February 27, 2004 by s.z.

"There's the sound of a loud, rude raspberry"   We start this week's visit with American's Worst Mother (TM TBOGG Intellectual Property Inc.) by noting how their chaotic home life has effected the Gurdon children. Xenotrope has dropped her glass of water on the kitchen floor -- a lack of vitamin D has given her rickets, and she's unable to hold the glass.  A shoeless Prissy Lou is stomping in the water, this being the closest she'll get to a bath this month.  Or to shoes. Butte is insisting that his mother look at his Lego spaceship that can take him far, far away from his squalid home.  And it can also sense and kill "baddies."  And biddies, we would assume. The eldest Gurdonette, Julep, is worried about car bombs.  Her mother assures her that there are none where they live -- but Meghan knows that's just wishful thinking.  The liberal neighbors could be plotting to car bomb the Gurdon homestead even as we speak . . . unless Meghan takes them out first.  Maybe Butte could build her Lego bomb that destroy baddy liberals. Poor anxious Julep is worn down with the responsibility of having to keep together a household headed by an absent father and a deranged mother. [S]he is the conscience of the household, a kind of living notepad for the rest of us. You can ask her at breakfast to remind you to call Mrs. Whatsit after school about a thingie and she will always remember.  Her mind is not quite so steel-trappish about such banalities as putting her sneakers in her gym bag, but whose, at nine, ever is? Julep's tender, young mind is a lot cheaper than Post-It notes, so Meghan has no compunction about using her daughter as a living Dayplanner.  But with all her other worries (Will Mummy remember to turn off the gas before leaving little Xenotrope alone in the house today?  Will Mummy shoot the neighbors?  Is Daddy ever coming home?), it's not surprising the poor kid can't remember to put her sneakers in her gym bag.  Later, her psychiatrist will help Julep to understand that it was wrong of her parents to force her to be the conscience of the household, and she will never speak to them again.  But she'll always have nightmares about getting to school and realizing that her feet are NUDE! But an impatient Meghan can't worry about Julep's eye twiches or Xenotrope's rickets right now, because she has a strike mission to carry out.  Because my husband is working late, we're bringing dinner to his office. I'm sure it will help him finish sooner to have the five of us camped beside his desk, overturning slices of pizza on the carpet and drawing princesses on his paperwork. We do what we can. Meghan's husband has been working late a lot lately -- in fact, he hasn't been home in days.  HE gets to spend his time in a nice, orderly, office with appliances that work and furniture that isn't covered with feral rabbit droppings.  And he gets to associate with grownups who rarely dump their glasses of water on the floor or demand one pay attention to their Lego projects.  So Meghan is going to take the brats to the office to dump them on him.  THAT will teach him to abandon his family!  And let his secretary deal with pizza in her hair, pee in her shoes, and a lack of actual notepads, and then we'll see if she's still so damned perky, non-shrill, and clean. On the car ride into the city, Meghan imagines pedestrians wincing at the noise her unruly family makes.  And then she imagines those pedestrains screaming in horror as she run them down -- how DARE they think that her precious children are noisy! Meanwhile, Butte is hearing subliminal messages from Satan in the Raffi tape. "The Devil is telling me to eat the pizzas, but I'm not going to work for the Devil."  Won't somebody from Child Services PLEASE do something for these children?  Now, before it's too late! They continue to drive.  Meghan reports that Julep wants to rip down all the Howard Dean signs.  Since this doesn't sound like anxious, overly-conscientious Julep, we suspect that Meghan made the whole thing up so she could call Dean "a frothing governor." "But when is President Bush going to put up signs? What's his slogan going to be?" While Meghan attributes the question to Julep, we know that it's just a rhetorical device through which she is submitting her entry into Tbogg's "Happy, Shiny Bush" slogan contest: 'W. 2004'," I say, recalling a new bumper sticker I'd seen the other day. In the racket of the madding car, Molly is silent for a moment. Then she pipes up delightedly: "Because he's worth double you, ole Democrats!" Um, nice try, Meghan, but I don't think it's a contender.  And leave poor Julep out of this -- the kid might be your notepad, but it's over the top to use her as your ventriloquist's dummy.  And, just like a "Twilight Zone" ep, the family never does make it to Daddy's office.  They just drive and drive, while Butte's head continues to spin, Julep develops anorexia, and everybody enjoys some good, old-fashioned rude noises.  For eternity! Anyway, that's what it looked like to me.  Please tune to the TBOGG channel for the authorized, really funny version of the tale.  8:08:06 AM

comment [] trackback []

America's Worst Mom On theTalibanizing of Men TGIF, and we get another of TBOGG's patented tales of the Gurdon Bunch.  As you will recall, last week Meghan had a complete psychotic break.  She spent the entire time being harangued by the Invisible Wife for throwing such a pretentious party for four-year-old Petunia's birthday, and also hallucinated about a pack of wild children ambushing the Nonexistant Husband.  It was kind of sad.  We predict that this week the Invisible Wife will taunt Meghan for serving homemade madeleines at a kids party, and inform her that all the neighbors are laughing at her -- and the only way to get them to stop is take a rifle to the church's bell tower.  Oh, and little Myrmidian will say the cutest thing about John Kerry being French-looking. But while we wait for that, let's see what we can learn about the America's Worst Mother (Registered Trademark of TBogg/Halliburton Inc.) from selected portions of her Wall Street Journal piece concerning Naomi Wolf's revelation about being groped by Harold Bloom: In college a friend of mine used to reduce us both to teary laughter by making up funny songs about what people's private parts would say if only they could speak.  So, back in college, Meghan had at least one friend.  A funny friend who would make up songs about people's talking private parts.  Um, okay.  And somehow it reminds Meghan of Naomi's Wolf piece about being groped by Bloom -- since we know she uses her children as props to make pithy but stupid political statements, we suspect the friend with the talking vagina songs is probably fictional too.  But let's move on: A beastly incident--for both of them--if true.  For Ms. Wolf, though, we are asked to believe that it was transformatively awful. Though she was sexually experienced, this unwanted touch of a teacher sparked in her a "moral crisis" that eventually shook her confidence in Yale University itself. It seems that Meghan believes that sexually experienced women can't be emotionally effected by unwelcome sexual advances, and presumably that prostitutes can't be raped.    Now, it is indeed dismaying to find that an older man whom you take to be a mentor, or who you believe is captivated by your sparkling young intellect, has secretly been hoping to get you undressed. Young women make this discovery all the time; it is a regrettable aspect of growing up in an oversexed society with no real norms, and perhaps was always thus. So, if something like this happens to you, you should just shut up and accept it as a part of life in this oversexed culture.  Or any culture.  In any case, this kind of stuff just happens, and the man is blameless because it's not HIS fault that women have thighs. There's so much ugliness in this story, and in the publicizing of it, that it's difficult to know where to start. For one thing, Ms. Wolf's tale illustrates two impossibly contradictory strains in the feminist culture that she herself promotes. Women must be sexually shameless--meaning shame-free--and society should encourage female erotic exploration. Men, however, must observe a phenomenal degree of purity--in language, eye-movement, intentions and most definitely in the placing of heavy, boneless hands on women's thighs. This reverse-Talibanism may make sense in the steamy atmosphere of a women's studies class, but it withers into absurdity in the fresh air of real life. This sounds a lot like Dennis Prager's complaint about how women get to wear g-strings and pasties to work, but if men stare at them, the men get hauled off to Sexual Harassment Court: "There are vast checks on his sexuality, none on hers." Let me give some unisex advice, to help Meghan and Dennis understand how things work in this confusing, oversexed society: Each person is responsible for his or her own actions.  If a woman wears a low-cut, tight dress to work, it doesn't force her male coworkers to pat her butt, or comment on her breasts.  If a man wears skintight jeans and no shirt to work, it doesn't force his female coworkers to pat HIS butt or comment on his "area." However, since neither outfit would be considered "professional attire" at most places of business, the person wearing the inappropriate clothing is responsible (to a large degree) for how his or her fashion statements effect his or her reputation for professionalism, chances for advancement, etc. And if a female student, by "prearrangement," meets in her apartment with the professor from her writing seminar to discuss her manuscript, it doesn't force him to put his hand up her dress.  It's wrong for him to do it -- even if she knew he had a reputation as something of a lech, and even if she did have too much to drink. And if a male student, by "prearrangement" meets with the professor from his writing seminar to discuss his manuscript, it doesn't force her to put her hand down his pants.  It's wrong for her to do it -- even if he knew she had a reputation as something of a lech, and even if he did have too much to drink.  However, both the male and female student should learn from the experience (if they didn't know it before), that drinking too much with a person alleged to be a lech is not a good idea, and can put one in a position where one might be the recipient of unwelcome advances.  Not that the advances would be the fault of the student, but the responsible person does what he or she can to obviate unpleasant or dangerous situations.  I hope that helps Dennis and Meghan.  But back to Meghan's gripes about how the slut deserved it: Let's say, for example, that Ms. Wolf had wanted to bed her famous professor. That would be cool, right? A young woman exercising her sexual power--who is to say that she can't sleep with whomever she likes? In this scenario, the professor makes his clumsy approach, she responds and the fireworks go off Love American Style. In short, if she had enjoyed his overture--a hand on a thigh!--it would have been hunky-dory, and she wouldn't have written about it save perhaps in an analysis of May-September couplings. Since a professor is in a position of authority over his students, he shouldn't be groping them, even in Meghan's "the tart is hot to trot" scenario.  I don't think Naomi has ever written about the joys of relationships where one person holds most of the power.  Maybe she would say it would be cool if a young woman who wanted to bed her famous professor put her hand on his thigh -- I don't know enough about her writings to say -- but I don't think Wolf would say that a young woman should "exercise her sexual power" by being the passive recipient of an advance by an authority figure. Instead, he touches her leg, she recoils and he leaves. And 20 years later, in the twilight of his scholarship, Harold Bloom comes out of his house to the accusing glare of television cameras. From this point onward, a whiff of goatiness will forever cling to his astonishingly humane, passionate and abundant oeuvre. I haven't read Naomi's New York Magazine piece, and don't know if Naomi's revelation of an incident that happened twenty years ago was motivated by concerns over Yale's sexual harassment procedures, or by shameless self-promotion -- and I certainly don't know if the story was something that needed to be shared with the world after all this time.  But I do believe that if the story is true, it's not Wolf's fault if "a whiff of goatiness will forever cling" to Bloom's work.  If he groped a student, it's his own damn fault if people consider him goaty.  Everybody is responsible for their own actions. 7:05:28 AM

comment [] trackback []

Adults Write the Darndest Things 1.  Attorney Richard D. Ackerman, writing at WorldNetDaily: Why is it that President Bush is only taking a "serious look" at what is going on in San Francisco? Bush ought to be sending in the National Guard to San Francisco to immediately restore the order of law and the thousands of years of history underlying the most valued institution of marriage. I agree.  I think that Bush should send the National Guard to haul away some of those elderly lesbian couples (and maybe the young mothers with the baby in the neo-natal ICU that Rush told us about).  If they could manage to shoot some of them, it would really help people to make up their mind about this issue! 2.  And here's Carey Roberts. a self-described "analyst and commentator on political correctness": Why do Americans refer to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as our Founding Fathers? When Christians recite the Lord's Prayer, why does the phrase, "Our Father" immediately tumble out? Why did a generation of Americans grow up watching the TV series, Father Knows Best? In days past, "father" evoked notions of goodness, wisdom, steadfastness, and self-sacrifice. And with good reason. [snip] The deconstruction of fatherhood continues to this day. Turn on your TV and you will see the sitcoms and advertisements that portray dads as speechless dolts in the face of the superior wisdom of their wives and 11-year-old children So when feminists attack the institution of fatherhood, they are rending the very fabric of families, and of Nationhood itself  The writers for all those CBS sitcoms ("Everybody Loves Raymond," "Everybody Loves Kevin James," "Everbody Loves Jim Belushi," "Everybody Loves All Those Average Guys Married to Really Hot Women") are rending the fabric of Nationhood, and should be sent to Gitmo to think about what they've done.  While they're gone, we'll watch re-runs of "Father Knows Best" and try to figure out why the Founding Fathers aren't known as the Founding Cousins.  3.  And speaking of fathers, here's what's new around the James Lileks house: We are heading into the Last Weekend of the Unemployed Interregnum – my wife goes back to work on Monday, and life will do a 180. Me and Gnat again, M-F. We’re all just ridiculously happy around here these days . . . It's so nice when it's just Daddy and Gnat.  But let's move on before we think about that too much. 4.  Frank Salvato wants to tell us about the dangers of amending the Constitution.  Yes, we could end up with a Nazi president.  Another one, he means.  Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) has proposed an amendment to the US Constitution that would allow naturalized citizens, who have been so for 20 years, eligibility to run for and hold the office of president. By proposing this legislation (and doing nothing to protest the activities of obstructionist senators who are practicing collusion with special interest groups regarding President Bush’s judicial nominees) Hatch is signaling that his thought process is starting to become unclear as to what is right and wrong, acceptable and not. Requiring that a candidate for the office of president be a naturally born citizen of the United States creates a generational buffer, if you will. It produces a period of time where ideologies from other regions of the world would have to be sustained in their support for at least a generation before they could possibly be injected directly into our political process. Some may believe this is a type of built in protectionism and they may be right. But one need only look at the resurgence of anti-Semitism and the Neo-Nazi culture among the German youth today to understand that some incredibly evil ideologies, no matter the effort to educate against them, no matter the efforts to eradicate them from humanity, will flourish despite what society tries to do about them.  Is this example extreme? Yes, it is, but it is a legitimate example nevertheless Poor Orrin.  Instead of using emails from the Democrats computers to make political points, he goes after the Republicans who stole them.  And now he wants a neo-Nazi President.  Clearly, his thought processes ARE slipping.  We attribute it his hanging around with rockers. 4:39:05 AM

comment [] trackback []

Capitalism at its Finest  As you will recall, a couple of days ago told you about Judson Cox's most recent column, which dealt with his realization that without a conservative internet dating service, most Republican singles were going to die alone and unloved.  And about how Judson did a search for such sites, and found only one: RepublicanConnections.com.  And it so impressed him with its rigor in screening out liberals and its adherence to the conservative principle of price gouging that he signed up. Well, as you may know, industrious reader Alex did a search at www.NetworkSolutions.com and found that young entrepeneur Judson is listed as the owner and administrator of RepublicanConnections.com.  What a coincidence! Alex also found that Judson posted his article at the shared blog The Right Society, and so Alex used the comments section there to ask Judson about his connection to RepublicanConnections.  Per Alex, Judson indicated that RC isn't his site, it's his mother's; Judson just set up the domain for her because "she is not very comfortable with computers and the internet".  Which makes her decision to run a computer dating service a bit odd, but as Alex said, maybe Mrs.Cox just wanted to find a nice girl for Judson so he'd move out of her basement.  (Personally, I think that what Judson meant about it being his mother's site is that it was her $50 that paid for the domain registriation, since Judson had this great idea to make lots of money but had blown his last Walmart paycheck on Ann Coulter porn, and so had to ask Mom to finance his latest business venture.) A few other smart, snarky people apparently commented on Judson's lapse in journalistic ethics . . . and then the article and all the comments were peremptorily removed from The Right Society.  Talk about your Crushing of Dissent!  (We're sure that Glen Reynolds will be all over it.) Then a few people asked Judson about the missing article in the Right Society comments for last week's column (which was about the duties of the press, appropriately enough).  Judson replied: Watch the libs pile on - they always show their true natures if you give them the oportunity! What miserable people; is it any wonder that most of them are Canadians! Our first thought is that Judson shouldn't have given the libs an opportunity to show their true natures ("generally intelligent, well humored, have good work ethics") by doing something so weasely and stupid as using his column to talk up a business without revealing his connection to it.  Our second thought was that RepublicanConnections should match up Judson with Adam Yoshida -- they'd be perfect for each other! Our third thought was that Judson shouldn't have knocked the Canadians (a liberal but proud people), because Sadly, No! heard that one of them informed MichNews of how Judson was using their space to promote his business.  I don't know if his conflict of interest has been mentioned to other conservative sites that run Judson's articles, but it wouldn't surprise me if the word got out. FYI, Judson's article was posted today at Bush Country:"Promoting the Ideals of Conservatism." I am tempted to tell Bush that he should consider banning Judson from his country, but I guess young Judson does actually promotes the ideals of conservatism, so Bush probably wouldn't care. And what should we learn from all of this?  Miel (who blogs at Hot Juicy Breathless Bla Bla) commented: "Now I realize that this is the best strategy...we separate the Republicans when they are at breeding age and slowly they die off!"  An excellent suggestion, and humantarianism at its most basic level -- the family. 2:30:35 AM