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I'm no fan of Maureen Dowd's but . . .
. . . the concluding sentence of her NYT piece the other day about Sarah Palin's various homicidal attacks upon vocabulary, grammar and (in the larger sense) syntax deserves mention. It is a very simple observation that should be made more often:
True mavericks don’t brand themselves.
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http://www.observer.com/2008/media/sarah-palin-and-new-clear-option
But in a debate, without tele-prompters, she is helpless as a babe.
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"Until she does her 'come upstairs' wink."
Is that what it is? I'd assumed she had conjunctivitis.
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I heard that one's aim doesn't get better with age.
(I can't help myself sometimes. Just gotta say what comes to mind!)
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"I heard that one's aim doesn't get better with age."
Sort of Night of the Living McCain, you mean?
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Well, doggone!
(Fortunately, or you two'd be hurling it into the hot tub along with the others . . .)
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Now, quickly, go scrub your brain out with lye soap to erase that image from your mind. It stings, but can be effective.
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"they have gotten in the habit of phonetically spelling the word "new-clear" on her tele-prompters: http://www.observer.com/2008/media/sarah-palin-and-new-clear-option"
That is very funny!
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As it is, my suspension-of-disbelief regarding actual events is on hiatus. Please wave some sort of flag when it's safe for me to re-engage. I cannot keep up on my own.
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I put things like this into The Dragons of Manhattan and at least one of the reviewers has complained the satire is "too broad".
I mean, it's fuckin' real life, isn't it? I never dared posit something like Troopergate -- now that, I'd have thought, would've been straining credulity: not because of the level of corruption, which sadly we've come to expect of the Republicans (and even some Democrats, perhaps three of them. See? I can do "balance"!), but the sheer fuckwitted banality.
The only thing Trooper Wooten did right according to Gov Palin and the First Dude was, it seems, not be black.
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That is too funny.
Someone famous once said something along the lines of: the main difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction has a responsibility to maintain plausibility, whereas nonfiction has no such constraints. It might have been Mark Twain, I don't know.
Ond day I'm sure "Dragons" will make the leap from "too implausible" to "not fictiony enough." I would actually bet money on that, and I am not a betting man.
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"the main difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction has a responsibility to maintain plausibility, whereas nonfiction has no such constraints"
I know the quote but, like you, can't for the moment place it.
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The human race sure is an interesting group. A species whose sheer showmanship is unparalleled in the history of the earth. So we've got that going for us.
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I'm tiptoeing away from you two.
It's enough to drive a man to lye soap.
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"I had not thought any form of 'sport hunting' could be more disgusting than shooting roosting birds. Now I've learnt that there is."
Reminds me of the "hunting" Prince Albert and his chums engaged induring the royal Scottish sojourns. Fish in a barrel had more chance.
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Attorneys in a barrel?
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"But what can we expect from someone who puts a bounty on wolves' heads and condones aerial shooting of wildlife?"
An appeal for parole?
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People who live a subsistence lifestyle off the land never complain that wolves and bears and cougars compete with them for food.
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"Due process is too good for aerial hunters, especially those who kill wolves."
I'd agree with you in general, but add "especially those who hunt humans". Let us not forget some of the delightfully barbaric war machines, like the helicopter gunship whose sole purpose is wholesale slaughter, that taxpayers in the US (and many other countries) pay for.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/weekinreview/05schwartz.html
Among other things:
"In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand."
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Ah but Louie, you underestimate me. I did in fact know this.
Furthermore, the descendants of Samuel have put up a website in which they bitterly condemn the use of their family name by the McCain-Palin ticket. Apparently Samuel (or perhaps his son; it was a few weeks ago I exoplored the site) was a radical politician who'd have spat on right-wingers of any stripe.
*cocky omniscient swagger*
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"I keep waiting for Palin to get a dose of unaccustomed honesty and say, "Maverick? Maverick? I can't even spell the word . . ."
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I'll not mis-underestimate you again ;-)
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"I'll not mis-underestimate you again ;-)"
You betcha!
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*bows*
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Another wagging tongue with view on Palin...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/10/08/palin/index1.html
Re: Another wagging tongue with view on Palin...
Jeez, it reads like self-parody, doesn't it? I kept waiting for Paglia's punchline . . . until I realized there wasn't going to be one.
Many thanks for pointing me at this piece. I have, natch, spammed it relentlessly onward to others of like mind . . .
Re: Another wagging tongue with view on Palin...
There's a very good (and very funny) critique of the Paglia piece at http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/102256/.