplated such a worthy roster of candidates as confronts us here in late 2012. But here goes:
1. Everyone named “Bush.” No Jeb! No George P. Bush. No one else with the last name “Bush” should be discussed in connection with an elected office in the US, ever again. This includes people named Bush who are not actually related to George W. Bush. That’s not fair, but tough shit. No more Bushes. The band “Bush” can stay, though.
2. The expression “baby bump.” I don’t know who started this, but I suspect it was someone like the insufferable Tina Brown. Well, enough, goddamn it. It’s bad enough to discuss royal uteri and celebrity fecundity as if it were even remotely important to anyone but the principals involved without resorting to infantile verbiage.
3. Donald Trump. Has any single earthling who was not a genuine murderous despot ever cried out for an extinction-level asteroid strike as self-importantly, relentlessly and absurdly as Trump? Whether he’s trying to bully Scotsmen or injecting himself into US politics or pimping blatantly racist birther conspiracy theories, Trump is an embarrassment to the human race, and his mug should disappear from my teevee. Forever.
4. The Tea Party. It was never anything more than a Koch-funded rebranding campaign to mitigate the damage to the GOP’s image wrought by walking disaster George W. Bush. But pundits and political operators who should know better still persist in treating it as a genuine grassroots movement. Well, enough of that bullshit. Let’s see no more Gadsden flags, faux Colonial breeches and tricorn hats in 2013.
5. Camille Paglia. This “crassly egocentric, raving twit” should have had the good grace to slink off into oblivion forever when the late, great Molly Ivins laid the definitive smack-down [PDF link] on her more than 20 years ago. And yet she persists. Fuck off, already.
Who / what else should kindly fuck the fuck off in 2013?
[X-posted at Rumproast]
Rex Everything
God DAMN is Paglia a shithead.
Cassidy
#4 I kinda like it when they all gather together. The odds of someone getting mad and practicing Second amendment remedies on the guy smoking two feet away get better the madder they get. Plus they were the best thing to happen to Democrats this election cycle.
Brachiator
Mitt Romney and his wife can both jump onto Rafalca and ride the fuck off into the sunset.
They can take Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers with them.
Gretchen
Very close to the definitive list, if only all Romneys were included somewhere.
And thanks for the Molly Ivings link. Gosh, I miss her!
gogol's wife
Wow, that’s a good list. I subscribe.
gogol's wife
p.s. I would add Maureen Dowd and Frank Bruni. The out-and-out conservative op-ed people don’t bother me anywhere near as much as the ones who are supposedly liberals.
Mr. Longform
1. hipster glasses
2. vampires, zombies, etc.
3. John McCain
4. pet anthropomorphizers
5. that one guy in my office who’s so fucking stupid
Yutsano
And to connect your number 1 & number two: Jenna Bush is spawning. Commence upchucking at your convenience.
smintheus
How did Paul Ryan not make the short list?
Trinity
I second all of your pics!
I would add (in no particular order)
-Herman Cain
-Sarah Palin
-All Anti-Gay activists
Kerry Reid
Any alleged journalist who starts a question or comment with “Some people are saying….” Either NAME THEM or shove that crap back up the same orifice from whence you pulled it in the first place.
gogol's wife
@Mr. Longform:
Some of those are good, but without #4 there would be no Balloon Juice.
Jon
@Brachiator: Who is Mitt Romney?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gretchen: Amen, but I think the Romneys may already be heading to that kind of vague celebrity limbo where you’ll see their pictures now and then, but have to remind yourself why, exactly, you know who those people are.
Does Paglia persist anywhere except for Joan Walsh’s occasional efforts to drive up traffic? I fully expect her to put up Matt Stoller’s latest tantrum in this same vein. (I assume nutty Matt is just too obscure to make this list).
shortstop
1. Low-information voters.
2. “Undecided” voters.
3. People who go around saying that “Congress” needs to “stop being babies and work together to get things done.”
2. The process of aging.
3. My dumbass stepmom-in-law.
4. The calorie count in eggnog.
5. Clients who float invoices for 120 days.
6. Chicago weather.
7. Every one of the four or five commercials that make up the complete MSNBC evening ad lineup. Alyssa Milano, I fucking hate you now and I suspect you are actively harming UNICEF revenues at this point.
YellowJournalism
The Five from Fox News can go fuck off.
Anyone who says pointing out racism is racist.
People who whine about the President’s travel expenses and/or the White House Christmas card featuring Bo.
Linda Featheringill
Whothehell is Ms. Paglia?
Signed,
Ignorant but Blissful
YellowJournalism
Word Press can fuck off, too, apparently.
shortstop
@YellowJournalism: I think it’s telling us to fuck off.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
The Molly Ivins article is priceless. Had I not quit smoking years ago, I’d need a cigarette.
Paglia’s career in a nutshell: Lift a few now-trite memes from your high school reading of Nietzsche, dress them up in bondage leather and thigh-high boots, and use the resulting Weltenshauung as a base from which to declare your frankly pedestrian tastes in music, film and art as more significant than they really are.
schrodinger's cat
David Brooks: And his tut-tutting about the current Republican party while shilling for its most regressive policies. Please take MoU with you. I hear Syria is wonderful this time of the year.
Paul Ryan : The Village Crush, you lost now please go away, join a glibertarian think tank or something.
Deficit Peacocks and Debt Hawks: Find a bathtub and drown your self in it, along with Grover Norquist.
VSPs in the media: Both sides don’t do it and Nate Silver was right. You have been wrong about everything from Iraq War to the last election. We can easily outsource your jobs to elbenty monkeys with typewriters.
Andrew Sullivan : Learn how to calculate a percentage before pontificating on the budget. Take a remedial Math Class along with Megan McCardle. I am sure your minions can run the blog while you are away.
catclub
@smintheus: Actual damage done by Paul Ryan is minimal by comparison with Bushes.
Ryan may have helped elect various democrats who ran against his budget — which was never implemented.
Keith
Treating extended metaphors like real things. Fiscal Cliff, I’m looking at you
schrodinger's cat
Pagal == Crazy or mad in Hindi, so it is a very fitting name in a sense.
Brian S
Andrew Sullivan can fuck off. The rare handful of times that he adds something worthwhile to the public discourse are way outnumbered by his general jackassery.
Rosalita
John McCain and the assholes who have him their Sunday show week after week after week and making us hear about his ranting
YellowJournalism
Parents who don’t dress their kids properly for the weather because they think a few degrees higher in temperature equals a heat wave, despite there being lots of wet snow in the playground, can definitely fuck off. (This is directed to parents whose kids had snow pants last week but don’t his week because the parent is a lazy ass, not families who need help obtaining winter gear.)
draftmama
John McCain
Max Baucus
Joe Scarborough
Roger Ailes
Liz Cheney
(I live in Montna – hence #2)
Peej
1. Pete Peterson – go away and try to live on the average SS check, asshole. And take all your asshole buddies with you.
2. Eric Cantor
3. Paul Ryan
4. David Gregory (as a fine representative of Villagr-think)
5. John McCain (you lost, jerk, get over it!)
TenguPhule
1) The Republican Party
2) What’s left of the Blue Dogs
3) Bipartisanship (Is the choice between tire rims and pasta really that hard, America?!)
4) Corporate Leaders/Executives (We need to put the executions back in there)
5) Teen Vampire/Werewolf/Zombie romances
6) The Media Village (Burning the village to save the rest of us actually makes sense in this case)
MattF
Maybe this is just a personal ‘go perform a self-fertilization procedure on a nearby orifice’ but Slate’s contrarianism is just dumb and irritating. They have a few good columnists, but they also have a ‘cooking’ column entitled ‘You’re doing it wrong’ that’s just bad for my blood pressure.
Mr Stagger Lee
Buddy Ryan of the New York Jets can kindly FO, also take Mike Greenberg of Mike and Mike also. Gary Bettman of the NHL I wish you would FOADIAF, just after the LA Kings win the Stanley Cup and good ratings you piss on the faces of hockey fans. Last but not least any one connected to the Breitbart media cult.
Villago Delenda Est
Agree 100% with your list, particularly that vile twat Paglia. The woman is impervious to logic, common sense, the experience of others. She freely writes in an authoritative tone about things she knows jack shit about, particularly such utter horseshit as the “pussification” of the US military.
Oh, and Peej. What what you said about the utter sack of worthless shit that is Pete Peterson.
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, and Cole…you broke something.
Stephen1947
I wish I lived in a universe in which Molly Ivins was guaranteed physical immortality and C Paglia was permanently a flea on some alleycat’s ass.
handsmile
Only five? With so many richly deserving candidates, this is going to be as hard as John Cole’s recent thread on “top five perfect albums.”
And really, Donald Trump (Betty’s #3 pick) does embody all that is most loathsome about contemporary American culture and politics.
First attempt (US version only)
1. Wayne LaPierre
2. Jamie Dimon
3. Joe Lieberman
4. The “Morning Joe” frat house from the “liberal” MSNBC
5. Larry Gagosian
brantl
Rich Snyder, current governor of Michigan, until we recall him.
Kman
(1) Republican “victimization”
(2) Portraying lack of education as a virtue
(3) Tim Tebow
(4) Fake reality TV about getting stuff, hoarding stuff, or repossessing stuff
(5) Rednecks
Schlemizel
TODAY IS THE 6 MONTH MARK!
Spread the word that we want Teddy to keep his promise – he has wasted half the year he had to keep it & only has 120 more days left to stay true to his word
http://countingdownto.com/countdown/176293
quannlace
The Learning Channel needs a moratorium on any new reality shows. ‘Shahs of Sunset,’ ‘Sin City,’ ‘Texas Cheer Moms.’ the return of ‘Honey Boo-Boo’ Sweet Jesus!
And ease up on the constant promotion of said shows. i don’t care how many commercials you show in a half-hour slot, nothing is going to make me watch the wretched ‘Cake Boss.”
*********
Oh, on the political side, enough with ANYONE taking seriously anything Dick Morris has to say.
Pat
I agree with your list. Some of them would disappear if the following would also FO:
David Gregory
Bob Schieffer
George Will
Cokie Roberts
Chris Matthews
and others in the same category, especially Politico and Joe S.
Windbags, all.
jimmiraybob
The Koch Party?
Anyways and also to:
1) Palin and all things Palin
2) Ayn Rand and all things Ayn Rand
3) Agree with Tea Party (unless widely referred to as the Koch Party)
4) Rick Santorum and all things Rick Santorum (and I include Todd Akin et al., in the list)
5) Family values (if not used in an entirely ironic sense to point out the complete hypocrisy and ridiculousness of adherents)
1st alternate: Honey Boo Boo
Thank you for asking.
I reserve the right to amend this from moment to moment depending on mood, wind direction, current Charles P. Pierce post, and/or any new stupid coming to my attention.
SarahT
1) Republicans; 2) Guy Fieri; 3) The “Learning” Channel; 4) Republicans; 5) “Bush” the band
GregB
*So called Edgy comics who think Holocaust and rape jokes are funny.
*Anyone who said 9/11 changed everything.
*Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.
*Rightwing religious American nutbags.
*Rightwing religious Muslim shitheels.
*Rightwing religious Israel toolbags.
*Radio DJ’s with no concept of human decency.
*Wayne Lapierre and the Gun Gestapo at the NRA.
Is that five?
artem1s
Can’t believe we got to 41 and no one mentioned Limbaugh. Time for him to get Raptured or whatever. I’ve had enough of anyone believing that he has anything useful to say about anything. he is poison. a disease.
jimmiraybob
Wow.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been called on using the “Missing argument 2 for wpdb, etc., etc.” gambit. Consider me warned.
Sincerely Repentant,
jrb
Steeplejack
@Stephen1947:
Why do you hate alleycats?
wenchacha
1. Mass shooters.
2. People who shoot when they could punch when they could argue when they could call 911 or walk away.
trollhattan
Repeating, but only because it’s necessary.
Willard Mitt FuckEverybodyWho’sNotMe Romney. I think he’s sufficiently thick and his ego sufficiently huge that he’ll try something, anything to fulfill his DESTINY of leading the nation to some kind of oblivion. Crush him under a large rock, stat. Toss in the boys, while you’re at it.
Paul Ryan. This fucker is dangerous, not because he’s a brilliant schemer but because the wingnuts have projected their hopes and dreams on his zombie visage. He needs to be sent packing.
Rand Paul. See #2, above. If Ryan doesn’t go forward then Aqua Buddha’s ready, able and even more nuts than his krazy old man.
Wayne LaPierre. Possibly the most vile individual in politics, leading the most corrupt lobbying organization. UN “blue helmets” should drag him off to prison in Singapore.
Disagree about Palin. Every time she opens her yap, more people flee the Republican party. See also, too, Michele Bachmann. I don’t think she’s ever accomplished anything, legislatively, has she? She’s a great purportedly breathing anti-Republican advertisement.
It's Not The Fall, It's The Landing
Added for completeness:
1) Rush Limbaugh
2) Sean Hannity
3) Bill O’Reilly
4) Michelle Malkin
5) Ann Coulter
All would most improve our national discourse by leaving it…
NotMax
With malice toward none, with charity for all…
A quaint concept?
trollhattan
WordPress having a 121212 hissyfit. Be vewy afwaid!
JohnK
Is this the Festivus Airing of Grievances? Can we have pictures of the Feats of Strength? Will it involve the monster truck and mud? Also too, John McCain can sit on the Festivus pole.
marindenver
These are not necessarily in any particular order:
1. Bryan Fischer
2. David Gregory
3. John McCain
4. Eric Cantor
5. Donald Trump
6. Donald Trump (because one fuck off just isn’t enough)
eclare
@Steeplejack: HA!
Punchy
The White Sox
The NRA
Sam Brownback
Jay Cutler’s smug mug
Anti-vaxxers
Ann Marie
@Stephen1947: What do you have against that poor alleycat?
shortstop
@trollhattan:
Exactly. Limbaugh, too, is good for our side.
Your other observations are egg salad also.
Supernumerary Charioteer
I do have to admit, ever since I’ve ensconced myself in my own personal ‘everybody loves everything I like’ internet bubble, it’s become harder to find people or trends that I’m genuinely annoyed at. I can’t even get mad at the more obsessive Homestuck fans.
1. Whoever decided it was a great idea at CNN to report on every little commercial that Crossroads or its ilk puts out
2. Captain Amadou Sandogo – seriously, coups are so fucking old hat
3. The European political coterie that thinks that starving its own citizens in order to make sure the banks get paid on time continues to be the best idea despite four years of evidence to the contrary
4. Anti-Muslim populists in Europe, Israel, and NA, anti-everybody-not-Muslim populists in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, right-wing Hindu nationalists, Chinese Internet Tough Guys, anybody who thinks visiting Yasukuni Shrine is a good idea, and Stephen fucking Harper.
5. Our current surplus of really, really lame anime
slag
If we’re going to revel in the land of wishing, I’mma go farther with some variations on a theme:
1. Galtian hero-worship
2. VSP worship
3. Celebrity worship
4. Daddy worship
Get rid of those things, and your list (and any similar list in the future) goes with it.
MomSense
Oh god all I can think of now is how much I miss Molly Ivins. Damn but she was THE BEST!
Steve M.
Gawker has a not-bad, if apolitical, list of “22 Terrible Things That Must End in 2013.”
What I’m really looking forward to the next Buffalo Beast Most Loathsome list. It’s been a hell of a year for loathsome.
As for me: Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. I will open a bottle of champagne the day each of these detestable bastards drops dead.
Steve M.
Gawker has a not-bad, if apolitical, list of “22 Terrible Things That Must End in 2013”:
http://gawker.com/5967552/22-terrible-things-that-must-end-in-2013
What I’m really looking forward to the next Buffalo Beast Most Loathsome list. It’s been a hell of a year for loathsome.
As for me: Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. I will open a bottle of champagne the day each of these detestable bastards drops dead.
JGabriel
__
__
Betty Cracker @ Top:
Everyone who wants to hold the debt ceiling hostage.
.
Keith
1) I second Guy Fieri, and anyone else who still uses “bro”, “It’s money”, and “Winner, winner, chicken dinner”
2) Mitch McConnell
3) Focus-group-generated-phrases being beaten into the ground: “Job creators”, “small business”, “fiscal cliff”…I would accept using synonyms.
4) Jon Stewart saying “OH NO YOU DI’NT!”
5) Red Hot Chili Peppers…at least insofar as they are played on the radio ad nauseum
schrodinger's cat
5 Fashion Trends that need to die
5. Color blocking and pattern mixing
4. Statement necklaces
3. Animal prints
2. Peplums
1. Uggs and Crocs
hitchhiker
I can’t believe I’m the first to mention this name:
Karl Rove.
Karl Rove can kindly fuck off. His manifest damage to the country is going to take a generation or two to undo, and he’s never been anything but a 3rd rate intelligence who saw a chance to enrich himself while pandering to fools. Seriously, just fuck off.
Sargeant Pepper's Spray
1.) Sean Hannity
2.) Politico
3.) Freedom Works
4.) Karl Rove
5.) Fox and Friends
6.) Kim Jong Un and the entire North Korean nomenclature
7.) Sean Hannity (again)
8.) War Harpies
9.) The Afghan Taliban
10.) The American Taliban
11.) Bibi
12.) Post-Soviet Oligarchs
Elizabelle
How could Mitch McConnell not be on the list?
Least popular Senator out there, and up for re-election in 2014. In Kentucky. (sigh)
Was Chuck Todd not on the list? Perhaps he got missed in the race to dump on David Gregory.
Nate Silver ate Todd’s bacon, eggs, pancakes, desk, minivan.
What is the reason to keep Mr. NBC Numbers? Chuck Todd has been had. He should be freed up to teach introductory statistics at some midwestern community college or high school in the sticks. Maybe he could handle driver’s ed too. What passes for multi-tasking in ToddWorld.
Another Halocene Human
Did Paglia say something lately? I thought she rode off into oblivion when she got married and her raving sexual frustration was slaked a little bit. Her wife is an artist and she was pimping her shows or something.
Thank you for mentioning “baby bump”, Betty. A truly vile piece of jargon that should have been smothered in its crib, pun intended. HATE THIS TERM. Also, too, mostly popularized because of the Beyoncé surrogacy conspiracy theory. Although that one video does look pretty suspicious.
Another Halocene Human
@hitchhiker: Karl Rove. Amen, brothah. That cat needs to hit the road, Jack, and don’t come back.
Elizabelle
@Another Halocene Human:
I think people were talking “baby bump” with Princess Diana’s first pregnancy.
For list: Glenn Kessler could find a different line of work.
He’s freakishly bad at “fact checking” or whatever the little darling thinks he does for a living.
JustPeachyAndYou
All reality shows need to DIAF. The contestants are egomaniacs, exhibitionists, and/or the criminally naive, the premises are about as socially redeeming as the ingredients list of fracking fluid, the producers are sociopaths, and the cheapskate, easily gulled networks that buy the shows wouldn’t know art if it gave them blood poisoning.
Also, I second (or maybe fifth or sixth by now) the notion that John McCain needs a one-way trip to the Home for the Terminally Get Off My Lawn.
Mike in NC
@Another Halocene Human:
Probably coined by People magazine or Entertainment Tonight or some other sub-cretinous outlet of what passes for early 21st Century American popular culture. Or maybe Joe Scarborough came up with it.
geg6
I approve your list, Betty, and add these:
1) The Real Housewives of whatever tacky zip code you want to name.
2) David Gregory
3) Bob Schieffer
4) Anyone named Cheney, even if they have no relation to the Dark Lord
5) Chris Collinsworth, but he can stay as long as he never calls another Steeler game
6) Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr
7) Rush, both the band and the pilonoidal cyst
8) Any discussion of the inbreds living in Buckingham Palance outside of the British Isles
9) That stupid Twilight saga
10) Any and all msm “fact checkers”
jimmiraybob
@hitchhiker:
I was going to mention Rove as an alternate but he’s apparently self destructing – at least for the moment – but I decided on Honey Boo Boo (and all things Boo Boo) as a more immediate and unstaunched threat to the universe.
But, upon reflection, I’ll add Rove and the Southern Strategy, in general, as runner up #2.
geg6
Okay, what the hell is with WordPress?
Another Halocene Human
Wayback wouldn’t load but I found this:
http://stevenhartsite.wordpress.com/2007/02/22/passages-molly-ivins/
Sargeant Pepper's Spray
And “baby bump”, yes, kudos for that one! I cringe every time I read it.
It’s somehow the most vile pairing of words in the English language; screaming “vacuous, superficial, and soul deadening discourse to follow”.
Geeno
I had nearly forgotten how great Molly was. Thanks for the link.
Kyle
1. Let’s stop a lot of the bad shit before it gets started by telling religion to fuck off.
2. All Kardashians
3. Gambling phrases: double-down, all in.
4. Karl Rove
5. Whoever needs to die this year so that Cheney can get another heart and keep himself alive until someone throws the fcker in jail.
Kent
80 comments in and these worthy candidates are not yet mentioned:
Simpson and Bowles and their damn commission that produced nothing despite what the media seems to thing.
Benjamin Netanyahu and his ilk
Ann Rynd
Chuck Todd, who had as much to do with the Republican suspension of disbelief syndrome as Karl Rove and who, in his underwater way, was talking about a squeeker on the morning of the election.
Jennifer Rubin as much for her face as for her thoroughly pig-headed neo-conness and her terrible writing which reveals her to be a scold and a harridan and a mouthpiece for the Podhoretz family.
Cassidy
I’m going to go with “journey” as some sort of description of movement through life.
Chris
1) The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
2) Ann Romney.
3) Mitt Romney.
4) Bibi. FUCK Bibi.
5) The shitty public transportation system in the otherwise fine city of Miami that I just moved to. (That last one’s just me).
Another Halocene Human
@Supernumerary Charioteer: Seriously. The problem with anime is, of course, that the corporate sponsors have been providing less and less funding in real yen so the product is getting progressively shittier with very few exceptions.
Computers can be used for good in anime (GITS, anyone?) but as money-saving device the product is crap.
Some friends/family had me looking up old Sailor Moon this week and even though I was laughing at how stupid and transparent the show is (let’s spend several minutes on the same repeated transformation sequences because it’s cheaper and easier than drawing an actual fight sequence) it was pretty amazing to see that old school, hand-drawn animation. I mean, it looked pretty endearing. I was also impressed by the director’s choice to spend the budget on animating the emotional sequences in a certain episode and cheap out (shaking stills–really) on the final fight sequence. Although BSSM is an insanely dumb series/franchise/whatever I genuinely enjoyed the animation, stories, and the Japanese voice acting. (The US dub is awful… Serena’s voice is like nails on chalkboard.) The voice of Haruka Tenou is a very famous idol singer/voice actress who also voiced Ikari Shinji in Shinseiki Evangelion (NGE).
Edo
#1. Republican political families. The more multigenerational, the faster. Bushes, Romneys, Pauls: now is your time.
#2. The History Channel and its spinoffs. Should be the first to go when the ancient aliens come back to destroy the world on December 21, 2012.
#3. VSPs, for reasons that need no explaining.
#4. Ayn Rand, and all things to do with her. Yes, this means Rand Paul deserves to be consigned to oblivion twice. I have no problems with that.
#5. Justice Scalia. Because he’ll never retire of his own free will. Just fuck off already.
Chris
6) FYWP
handsmile
@Another Halocene Human:
Paglia has written a new book, Glittering Images: A Journey through Art from Egypt to Star Wars. It received a withering review two weeks ago in the Sunday NYT Book Review. Which was most surprising because the TImes has steadfastly pimped her reputation for years (in fact, there was a flattering pre-publication feature on her).
Art/cultural history is my academic training and profession; let me assure you that Sister Wendy’s opinions on art are more respected than the screeds of Paglia. Whatever critical frissons were set off by her 1990 book Sexual Personae have long since dissipated, and she is now little more than a caricature in the field.
Frankly, I was startled to see her name amidst the rogues’ gallery here. I would have thought Naomi Wolf would be a more likely figure of opprobrium.
Woodrowfan
the entire “Village.” Let’s just cancel the TV, print and book contracts of every media figure who appeared in any major newspaper’s editorial page or on any TV news talk show more than three times before 2008. Sure, we’ll lose a few good voices but think of the fresh voices we’ll gain.
LAC
Great list! Loved that Molly Irvin’s article about that over-praised twat, Paglia. That she is showing up again like a bad smell is bad enough.
On my list (in no order)
Chris Matthews – if I have to hear about his book (which he goes on about at every opportunity), or the time when he and Tip O’Neil got drunk and laughed their asses off and how that leads to some “advice he has to give to the President (who won without it, you fat fuck), I might need to borrow a damn drone. Fuck off already!
Chuck Todd: chinless fucks have their new leader (sorry Greenwald!). Stand right next to Matthews when I get my hands on a drone, fucktard. How the hell did this guy get to be such a MSM twat?
Jennifer Rubin: To the bigwigs at WAPO – be brave and allow that bitch to carry out her threat to post your mexican donkey sex show pictures. Because if that means getting to fire her wingnut ass, all will be forgiven. Between her deep fellating Romney and Ryan throughout this year and her endlessly wrong postings about everything, WAPO continues its disservice to its readers.
John McCain – get the fuck off of my lawn and go wave your fists at clouds in outer space. Have several seats already…
Billy Crystal hosting the Oscars again – Jesus Christ on toast! Nooooooo
Shana
@Steve M.: Reminds me of the joke (holy crap, I’ve become my father) about the guy who buys a newspaper at a newsstand every day, looks at the front page and put it down again. Every day. Finally the newsagent asks the guy why he does that. The guy says “I’m checking the obituaries.” Newsagent says “but the obits are on an inside page” and the guys says “not the obit I’m looking for. When that SOB dies it’ll be on the front page.”
Shana
@handsmile: Boy am I glad to hear that. My younger daughter is an art history major and loved all the Sister Wendy videos she occasionally got to watch during her AP Art History class in high school. She’ll be very happy to have an actual professional agree with her on this.
trollhattan
@Cassidy:
Journey the band would do, also, too. Just in case they decide to have a fucking re-re-reunion tour and walkerfest.
“Struggle” is vastly overdone in politics also, also, too, and if you don’t believe that, try it in the original German.
Cassidy
@trollhattan: I’m all for keeping Journey around. Sometimes you need an 80’s montage and only “Don’t Stop Believing” will do. But I’m definitely on board with struggle.
Jenny
You are five for five on this one!
Mike G
Tea Party
Netanyahu
Jamie Dimon
Tim Tebow
Media hyperventilating about the “Fiscal Cliff”. Go jump off a fiscal cliff and die already.
Elizabelle
Breaking news, and lucky us:
We now have a Bush baby bump.
Jenna Bush Hager’s gestating.
No word yet on the child’s contract with NBC.
And breaking breaking:
Track Palin’s getting a divorce.
Those whom the yegawds would drive crazy …
handsmile
@Shana:
Happy to read of your daughter’s choice of majors; it’s an honorable if rarely lucrative endeavor.
But just to be clear: Sister Wendy’s programs are a fine and often endearing introduction to Western art history. What I most admire is her enthusiasm for the works of art she discusses and her encouragement of viewers to take seriously the enterprises of art-making and art appreciation. She is an amateur in the best and truest sense of the word.
As I trust your daughter has already discovered, however, from this prelude one must seek out other art historians for more sophisticated scholarship and analysis. And to be sure, Camille Paglia is not among those.
Felinious Wench
1. McCain. For the love of God, McCain.
2. Limbaugh.
3. Trump
4. Ted Nugent. Please, please, please let him make good on his promise of death or jail.
5. The term “I know, right?” Fingernails on a chalkboard for me. I have, however, adopted “really?” and use it as appropriate.
Cassidy
@Felinious Wench:
I know, right?
Supernumerary Charioteer
@Another Halocene Human:
I’m not in the ‘computers ruined animation’ camp. It may have looked that way six to twelve years ago, when a lot of studios were switching over to computer-aided animation from hand-drawn and ended up producing a lot of static, fuzzy, muddled, depthless shit, but a lot of the stuff today, at least in the action department, actually looks pretty good. It’s not Akira, but it’s not, say, Noir.
I think the problem with regards to the falloff in studio funding is the fact that it has to be made up with ‘safe’ funding in order to be made, and the only two sources of ‘safe’ funding are from pre-built fanbases or from chasing the otaku merchandise market.
Take Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere. It got a budget. It looks good. It was a pretty high-profile release. It even got two seasons, which is getting rarer. But it only got that funding because it’s based off of a cash-cow light novel franchise and is chock full of otaku fetish princesses, and it ended up being a pretty terrible adaptation. The first six episodes were an incomprehensible data dump introducing 40-some-odd characters, most of whom only got an establishing character moment and a few lines of dialogue. If you hadn’t already read the novels, you were close to completely lost.
The rest of the series out there seem to be adaptations of risque for-boys romance comics and light novels, anodyne Lucky Star clones, and shows where they turn Oda Nobunaga into a girl and have her blow up space battleships with lightsaber katanas. And I think I could use that sentence to describe every season for the last three or four years, because for whatever reason (tits) those all sell merchandise.
There’s been good stuff – I’m watching Jojo now, which has been a pretty solid adaptation, and two seasons ago Sakamichi no Apollon and Mysterious Girlfriend X were must-watches, but it’s been pretty barren otherwise.
Another Halocene Human
@handsmile: Wow, she is such a character of herself. Visual arts are definitely not her background/training, but she fucked an artist so now she’s an expert. Jeez. Actually, I guess the fires must be banked (it’s been a while, hasn’t it?) because she’s actually writing again.
I liked Sexual Personae. It was certainly more accessible than the turgid French-influenced academic style in vogue in US academe at the time. But getting famous went to her head, and fast. Her column on Salon in the 1990s was, wow, something else. I also remember the giant ego she had about male fans wanting to date her. She had some sort of gay man envy going on bad.
Molly Ivins wasn’t the only one to do a Paglia take-down. Probably forgotten outside of the Lesbian/bi/queer women community is that Susie Bright (“Susie Sexpert”) interviewed Paglia. Much more self-aware than her subject (she wrote a funny column about her sexual fantasy about seducing National Embarrassment VP Dan Quayle, while Paglia, after defending Clinton against his non-European detractors over his affair, had some sort of revulsion-reaction, fell in love with GW Bush’s “gravitas” (Jen Rubin style, so not kidding) and violently tore into anyone who thought he was an obnoxious know-nothing dumbass without an ounce of class) her reaction to Paglia’s resentment coupled with ignorance of 80’s lesbian culture was met with more pity than anything else.
MTiffany71
“Double down” can double-fuck-off.
Quaker in a Basement
Luke “Pumpkinhead Junior” Russert
schrodinger's cat
@MTiffany71: Also too, throw under a bus, needs to be thrown under a bus.
Rich2506
Yeah, I heard Rush Limbaugh via Media Matters call Camille Paglia a feminist. Uh, I don’t think so. Last I heard, she was attracted by the idea of becoming a lesbian, but couldn’t find anyone who wanted to “do it” with her.
As a feminist, she might have been a wannabe at some point, but I seriously doubt feminists allowed her into their club either.
feebog
Gawd, only five?
OK then:
Antonin Scalia, just fucking go face down in a plate of pasta asshole.
Dick Morris, go suck your own toes moron.
Ann Coulter, your broom is ready, please pick up and exit stage right.
Rick Scott, there is a pike just waiting for your head out there.
Newt Gringrich, the very defintion of a legend in his own mind.
LAC
@feebog: LMAO!!! You need to write for Hallmark. I would so send those cards out. The “FUUUUCK YOU” line of cards – when you want to send the best to the worst.
The entire GOP primary candidates – line up ’cause this will only take one bullet.
piratedan
@Supernumerary Charioteer: well I agree that while there has been a load of series that are somewhat less than choices… we have had this season Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, the third season of Bakuman; plus Robotics Notes has been good and appreciated you mentioning the two best series from last season.
but my list of things that can go…..
in no specific order:
Chuck Todd
The Koch Brothers
Jon Kyl
Music that isn’t sung
phony reality fare
AnotherBruce
Geico commercials. I hate that stupid little fucking Aussie accented lizard. Could someone Godzilla him into the next life?
Shana
@handsmile: Yeah, she’s figured that out, but loved her enthusiasm, and because she’s a teenager, her goofiness. She says the art history class she’s currently taking is the best class she’s ever had. She also understands that it’s not an easy industry to work in, but one of her uncles is the head of an art history department at one of the country’s highly regarded universities so she has a more realistic sense of what’s ahead of her. She hopes to do art education at a university, but that may change, she’s still young.
Kenneth Fair
Here’s a few more:
1. The American Legislative Exchange Council.
2. Fix the Debt.
3. Singers who crank up Auto-Tune until they sound like robots.
4. Climate change deniers.
5. Alan Simpson.
6. Birthers and truthers.
JustRuss
Politifact, for there multiple Both-Sides-Do-Itisms, my favorite being the “Obama’s statement is true, but if you interpret it incorrectly, which we’re choosing to do, it’s not, so Pants On Fire!”
Every Republican governor or crony who jumped on the voter-suppression bandwagon.
JustRuss
Let me add:
Anyone who can’t repress the need to point out that I used the wrong synonym for “they’re” in my previous comment.
The Balloon Juice comment editor, may its wretched soul burn forever.
LAC
Add to the list. Any jackass who came here braying about Obama loss and didn’t have the guts to come back after November 6. Fuck off, bitches!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Jon:
Whoever he is, the supermarket tabloids claim his wife is divorcing him.
redshirt
1. All Republicans
2. All Libertarians
3. All Tea Partiers
4. All the Village
5. All of Newscorp
redshirt
Hey! Look at WP!
Central Planning
1. Maggie Brooks, Monroe County (Rochester) Executive, for moving taxable items out of the property tax and into fees. Hey, she kept the taxes flat for 9 straight years.
2. Legos. Crazy expensive.
3. What redshirt said in 318
4. Companies that don’t give raises
5. Some conservative asshat named Boris who was on Stand Up with Pete Dominick.
SarahT
@AnotherBruce: THANK YOU !
NotMax
@JutRuss
Too juicy a lob not to hit it back over the net.
Homonym*, not synonym.
Correction with respect, not with rancor. :)
*Homophone and heterograph, also too.
e.a.f.
I support your list.
I would like to add that republican with the bad hair & the fake tan. I think his name is Bonher or something anyhow he’s the head republican. The guy gives me the creeps. I’d like Stephen Harper,Prime Minister of Canada, & bum boy to the Chinese government to fuck off & mvoe it along before he finishes giving Canada away to China.
It might be nice if the republicans & govenor of Michigan would fuck off. Perhaps he might be happy working in Hondorus for a $1 a day. They dont do Unions their either.
asiangrrlMN
Didn’t read all the comments, but I’m throwing in my two cents, anyway. And, yes, I’m late to the game as always, but honey badger don’t give a shit!
1. Ross Douthat because he’s an arrogant prick who dresses up ugly ideas in pretty words.
2. Any Republican man expounding on wimminz issues as if he knows something.
3. Anyone talking about Clinton, Hillary, running for prez in 2016.
4. Fox News. Yes, all of it – all of THEM.
5. Meggings. I learned what that was today, and now, I must poke my eyes out with my rusty pitchfork™.
P.S. FYWP in advance.
treader
@Schlemizel: 6/13/13
piscine morts
pat robertson
pope
pere bush
tea party
putin
castro
chavez
lohan
cheney
nugent
JustRuss
@NotMax: Heh, well played, and I take full responsibility for making that too juicy to pass up. In my defense, it was late and I was dealing with my violently ill 85-year-old mother, so my head wasn’t really in the game.