While some see John’s peak wingnut theory as having been totally discredited by the events of the last few months, I tend to believe that something really has changed in wingnuttia. I’m referring specifically to the fact that I am no longer able to understand many wingnut posts. The one from the law professor at Cornell that John linked to earlier (via Tbogg) is a very good example. The increasingly complicated, incoherent updates are something that seems new to me:
UPDATE No. 3: There may be addictive behavior involved. Here is one of Obama’s favorite lunch recipes:
President Obama’s Tuna Salad
Tuna
Grey Poupon mustard
Mayonnaise
Chopped gherkins<And here is the video proof.
There are several embedded videos, in fact, along with some screenshots from a Vanity Fair article. The writer insists that the piece is some kind of a joke, but I’m not sure how exactly. I think it may be mockery of what he feels were conspiracy theories about Bush and the press being put forward by left-wing bloggers, but it could be something far more complicated than that.
Could it be that wingnuttia has blasted past “Bush is a genius” simplicity into some kind of inadvertent right-wing version of “Pale Fire”? This isn’t about the increasing complexity of wingnut mythology; the stuff about bear DNA and field mice makes some kind of logical sense if you look at it from the right perspective. Dijongate — along with a great deal of what happens on Glenn Beck — doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t clear to me that it’s even supposed to make sense.
It’s been said that it’s almost impossible to follow the real plot of a Raymond Chandler novel (famously, Chander himself was unable to account for one of the bodies in the “Big Sleep”), that the books work more on the level of conveying some vague, overriding sense of corruption and decay. Is wingnuttia moving away from simple easy-to-follow diatribes about Islamofascism and soc-ial-ism and towards more vague, inscrutable, doomy stuff? Or am I getting carried away here? I can’t help but feel that the whole texture of wingnuttia is starting to feel different these days. And that more generally, any kind of mythology eventually moves towards forms that cannot be understood on a literal level.
Update. This, via Dave Weigel via the comments is a pretty good example too:
I understand the stuff about Reverend Wright and his grandmother and after I read Weigel’s explanation, I understood the stuff about the guy living in the shack, but around the 2 minute mark, it has him throwing Sean Hannity and a paperback copy of “Atlas Shrugged” under the bus. Isn’t the idea of throwing someone under the bus that you were chummy with them before, that they were “on the bus”? Wouldn’t Sean Hannity and “Atlas Shrugged” already have been under his bus before he threw them there, metaphorically speaking?
J. Michael Neal
The GOP has gone dada.
asiangrrlMN
No. The wingnuttia has not gotten deep. That takes care of that.
I do agree that they’ve gotten even more wingy and extra-nutty, but I think it’s because they’ve moved the party so far to the right, their nutters have to work even harder to distinguish themselves. When David Frum is the voice of reason in your party, you might be a party of nutters.
@J. Michael Neal:
Love.it.
deeb
Nabokov and Chandler in one post. Nice.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
I guess we should be thankful that the media hasn’t uncovered
Obama’sBarry Soetoro’s secret love of falafel and baklava yet. That would be the smoking gun proving that this uppity Kenyan unconstitutionally won the US presidency.TenguPhule
This is indeed cause for concern.
When spoofers can’t understand their material, it’s gone Galt and out the other side.
Are we witnessing the birth of a new wingnut singularity?
Martian Buddy
I’m guessing it goes back to the rumors that Bush used cocaine and the allegations that he started drinking again after 9/11.
Bootlegger
When someone tries to be ironic, but a good portion of the audience doesn’t get the joke because they think the irony is real, then yes DJ, something has changed. They now believe they are actually the caricature of themselves.
I also sense a resignation for coming armageddon, a full-on Road Warrior state, and their place in it. Not all of ’em, but Beck and others have this gleam in their eye like they think they know something they can only give (not so subtle) hints about.
DougJ
Well, I’m mostly able to understand what they’re trying to say about the fake birth certificate. It’s crazy and untrue, but I understand what they’re trying to say. I think that some of what we see in the future from these guys may not be possible to understand.
asiangrrlMN
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch: Wait, real Americans don’t like Middle Eastern food, either? Come on! Next thing you’ll be telling me is that I can’t enjoy my sushi.
Actually, if they were doing a spoof on what they considered to be the Bush conspiracy theory, I would have to give them credit for…well, something. I’m just not sure exactly what.
Michael
They’re like Harry Mudd in original Trek – never getting it right, and never understanding why.
Bootlegger
@Martian Buddy: The first is not a rumor but there is no physical evidence, the second is unconfirmed. Who’s seen him in public recently?
Warren Terra
Because I’ve read a fair bit of SF, and encountered people online who seem to have done the same but taken it all too seriously, I propose that those that exemplify this phenomenon be termed “trans-wingnut” along the lines of the transhumanists.
jl
Well, when only the insane are left in the wingnut camp, they spew insanity. That is the simplest hypothesis.
In that case it makes sense that it makes no sense.
That’s the way I see it.
As for the stuff that looks like dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadsdadadadadada,
that would be a new kind of found art.
Some one should be appointed to take a regular look far out and in deep into their spewings, just as a precaution, though.
Thankovsky
I don’t expect the wingnuttery from the wingnuts themselves to diminish, but the average American’s receptiveness to it has gone down significantly in the past few months. They’re tired of being bombarded with absolutely outlandish claims about a public figure who they genuinely like on a personal level.
Shygetz
You don’t get it yet, do you DougJ? The righties hate and fear government, so they assume the mantle of government and screw it up, destroying it from within by doing government horribly. They hate and fear science, so they assume the mantle of science and screw it up, destroying it from within (giving us “Intelligent Design” and “sunspots cause global warming”).
The righties hate and fear snark, so…
SpotWeld
Here’s the thing.
For a quick Leno-esque low power monolog joke, it could have been work a joke. Some sort of Dijon / cut-the-mustard gag.
And then he would have moved onto a joke about a dog water skiiing or something.
As near as I can tell, a lot of pundits, especially right-wing ones, just can’t work a crowd. They get one “hit” as far as acceptance goes and they just hammer it and hammer it and hammer it.
They can’t tell when a good section of the audience is getting bored so they never change material. (Which means they drive away a lot of the audience, except for the small handful that “love” that one joke. )
Let’s say Jon Steward decided to have a show where he does nothing but mock Obama (maybe he has). He could do it, and I would be willing to bet it would be funny. Some of this audience would be turned off, but the majority would like it (or at least be indifferent) and come back the next day.
Let’s pretend that Limbaugh considered a full day’s show mocking Palin.. he couldn’t. It would be so far off his one joke he would lose the entirety of his audience. All of it.. gone.
That’s why they’re clown shoes.
JGabriel
Mayonnaise and Gherkins? Mixed?
That’s just … evil.
(/snark)
.
John Cole
I just completely don’t understand the silly attacks on stuff like mustard and arugula or whatever. I’m a backwoods hick in West Virginia who has lived the vast majority of my life in WV, and I have dijon mustard, yellow mustard, and two types of horseradish mustard in my fridge. That makes me an elitist? It was that easy?
DougJ
I don’t get what his point about Obama and the mustard. There’s a number of interpretations but none of them make any real sense.
ImpureScience
Obama is quite literally driving them mad. Republicans have absolutely no idea what to do in the face of a smart, competent, cool Democrat who simply refuses to be a loser. He’s tying them in knots and they have no idea how to counter him.
Gawd it feels good to say that.
jl
If Obama is caught eating ramps, I guess he will be in trouble.
asiangrrlMN
@SpotWeld: I think we are back to the idea that Republicans just can’t do irony very well. I think that would explain a lot.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
And that more generally, any kind of mythology eventually moves towards forms that cannot be understood on a literal level.
What it reminds me of is the Fools’ Guild stuff in the Discworld novels. They’re the guild of court jesters, and their jokes and routines have been codified for centuries, so that by the present day in the books no one can understand anything the fools say, the jesters themselves are completely miserable, and none of it is remotely funny.
Shygetz
@DougJ: It’s the rightwing attempt at snark. Like everything else they don’t like or understand, they screw it up. Royally. It’s no more complicated than that.
Enlightened Layperson
It’s a humor post with a strong degree of self-mockery. To the extent there is a serious point, it is that Obama’s fondness for dijon is elitist and out of touch because real Americans eat plain yellow mustard y’know.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@DougJ:
You have a point. But even with the birth certificate issue, when you follow all the various theories deeper and deeper, you can’t tell me that you don’t get lost somewhere along the way.
The difference now is that you just get lost at the very shallow end of such nutty theories. This could be a good thing because at least, people with a modicum of sense won’t be as susceptible to such crap.
@asiangrrlMN:
All things Japanese got a 100 year pass for being such good sports during the internment in the 40s.
Bootlegger
@SpotWeld: Stewart makes fun of BO all the time.
@DougJ: The closest thing to sanity in there was the notion that MSNBC was covering up “dijon” to make their Beloved Barry look more manly. Sane to them I mean, to me it sounds elitist to suggest the press HAS to cover it up or face the wrath of the idiotic Common Man. So their best point is that they are the elitists and the voters are morons. Post-wingnut indeed! The circle is complete.
Thankovsky
@John Cole:
As a life-long, proud San Francisco-area elitist, I take tremendous exception to the Far Right’s suggestion that being an elitist is that easy.
John Cole
@Thankovsky: The weird thing is that I am sure there are some actually elitists somewhere who do cringe at the idea of yellow mustard. I happen to think yellow mustard is pretty grand on a Nathan’s with diced onion, diced tomato, and relish.
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: What is the first book in that series? You have mentioned it several times and I want to give the first one a shot.
wasabi gasp
Meh, they just ran out of wall for the spaghetti and are now knee-deep in wet noodles.
DougJ
That may very well be what is going on here.
sgwhiteinfla
I think some people/bloggers on the right have quite literally jumped the shark and had mental breakdowns. They are like the homeless guy you see who keeps cracking jokes to himself and then breaks out laughing uncontrollably. Half of the shit I see on right wing blogs now doesn’t even attempt to make a rational point. Its just a whole lot of anger and insignificant shit about President Obama, and a rehashes of bullshit from the campaign last year. Just check out this “comedy” video from PJTV
washingtonindependent.com/41967/too-much-magic-bus
I can’t tell you how many times I have seen that “typical white person” cannard recycled recently. These people are truly living in an alternate reality these days and as such there is no telling just how far they will go. We won’t see peak wingnut until well into President Obama’s second term.
Steeplejack
Laughed out loud. God, I love this blog.
Comrade Jake
By the same token, Rush’s recent rekindling of the notion that Powell only endorsed Obama because he’s black is pretty fucking easy to understand.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@John Cole:
The Colour of Magic (Yeah, it’s by a dang Brit). And I highly recommend that you purchase it through Amazon by clicking on this blog’s banner….oh wait.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@John Cole: What is the first book in that series? You have mentioned it several times and I want to give the first one a shot.
The first book is called The Colour of Magic – it’s rather different in character from the later ones, because Pratchett has been writing them for nearly 30 years now (sadly, that’s coming to an end, but the series never jumped the shark, IMO).
You don’t need to start from the beginning with the Discworld books, but it’s not a bad place to start. :)
ETA: I have a hunch you’d like the “City Watch” books from Discworld – the series has several sets of characters, some of whom show up in multiple books, and I think the City Watch crowd would appeal to you. The books in that sub-series are Guards! Guards!, Men At Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, the Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, and Thud! in order.
asiangrrlMN
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch: See, now THAT is classic (and funny) snark! Ha.
Comrade Jake, yes. Because the idea that perhaps Powell wanted intelligence, a thoughtful temperament, and grace in his prez apparently never entered Rush’s mind. Why would it?
sgwhiteinfla
SpotWeld
I disagree. I think Rushbo is the one wingnut who can clown anybody and he won’t lose his audience. They all dance to the beat of his drum after all. If Limbaugh ever turns on Sarah Palin his audience will turn on Sarah Palin. Thats why they call them “dittoheads”.
Bootlegger
@DougJ: Yes, it is. When all your arguments are true by definition you wind up in a continuous loop, hence the term “circular reasoning”. Their arguments cannot be logically falsified and it will give you a headache if you surrender the requirement for evidence and try to follow their reasoning without it.
Lev
@Thankovsky: You’re right, my fellow Bay Area liberal. Elitin’ ain’t easy.
As to why wingnuttia has intensified, the right wing is now just repeating what happened to seemingly sane people like Hillary Clinton and John McCain when they opposed Obama. They both went fuckin’ nuts almost immediately. Why? Because Obama is infuriating. He can’t be rattled, he’s cool, he’s popular, and he could give a damn about their harassment. He’s just going to keep on doing what he’s doing–that is to say, winning–and they’ll keep on losing, making less and less sense as they go forward. Now, of course, the condition is not irreversible–Hillary Clinton seems to have emerged from it quite nicely, though McCain seems to still be in remission.
Thankovsky
@John Cole:
Oh, they definitely exist – it’s called the West Side of L.A. :p
It’s mostly nouveau riche types, ironically enough.
@Lev:
Damn straight it isn’t. I spent all day threatening to burn down churches if they wouldn’t perform same-sex marriages. Let me tell you, it’s exhausting!
Splitting Image
Peak Wingnut may be hard to pin down exactly, but I would say it refers to the exact moment that the G.O.P. can no longer field a candidate capable of winning an election because the wingnuts will not allow a rational person to win a primary and cannot turn out enough votes to win an election.
Peak Wingnut is long gone in New England, but may be a long way away in Alabama and Oklahoma.
Pennsylvania may be a good test case for Peak Wingnut. There are three questions to ask yourself. Can Tom Ridge defeat Arlen Specter? Can Pat Toomey defeat Arlen Specter? Can Tom Ridge defeat Pat Toomey? If the answers are yes, no, and no, then Pennsylvania is past Peak Wingnut. The wingnuts will no longer be the state’s problem, but an obstacle for Republicans to get around in order to be viable again.
I think Penn may be a post-Wingnut state, but we won’t know for awhile.
southpaw
“Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you.”
Or something like that . . .
Calouste
@John Cole:
The order of Discworld doesn’t really matter. The books are all pretty much self-contained.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Discworld: The Color of Magic, 1983.
Steeplejack
@DougJ:
Dude, how are you getting un-bold in your block quotes?! What worked before is no longer working for me. It’s killing me. Yes, I’m typographically OCD.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Calouste: The order of Discworld doesn’t really matter. The books are all pretty much self-contained.
That’s pretty much true, but I think for best results you should read the books that follow one set of characters in order.
Ron Beasley
It would appear they have transcended derangement syndromes and are now simply deranged. Padded cells can’t be too far away.
Mr. Stuck
This seems to me the nexus of their deepening Psychosis. It’s kinda like the Christian Bale character in The Machinist where a tragedy occurs and they block it out and slowly drive themselves nuts rather than face the reality.
In the wingnuts case, the tragedy was an insatiable consumption of Bush Kool-Aid that led them to embrace things like torture and unnecessary wars, among other bad stuff. And now they are spinning themselves toward a sort of wingnut level so far unreached, in hopes some cathartic personal vision of crazy will occur and break the spell.
Headshrinking wingers is hard work, I tell ya, hard work!
DougJ
With paragraph markers.
Brick Oven Bill
Regarding: “A Photo”
“We’ll release a photo.”-Presidential Spokesman Gibbs
It is nice to know that, in the face of a Freedom of Information Act request, the Administration is willing to release ‘a photo’ from Air Force One’s trip to New York. This is because ‘a photo’ could not be kept as a part of an ongoing criminal investigation, or pertain to bank health, or oil field reserves.
The spirit of the Freedom of Information Act, which is a good act, is to allow the public to view non-sensitive government programs, such as the botched Air Force One outing. The most transparent Administration ever surely knows there was only one photo taken, on this trip that was worth twice what my house probably is.
Many in the Balloon Juice audience are easily led.
MNPundit
Why wouldn’t that discredit the theory?
JK
No matter how loopy or twisted the wingnut attacks become, there will always be legions of tinfoil hat people to soak up the nonsense just like pigs lining up at the feeding trough.
Tattoosydney
@John Cole:
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
What Xecklothxayyquou said…
The Colour of Magic and the Light Fantastic are almost like Pratchett clearing his throat before he gets down to the real stuff … they’re quite different from the rest of his books – very “fantasy”/”wizard”/”adventure”.
Almost everything after that is much more subtle and much funnier. Over the years, his repeating characters have become insanely well crafted… “Night Watch”, for example, I would say often hits the heights of great literature, whereas “Colour of Magic” and a couple of his earlier books are entertaining but disposable.
Which is to say, if you read “Colour of Magic” and hate it, skip ahead to some of the later ones, where he really hit his stride as a writer – the “City Watch” books that were mentioned, or “Monstrous Regiment”, or “Going Postal” and “Making Money” which are the funniest dissertations on monetary theory you are ever going to read.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Tattoosydney: Which is to say, if you read “Colour of Magic” and hate it, skip ahead to some of the later ones, where he really hit his stride as a writer…
Totally agree. In fact, I’d just about recommend skipping Colour of Magic until you’ve read some from further along, then go back and pick it up when you’ve gotten a feel for the “real” series.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Yes, I am thread-stalking you for some perk-me-up jams. That’s what fake-hubbies are for.
I stopped trying to understand wingnut reality ages ago. It’s basically how I got through the last eight years.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Brick Oven Bill:
I guess a post on the incomprehensibility of right-wing charges on Obama wouldn’t have been complete without Brick Oven Bill commenting.
Steeplejack
@DougJ:
Okay, it apparently didn’t work in your own post just now (50), whereas 31 looks fine.
What used to work for me was {blockquote}{p}text{/p}{/blockquote} (angle brackets instead of braces, of course), but it hasn’t worked for me since I came back to the blog a week or so ago after my ordeal in the hardware wilderness (dead computer, cell-phone browsing only). I have tried different variations of things, but nothing seems to work. Not a big deal, just maddening to this editor and typographer.
Roger Moore
@Splitting Image:
No, no. The original idea of Peak Wingnut was the moment when wingnut production was at its highest level, after which there would be a decline. There’s every reason to think that wingnut will keep increasing for a while after the complete wingnutization of the GOP. My suspicion is that Peak Wingnut will occur after the wingnuts get so incoherent that they’re completely incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t already a wingnut. Once that happens, wingnut can only expand by increased individual craziness, not by sucking more people into the vortex. I expect that individual craziness can keep expanding for quite a while, but at some point the lack of new adherents will cause the system to wind down.
TenguPhule
Adding on, any novel that stars DEATH as the main character.
Though Small Gods & The Last Hero are also very good.
Hoya
Whafuck?
Ecks
@John Cole: Ah, Pratchett… This is my kind of (not very) elitism!
He’s written dozens of ’em. The first two are “colour of magic” and “light fantastic”, and some people don’t like them as much (he certainly develops more texture and complexity to his writing over the years). After those two you get a largely independent set of series’ that each focus on different groups (the guards, the witches, death, the wizards, etc). It isn’t necessary to start anywhere, really, and you can even jump into the middle of a series if you want, although some of the later ones (as in ones published in the 2000’s… and he started in the 80’s) work a bit better if you can see how things were developed up to there.
If you have to pick a starting point, I’d go with either the very beginning, or jump to “Guards Guards,” “Equal Rites,” and “Small Gods,” which are three of the best, and most popular among fans.
valdivia
the original post by that cornell prof wasn’t a spoof? really?
Brick Oven Bill
You Must Believe The Cat Who Would Be Tunch. Believe.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Ecks: Ah, Pratchett… This is my kind of (not very) elitism!
Shouldn’t your handle be “EcksEcksEcksEcks”, then? ;)
Ned Ludd
I think all the conspiracy theories have made the wingnuts completely lose touch with reality. It’s like they’re suffering from collective schizophrenia:
DougJ
His theory was that wingnuttia had somehow peaked. I’m saying that it has if you define “peaked” correctly. You know, if you define everything after 1980 as post-punk, then could say punk peaked with the Sex Pistols. Something like that.
asiangrrlMN
@Ecks: Wait, are we talking about Terry Pratchett here? Neat. I like his book with Neil Gaiman. in fact, I love Neil Gaiman. He’s dark. My only complaint about Gaiman is that he’s an ultimate optimist.
DougJ, yeah, I don’t think wingnuttygoodness has peaked. They are just gonna keep on getting nuttier.
Steeplejack
Testing, testing . . .
End of testing. You will now be returned to your regular programming.
Edit: Okay, lost the bold, but I cannot for the life of me get spaces between the paragraphs within the block quotes. Everything I do tosses paragraphs 2 and 3 out of the block quote. Fuckety-fuck-fuck.
Prof. K&G
Pratchett: No need to read in order. Start with “Small Gods” and “Going Postal”, then you’ll end up reading the other 29 of them anyway.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@asiangrrlMN: I like his book with Neil Gaiman.
Good Omens? That was my introduction to Pratchett, and IMO one of the best books in existence.
@Ecks: The first two are “colour of magic” and “light fantastic”, and some people don’t like them as much…
Indeed – as Tattoosydney said, they’re like the prelude throat-clearing. Or, if you know your MST3K, they’re like the KTMA season before the crew moved to the big(ger) time. Promising and worthwhile in their own right but not as awesome as the golden-age stuff.
Pardon me, I’m a giant Discworld geek and could go on about it for forever.
JGabriel
@Steeplejack:
Same here. In fact, I’m one of the people who figured out you needed paragraph tags and shared it with everyone else in the threads. And now it doesn’t work anymore, at least for me and lot of other people.
@DougJ: What browser are you using? Maybe we;re having a browser formatting issue, while your browser still works with the BJ formatting?
.
Ecks
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
For a while it was “X”, but that just lacked a certain something, so it evolved into an homage to Terror Incognita :)
Well spotted ;)
Anne Laurie
Remember the movie Idiocracy, where all the idiots’ favorite TV show was the 24/7 comedic masterpiece, Ow! My Balls! ? For eight years, the wingnuts loved that show! Then this Barry O’Bama guy came along and somehow it got cancelled ! Also, for some reason which they have not quite been able to wrap their brains around, suddenly they keep getting sharp, painful sensations in their groin regions! And then BO walks past, lookin’ all s-m-e-r-t and uppity, and the lie-bruls laugh & applaud from the sidelines! It is a mystery how quickly and cruelly things can change in this woeful universe…
Hoya
All the Right-Wing Obama bashing memes only score points among political junkies because they are the only ones who remember the context behind them.
The “typical white person” thing happened over a year ago and if you asked the average person on the street about it, I doubt few if any would remember it.
Ditto the “Change you can Xerox” stuff, anything Biden said that was used in an ad, the Somali Dress photo, the 3am AD, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, the “Bitter-Cling” comments, No Flag Pin, 57 states, Whitey Tape, Marble Columns, CELEBRITY!!!, Lipstick on a Pig, “Spreading the Wealth”. All Halperin Catnip and all stuff that didn’t matter a fig to actual people.
All that stuff didn’t work and unless the President really screws up an actual thing like Health Care reform or nominates a child molester to the Supreme Court, nothing like that other crap will.
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
I tried a few different things in my test message at 69 and edited it several different ways before the timer elapsed, but nothing worked to get both un-bold and paragraph spacing within the block quote. Something is definitely working differently in the blog from the way it did about the end of March, which is when I went out of town for a while and then came back to face my computer ordeal.
Ecks
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Word. Orgasm.
yeah, that’s a great way of putting it.
[flutters eyelashes… except totally in a dude way, and not at all romantic… y’know… shuffles feet]
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Ecks: flutters eyelashes… except totally in a dude way, and not at all romantic…
Hee hee – I know what you mean. Nullus Anxietus, as they say.
Good Omens has one of my favorite moments in all of everything in it, where the man “comforts” a crying baby by saying “Welcome to the world. You get used to it after a while.”
G’night all.
DougJ
Camino.
Horse
What X… Gilchrist said. Start with the “City Watch” books.
My claim to fame: I newgrouped alt.fan.pratchett. This was some time ago, just about right at the end of the period when newgroups in alt.* were necessary.
If you don’t understand the previous paragraph: Hey you kids, get off my lawn!
Bill E Pilgrim
Ah, Peak Wingnut.
I hear that after around 17,000 feet the air up there is so thin that even these kind of “jokes” make sense.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
I personally don’t read much wingnuttia. I don’t honestly know why anyone would, or does. But I get the general tone of things from reading people talk about it.
My gut feeling right now is that they are just fucking with us. They got nothing, and so they are just fucking around. They think that Obamaism is going to die out once the country is completely in the toilet with rampant socio-mohammedism or whatever the hell they are going to call it next, and then we will come back to them and beg them to save us from ourselves.
Who cares? I have no interest in what they think. I had no interest in what they thought when they were king shits on turd island, and I don’t care now.
Steeplejack
Testing again . . .
End of testing.
Edit: Okay, what seems to work is putting {p} {/p} in between each paragraph of the block quote.
Comrade Kevin
@John Cole:
For every time they use the word “elitist” or a synonym, substitute the word “fag”, and it will become clear.
Anne Laurie
Re Pratchett & Discworld: The first two books, The Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic, are pretty much MAD-Magazine-style parodies of every bad sci-fi/fantasy trope ever written. It wasn’t until Mort or maybe Equal Rites that Pratchett really got a grip on his own universe as an actual creation, a place with a working internal logic and ongoing characters. As a starting point, I like Weird Sisters (which is, among other things, a parody of MacBeth), and Pyramids is a stand-alone which includes some hilarious parodies of both English boarding-school novels and Greek philosophers. But since Mr. Cole is a communications professor, I think he’d find The Truth an excellent starting point… it introduces the Discworld’s first journalist, and its first Murdoch-media-baron, and it also includes a pair of assassins who owe more than a little to the movie Pulp Fiction.
asiangrrlMN
@JGabriel: Yes. That was the book that turned me onto Gaiman. Pratchett, not so much, but I’ll give him a whirl, too.
nicholas nickleby
My experience with right-wingnuts is mostly confined to arguing with the posters over at Newsbusters (quite literally, ad nauseam), but here’s my read on Jacobson’s Dijongate post:
As near as I can tell, the main difficulty here is that you’re looking (as a good reader) for the one approach to use when reading this–is he being ironic (the “this is what you used to do, you Bush-haters!” reading) or is he being serious (the “dijon is for sissies” reading)?
But Jacobson isn’t bothering to pin down a single meaning; he’s being both ironic and serious–he’s (in his mind) exposing so many truths here that our tiny, empathetic brains can’t even follow him: there’s the truth that the MSM will cover-up everything for Obama; and the truth that Obama has un-American appetites; and the truth that Jacobson is only parodying the left’s (monolithic) un-American hatred of Bush; and the truth that…etc.
(I want to say that you can almost spot the moment–in between updates #3 and #4–where the joke about Obama’s love for dijon starts to authentically worry Jacobson; but the truth is, he can joke about it (update #6 Mayo, ok–Mao, never–ha ha) even while he’s serious about his discomfort. Keep in mind: his thought process is of the same order as people who argue that a) we didn’t torture anyone and b) we totally broke people’s resistance when nothing else worked.)
Perhaps a short example might help. Did you ever see the movie “Dodgeball”? There’s a moment where Ben Stiller’s character makes a joke to a woman about having bondage gear, and then switches to say that if she would be into that, he actually has some, and then switches back to the joke. Jacobson actually has a point he wants to make, but you’re right–it may be less of a point, and more of a feeling; so, when he gets called on how his point doesn’t work, he’s still got the shelter of calling it a joke–and still hoping that his feeling gets under the reader’s skin.
Tattoosydney
@TenguPhule:
Yes. And the Tiffany Aching novels.
Children’s books? Ha!
(ETA: and anything that has the Librarian in it).
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Horse: My claim to fame: I newgrouped alt.fan.pratchett.
Impressive! I wasn’t a fan when I was a big Usenet user, but I remember those days very well (and so will hang out on your lawn a bit longer, if I may).
BTW, Ecks – romantic eyelash fluttering would also be OK but my wife would take a dim view. :)
Now g’night, I have a hard time putting this internet thing down.
…except ETA Agreed once again w/Tattoosydney that Pratchett’s nominal juvenile books are just fine for adults. His non-Discworld Johnny and the Bomb may be my favorite of them all, though there are about half a dozen of his books vying for the top spot.
Steeplejack
Damn it! Make that “. . . putting {p}& nbsp ;{/p} in between each paragraph of the block quote.” No space after ampersand or p.
This is ungainly, and it didn’t used to have to be this way. (God, that sounds like the title of a country song.)
Tattoosydney
@JGabriel:
Yep. For me, it seems to work about 70% of the time and then randomly just dump the paragraph tags the other 30% (on Firefox). I’ve even had them disappear from one blockquote in a post but not the others.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Oi! Music links in “Going Galt, Tunch Edition“….
TenguPhule
“Vorbis, you’re going to die.”
“WHERE-IS-MY-COW!!”
“By my oath, I am not a lying man.”
“Knack Mac Feegles!”
DeadlyShoe
hmm, at least the guy making the bus song has some skills and some balls. Though it doesn’t make much sense, and he needs a new microphone.
TenguPhule
I always thought those two were distant relatives of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere assassins.
Marlowe
Sigh, I wasn’t aware of this Instapundit wannabe from Cornell. As a Cornell Law alumni, though long before the time of this guy, I’m not sure if I’m more angry or embarrassed.
BTW, while I agree that is often hard to follow the plot of Raymond Chandler novels (plot was neither his forte not the most important element of his athmospheric, hard boiled novels). In the case of Owen Taylor, the death you reference from The Big Sleep, there is evidence in the novel to support either suicide or murder. It’s quite likely that this ambiguity was intentional on Chandler’s part. Chandler’s famous comment that he had no idea who killed Taylor was made in response to a query from director Howard Hawks while filming the famous Humphrey Bogart adaptation of the novel. There is speculation that Chandler, who had already co-written the screenplay for the film noir classic Double Indemnity, was miffed at not being asked to write the screenplay for this film.
Steeplejack
Okay, one final test, and then I shall slink off into the night.
Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress.
Edit: Damn it. Got the paragraph spacing but now the bold is back. I think I’ll go debug some assembly language to relax before bed.
Common Sense
Not sure how many NBA fans there are here but the Houston/LA series is shaping up to be a war. These two teams are learning to hate each other.
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: LOVE Neverwhere. I love the Sandman series, and I LOVE Neil Gaiman. He lives in MN…..
@Common Sense: Go, ‘Wolves! What, they fucking suck? Well, forget it then. I do hope Houston beats LA, though. Lakers were OURS!
@Tattoosydney: I saw! Thanks, fake-hubby. Now, get back to work so little asiangrrl and little Tattoosydney can eat this week.
Ned Ludd
I just read KRK’s comment in the other thread and, following his onion rings link, realized that the wingnuts were just as crazy way back in June 2007.
The author of this insightful piece even says she voted twice for Bill Clinton. Presumably with a pen, in a voting booth. Everybody knows pens are phallic symbols. And they’re used to fill in ovals. Think about it!
Thankovsky
@asiangrrlMN:
Sandman is absolute must-read for anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature. The artwork alone is stunning, and the story’s flat-out gripping.
Tattoosydney
@TenguPhule:
That’s not my cow. It goes Galt. It’s a Tunch.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Tattoosydney: That’s not my cow. It goes Galt. It’s a Tunch.
Tattoosydney wins Insomnia Nite (well, it’s late where I’m sitting).
And Sandman does kick major booty.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: That’s funny.
I love Sandman. Death is hawt.
Tattoosydney
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
*blush*
bows
Thankovsky
@asiangrrlMN:
Yeah, I love my goth girls. Teehee!
OriGuy
I’m currently reading Pyramids. I find that after reading one Pratchett, I require some mental palate-cleaning; two in a row is overload. After Small Gods, I think Hogfather is my favourite.
Here’s a link to a chart (in several formats) with a suggested reading track. I have not followed this.
To tie back to a previous thread, does the Kimble do footnotes? If not, it’s useless for Discworld.
Terry Gilliam has the film rights to Good Omens. Legend has it that Gaiman sold them to him for a groat. Literally; Gilliam had to go to a coin shop to get one.
Thankovsky
@OriGuy:
Terry Gilliam’s the man. A fellow Occidental alum, too, might I add!
Johnny Pez
@sgwhiteinfla:
I assume you’re using “literally” in its figurative sense.
Johnny Pez
@OriGuy:
I assume you’re using “literally” in its literal sense.
Thankovsky
@Johnny Pez:
Shhh! sgwhiteinfla is Joe Biden in disguise. :p
Ecks
Gaiman is also pretty awesome. I loved American Gods (or at least the first half… the second half was merely pretty good).
Tragically I’ve only read the first book of sandman. Which is enough to know how tragic my lack of further reading on it is.
And don’t worry Xecky-lo-thinky-xeq-ou… Uh, Gilchrist, I’m only getting away with eyelid batting because my fiance doesn’t read this place ;)
Anne Laurie
I love this story, whether or not it’s true. If Terry Gilliam did not already exist, Terry Pratchett would have had to invent him…
asiangrrlMN
@Ecks: I agree with you on first half versus second half of American Gods. Then again, Gaiman’s biggest flaw is his incurable optimism.
Comrade Baron Elmo
Slightly OT, but it is an example of high-octane wingnut at it’s chewy best.
When Roy Edroso, in his latest gem at Alicublog, mentioned a Red State column that “reaches out” to our nation’s black folk, I was already giggling in gleeful anticipation of the insanity to follow. And said column — which asks Americans of, er, duskier hue the ever pertinent question, “I ask you to consider, why is it that you hate Republicans so much?” — does not fail to disappoint.
Too bad Red State censors their comment column so stringently… it would be fun to swamp their pale, pale asses with a few thousand answers to that retarded question.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@John Cole:
Sorry dude, you are hopelessly elitist. You’re going to burn in hell for all eternity. Also.
Obama is pushing them over the edge. I used to joke about the ‘rabid right’ but I have discovered that it is no joke, these nuts are foaming at the mouth mad. The shit they utter is nonsensical, almost Tourette like, with one statement currently being made in complete conflict with another that was blurted out minutes earlier. They are pointing at the color blue and are calling it teaspoon. They are worse than monkeys flinging shit; at least the monkeys are aiming for something! These morans are stuffing the outrage cannons with foam and hoping for a ‘kill’.
Everything else in their dirty deck of cards has failed them, the reasonable voters have left their party and the lunatics have taken over asylum. Right now it’s a free-for-all battle to create and define the “New” Republican identity, problem is it is the same old turds in new packages. The Republican leaders are taking orders from a fat racist slob on the air who is accountable to nobody but the hateful assholes who support him and will continue to do so for as long as he feeds them the hate they love to eat.
Cantor stepped out of line by saying that the new group they formed were ‘on a listening tour’. Fat Bastard corrected him on air, saying that they should be on ‘a teaching tour’ to teach people why wingnut tastes great! Cantor gets the message and comes out saying that they are not on a listening tour but rather a teaching tour.
This is not a serious political party, there is no way they can expect people to take them seriously. I have a feeling that these idiots have not figured out what lying does in the information age.
It catches up with you fast. Real fast. They haven’t figured out that they are not in control of the message any more. All they know is that the old catchphrases and words have quit working so they are just cramming shit together and hoping something gels for them.
Nope, just foam. Lotsa foam.
Ash Can
As far as I’m concerned, “peak wingnut” will occur after everyone except Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch have been forced out of the movement for lack of ideological purity, and Limbaugh and Murdoch settle the purity issue between themselves with pistols at fifty paces. In the meantime, I think the current overall incoherence of Rightwing Batshittistan stems directly from the years-long refusal on the part of the Batshittistanis to accept reality. Reality has a nasty habit of kicking the cherished beliefs of the right-wing wackos in the nuts, so faced with the choice between reality and said beliefs, they eschew reality, concocting their own world and dwelling in it. In this substitute reality, their beliefs are not only unchallenged but supported and reinforced. Not healthy, of course, but we’re seeing the results.
And speaking of Batshittistan, remember that GOP listening tour that was kicked off in that pizza joint in Virginia a few days ago? The one that Eric Cantor claimed was necessary to get the GOP back on track and that Rush Limbaugh dissed and said should be a teaching tour instead? Well, as we all know, what Rush says goes, as far as the Republican Party is concerned: Cantor now says this isn’t a “listening tour.” The poor putz. I imagine Limblow got Cantor’s nuts gilded and is wearing them around his neck on a big honkin’ gold Mr. T chain.
As for the technical stuff on this blog, I noticed a difference a few weeks back too, with my paragraph tags no longer de-bolding the text in block quotes. Around the same time, I noticed that I once again (most of the time, anyway) must double-click on the back arrow to return from a thread to the main BJ page. This happened before, after the major site overhaul. This time, though, instead of double-clicking through the “robots” URL, I have to double-click through something called “dg.specificclick.net.” I’m sure this all ties in together, but being ignorant of a multitude of Internet traditions, I have no idea how. Oh, and my browser is Internet Explorer, if that makes any difference.
tavella
Why do they think a recipe for tuna salad is an effective attack? The mind boggles.
Speaking of Pratchett’s non-Discworld, I highly recommend the magnificent _Nation_. Alzheimer’s will steal away his facility with words and characters eventually, but _Nation_ proves it has no hold yet.
Ash Can
@Comrade Baron Elmo: There you have it. Years of avoiding reality has robbed these poor schmucks of whatever tools they ever had to deal with it. So on the rare occasions when they do try to address the real world, hilarity ensues.
Ash Can
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Whoops; you beat me to that bit about Cantor. :)
I really wonder what Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush think about this turn of events, whether they’ll fall in line like nothing happened, stay silent, or push back.
Xenos
Conservapedia read a lot like Pale Fire, albeit without the literary value. Eventually, after a few years of Obama, you could edit and organize the entries in such a way as to tell the story of the collapse and crazification of the GOP and the conservative movement.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Jeb seems to be more of a realist and Romney acts like he has to cater to every faction he can to get their vote. IMO, Jeb will try to stay clean for now and Mitt will muddle around not being really clear about anything but the basic fare. I don’t think either wants to get caught up in the nuttiness until something gels for the party.
Leading can be risky, even career ending. Following and then taking the lead once something is defined (and popular) is politically safer. There are no real leaders on the right, as evidenced by Fat Bastard pulling the strings and the leaders responding in kind. The Fat Bastard is just going to keep fucking them until someone neuters him.
Good luck with that.
Matthew B.
Early Chandler novels like Big Sleep are pretty convoluted because they were patched together from unconnected short stories. His later stuff like Little Sister or Long Goodbye is tightly plotted.
Hunter Gathers
The wingnuts have essentially walled themselves into their own echo chamber. The crap they spew forth on a daily basis only makes sense to them, and to them alone. Who is going to be swayed by ‘typical white person’ at this point? That shit is so old.
I believe that the reason they have gone completely over the edge is nothing more than the color of the man’s skin. Racial animosity made the GOP. No southern strategy, no republican POTUS. The fact that Obama can’t be fazed by anyone contributes as well.
Conservatives refuse to realize that it’s not 1968 or 1988 anymore. They think if they yell ‘Willie Horton!’ enough times it will get them to 270. What makes no sense to me is that they are completely ignoring the polling data. Demographics are changing. The GOP base of pissed off, ignorant whites shrinks by the day. Instead of focusing on the macro data, they zero in on the micro. Like Mark Penn did for Clinton. And how well did that work out for him, btw.
They will only get worse. Much, much worse. How many more elections can they lose before the money spigot gets shut off? People will only throw money at a losing cause for so long.
sgwhiteinfla
If you saw the conservative “comedy” video I linked to then you know I meant literally, literally.
Hunter Gathers
@sgwhiteinfla: If that’s comedy, then I need a funny bone transplant. Stat.
Jason
I was the shadow of the rightwing slain
By the false azure of the windowpane
I was the smudge of ashen fluff, and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected BLARGH
Svensker
@Comrade Baron Elmo:
I love the “we received not one ounce of gratitude from you but we did it anyway” line at the end.
Montysano
So here we have DougJ’s excellent post. As if on cue, a wingnut Letter to the Editor is published in our local newspaper this morning, making a case for impeachment of President Obama, the first one I’ve seen. This particular winger is spooled up about the release of the torture documents (“an act of treason”), never mind that the document release was court-ordered under the FOIA.
sparky
as was said above, putting Nabokov and Chandler in a post about wingnut aesthetics–alsome.
i think it’s an interesting conceptual art project: how far can you go with pure association without any reasoning? can you rationally paint a picture by relying on irrational subconscious associations?
part b of the project is for the spectators: does it look different only because the purveyors are no longer in power?
the exhibit is ongoing.
Shygetz
I would like to sincerely thank the commenters here. I wanted to try out the Discworld series, so a friend loaned me “Color of Magic” and I thought it was DULL, which confused me since everyone kept saying how awesome the series was. So now, I will go to another book and give the series another try.
Comrade Baron Elmo
It’s always a delight to read or hear wingnuts who clearly have no black friends and know nothing of post-Jeffersons African-American culture attempt to “rap” with the brothas and sistahs.
Like Sally and Johnny at Black People Love Us!, only recast as tight-sphinctered, priggish moral scolds telling the black community to “Eat your green beans!”
Persia
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: Yeah, John should really start with the Guards books, which are very funny and a bit stronger than the early Rincewind stuff. I loves me some Rincewind, but it’s not as solid and more inside-baseball.
Reading on, Small Gods is good too. Maybe we should have a Prachett thread!
angulimala
@RedState
True friends ALWAYS tell you what you don’t want to hear?
No – only when those things are true.
People who just insult you without reason are not friends …. and that pretty much sums up the GOP approach to black people.
J
“The party in power is always smug and arrogant, the party out of power is always insane.”
And yes, I realize that the author of this quote probably isn’t well loved around here — but look at the right’s incoherence documented in this post, combined with the left’s self-assured certainty, 18 months out, that the Dems can throw away the power of a 30-year incumbent and still hold Specter’s Senate seat (dunno if they’re right or wrong on that one).
At least that one time, she was 100% correct.
slightly_peeved
I think this shows that wingnut, rather than having peaked, is actually fractal; when you focus in on a particular aspect of wingnut, it contains as much detail as wingnuttia does as a whole, while reflecting the patterns found in the whole.
Much as the length of a coastline is infinite when you continually increase the resolution at which it is measured, there is infinite wingnut if you drill down into it.
Oh, and while everyone’s recommendations here are good, I’d recommend reading Mort first. The first two are fun to pick what else he’s parodying, Equal Rites is pretty good, but Mort is the first great Discworld book.
DougJ
I agree! Well put.
Robert Sneddon
Re: Pratchett books. As I recall, Mr. Cole was in the US Army for a time. In that case I’d suggest “Jingo” as a possible starting point for him. As Terry[0] told a bunch of us once during a drinking session at a science-fiction convention, it was the only book he had ever written in a dull rage. He hates stupidity, and the greatest stupidity in his eyes is war.
My own Diskworld favourites include “Small Gods”, a satirical forehead-to-the-face beatdown of the base evils of organised religion that Jonathon Swift would have applauded, “The Last Hero” (released first as an illustrated book, get this version if you can) as a celebration of where the heroes go and what they do when they grow old and irrelevant, and “The Night Watch” — what if you had a chance to go back in time, see yourself make all those stupid mistakes and maybe somehow prevent them? Well, you’d end up making a completely different and possibly more disastrous set of mistakes, for one thing… It includes revolution, barricades, reasonably-priced love and a hard-boiled egg.
[0] He is, of course, Sir Terry these days but back then he was poor but honest and good for his round at the bar[1].
[1] What would a posting about Pratchett books be without footnotes?
Gregory
@asiangrrlMN:
That’d be Good Omens, and it rocks. Its premise is that the Antichrist is born and is switched with a human baby, just like in The Omen, except there’s another human baby born in the same hospital, and thru a mixup the Antichrist is sent home with the wrong family, to be raised a normal, if somewhat mischevious, English kid.
Meanwhile, there’s a demon and angel who have been stationed on Earth so long that they’ve gone native. Wonderful stuff, highly recommended (it was the first book I gave my wife-to-be).
Seconded. Sandman is one of my favorite books, comic or otherwise. His novels don’t suck either, and he adapted the English screenplay for Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke to boot.
In the book jacket photo of the hardcover edition, Gaiman is dressed in black; Pratchett, in white. (The resemblance to the demon & angel characters isn’t coincidental, I’m sure.)
Edit: Drat, all that formatting made me miss most of the discussion above. Sorry, y’all.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@OriGuy: Here’s a link to a chart (in several formats) with a suggested reading track.
Wow, that’s cool. It’s a tough job to recommend where someone start with Discworld and that’s a neat resource – thanks!
marcel
A few years ago, I rented
The Big Sleep to watch with my then teenage son; I wanted to show him both the Bogie-Bacall relationship, and the creepy ambience. I discovered, to my surprise, that there were two versions of it on flip sides of the DVD. The original version was released in Canada, and the one we know was released a year later in the US. They were similar, but had different scenes, similar enough that I did not realize that I’d put in the ‘wrong’ one until about half way through the movie when there was a scene in a govt. bldg (I think it involved a visit to the coroner). With the different editing, this version made a lot more sense, but lacked the ‘vague overriding sense of corruption and decay.’
jrg
“When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@John Cole: Make it a Hebrew National (they answer to a higher power, y’unnerstan), ditch those tomatoes and I’m right with you.
MMMmmm…. hot dogs.
Nazgul35
They’ve gone Plaid….
DougJ
Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to watch the Canadian version.
Marlowe
No, you really don’t, unless (like me) you have an historical interest in film or this film in particular. This is the first I heard this version called the “Canadian version.” I could be wrong, but I don’t believe this version of the film was ever released commercially anywhere, including Canada. It is generally known as the “preview version,” though it was shown to some armed forces audiences. The release was delayed because, with the end of WWII, WB wanted to release WWII themed movies first before their topic matter was considered stale. The 1945 version is good; the 1946 version is classic.
During this lengthy delay, there was a lot of pressure from Bacall’s agent to reshoot some of her scenes, particularly the “veil” scene, which was cut in the 1946 version. The bulk of the two versions are the same; the differences are discussed in detail on the disc and on IMDB. A fair amount of reshooting was done a year after the original production warapped. Briefly, the most important differences are several scenes with Lauren Bacall, some of which were reshot and some (such as the famous “racehourse” scene) were entirely new. All of this material represents a large improvement over the earlier version. The most important cut was a lengthy exposition scene with the DA (undoubtedly what an above poster remembered as the coroner scene). While this makes the plot slightly clearer, it is not particularly good cinema. Since I regard the plot as the least important element of the movie, I don’t regard the cut as a loss. Some of this exposition (but far from all) is moved to an extension of a scene between Marlowe and DA investigator Bernie Olds in Olds’ office. This scene is seamlessly cut and I doubt (without prior knowledge) many viewers would have any inkling that, at one point in the scene, Bogart and Regis Toomey have aged a year.
lawnorder
They were never strong on logic and reality to start with. I think GOP mythology writers finally realized that their audience doesn’t really read them, just follows the dog whistles and now all they are writing is a dog whistle symphony. If to us in real world it sounds like a mess of concepts with no narrative glue to tie them up, it is because that is exactly what it is: wingnuttia alphabet soup.
BDeevDad
I cannot believe in 149 comments, no one has asked what kind of tuna. It’s probably Albacore, because he would not dare eat a lesser type.
Joel
This is like watching Michael Olowokandi playing basketball.
@BDeevDad: I thought Albacore was the lesser type (used for canning, etc).
Cheryl from Maryland
Pratchett and Gaiman — authors who make wingnuts’ heads explode. Good Omens and Hogfather deserve regular readings.
Quicksand
No onion or celery in the tuna salad?
FAIL. This country is doomed.
tammanycall
More importantly: how do we mock this?