Friday, April 24, 2015

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.


Good day for this. Never a bad one, really.

•   At National Review, Mona Charen snarls in "Racial Milestones and a Corrupt Press":
You can do this all day, I know, play “What if a Republican had done...” But the contrast is so galling, it simply must be noted. Today’s Washington Post carries a story about the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general. The inside headline, on page A7, proclaims “Lynch Will Be First Black Woman to Head the Justice Department.” A glance back at the coverage of Condoleeza Rice’s confirmation as the first black woman Secretary of State? The headline was “Rice Confirmed Amid Criticism.” The story accompanying that headline featured Democrats’ slams against attorney general-nominee Alberto Gonzalez, but not a word about the history-making moment of confirming the first black woman secretary of state.

This tears the veil off the “first blah blahs” the press and Democrats make such a fuss over. It’s completely partisan. It has nothing to do with true pride in the accomplishments of once oppressed peoples. Conservative women’s accomplishments are illegitimate. Black conservatives are invisible...
The Washington Post is only one hydra-head of the Liberal Media, so I went to see what other treasonous news orgs had reported on Rice's milestone. The New York Times:
Condoleezza Rice, a scholar of the cold war who was President Bush's closest foreign policy adviser during his 2000 campaign and throughout his first term, was sworn in as secretary of state Wednesday evening, hours after the Senate confirmed her by a vote of 85 to 13.
Ms. Rice, who is the second woman, and the first black woman, to become secretary of state...
Talk about burying the lede! Worse, CNN didn't get to Rice's race/gender qualifications till the third paragraph. And NPR, well, you can imagine, the first line was probably about how she was a fascist or something --
The Senate votes 85-13 to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, making her the first black woman to serve as the nation's top diplomat.
-- okay, well then surely those commies at the Associated Press --
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's first black woman secretary of state took the ceremonial oath of office Friday surrounded by family and friends...
Look, it's no fair, that Democrat bitch got a headline! Elsewhere at National Review, you can read Mona Charen's racial opinions about Obama's Secret Service protection: namely, that Obama has torn the races apart, so now if someone sic-semper-tyrannises him "it’s a good bet that close to 100 percent of blacks and a good percentage of others would believe that a demonic conspiracy brought him down." Yeesh. Maybe cook gave her some runny eggs this morning.

•   Rod Dreher's blog remains a mix of persecution mania and book peddling, but I have to to tell you he surprised me in his latest sermon on how the gays are persecuting Christians:
We must try, anyway, because if we are going to hold on to the orthodox Christian faith in this increasingly anti-Christian culture, we are going to have to learn how to endure, and to endure joyfully.
I ran out of time this morning on the stage, but I wanted to talk briefly about how we will have much to learn from the African-American experience. A black friend’s grandmother, encouraging her children in the 1940s not to let their spirits and their dignity be broken by white hatred, counseled, “Don’t be the kind of person they think you are.” That’s great advice for Christians going forward.
Sure, they experienced slavery, segregation, and lynchings. but Big Gummint made us bake a cake. Now for a rousing rendition of that old cracker spiritual, "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Gay."

•   Speaking of whiners, here's Mollie Hemingway claiming we're heading toward a joyless Orwellian dystopia of "comedy speakeasies" where "people will have to have the password. But they’ll also have to be patted down for recording equipment," etc., because comedians are ascared someone will hear their jokes outside the club and some tattletale will get them sent to PC Jail. What's her evidence for this? 1.) The New York Post said David Letterman's audience was "'stunned' by his 'sexist' joke"; 2.) "Jamie Foxx was accused of transphobia"; 3.) Trevor Noah lost his Daily Show gig -- no wait, that didn't happen; rather, he "received criticism." And... Michael Richards. No, really. If a white guy can't yell "nigger" over and over onstage without getting a hard time for it 12 fucking goddamn years ago, we're headed for totalitarianism. Maybe if Hemingway keeps this up, the conservative movement will gain strength from all the shitty comics who finally have an excuse for nobody liking them.

270 comments:

  1. For conservatives, the media running anything other than constant unstinting praise is oppression, and its reporting actual facts is oppression. And even when the media actually does what conservatives want, as in this case, it's still oppression because it didn't do it EXACTLY the way conservatives think it should have been done.

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  2. susanoftexas10:28 AM

    Would you like a little whine with that Moanin', Charon? It Styx in your throat.

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  3. "First blah blahs"? Is Rick Santorum her editor?

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  4. Damn, they really love their "Obama assassination" fanfic. It's pathological.

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  5. I would rescue this comment from Hades and never look back.

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  6. RogerAiles10:41 AM

    I'll just put this here for Mole-na:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60807-2005Feb3.html

    "Senate Confirms Gonzales as Attorney General
    "First Hispanic Attorney General is Approved 60-36"

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  7. RogerAiles10:46 AM

    Sociopathological, even.

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  8. coozledad10:47 AM

    Mona, when you're pissy I'm smiling.
    Give me, whoa whoa whoah that grief.

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  9. coozledad10:49 AM

    I forget which commenter out at Wonkette called him "Torqueberto", but they deserve a medal of freedom.

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  10. petesh10:52 AM

    Uncle Clarence certainly isn't invisible, but he's almost inaudible. Does that count?

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  11. Gotta get in those Second Amendment remedies before Obama takes away all their guns.

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  12. coozledad11:01 AM

    Black conservatives are invisible..

    Considering their percentage of the population, I'd say they are excessively visible.

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  13. DN Nation11:13 AM

    "it’s a good bet that close to 100 percent of blacks and a good percentage of others would believe that a demonic conspiracy brought him down."


    Or a white asshole. Like, I dunno, Mona Charen.

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  14. By amazing coincidence, I was just thinking how reminiscent her writing is of santorum.

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  15. coozledad11:20 AM

    The Bonzos brought Dada to pop. Neil Innes wrote some sweet psychedelia.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjcAtIJiwBI

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  16. The inside headline, on page A7Uh, Mona? This particular bit detracts just a wee bit from your goddamned stupid falsehood of a point. Just sayin'.

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  17. Helmut Monotreme11:23 AM

    You misspelled "aspirational".

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  18. Ellis_Weiner11:25 AM

    Poor stewardship of your resources, Roy. This one could also have been called Boo Fucking Hoo. Oh, who are we kidding? They all could!

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  19. In Charen's limited defense, I would agree that the most relevant part of the story isn't necessarily that Ms. Lynch is a black woman. It's also somewhat relevant that she had to wait months to be confirmed by an embarrassingly-small margin for an obviously qualified nominee, or that part of the delay was due to Senate Republicans holding the vote hostage in order to shoehorn a load of anti-choice bullshit into a bill originally meant to fight sex traffficking. I'm sure M.C. (Dumber than a box of) Hammers would be much more comfortable with that angle.

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  20. how reminiscent her writing is of santorum: A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter?

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  21. Ellis_Weiner11:32 AM

    Remember when Nixon defended nominating Carswell by claiming that mediocre people had a right to be represented on the Supreme Court, too? Maybe he was onto something. Could it be that the entire conservative apparatus is the Political Embodiment of the Mediocre? Don't tell Karl Marx I said this, of course, but is it that simple? That the GOP is indeed a big tent, and it's entirely full of idiots and mediocrities? When Jindal cites "the stupid party," maybe he's literally and completely correct!

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  22. Damn, they really love their "Obama assassination" fanfic.I've always considered it to have a little too much of a Henry II / Thomas Becket vibe to be pure fiction.

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  23. Cato the Censor11:35 AM

    There was no racial tension whatsoever in this country until Obama got elected President.

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  24. Helmut Monotreme11:37 AM

    Conservative women’s accomplishments are illegitimate. Black conservatives are invisible.. If, as the conservatives would have us believe, the civil rights movement ended racial discrimination, and the women's rights movement did the same for women, then the race and sex of members of the administration are of no consequence. Why would the press trumpet the sex or race of important figures in the administration since any discrimination obviously ended 30-40 years in the past? Isn't even mentioning the sex or race of these people a potential acknowledgment of a problem they claim has been solved for a generation?

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  25. whetstone11:49 AM

    We must try, anyway, because if we are going to hold on to the orthodox Christian faith in this increasingly anti-Christian culture, we are
    going to have to learn how to endure, and to endure joyfully.



    What's the over/under on Rod following the goal to "endure joyfully" with a pissiness-not-in-anger lament about the inevitable demise of Western Culture? 15 minutes?

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  26. coozledad11:54 AM

    in this increasingly anti-Christian culture, we are going to have to learn how to endure, and to endure joyfully.

    Awww.
    It's just that "joyfully" part that scares me. Smells like roasting flesh.

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  27. coozledad11:56 AM

    Or a pickled fetus in a jar on the home entertainment center.

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  28. Ellis_Weiner11:59 AM

    A comment (reprinted in its entirety) from Rod's column:

    I’m fresh out of college. My peers certainly seem to be naive. Myself
    included often. But the pastor at a church I attend often says that he
    gives he 5-10 years before he ends up in prison for holding to basic
    Christian beliefs. Some days it feels a little dramatic, but lately I
    feel like I’m starting to get it.


    I had to physically restrain myself from replying something on the order of "Oh, go fuck yourself. And kindly convey a similar sentiment to your pastor." These people...

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  29. coozledad12:03 PM

    But the pastor at a church I attend often says that he
    gives he 5-10 years before he ends up in prison for holding to basic
    Christian beliefs.


    Or tax evasion.

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  30. "Ahem" (retucks shirt after stroking chin):

    The guy who said that was Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska, but your larger point stands, and god knows, Hruska wasn't the tightest wrench in the toolbox either.

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  31. Ted the slacker12:07 PM

    "we are going to have to learn how to endure"
    I thought that was like 99% of the new testament message? Believe in Me, to hell - literally - with those unbelievers, and it's all good. Maybe Rod's never read beyond the Sodom and Gomorrah business.

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  32. Ellis_Weiner12:08 PM

    Leave the shirt out. On you it looks good.

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  33. Ted the slacker12:12 PM

    It's suddenly like Rod had this revelation that Jesus is a model for Christians. Who knew?

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  34. I agree, and the most ridiculous part of the Pug delay was the way they kept moving the goalposts. Her nomination was held up initially over Pug objections to her support for Obama's executive order on immigration, and then it was the anti-abortion language in the human trafficking bill, which the Pugs kept slapping each other on the back over because that tidbit was buried so deep in the bill that Dem staffers didn't find it right away. I'm sure the Pugs were hoping that Lynch would withdraw her name out of disgust with the process, which proves that there's no limits to their willingness to sabotage government in order to prove government doesn't work.

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  35. We must try, anyway, because if we are going to hold on to the orthodox Christian faith in this increasingly anti-Christian culture, we are going to have to learn how to endure, and to endure joyfully.

    I ran out of time this morning on the stage, but I wanted to talk briefly about how we will have much to learn from the African-American experience.


    it's a bit long, sure, but in case you were wondering, this is the latin for "obtuse."

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  36. susanoftexas12:19 PM

    He has a better idea--it's hard to tell with all that treacle-y self-pity but it looks like he's going Galt aka the Benedict Option.
    Choose Your Own Pope Adventures!

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  37. ... or whoppity-fuckitty-doo!

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  38. Helmut Monotreme12:29 PM

    Does the guy who handed an alcoholic the first beer of his life ever kick himself, or feel the tiniest bit responsible for the mess the addict made of their life? Similarly does the person who first sent little Rod to Sunday school ever sigh wistfully and wish they skipped out and went fishing instead?

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  39. "Now for a rousing "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Gay."



    Oh, baby, those old time conservative spirituals really get 'em rocking at The Saddleback Church! And I'm sure that Pastor Rick Warren meant "Saddleback" in a purely Christian, non-homo kind of way...

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  40. I suppose if his christian belief is in bullying and abusing anyone who isn't a white-male-christian, it could land him in jail, maybe in the same cell with a black man who was arrested for jay-walking or having a cracked tail light on his car!

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  41. “Don’t be the kind of person they think you are.”



    Thing is that we think you're a bunch of miserablist SOBs who are completely obsessed with Teh Gays. And what a coincidence, the column where Rod advises against being that kind of person is his 800th consecutive column about Teh Gays and how miserable he is.

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  42. tigrismus12:37 PM

    Exactly, it's really "don't be the kind of person all the evidence shows you to be." Good luck with that.

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  43. Prison??!!? OK, I'm now convinced that it's not actually Jesus that Dreher identifies with, it's Paul, Jesus's chief ad man and agent, who was such a general pain in the ass that he did most of his writing from prison, and probably enjoyed every moment of his incarceration.

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  44. tigrismus12:41 PM

    I had a youth pastor say the same thing in the 80s, as they actually acted out a bust of our Bible study. I guess if “a thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night" the opposite may be true, too.

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  45. Jay B.12:45 PM

    We must try, anyway, because if we are going to hold on to the orthodox Christian faith in this increasingly anti-Christian culture, we are going to have to learn how to endure, and to endure joyfully.


    They never think that it's people like them who turned normal people against religion to begin with.

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  46. John Wesley Hardin12:47 PM

    "to endure joyfully" That is certainly a lesson Dreher needs to grasp, as doing anything joyfully seems outside of his grim, puritan nature.

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  47. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi481LhxEAQ
    ~

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  48. John Wesley Hardin12:52 PM

    Once, long ago, when I was young and stupid, I gave an acquaintance his first taste of an illegal substance. Approximately a year later, I heard he was arrested at school in possession of a scale and a substantial quantity of said substance. I'm definitely going to hell for that one. I doubt that Rod's enabler feels any remorse.

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  49. Jaime Oria12:53 PM

    "Youth pastor charged on multiple counts -" should be a keyboard macro for many small town reporters.

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  50. Roy you magnificent bastard! The Bonzos have been a huge part of my life ever since 197_, when a few of us skipped school, smoked some twigs and seeds and giggled uncontrollably as Mr. Slater's parrot said hello from the hi-fi.



    The music of Neil, Viv and the boys is weird and wonderful and wacky and has always been a constant and welcome reminder that life is absurd, and you can be, too. Revel in it, even.

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  51. Yeah, nothing like a love song that a Marine regiment can march to.

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  52. redoubtagain12:59 PM

    This. He wants to be a popular martyr. (Whatever happened to "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven?")

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  53. redoubtagain1:03 PM

    Sau'di America II: Bible Busters Boogaloo

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  54. It thook me a second [hums a couple of bars...] Ahah!!

    Nicely played sir.
    ...

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  55. coozledad1:08 PM

    Come Sail Away is pure, relentless evil.

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  56. redoubtagain1:09 PM

    (2008 vintage, Grand Klu Dragon, courtesy of Derpyards, Inc.)

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  57. gratuitous1:12 PM

    I keep tripping over Dreher's use of the word "orthodox" (from the Latin meaning "right or correct belief"). Appended to the word "Christian," it takes on a specific reference to certain sects (e.g., Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox).

    I don't think Dreher is claiming membership in one of these numerically small denominations; so what authority does he think confers "orthodoxy" on his personal Christian beliefs or practices? I mean, besides the fact that it is Rod Dreher who holds these beliefs?

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  58. susanoftexas1:18 PM

    Dreher doesn't need no stinking authority. Whatever he thinks is authoritative and correct. And traditional.

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  59. DocAmazing1:20 PM

    If you spend time among a certain type of educated and kinda-klever Christians who find the verve and commitment of snake-handling stimulating but its chrome-plating deep history and anti-intellectualism embarrassing, you will find Orthodox churches that were taken over by n00bs or invented out of whole cloth. Regular Greek and Russian Orthodox churches tend not to have time for these people, but outfits like the Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Evangelical Orthodox Church welcome and even seek them. It's an attempt to get back to the roots. Blame the Maranatha folks in the '70s.

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  60. BigHank531:21 PM

    “Don’t be the kind of person they think you are.”

    I'd like to think better of you, Mr. Dreher, but you persist in reminding me of what a small-minded Bible-fondling rules lawyer you are. I really have no option other than concluding you are, in fact, obsessed with finding scriptural cover for your outright homophobia.

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  61. mgmonklewis1:21 PM

    We are the Chorus, and we agree. We agree, we agree, we agree.

    (obligatory)

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  62. j_handey1:23 PM

    Well, he actually is big-O Orthodox (after converting from traditionalist Catholicism a while back). He's moved ever-rightward since - after being scandalized by Yankee Orthodox parishes that weren't good enough for him, he left the Orthodox Church in America (which is mostly Alaska Natives + assorted others scattered around the country) for the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). ROCOR is the equivalent of where you'd go on the evangelical/Pentecostal side if you found, say, Pat Robertson too touchy-feely and tolerant.

    When Rod moved to Louisiana, despite there being several Orthodox churches around Baton Rouge, he went the Mel Gibson route and set up his very own mission church in a storefront near his house. His church pretty much consists of himself, his family, and a few family friends, so it might actually be smaller that Mel's church.

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  63. Rugosa1:23 PM

    "Endure" what, exactly? Having to live in a world with people of different faiths, different political views, different lifestyles? We all "endure" that, and most of manage to get along with our neighbors.

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  64. He thinks it means traditional, or by the book. Of course the only thing he's talking about is gay bashing so take that as you will.

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  65. susanoftexas1:26 PM

    I've said this before but it is not uncommon in the rural South for one of its more clever sons to become a Bible-beatin' preacher because that's the easiest way to make money. Everyone else is doing manual labor or skedaddles to the big city where they are one of millions but if you want influence, respect (of a sort) and an easy life, you become a preacher of Rod's ilk. I wonder if intellectual vanity kept him from going that route.

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  66. Jay B.1:28 PM

    Sure, traditional, but from someone who actually left crazy "old" Catholicism (none of that liberal Opus Dei Roman shit for him), Rod's sense of orthodox is a little, say, different than other orthodox lunatics, to say nothing of Orthodox types of all flavors and stripes. I'd say he's pushing for schism but the Reformation made that pretty irrelevant. I'd like to see these people get in a room and try and define orthodoxy.

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  67. DocAmazing1:29 PM

    Call a Copt!

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  68. j_handey1:30 PM

    Also, his beliefs are pretty non-big-O Orthodox. He's obsessed with "natural law", for example, but Orthodoxy in general doesn't think much of the whole concept. He's written some pretty far out there pieces on how masculinity and femininity are the foundational principles of existence, which, again, steps over the line into heresy (in the classical sense). As near as I can figure, he seems to be there because seems to like the singing in the Divine Liturgy.

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  69. coozledad1:30 PM

    This.
    There's also John Lennon's famous response to Dylan's Gotta Serve Somebody: "He wants to be a waiter. A waiter for Christ."

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  70. Helmut Monotreme1:35 PM

    I'd like to see him get a cave without internet and try becoming a monastic hermit.

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  71. you forgot to include the salutation that's at the beginning--"dear penthouse forum"

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  72. BigHank531:35 PM

    Heh. Only if we get to stock the room with lots of sharp implements and armored video feeds ahead of time.

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  73. coozledad1:37 PM

    Or go back to the days of the Elizabeths One of England and Bathory of Hungary, or Ivan the Terrible.

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  74. mrstilton1:38 PM

    Dreher began as a relatively mainstream protestant; Methodist, I think (doesn't get any more vanilla than that). He turned papish when he married a woman of the Roman communion. In the fulness of time he decided that the RC church wasn't nearly reactionary, superstitious, or obscurantist enough for his taste and so, adding NO FILIOQUE! to NO HOMOS! in his list of personal battle-whines, went Orthodox.

    The first of the Dreherian Conversions is, of course, the subject of classic Ulster folksong "The Ould Orange Flute":
    https://youtu.be/gSatdW0EfPU
    Haven't yet come across any jaunty little numbers about leaving Rome for the dark, incense-shrouded, icon-encrusted cells of Mount Athos, alas.

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  75. BigHank531:39 PM

    But the pastor at a church I attend often says that he
    gives he 5-10 years before he ends up in prison for holding to basic
    Christian beliefs.


    Ask the pastor if he wants to put any money on it. That usually shuts them up.

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  76. Ellis_Weiner1:41 PM

    Man is that true. I also wanted to ask him if the pastor had said the same thing ten years ago, and if, ten from now, the pastor is still at large, he'll say the same about the next ten years.

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  77. BigHank531:42 PM

    Yeah, I've never managed to find the part of the New Testament where the big J talked about what an easy time his followers were going to have. Maybe those verses are only in Rod's head. Lord knows there aren't many brains to get in their way.

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  78. Ellis_Weiner1:42 PM

    "...I can't wait for this to happen to me."

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  79. RogerAiles1:45 PM

    “Don’t be the kind of person they think you are.” That’s great advice for Christians going forward.



    Confidential to Rod: The analogy only works if what if "they" think about you is incorrect. But, by all means, feel free to stop being a bigoted, sex-obsessed asshole.

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  80. The masculine vs feminine seems to have become a big deal to quite a few on the religious right. A kid I grew up with took to smoking a few years ago just because it was considered masculine.

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  81. But Mona looked at one newspaper on one day! That means that newspaper never had any other headlines!

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  82. BigHank531:49 PM

    Oh, that comment is choice.

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  83. susanoftexas1:50 PM

    I dearly love the slipped-in shiv. It beats the bludgeon every time.

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  84. Ain't gonna let nobody turn me gay, turn me gay, turn me gay.
    Ain't gonna let nobody turn me gay.

    I'm gonna keep on a-stalkin', keep on a-talkin',
    Marchin' down to Chick-fil-A.

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  85. Jay B.2:03 PM

    I prefer to gamble with souls. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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  86. It's almost as if Dreher wants to be sent to a FEMA camp w/ all his friends.

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  87. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:11 PM

    We must try, anyway, because if we are going to hold on to the orthodox
    Christian faith in this increasingly anti-Christian culture, we are
    going to have to learn how to endure, and to endure joyfully.


    Jesus taken serious by many
    Jesus taken joyous by a few

    But did you take the hint? Nooooooo.
    So, Jeezer, drop your ax....

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  88. Yeah, if they're not careful, I'm going to start suspecting that conservatives are self-absorbed and immune to evidence that contradicts their pre-existing narratives.

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  89. susanoftexas2:16 PM

    I think you mean both.
    God save us from the people who crave transcendence. The Rapture fans, the 9/11 we-are-all-conservative-now transcendentalists, the luminous-numinous crowd.

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  90. Gromet2:16 PM

    The people I know who are genuinely happy don't seem to be the people who are tacking post-it notes to the mirror that say "Remember to endure joyfully."

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  91. DocAmazing2:19 PM

    "All of 'em, Katie!"

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  92. On the other hand, Paul once apparently realized he had been wrong about something, and also famously wrote that he could have a whole drawer full of Awesome Christian T-shirts, and it wouldn't matter if he didn't have charity in his heart. (Okay, I may have paraphrased a bit there). And at least his persecution complex involved actual persecution. These people can't even do Paul right, is what I'm getting at, and that's a pretty low bar.



    (I'm also not convinced that he anticipated his personal correspondence with church groups becoming inerrant Holy Scripture someday, but that's another story.)

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  93. American fundamentalist Christians issuing dire imprecations about secular humanist tyranny is the original Friedman Unit.

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  94. Puny humans! Tremble before ROCOR!

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  95. DocAmazing2:45 PM

    Palindromic religions are the scariest.

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  96. Some guy w/ a furrin name at NR says: "Retreat Hell!"
    The grassroots of social conservatism are not just strong but increasing in strength. The cultural Left has lost one high-profile cultural clash after another. From the Chick-fil-A “boycott,” to Hobby Lobby’s legal and cultural triumph, to the recent windfall and triumphant reopening of Memories Pizza, when the cultural Right actually bothers to mobilize, the cultural Left tends to lose. And while pop culture produces prodigious quantities of leftist propaganda, the surprising box office of God’s Not Dead, the overwhelming success of American Sniper, celebrating the life of a Christian warrior, and the consistent ratings for Bible-themed television demonstrate that there remains a large-scale appetite for works of art that advance, whether by intention or by effect, a substantially more conservative point of view.

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  97. Gromet2:49 PM

    I had a coworker in 2008 who said, "We all just voted in our last election. This Obama is going to end democracy -- you'll see." So when 2016 comes around and we vote in our fourth national election since Obama's inauguration, any chance that'll mitigate her estimate of his tyranny? Wherever she is these days, I doubt it.

    Belief in apocalypse is more affected by the birth of a calf with unusual spots than it is by the total lack of apocalypse.

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  98. Gromet2:53 PM

    Shhhh, Helmut. Shhhh. Don't use fancy things like a thought process. Just lash out.

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  99. Ellis_Weiner2:53 PM

    Like the barrel of herring in the joke ("Schmuck! It's not for eating. It's for selling.") the apocalypse isn't for experiencing. It's for fearing.

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  100. Gromet2:55 PM

    Thanks for arresting Henry Louis Gates, shooting Trayvon, teargassing Ferguson, and strangling Eric Garner, Obama!

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  101. BigHank533:09 PM

    That's going to be the smallest FEMA camp ever.

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  102. Gromet3:10 PM

    This is like the Bluto Blutarsky "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor" rallying speech, but as delivered by Neidermeyer 40 years later when Omega is getting kicked off campus.

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  103. gratuitous3:20 PM

    I think that's probably closest to the truth, although I appreciate the other responses to my observation/question. One of my pet peeves in theological discussion is the refusal by some folks to recognize that the Bible often has many different things to say on a topic. Shouldn't be all that surprising for a book that has assembled various writings of history, poetry, polemic, mysticism, allegory and other styles. The dismissive "The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it" is by turns arrogant, ignorant, anti-biblical and dishonest.

    One of the themes to my reading of the Bible is that we're meant to be in communication and communion with one another, with all the messiness and disagreement that can entail. Individuals who set themselves up as the final authority do a grave disservice to the faith they claim to cherish.

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  104. Helmut Monotreme3:23 PM

    That's exactly what he means. And it is the oppressivest tyranny ever that he can't go all witchsmeller pursuviant on the collective asses of the rest of us and drive us into the welcoming arms of the church or the flames at his discretion.

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  105. ColBatGuano3:29 PM

    Or riding a bike in Tampa.

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  106. ColBatGuano3:43 PM

    the overwhelming success of American Sniper, celebrating the life of a Christian warrior


    But don't call it a Crusade.

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  107. Jay B.3:47 PM

    OH MY GOD that Mollie Hemingway derp is a piece of derp and the comments make me want to drink a cup of sad. Since I've seen this in a few places recently in talking about people's pantywaist sensitivities PC-derp: "Could Blazing Saddles be made today?" I have to definitively answer YES YOU STUPID FUCKING HONKEY. Brooks is making Blazing Saddles into a fucking musical where it will play on Broadway for people from Fritters, AL. Holy fuck, watch "Tropic Thunder", all that's missing from the laundry list of things Brooks did is that Stiller didn't write "nigger" into the script 100 times. What these assholes never understand --- maybe because they laughed only when characters said "nigger" in Blazing Saddles -- is that the target should always be THE HAVES. White people were the actual joke in Blazing Saddles. You laugh WITH the black guy, AT the white people. The DOWAGER gets the pie in the face, first. Then everyone else does. ARRRGGGGHHHHH.


    To say nothing of the fact that any night of the week, anywhere in this country, you can watch live comedy say things that would make Hemingway faint straight away. HATE HATE HATE HATE

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  108. prick rolled

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  109. Jebeniah Proulx3:58 PM

    "...he
    gives he 5-10 years before he ends up in prison for holding to basic
    Christian beliefs."

    Well, holding to basic Christian beliefs and the dead whores in the crawl space.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Howlin Wolfe4:06 PM

    Those fucking mullets . . . That over-enunciating voice . . . ewww.

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  111. tigrismus4:13 PM

    [Letterman's] joke — a version of a saying attributed to 1930s screenwriter Wilson Mizner — was met with stunned silence


    DEAR GOD NOT STUNNED SILENCE! Comedy will never survive!

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  112. J Neo Marvin4:16 PM

    Cartman's is still the definitive version.

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  113. So Rod's gonna go to the Black experience in America for comfort? Oh, how nice. Let him get back to us when he's gotten his back flayed open over an attack of drapeomania.

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  114. She deserves a Caina'in.

    ReplyDelete
  115. There's never a Copt around when you need one!

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  116. TGuerrant4:38 PM

    Shit. This used to be a safe place. Next you'll be posting Eagles videos.

    ReplyDelete
  117. Right up there with Ted Nooge's "dead or in prison" comment. Ten years from now, that pastor'll still be whining about his impending incarceration.

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  118. It's difficult to read any further in Rod's Bible when that and Revelations are the only sections without the pages stuck together.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Is there any objective difference between Styx & Rush?

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  120. If I wasn't posting from my shitty tablet, that'd be a perfect lead-in to post the line from Elmer Gantry about how little compassion etc. he learned from church.

    ReplyDelete
  121. coozledad4:51 PM

    Bangs?

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  122. Three examples out of millions?

    Alas! We are slain! *gurgle*

    ReplyDelete
  123. So, R.D.'s a big fan of Putin then?

    ReplyDelete
  124. coozledad4:55 PM

    With Scott "The Desperado" Walker running for president, these things that are hurting us are pleasing, somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  125. M. Krebs4:57 PM

    Or three paragraphs, whichever comes first.

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  126. Careful. I'm liable to do anything.

    ReplyDelete
  127. The sins of America will not be cleansed w/o some human sacrifice.

    ReplyDelete
  128. These people . . .

    . . . have been mere minutes away from being herded onto cattle trucks for the trip to the gas chambers since 1978. Apparently, even a Sith Lord tyrant like Obama can't make that train run on time.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Howlin Wolfe5:02 PM

    "Now Bob the Deceiver he took us all in,
    and married a libtard named Bridget McGinn
    Turned libtard himself and forsook the old cause that gave us our freedom, religion and laws" -

    modernized it for us.

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  130. Bethany Spencer5:02 PM

    As I said on FB...

    I think it would be great if they really tried this "act joyful" thing. If they act joyful, perhaps at times they'll actually BE joyful..and this, in turn, will make them not such humongous assholes all the time. Hey, it could work.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Bethany Spencer5:03 PM

    If it's old-fashioned sexism, it's harmless sexism.

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  132. TGuerrant5:03 PM

    Also Mona knows as many of you seem not to that the National Institute of Headline Standards categorizes types of news stories and requires equivalency of headlines across any standardized category.

    It's not like individual rimrats write a bunch of heads and one gets used because it fits the space and the mood of the hour in a particular edition of a particular newspaper. No, headlines are regulated and regimented over time coast to coast for the good of all Americans.

    If only Roy would apply for a permit, we too could benefit from nationally standardized wordistry.

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  133. Besides controlling both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, most state legislatures and governorships, having most of the population as sworn adherents, and an entirely sympathetic press, just what do these people have to be happy about, anyway?

    ReplyDelete
  134. M. Krebs5:04 PM

    For Rod to stop being the kind of person we think he is would be a pretty good outcome for all concerned.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Bethany Spencer5:05 PM

    "Could Blazing Saddles be made today?"



    Genuinely baffled by this question. Like...I seriously don't know what to say. They do know it's comedy punching up the whole time, right?I mean, what you said...I'm just like...:O

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  136. TGuerrant5:10 PM

    https://youtu.be/gfNhiRGQ-js

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  137. TGuerrant5:17 PM

    You're coming perilously close to explaining the rise of C-Plus Augustus in that biggy tent. Not wise at this, the Dawning of Bush III.

    ReplyDelete
  138. J Neo Marvin5:18 PM

    Lennon's answer song, "You Got To Serve Yourself", is pretty priceless as well.

    ReplyDelete
  139. Jay B.5:21 PM

    The cultural Left has lost one high-profile cultural clash after another. From the Chick-fil-A “boycott...


    Well, I happen to have the CEO of Chick-fil-A right here:

    "Almost two years later, Dan Cathy — a self-described evangelical Christian — says he made a mistake.

    In a rare and wide-ranging interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cathy admitted his anti-equality stance probably wasn’t a wise business decision, regretting “making the company a symbol in the marriage debate”:

    “Every leader goes through different phases of maturity, growth and development and it helps by (recognizing) the mistakes that you make,” Cathy said. “And you learn from those mistakes. If not, you’re just a fool. I’m thankful that I lived through it and I learned a lot from it.

    Cathy agreed that the “lingering identity” of Chick-fil-A with “anti-gay groups” thatjumped to its defense in 2012 has meant “alienating market segments”:

    “Consumers want to do business with brands that they can interface with, that they can relate with,” Cathy said. “And it’s probably very wise from our standpoint to make sure that we present our brand in a compelling way that the consumer can relate to.”

    to Hobby Lobby’s legal and cultural triumph


    I recall something in some book about "Inheriting the wind".


    to the recent windfall and triumphant reopening of Memories Pizza



    Sure, Indiana got absolutely destroyed economically by giant companies and convention business, but they'll always have Memories.


    GOOD EXAMPLES DAVE.

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  140. Gromet5:23 PM

    On the negative side, they can no longer control every marriage, they've lost the War On Christmas, and the Emir of Valencia resisted Charlemagne for 15 years.

    ReplyDelete
  141. J Neo Marvin5:27 PM

    I just got an Alex Chilton earworm. "The Ballad Of El Hetero?"

    ReplyDelete
  142. J Neo Marvin5:29 PM

    This is really all about ethics in standup comedy.

    ReplyDelete
  143. "Ges Miserables."

    ReplyDelete
  144. J Neo Marvin5:32 PM

    Joyful wingnuts are a real pain in the ass too. I remember the Reagan years all too well.

    ReplyDelete
  145. It's that last bit that still rankles Rod.

    ReplyDelete
  146. I can only hope Moll likes the joke I left her over there in her comments. Judging by her column she should adore it!

    ReplyDelete
  147. tigrismus5:55 PM

    Cleavon Little and Madeline Kahn are dead, so I say NO.

    ReplyDelete
  148. sharculese5:59 PM

    Rod talks all the time about going that route, but he's never going to do it because deep down he knows that the approval of the cultural elites he's nominally scorning is the only thing he really wants and that they won't miss him when he's gone.

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  149. sharculese6:00 PM

    One of the major subtexts of Rod's cash grab memoir about his dead sister is that, even as a child, there was never a time when the folks back home didn't think he was a pompous dick. So no, I think as far as their concerned there were no positive life paths for him and the only question was what the vector for his pompous dickishness would turn out be.

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  150. sharculese6:04 PM

    Oh and I just read that comment. Truly amazing. For anyone who believes in staying in the boat:

    You get carried away by your own imagery. By your war, surrender, and run to the hills metaphors.

    Let others be and you, just live your life by example. If you lead a good life, full of love,charity and contentment those that see you will want to partake of it.

    But your continuous talk of capitulation, defeat, etc. makes me think that what you are really concerned about is not that you will be forbidden to live your life, but that you will not be able to do do and at the same time bask in the approval and respect of your community. And thus you are more incensed about your position in the world than about your own relationship with God.

    I know of a book that talks about a young man that felt hurt because his family didn’t approve of his ways, his ideas, etc. His family thought that he was taking airs and despising their traditional ways, and as much as the young man tried to reach to his family, they could not get past what they saw as the young man’s rejection of all that was good, holy and traditional.

    The young man felt pushed away and left his town. His relationship with his family shattered. By the end of the book the young man, now older, comes back to his town. His sister is sick and he wants to be there for Her But even then, his family is not ready or willing to accept him. He is still too different.

    You remind me s lot of the young man’s family in that book. They felt that his refusal to accept that what they espoused was ipso facto true and good was a willing effrontery on his part. Poor young man. They weren’t willing to give him a chance.

    It’s a good book. You should read it.



    Emphasis added.

    ReplyDelete
  151. smut clyde6:05 PM

    objectivist
    I see what MB did there.

    ReplyDelete
  152. tigrismus6:06 PM

    Where now there's a question: were they stunned into silence because it was boorishly sexist or because it was a joke so old we'll be having the centennial celebration soon(if we haven't missed it... Mizner actually died in 1933)? Aw, who am I kidding, add in that it's not funny and let's just say "all three!"

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  153. smut clyde6:10 PM

    Nothing says "obedience to authority" like changing authorities umpteen times hunting for one that gives the specific instructions you feel like obeying.

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  154. smut clyde6:13 PM

    He wants to endure joyfully. Nipple-clamps and ball-gag territory. Someone needs to introduce Dreher to a good Dom.

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  155. J Neo Marvin6:13 PM

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r5hvHEBLNpI

    ReplyDelete
  156. sharculese6:14 PM

    Fun fact: My brother caddies at a fancy Atlanta golf course that the Cathys belong to, and the day after DOMA s.2 was struck down, Dan pulled out his phone on the course and made my brother read this long facebook rant he had written about how this was a dark day for America.

    ReplyDelete
  157. John Wesley Hardin6:15 PM

    Trigger Warnings: Cocaine cowboys, porn mustaches, mullets.

    ReplyDelete
  158. sharculese6:17 PM

    Wingnuts will ALWAYS defend David Letterman's right to make sexist jo- https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=david%20letterman%20bristol%20palin

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  159. Yeah, but could South Park be made today?

    ReplyDelete
  160. "American Sniper, celebrating the life of a Christian warrior"



    Thou shall kill.
    revised commandment, conservative edition.


    Was he a devout "conservative Christian" or just someone who enjoyed killing or is there now no difference?

    ReplyDelete
  161. From the Hemingway derp; "Sometimes it seems that the only comedy that’s generally acceptable is that of the extremely safe Louis C.K."

    WTF really?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuLrBLxbLxw

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  162. Outta my fucking cab!

    ReplyDelete
  163. Having one of your lungs removed certainly proves your manly bona fides.

    ReplyDelete
  164. The fact that Rod changes his convictions so often proves that he has them. The fact that you stick by your principles proves you're a relativist.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Declining to read his shit: "I might have to listen to your shit, and I might have to watch your shit, but this job doesn't pay me enough to read your shit as well."


    Turning to the other players: "Oh, and this guy used a foot wedge on eight when he was in the trees, has a 'cap five strokes lower than what he told you on the first tee, and has at least two clubs over the limit in this fucking bag I'm humping out here."


    Pulling out the driver and handing it to Dan: "So here you go, big guy. Let's see that special little pinched-ass pass at the ball you call a golf swing and we'll all cover our mouths and pretend not to laugh...again. An no, you fucking moron, it's impossible for you to hit into the foursome ahead. You average 170, Popgun, and they're at least 320 out there."


    (A former caddy emapthizes.)

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  166. Heh.


    On the heels of Rep. Steve King’s outrageous announcement Wednesday of his “Restrain the Judges on Marriage Act,” Rep. Jared Polis (CO-02) today proposed the “Restrain Steve King from Legislating Act.” The bill would prevent Steve King from abusing taxpayer dollars by substituting the judgments of the nation’s duly serving judicial branch of government with his own beliefs. http://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=397804

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  167. M. Krebs7:33 PM

    That's beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  168. ohsopolite7:38 PM

    Sadly, it can.

    ReplyDelete
  169. Smurch7:42 PM

    Lest we forget.

    ReplyDelete
  170. agorabum7:49 PM

    Someone needs to tell him that "joyfully" does not mean whining about every tiny thing that happens in the big wide world. For a start. If only he was more like Jack McBrayer on 30 Rock...

    ReplyDelete
  171. coozledad8:25 PM

    Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds boy

    She’ll get hitched to your brother

    You can only lean on club queen Lindsey Graham

    It seems to me obstetrics could not pull you from your
    mother

    And the forceps made your head look like a yam.

    ReplyDelete
  172. coozledad8:29 PM

    Ask John Wayne. When he ain't in a dress.

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  173. coozledad8:45 PM

    They've already selected that for the first dance at Cheney's inaugural.

    ReplyDelete
  174. coozledad9:00 PM

    When the Scouse came out in John, it came all the way out.
    I think Paul may have been the only person capable of restraining him.

    ReplyDelete
  175. Bitter Scribe9:23 PM

    Cardinal Francis George, who died last week, said that he expected to die in bed, but his successors would be jailed and publicly executed.


    I cannot believe these assholes who think they're martyrs whenever anyone pushes back against the criticism and condemnation they so freely ladle out.

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  176. Bitter Scribe9:27 PM

    Yeah, what was it with Dylan and his Jeebus phase? Did it stick?

    ReplyDelete
  177. EndOfTheWorld9:32 PM

    So basically the same way Fred Phelps got his start then.

    ReplyDelete
  178. EndOfTheWorld9:43 PM

    Lord, if only someone had done the decent thing and gotten him into comic books at an impressionable age. Then he'd have been able to channel all that righteous indignation, obsession over minutiae, and unearned pomposity into arguing with strangers over the internet that Hal Jordan is the best Green Lantern and that the real Spiderman is WHITE Goddamnit.

    ReplyDelete
  179. EndOfTheWorld9:47 PM

    Forgiven? Whatever for? Zealousness in defense marriage from the buttsexors is no vice!

    ReplyDelete
  180. coozledad9:48 PM

    I don't know. Dylan always struck me as some offshoot of esoteric Judaism. But I haven't listened to him enough to stick with that stupid argument.

    ReplyDelete
  181. DocAmazing10:42 PM

    Fifty Shades of Grace?

    ReplyDelete
  182. SAINT PETER [Rustling papers on plinth]: So, it says here you willingly killed numerous civilians, including ... refugees from a natural disaster in your own country?


    CHRIS KYLE: Oh, come on. A lot of the monstrous stuff I bragged about, I actually made up.


    SAINT PETER: Jesus Christ.

    ReplyDelete
  183. M. Krebs10:57 PM

    Okay, I think I'm caught up on this week's Letterman, but I must have missed something. Could somebody please clue me in as to what joke was supposed to be so controversial? I'm not getting out of the boat to search for it.

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  184. mortimer200011:15 PM

    OT, but I just saw someone finally take on the bigotry and hypocrisy of liberal Hollywood in a way that is sure to make PJ Media writers and Goldbergs everywhere quiver in admiration. In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Bruce Jenner just publicly admitted, without any shame and with enormous courage and dignity, that he was a Republican. It was awesome, and I hope it will assure any young people out there who think that they might be Republicans that it's okay.

    ReplyDelete
  185. billcinsd11:27 PM

    all they really know about orthodoxy is that it's the only doxy they have.

    ReplyDelete
  186. AGoodQuestion11:28 PM

    Man, it's too bad that Mona didn't submit her Obama assassination fantasia a few months earlier. This year she'd have been a lock for a Hugo nomination.

    ReplyDelete
  187. AGoodQuestion11:35 PM

    Sort of like how Jack Benny was always 39?

    ReplyDelete
  188. AGoodQuestion11:39 PM

    I'm sure your coworker is quite ready to see Hillary administering the cou de grace to democracy. How large a supporting role Obama gets in her ravings will depend on how much animus she bears toward Those People.

    ReplyDelete
  189. billcinsd11:40 PM

    gotta give Chris Bell some credit, too.

    ReplyDelete
  190. AGoodQuestion11:48 PM

    By "joyfully" does he mean that he intends to guzzle Joy dishwashing liquid. Because that's pretty much the only way to make sense of him.

    ReplyDelete
  191. AGoodQuestion11:53 PM

    As is Harvey Korman. That's Hedley!

    ReplyDelete
  192. AGoodQuestion12:08 AM

    Lest I get left out of the party, here's a Bonzos song I put on a mixtape for a friend driving to Washington a few years ago. Yes, if someone had to give absurdity a good name, they achieved just that.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbMgeAUJCoY

    ReplyDelete
  193. Saint Peter: Jesus Christ...cooo-eee, cooo-eee. This one is for you. I can't even.

    ReplyDelete
  194. Thanks for all the info, j_handey. Very informative. I think the thing to remember about Rod is that he both wants to be following a more pure religion for bragging purposes, and probably doesn't really enjoy hanging with the low status members of the fringe orthodox communities with which he has affiliated himself. About two thirds of his specific complaints are, basically, that he can't be a believer (as he sees it) and also part of a cultural elite/majoritarian experience. He doesn't want to hang with Alaskan Natives--how important are those people, anyway?--he wants to be the Staretz of a wealthy and important community.

    ReplyDelete
  195. AGoodQuestion12:13 AM

    I've said this before but it is not uncommon in the rural South for one of its more clever sons to become a Bible-beatin' preacher because that's the easiest way to make money.
    *cough* Mike Huckabee *cough*

    ReplyDelete