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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: He Has A Network to Pimp!

Open Thread: He Has A Network to Pimp!

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I am amused to imagine Wendy Deng and Lachlan Murdoch frantically shouting over each other on a conference call with every lawyer specializing in geriatric guardianship issues that their researchers could unearth on an hours’ notice.

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  2. 2.

    benw

    So Obama’s a Communist, Socialist, Kenyan, Muslim, Alinskyite Usurper, but he’s NOT black? Okay, seems legit.

  5. 5.

    benw

    @efgoldman: those are the best kind of Aussies. Hey, I also realized that “properly address the racial divide” in this context means the opposite of what I think it means!

  7. 7.

    Jeffro

    Props to Gross’ comment but it doesn’t go far enough…the sound of wing nut welfare stenos all across our fair land (not just the WSJ) banging their heads on desks would be more like the synchronized boot stomps of a cold-war era Red Square parade, times eleventy…eleventy billion.

    How illuminating…a REAL black president, a real BLACK president, a REAL BLACK president.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    @efgoldman: he understands it about as well as 1% of GOP and 10% of Dem voters do, unfortunately. Can’t say he isn’t taking care of the base

  9. 9.

    schrodinger's cat

    @efgoldman: He is no Gentle Uncle Ben, he is the crazy uncle Ben who you have to keep medicated so that he doesn’t go totally loco.

    I wonder whether his wife slips him some opium like Indian women supposedly did to keep their interfering husbands out of their hair.

  10. 10.

    redshirt

    Do you think these wingnuts are ever joking? Like they know about Cleek’s Law and are just playing the part?

    I hope so sometimes. It’s a saner explanation for this nonsense.

  11. 11.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    I am amused to imagine Wendy Deng and Lachlan Murdoch frantically shouting over each other on a conference call with every lawyer specializing in geriatric guardianship issues that their researchers could unearth on an hours’ notice.

    That’s a beautiful image AL. I can only hope they’re all charging a difficult client premium. I suspect the dementing process has only intensified, as opposed to created, the lunacy of Murdoch. Who has, of course, made metric shit tons of money being a reactionary asshole. However questionable his ethics.

  12. 12.

    jl

    I thought Bill Clinton was the first real authentic black president, and that the problem with Obama back when he was running, was that he was not authentically black at all, but an effete body surfer Gen-X mixed race slacker who was raised by a LIBERAL mother, and grew up in a foreign country with a very strange and un-American (e.g., universal health care) culture, Hawaii. I get so confused when I try to figure out what the reactionaries say.

    Edit: that was back before the GOP understood how well the racism angle would work and were still dabbling with Kerrying Obama with the spicy mustards, body surfing and fancy baby lettuces stuff.

  13. 13.

    ThresherK

    @efgoldman: Carson:

    No, I would provide the kind of leadership that says…

    Well, finally a black candidate who gets the Green Lantern Theory. The Villagers will love it.

  16. 16.

    jl

    Oh, no, wait. I thought Obama was the Anti-Christ, the super evil humanity hating supernatural spawn of Zombie Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright. So, everyone know he would be divisive.

  17. 17.

    Warren Terra

    I am amused to imagine Wendy Deng and Lachlan Murdoch frantically shouting over each other on a conference call with every lawyer specializing in geriatric guardianship issues that their researchers could unearth on an hours’ notice.

    I thought Wendi Deng got a divorce and is presumably free of responsibility for him? Not that I have any sympathy for her – she married Murdoch in the first place, after all, has no reputation for being a better person than he is, and apparently had an affair with Tony Blair, of all the horrible people.

    @redshirt:

    What’s the Green Lantern theory? I bet its good.

    Basically, it’s the notion that with sufficient determination anything is possible, applied to foreign or military policy. The corollary is that any failure to achieve your goals means you lacked the necessary gumption. See also the notion that we lot the Vietnam War because we chickened out, and everything bad about it was the fault of the anti-war left – and that it’s unpatriotic to criticize dumb wars. It’s credited to Matt Yglesias, and the original (I think) is reposted here. It’s also in the Balloon Juice Lexicon (see the upper left of the page on Desktop view).

  20. 20.

    Anne Laurie

    @Warren Terra:

    I thought Wendi Deng got a divorce and is presumably free of responsibility for him?

    IIRC, her two underage daughters by Rupert own some fraction of voting stock in the overall corporation — not enough to outvote their adult half-sibs, but quite enough that I’m sure Ms. Deng watches Rupe’s every move very closely.

  27. 27.

    SoupCatcher

    @catclub: We’ll see if they can add three more to their win total against St. Louis.

    eta: My local team didn’t make the play-offs this year, so I’ll be rooting for the West Coast entry (and the team I grew up listening to). Go Doyers!

  29. 29.

    Darkrose

    Dammit. I’m not a Cardinals fan by any means, but I guess I’ll be rooting for them to beat the stupid Cubs.

    Go Mets!

  30. 30.

    catclub

    Fun OT point about the GOP Freedom Caucus: It has no members from California or New York. Also no members from Mississippi.

  31. 31.

    Warren Terra

    @redshirt:

    Hmm. I’m not sure I understand how your quote jibes with the previous definition.

    I think you have to click through and read the whole post. And even then maybe there’s a question of context: Loomis (not Lemieux) is writing in this case largely to an audience very familiar with the concept, and is going rather meta and riffing on the notion to talk about how people misportray the history of the Civil Rights Movement (and similar) as if its successes were the result of heroic individuals projecting the sheer force of their will will in pure service of a beautiful idea, when in fact they resulted from the planning, organization, and dedication of large numbers of people, many of them flawed.

  32. 32.

    Warren Terra

    @catclub:

    Fun OT point about the GOP Freedom Caucus: It has no members from California or New York. Also no members from Mississippi.

    With iirc 40 members it couldn’t possibly cover all 50 states. True, CA and NY are about 20% of the country – though they’re probably a much lower fraction of the House Republican Caucus, and even more so of the true firebreathers.

  33. 33.

    Morzer

    http://gawker.com/report-ben-carson-once-left-a-sponge-in-a-patients-bra-1735224497

    In addition to an allegedly unnecessary tumor removal according to the Enquirer (the tumor turned out to be benign) resulting in “irreversible injuries,” another former patient returned to complain of pain from a previous surgery performed by Carson. Carson reportedly told the 69-year-old patient “that she might have a tumor. But surgery revealed the lump was actually ‘a sponge he had left in (her) brain.’”

    I wonder whether Rupert Murdoch has ever had Ben Carson’s Sponge Donation Service inside his raddled old cranium.

  34. 34.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @benw:
    No, silly. Murdoch means he’s not a president for blacks, who’s helping blacks and cares about black issues the way Ben Carson would. Obama does not understand that welfare is keeping blacks in chains worse than slavery ever did, and only by removing dependency will blacks be able to stand up and lead good, hardworking, noble lives. They believe this shit. Carson certainly does. Murdoch is a ‘My best friend is black!’ racist, apparently.

    @jl:
    ‘Black metrosexual Abe Lincoln.’

  35. 35.

    Felonius Monk

    The world is full of senile, old fartz — Rupert is one of them. Who cares if he babbles incoherently?

  36. 36.

    redshirt

    @Warren Terra: And that seems pretty spot on; I meant it doesn’t jibe with the idea of an action being correct according to the intention of the will, and not the result of the action. Iraq is a heroic victory because we freed the Iraqis from the terrors of Saddam Hussein. As the Green Lantern can create objects and energy with his thoughts, and very powerful objects with the force of his will, so too Republicans can make an action Good and Right and Freedom just by willing it to be so, regardless of outcome.

  37. 37.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Warren Terra: To wit, Joe Lieberman telling Obama to go “get a better deal “out of Iran. At the same time he said the Iranians “couldn’t be trusted”.

    Pure Green Lantern.

  38. 38.

    Wag

    The Green Lantern theory sounds an awful lot like Peter Pan. Clap Louder, everyone! Then the President will be able to win!

  39. 39.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Wag:
    The book hilariously comments that even if YOU didn’t clap, some other kids did, so Tinker Bell lives. Well, lives through that. One of Peter Pan’s last lines in the book is ‘Tinker Bell? I think she’s dead.’ And he just doesn’t care. That book is MESSED UP.

  40. 40.

    Morzer

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    “Who is Captain Hook?” he asked with interest when she spoke of the arch enemy.

    “Don’t you remember,” she asked, amazed, “how you killed him and saved all our lives?”

    “I forget them after I kill them,” he replied carelessly.

    When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her he said, “Who is Tinker Bell?”

    “O Peter,” she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not remember.

    “There are such a lot of them,” he said. “I expect she is no more.”

    I wonder whether anyone has written an article on the sociopathy of Peter Pan.

  41. 41.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Morzer:
    *I* have. I wasn’t so much bothered by Peter Pan’s sociopathy – and he truly is a sadistic, murderous narcissist – but by the way the book acts like this is great, what all children should aspire to be, the true magic of childhood.

    That and the pedophilia overtones when he talks about how grown women find Peter irresistably attractive because he has all his baby teeth.

    MESSED. UP.

  43. 43.

    Morzer

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Some years ago, I ended up watching a pantomime version of Peter Pan with Madame Morzer – and damned if it wasn’t one of the most embarrassing occasions of my life. Peter was bad enough, but the most cringeworthy part was the “Red Indians”. The director of the play had been foolish enough to retain Barrie’s original dialog and way of speaking for them and it made Dan Snyder look like an apostle of interracial enlightenment and mutual respect. I found myself shrinking ever lower in my seat and praying that the FSM would just take me now.

  44. 44.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Morzer:
    Weren’t the Indians just one of the groups Lost Boys joined when they grew up? Like the pirates? Which would make them all white. Neverland was basically just Peter Pan collecting people to murder later.

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    Sweet Romping Ronny Reagan on a Roomba, I never imagined Murdoch could burrow deeper into the abyss but silly me.

    He and Ginny Thomas should have a sleepover and drunk-dial folks. Comedy gold.

    These people are pathological. And they want the reins, thank you very much.

  46. 46.

    redshirt

    Wow! I can see a dark and gritty update of Pan,
    who’s now 25 and leader of Neverland, but he’s transported
    to 1977 NYC and must kill his way out of a Pimp War in order
    to get back and kill the pretender on the throne.

  47. 47.

    Morzer

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    When you reflect that Peter is their “Great White Father”, the fate of the “Indians” looks ever grimmer. I have trouble thinking of any other children’s book that is so obviously the product of a profoundly warped mind.

  51. 51.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Morzer:
    I think the three biggest surprises in children’s literature for me were the deranged morals of Peter Pan, the rape scene in Mariel of Redwall, and the climax (pun not intended) of the His Dark Materials series where two twelve year olds save the universe by having sex. That last one in particular… I mean, it fits with the themes of the story, but who expects that? And good grief, why is the book controversial for killing God, when there’s something like THAT in it?

  57. 57.

    Morzer

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I rather think Pullman was determined to show that CS Lewis was wrong to exclude humping from Narnia. He certainly comes across as a rather obsessive and odd man in interviews.

  58. 58.

    Calouste

    @Morzer: Uhm, have you ever read Alice in Wonderland? Although that is maybe not as much the product of a warped mind as of the serious consumption of drugs.

  59. 59.

    redshirt

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yeah, fuck that Achilles dude about his ankle. And Superman, fuck him for the kryponite thing.

    Comic book characters are our modern day mythology, very similar to Greek mythology in form and function.

  60. 60.

    Anne Laurie

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    And good grief, why is the book controversial for killing God, when there’s something like THAT in it?

    Way I read the book (and the Pullman interviews I’ve seen agree), it’s implied that Lyra & Will are “intimate”, but not necessarily beyond the First Adult Kiss / heavy petting level. Pullman has talked about the awareness of adult physicality as something more profound, but not necessarily, requiring, full-penetration sexual intercourse — the difference between emotional innocence and physical virginity.

  61. 61.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Morzer:
    I’m not particularly shocked by the inclusion, and it does fit the whole ‘You jackass prudish religionists have morality backwards’ theme, but it sure surprised me, and surprised me more that it’s totally overlooked in the controversy about the book.

    @Calouste:
    Alice is an exploration of a theme that Carroll more or less invented. Children’s literature was basically all educational stuff back then. He wanted to write stories for children that were about the nonsense kids made up for fun. As a result, it got pretty surreal.

  64. 64.

    Morzer

    @Calouste:

    I have read it, but I don’t think it gets within a country mile of the sheer sickness that is at the heart of Peter Pan. Consider this passage from the end of Peter Pan:

    When Wendy returned diffidently she found Peter sitting on the bed-post crowing gloriously, while Jane in her nighty was flying round the room in solemn ecstasy.

    “She is my mother,” Peter explained; and Jane descended and stood by his side, with the look in her face that he liked to see on ladies when they gazed at him.

    “He does so need a mother,” Jane said.

    “Yes, I know,” Wendy admitted rather forlornly; “no one knows it so well as I.”

    “Good-bye,” said Peter to Wendy; and he rose in the air, and the shameless Jane rose with him; it was already her easiest way of moving about.

    Wendy rushed to the window.

    “No, no,” she cried.

    “It is just for spring cleaning time,” Jane said, “he wants me always to do his spring cleaning.”

    “If only I could go with you,” Wendy sighed.

    “You see you can’t fly,” said Jane.

    Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky until they were as small as stars.

    As you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.

    I defy you to find me anything half so twisted and unhealthy as that in Alice in Wonderland.

  67. 67.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Anne Laurie:
    While he never actually specifically mentions intercourse, post-fade-to-black they are referred to as lovers, and how they hunger for the touch of each other’s lips and skin. It’s true that you could claim that complete sex does not happen, but it’s unequivocably a sudden and full-scale sexual awakening, so much so that it might as well be sex. And indeed, since the moral of the series is that our prudish fear of sex and ‘adult’ things is the actual immorality, the consistency would be sex itself, not ‘oh, but they didn’t go all the way through with it.’

  68. 68.

    SRW1

    Interesting how Rupert has reversed the one-drop of blood theory. Used to be that one drop of blood from a black ancestor would make a person black. Now one drop of blood from a white ancestor makes a person non-black.

    What apparently hasn’t changed, though, is that the standard of racists remain very exacting.

  70. 70.

    Sherparick

    @redshirt: Just a note, it was ol’Rupert who says in his tweet ” a Real Black President who can address the racial divide” (I guess by telling all African Americans it is time to grab their boot straps and stop taking all the “free stuff”), so unless Rupert has become a liberal (not likely), it was he who made both a point about Dr. Carson’s race and that a “racial divide” exists in America. So, this your response is just another of the on-going Conservative non-sequiter “you liberals are the real racists” because you notice and oppose our racism.

    Black unemployment in 2009 (President Obama’s first year); 15.6%. Black unemployment now: 9.2% (still to high, but I would still say that was doing something for the African American community. See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm

    In 2009 24% of African Americans were without health insurance. http://kff.org/disparities-policy/fact-sheet/health-coverage-for-the-black-population-today-and-under-the-affordable-care-act/ Now hat figure is down to approximately 16% http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/29/upshot/obamacare-who-was-helped-most.html

    On the other hand, thanks to the decisions of the Conservative Roberts Court essentially nullifying the Voting Rights Act and the 15th Amendment, Black voting rights and civil rights have taken a large step back into the Jim Crow past under the leadership if Republican Governors and legislatures, guided by ALEC, in many states. Obama should make a bigger issue of this, I grant you.

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