The Deal with London Calling

(Because London Calling nearly won most overrated album in this poll, that's why. Look, just be happy I posted.)

*

There's this guy I know. I'll call him Samuel C. Jackson, not to be confused with Samuel L. Jackson, who as we all know could kill you just by thinking about it. Yes, I am so not wanting to be sued by Samuel L. Jackson.

Anyway, Samuel C. Jackson is a friend of the boyfriend's and mine who has really only two minor flaws. The first we will not deal with in the interests of preserving me from the sin of gossip. The second has relevance to my topic and really isn't a sin so much as it is A Thing That Annoys Me A Whole Bunch.

The Thing That Annoys Me a Whole Bunch is that this guy, Samuel C. Jackson, he reads the movie critics / the music critics / the infotainment critics / the op-ed columnists like, devotedly, and then, worse, he takes them seriously.

So one night I'm hanging with Samuel C. Jackson and assorted others when Samuel C. Jackson turns to me and says, "Oh, hey, Ilyka, I been meaning to ask you. I think you told me once--you like The Clash, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"So you probably know that Rolling Stone voted London Calling the top album of the 80s."

I did not know that. The last copy of Rolling Stone I bought featured Axl Rose on the cover. The last copy of Rolling Stone I bought was pre-Nirvana. I hadn't bought a copy of Rolling Stone--nor any of their music guides--in over 20 years.

But I could believe it, because I had memorized the second edition of the Rolling Stone Music Guide, and I knew they gave London Calling the highest mark in that one: Five stars.

"Really? Well, the critics loved that one," is all I said to Samuel C. Jackson.

In response, Samuel C. Jackson gave me a hunted look and leaned in closer to whisper, "That's what I don't get."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, look, I read all these guys, right, and even if I don't like something I can at least see why they're into it. I love Dave Marsh, I love John Swenson, I think those guys nailed The Who, okay, but I don't see why they were both so in love with London Calling."

"And it's not just them," Samuel C. Jackson went on. "I've had friends. Close friends. Friends whose taste I trust. They think that album is the bomb. And I bought it, too, so about every other year I put it on and say, 'Well, let's see if it sounds any better this time.'"

Samuel C. Jackson looked around as though the FBI were about to close in on him, and then he finished:

"But it never does. It always leaves me cold. I don't get the deal with London Calling."

"So you think it sucks," I offered, because I am helpful like that.

Samuel C. Jackson winced. "Not sucks, but not, you know, not best album of the 1980s."

Well. I didn't know what to say to that, because that's not, to me, an arguable point. I'm always confused why people do feel compelled to argue these things. Person X said it was the best; you said it wasn't all that. And? And . . . ? Where do we go from here? Why's this got to be discussed at all? Come on, I have like 2 Andy Gibb CDs in the changer right now. I AM NOT ASHAMED. But I'm not someone you should be discussing taste in music with, maybe.

So I said some general things about how I didn't think Samuel C. Jackson should take the word of a few respected critics so seriously. And Samuel C. Jackson eventually looked away disappointed, because apparently he was really looking for some sort of musical conversion of the heart regarding London Calling, and I didn't have it in me to give him one. I did not have me a testimony.

And I still don't. Look, London Calling, it's my favorite album. When I did learn it was actually voted top album of the 80s--even though I think Rolling Stone has sucked for, basically, years--I got a little tiny secret thrill in my heart: Finally, let the people recognize.

But I love that album for personal reasons. I love that album because I think it kept me going when nothing else would have. I love that album because--I can't tell you why. I can tell you two things that point to it:

One, this interview I read with Pete Townshend where he said he got this letter from a teenager saying, and I'm paraphrasing, "You don't know how much time I spend looking at and thinking about you lot."

(Incidentally, for the whole two Clash fans that may or may not be out there, that Who fan is someone I think Joe Strummer would have called a "bedroom kid," i.e., the sort of kid who never takes up guitar or drums or bass but merely spends hours in his bedroom with the stereo on, gazing at rock posters of his heroes--you know, those guys who actually take their passion for music and do something with it? But the bedroom kid, he never does anything.)

Anyway, Pete Townshend apparently wrote back, "You don't know how much time I spend looking at and thinking about teenagers." Hey! I'll thank you to spare me the obvious I-heard-Townshend-got-caught-with-child-PR0n-on-his-home-computer jokes, okay? Thank you; I just made half a dozen of 'em in my own head already, and I don't need your help.

My point is, I never had that sense that a band considered or remembered its fans like I had with The Who--until The Clash.

Two: This song off My Aim is True that never, to my knowledge, shows up on any critics' "Best of" lists: "Pay It Back." It's track 10 on the disc I've got. I can quote you the first verse:

Stop, thief!--You're gonna
Come to grief, if you don't take a little more care.
You're gonna get more than the family plan from this
One shoe-string affair

I may be principled but I can hardly wait here
Trapped between the doctor and the magistrate

One of these days, I'm gonna pay it back, pay it back
One of these days . . . .*

It's one of those things that reads terrible without the music, but it's like this: There are times when I've felt trapped and that song, whether I've heard it in days or months or years, will spring into my mind and when it does, I'm sort of immediately okay.

I don't even know what Elvis is on about with that family plan, one-shoe-string affair business, but there's something about "trapped between the doctor and the magistrate" (is he talking about an abortion? What?) line that seems universal in the sense that, everything you try to do, in this age when apparently we're enjoying more choices than human beings have ever enjoyed before--when every decision you make gets you to that place: Trapped between the doctor and the magistrate, between one source of authority and the other. You should pardon the total freshman English flavor of that interpretation, because as I suggested above, music criticism ain't my thing. Still, that lyric also explains why I think the Scots had it right with the proverb, "Better the devil ye ken than the devil ye don't." You need in this life to have some idea whether you'd be better off with the doctor or the magistrate.

So London Calling--it has to me both that sense that the band kinda cares and that the lyrics have some universal, uh, universality? See, I knew I'd regret sleeping through English.

It's to me two things: One, evidence that the Clash had heart, and to understand that, you need to understand the album before that: Give 'Em Enough Rope. Yes, titled after that stupid saying I always thought was attributed to Lenin**, about how the irony of capitalism is that the capitalist will sell you the very rope with which to hang himself; but it's saying something about how little the web records the actual literal sayings of Communists that I can't find a single direct quote anywhere, even after several Googlings. (Kids, don't ever let Google substitute for a good library). Hey, but I bet we have no shortage of Che Guevara t-shirts for sale on the internet. Am I right? Can I get a "¡viva la revolución!" out there?

So you have this Give 'Em Enough Rope album that's supposed to be so revolutionary and, and . . . it tries, but it's saddled with the huge ridiculous irony of having been produced by the guy who used to produce Blue Oyster Cult. You know, the cowbell band of legend?.

Thus here you have these guys from London whose whole mythology depends on the story that they used to subsist on flour-and-water paste (because they were TRUE! To their PRINCIPLES! Of not WORKING! For the MAN! Or the DOLE! Which is not technically WORKING! But still!)--here you have these guys from an ostensible socialist paradise with missing teeth, teamed up with this bloated, on-the-way-out, metal-lite producer from the Los Angeles region of a capitalist Mecca, and . . . well. You're gonna call that album Give 'Em Enough Rope? Without any irony at all? Who's hanging who here?

So after Give 'Em Enough Rope The Clash did London Calling, and, supposedly, the genius of London Calling is that The Clash, subsequently older and wiser from their Sludge-O-Matic sound experience with La Perlman, got this washed-up alcoholic Brit producer, Guy Stevens, to produce it. And supposedly that was way better, because supposedly Guy just turned them loose in the studio and sat on the couch drinking brew for breakfast and encouraging them to do whatever they wanted, you know, musically. Well, if you really truly have a producer like that, you wind up with an album that sounds like shit, which is why I agree with the later biographers who say that isn't precisely how it went down. But that's the story.

What you do have in London Calling, drunk producer or no, is an album that sounds like people having fun.

I think that's why some folks furrow their brows and complain they don't get it--because fun is individual, fun is personal. My fun and your fun might never meet. Your fun is not necessarily my fun. Your fun might be the very antithesis of my fun, and if your fun is spraypainting Grateful Dead logos on the back of your denim jacket, I can just about guarantee that it is.

In that sense, I think London Calling is a poor choice for top album of the 80s--because there's nothing that attempts to reach OUT, nothing on it that attempts to embrace the early 80s rock audience, save maybe the last (hidden) track that went to, oh my, number 39 on the American billboard charts. Woo-hoo! Just barely in the top 40!

There's nothing in London Calling, though, that attempts to convert. There's nothing that says, "Love me, for I am catchy." There's nothing in it that says "Get on this train." Either you were already on that train, or you went into your first listen of that album with a willingness or a need to get on that train--but if you didn't, it's no wonder you don't like it. It's no wonder you wind up like a reviewer whose name and affiliation I no longer remember, whose comment on "Koka Kola" was, "What, does Joe Strummer own Pepsi stock?"

That album isn't for everybody, is all I'm saying. I wouldn't go with overrated, unless, like Samuel C. Jackson, you're the sort to be genuinely upset when people you admire don't dig what you dig. But you're talking about a band who, as one of Michele's commenters so aptly put it, is chiefly remembered as "those guys who did 'Rock the Casbah.'" They didn't make a fortune. They didn't go on reunion tour after reunion tour after reunion tour. Their chief lyricist and singer is dead, their lead guitarist is so bald it's embarrassing, and last I paid attention their drummer was permanently missing, presumed strung out on heroin. They didn't end up with much.

Let them have their little nod from Rolling Stone. Would it kill you? You can still shake your head in bewilderment to your Echo and the Bunnymen discs. Or, hey, how 'bout that Randy Rhoads solo on "Goodbye to Romance," huh?

*I looked this song up on one of those lyric sites that're out there, and they had:

I may be crazy but I can't contemplate
being trapped between the doctor and the magistrate

This isn't how I've ever heard it, but likely I'm wrong and just a bad, bad, very bad transcriptionist. In my defense, Elvis is much more intelligible on This Year's Model and Armed Forces--but that's not much defense, is it?

**Gads, or is it Marx? Now that I think about it, it sounds more like Marx. Cripes, but I'd make a lousy communist. I'm not even a very good American.

One in a Million

It ain't every man who will go along with you when you come home from the bar and want to put on this, or who will then humor you when you feel like throwing a softball lemon around to "practice your fielding."

Which is pretty funny right there, considering your softball experience amounts to hours (and hours, and hours) in the backyard with your dad, whose idea of coaching was to yell over and over, "KEEP your EYES on the BALL! Eyes on the BALL!"

And then after missing a bunch of throws, with the sweat running down your brow and your arms feeling all rubber, you'd yell, "I AM keeping my eye on the ball!"

And he'd look you right in the eye and say, "If you'd been keeping your eye on the BALL, you woulda CAUGHT it."

It's not a bad coaching method. Because when I forget that I never did own a proper glove or get picked early for a team--when I forget all that? And I'm just tossing that softball lemon around? And I'm keeping my eye on the ball lemon?

I got a pretty decent record.

But you got to keep your eyes on the ball.

Cardinals

Oh, those ornery papists.

The A-Word

Abortion: It raises the hackles of people on all sides of the debate. For that reason I do not discuss it on my site, beyond noting occasionally that I am pro-choice.

I've probably participated in, or been witness to, as many ugly arguments on the subject as you have. It was a facet of the Terri Schiavo debate that I deliberately avoided: One, I did not and do not think the two issues are directly related. Two, I thought tensions ran high enough just on the specific case of Schiavo's fate alone without bringing abortion into it, and yes, of course I'm including my own cute brand of tension and hysteria in that.

There is a woman out there who does have the courage to discuss the A-word, as she recently did before the Texas State Legislature, in a graceful and heartfelt way that I do not. Her name is Julia, and this is her story.

Read it--whatever side you're on.

Have You Seen Kenny?

Tipped from Hubris, a site devoted to men who look like Kenny Rogers.

(If this is a years-old site that you've all seen before, I apologize for devoting an entire post to it. I don't get out much, see? No, not even on the internet.)

The Internet Scold

Someone told me in the comments at another blog that I've earned a rep for being an "internet scold."

This bugged me a little. Not in that "waah, my feelings are hurt" kind of way, but in that "nagging phrase that won't quite leave my mind" kind of way.

Finally I figured out why: It's because it is hands-down the most accurate thing anyone has ever said about me online.

FINALLY, someone's got my number.

It's true! First post I ever had substantial linkage from was a scold. All my most-linked posts have been scolds. Had an old one linked just this week that was a straight-up scold. Some scoff; others scold. I'm in the latter camp.

I scold, therefore I am.

Once I realized this, I was actually pleased because, damn, at least I have finally achieved some sort of consistency in my life. See, offline?--I am a dedicated scolder. Ask my brother what it was like to grow up with a scolding older sister. Ask my boyfriend what it's like to date a scolding woman. Ask my girlfriends what it's like to have lunch with a scolding friend.

My cats can't talk, but if they could?--You would hear an earful about the scolding. "Not only does she let that man in the white coat shove ice-cold thermometers up our butts," they would yowl, "but on top of that, she yells at us for throwing up on the carpet as though that were somehow OUR fault."

So listen, I know it's Friday and no one reads blogs much on Fridays anyhow, nor over the weekend, so maybe this is not strictly the best time for this, but to hell with it: Leave your favorite examples of my haughty scoldishness in the comments if you like. We'll have roast scold for supper. Roast scold with a side of scolding.

Go on. Scold the scolder!

UPDATE: I'm sorry, but this is too good and I only just remembered it, and it's a classic Exhibit A from childhood:

I was once sent home early from a vacation with my grandparents due to scolding.

Oh, there were other factors, but I really think it was the scolding that sealed the deal. I scolded my grandmother for ordering wine with dinner (my grandmother's Mormon).

I don't remember precisely how old I was, but I'm pretty sure I was under 10 at the time. I was a precocious scolder, early wielding the Sword of Scold--against my own grandma.

My dad and I were reminiscing about that time recently and he said, "It's like you failed vacation."

He's right. It is.

Recursion for Dummies

My mother is an accountant. In the process of becoming an accountant, my mother learned to divide the world into two kinds of people: People who get debits and credits, and people who don't. You can simplify this to: People who pass first semester accounting, and people who drop it.

No one fails first-semester accounting, except maybe the very, very lazy. You have to be really obstinate to fail Accounting Principles I, because what normally happens is, the people who've spent the first four weeks of the semester patiently explaining to their instructors that MY BANK DOESN'T DO IT THIS WAY, or (this was a personal favorite of mine) THE SMALL BUSINESS FOR WHICH I DO PENNY-ANTE BOOKKEEPING DOESN'T DO IT THIS WAY; the people inevitably concluding with the plaintive wail, "WHY ARE YOU DOING IT THIS WAY, WHEN THIS WAY IS SO CONFUSING!!!"--anyway, those people?

They drop out. They're anal-retentive enough at least to contemplate being accountants, which generally means they're also anal-retentive enough to memorize the drop dates and get out of Dodge on time, if Dodge ain't guaranteeing them an "A."

I have taken the long way around again just to reach the simple point that, with computer programming, and the mathematics that provide the framework for computer programming, either you get recursion, or you don't.

And you know, maybe you would have got recursion if only you'd watched more Sesame Street.

No, really.

That's What I Forgot to Buy

Beer!

On another note, Harp Lager is Guinness for pussies. Excellent beer, actually, good for nights you feel like an Irish but don't feel like drinking something you have to chew first. Just don't drink it in public, or else people like me will make fun of you for not having the balls to buy a real beer.

Complain at me all you want--I don't like Harp. I don't like fruity-tasting beer and no, I'm not making a cheap gay joke with "fruity-tasting," but . . . never mind. It's just not a favorite, and if I have to surrender my Irish card for saying so, fine.

On the other hand . . . this is probably girly beer in the Geek Empire universe, too, but I love it. If a can of good ale knocked up a can of cream soda and they had babies together, this is what you would get, except I think it tastes better than what you probably think it tastes like from my poor description.

This Anxiety Attack Brought to You by the Helpful Lady in the Wine Section

I was doing so well today, where by "well" I of course mean "well for me," which is not quite the same thing as "well" the way your average-functioning adult defines it; but, well. Well for me.

I just got back from a quick trip to Yuppie Market. I went there for produce because, man, you should have seen what they were calling produce at my home-away-from-home, the Wal-mart. Do you know what those jokers are doing now? Putting lettuce in bags; bags with opaque bottoms so you can't see how near-to-rotten the lettuces are.

I know I could just stand there, all figurative brass balls and what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it attitude, pulling lettuces out of bags (replacing them as sloppily as possible) until I found the head of green leaf that was Just Right, but as Stockard Channing once sang in "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee," I Was Not Brought Up That Way.

I was pretty proud of me today, though, because I used to hyperventilate just walking into Yuppie Market. I was convinced, however irrationally, of two things: One, that every other shopper in Yuppie Market was an expert chef who knew exactly what she was going to do with every last bit of food in her cart; two, that my lowly presence in Yuppie Market could only be justified if I were in there wearing a name tag and pushing a mop.

I have issues. It goes with being neurotic.

Today, though, I put three whole things in the cart without wigging out, and that's when I realized that if I could put three separate things in the cart without wigging out, well, then I could probably put all the things I was going to buy in the cart without wigging out, because after all, I wasn't buying much there to begin with. And I mentally patted myself on the back and pronounced myself cured. That was before I got to the wine section.

My weakness at Yuppie Market, besides the cheese section (which I can't really set foot in without crying), is the wine section. Because, as you know, I'm a real connoisseur of fine wines.

Ha! Ha! No. No, I'm not. I care that the wine doesn't come with a screw cap and I care that it isn't vinegar, but mostly I just care that it's under $10, because technically, technically according to the budget, I have no business buying a bottle of wine ever.

I came this close to getting OUT of the wine section without wigging, I really did. I had already picked out my $8.99 bottle, and you quit laughing, because that isn't nice. I was just browsing the whites. I looked at the Italian ones and then the French ones (oh hush) and then the Australian ones and then I got to the American ones and . . . and that's where the very kind lady who manages the wine section corralled me to ask if I needed any help choosing a wine.

Yes, I thought of saying later (because I never think of things to say when it might make a difference), I do need some help. I need to know a polite, tactful way to let the staff here know that if they speak to me while I am shopping I will flee without purchasing another item, even if it's the very item I came here specifically to purchase. I need to find a gentle way of explaining to your organization that your genuinely considerate efforts to induce me to buy more are guaranteed to backfire and make me buy less.

See, it's like this: If I were, say, in the midst of a particularly heavy menstrual period, and I urgently needed sanitary supplies, and a store clerk were to offer to help me pick said supplies out, I swear that I would leave my cart right there and sprint for the exit, no doubt leaving a trail of gore in my wake and reminding all the other shoppers of that time? In high school? When that one girl had to go to the nurse's office? And everyone was pointing and whispering about it? But no one would actually tell her? And then that one guy, Josh, would not stop being a creep about it and trying to get us to throw tampons at her, like in Carrie?

Yep.

Sad. Not exactly tragic, but definitely sad.

The worst part is, I was all set to come home from the store humming a happy tune and getting to work on a nice batch of pico de gallo, and instead? Instead I rushed right in and sat down to tell the internet that for some reason I can't go shopping without totally losing my shit.

Thanks, internet. You're no Xanax, but you're better than nothing.

You Can't Eat Respect, Either

Hey. Listen up: I've got this great idea to score me some much-needed cash. Great, I tell you.

In fact, it's foolproof.

How's this for simplicity: All I have to do is get myself invited over for dinner at my parents'. I'll excuse myself to go to the bathroom, then sneak into their bedroom and steal my mom's LDS temple clothing--the clothes worn solely inside the temple, now; very very sacred stuff if you believe in such things--anyway, I'm gonna smuggle it outta there and then I'm gonna sell it on eBay.

GENIUS, right? I know. I amaze myself sometimes.

But . . . wait. Wait a sec . . . how much do you think I could actually get for one lousy outfit?

I mean, my mom's not really famous or anything. She's just an ordinary Mormon. She's not, you know, the head of the LDS church. She's not like the Pope.

Ah-HA! That's it!

I'll steal the prophet's temple clothing! How hard could that be? Oh, sure, I'll have to get myself to Salt Lake City somehow . . . and I'm guessing his house probably has a security system . . . yeah, there's definitely going to be more risk and effort involved here . . . definitely . . . but if I can pull it off, then all I have to do is . . .

. . . wait until he dies (can't be much longer now; the guy's 95!) and then, BAM! I'm RICH! Look out, eBay--here I come!

Oh, wait.

Wait again. I can't sell obviously stolen goods like that on eBay. They'd never allow it.

But what if . . . what if . . . ooh, this is good! What if I simply showed up at some services the prophet was presiding over and grabbed me some sacrament? Sure, it's just crumbled-up white bread, and the Mormons don't believe in transubstantiation or anything cuckoo like that, so I'm probably not going to fetch quite as much as the guy who held onto his consecrated host from the mass with Pope John Paul II all this time.

Oh, and I guess I'll have to find some way to keep it from going moldy, too, huh? Sigh. Mormons!

Maybe this isn't such a great idea after all. Unless the prophet kicks the bucket pretty quickly, I'm going to be stuck selling a crumb of moldy bread on the internet.

Never even mind that then I'd have to actually . . . attend Mormon church again. Oh yeah, I know, it'd just be that once, but people, Mormon services are three hours long. That's a three-hour tour Ilyka don't wanna take. Now tack on another hour for mass (what? I can't miss mass! I'd have to confess that!--What do you mean, "stealing?"), and we're talking four hours of Sunday spent.

I'm bummed now. I really thought this had such promise there for a minute.

Other than the logistical hurdles, though, I don't see any problem, you know, morally. After all, it's not my religion anymore, is it? I'M certainly not a believer. So if a bunch of Mormons were to, uh, get upset at my little plan, and send me emails or whatever . . . no biggie, right? I got a "delete" key.

I guess some people might think it's a little disrespectful to sell something like that, but honestly, they just need to get over it. They sell Books of Mormon, don't they? What's the difference? Why can't I get my little slice of the pie here?

Yeah, respect. Please. Respect don't pay the bills around here. So honestly: Who needs it?

(Via Some Have Hats.)

Glory Daze

So once upon a time, I called a dick a dick and got labeled a hypocrite in response.

I was plenty tore up about it, too. You're all sensitive folks . . . I'm sure you can imagine. I just can't quit thinking that I--no. No. Please, let's not talk about it anymore. I--I guess the pain never really . . . never really quite . . . goes away.

Anyhow. Why'm I reliving this precious moment after all this time? Oh, I guess because I just can't resist a well-deserved pile-on.

I'm petty like that.

Zero Content Warning

Here you go--click the pretty picture. Seen everywhere that matters.

Go on--amuse yourself.

Like That Five in Your Pocket Was Going to Virtuous Purposes Anyway

Do me a favor (oh, don't you love posts that begin with that one?): Help Andrea Harris out, especially if you have lousy vision coverage and know the pain of forking out massive sums for corrective lenses.

Now I can't prove this, but I have a feeling that some of you do not appreciate Andrea the way you ought to appreciate Andrea. See, Andrea will have a link from me eternally because Andrea writes things like this:

France is spreading some of that liberty, equality, and fraternity they are always talking about. Well, the fraternity of the dead, the equality of the grave, and liberty from this vale of tears we call life, that is.

Here’s the thing. All my life I’ve had the free, open, mature, intellectually superior, high-cultured, democratic wonder that is France pushed at me by Francophiles* (a fancy word that means “kissers of Gallic ass") in both my own life and from Our Betters in the Media. It’s mostly a load of bull. The French are mean, authoritarian motherfuckers and always have been.

And this:

I have figured out a way to make watching tv news/talk shows (they are hardly distinguishable from one another these days) bearable: drink. Because that way I was able to endure ten whole minutes of the Dennis Miller show just now. Dennis isn’t the problem – he’s fine, though he looks kind of like Alvin the Chipmunk – but Nick Gillespie is one of his guests. (The others are some plump fellow with a truly pathetic beard-effort that looks like he told his stylist to make him look “just like my idol, Dennis Miller,” and some chick with one bony shoulder poking pathetically out of her sweater in such a way that

(Pause while I play with my cat)

it looks as if she was mugged on the way to the studio and is too stoned on crack to give a shit.

Oh, and who could forget this?

The scenario goes like this:

Male blogger with lots of ad links and hit counts on his site wakes up one day forgetting how to use a search engine and posts something like "Where are all the women bloggers and by that I mean the ones that write about my favorite subjects (politics and the insert football team name and site visitor statistics and how I rank on Ecoshizzle)? Since I am congenitally unable to look these blogs up myself I will conclude that the stereotype that I ingested from my many years watching movies by liberal, progressive Hollywood -- that women are too busy being sweet, nurturing, over-emotional, and crazy with the menstrual psychosis and the need to have sex with ugly men like Woody Allen to be able to handle scary mens' opinions -- is the reason."

Ten thousand female bloggers: "Die you stupid shithead die. But first, here are the goddamn links for the nine-millionth time."

Male blogger plus commenters: "You women are always acting like victims! Stupid feminazis!"

Even when Andrea goes off the deep end, she does it in a spectacular way that you only wish you could manage:

Okay. Personal. You want personal? HERE'S PERSONAL.

Gee, looks like all the "Oh noes, Allah quit blogging! Come back Allah you totally rock!" has gone to your fucking head. YOU brought up a totally unrelated subject ("Gee, what if General Mattis had insulted Iraqis who voted instead of remarked that it was fun to kill the terrorists who were trying to keep them from voting?" which has nothing, nada, rien, niente, NOTHING to do with the subject, and certainly nothing to do with the YES BULLSHIT "hearts and minds campaign" because for one thing, the vote was for IRAQ, not us, you don't tell a dying man who refuses medicine that will cure him that it's your fault because the shot wasn't going to be administered by an attractive nurse). YOU brought up the straw man. YOU did it. NOT me. YOU did it. Not me. YOU DID IT. NOT ME. YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT. NOT ME. DON'T YOU FUCKING TRY TO BULLSHIT ME.

Come on, you are ALL mild-mannered Clark Kents next to that. Now give the woman some money. You people who email me wondering where my Paypal button is?--You take that little tchotchke you were going to buy me and give it to Andrea Harris. Trust me, you'll get more out of it than you would by giving it to Citibank me.

(And yes, I put my money where my [virtual] mouth is, because unlike some breathtakingly misguided bloggers out there, I'm fairly certain Andrea won't REFUND it to me with a terse note explaining that she can't, in good conscience, accept a donation from such a lowly wage-slave as I. Yeah, buddy, you know who you are, and the only other thing I have to say about it is that even the poor have pride. You could maybe let them retain a little, considering they haven't much else. Jerk.)

The One Thing We All Agree On

Make sure you draft a living will so your wishes will be known and honored accordingly:

85 year-old Mae Margourik of LaGrange, Georgia, is currently being deprived of nutrition and hydration at the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy. Mrs. Margourik suffered an aortic dissection 2 weeks ago and was hospitalized. Though her doctors have said that she is not terminally ill, Ms. Gaddy declared that she held medical power of attorney for Mae, and had her transferred to the LaGrange Hospice. Later investigation revealed that Ms. Gaddy did not in fact have such power of attorney. Furthermore, Mae's Living Will provides that nutrition and hydration are to be withheld only if she is comatose or vegetative. Mae is in neither condition. Neither is her condition terminal.

But pay no mind; this just comes from some wacky Catholic priest on a Blogspot blog, and anyone can start a Blogspot blog. Why, he may not even be a priest at all! Could just be some kid taking a break from Halo 2.

Though he probably is a priest, because we all know how militant those obnoxious Catholics can get about this trifling state we call Life. You know all this carping about a "culture of life" is just further evidence of a papist plot to keep women barefoot and pregnant, right? Everyone knows that. We all saw Meaning of Life. These priests--you know what they're up to when they're not fooling around with children? They're using these hospice cases to fight a stealth war against abortion rights, that's what they're doing.

Well, sisters, they'll get control of our collective uteri only when they pry them from our cold, dead abdomens; which I guess means they'll be welcome to Mrs. Magouirk's soon enough, provided she hasn't had a prior hysterectomy.

Via Asymmetrical Information. Incidentally, you slackers, not one of you told me that for months, I mean MONTHS, I had that on the blogroll as ASSymetrical Information. What a good thing I don't have to spell for a living!

(There, I updated. Who's happy?)

UPDATE: Edited to correct the spelling of Mae Magouirk's name. And a note: No, I do not know whether this has been verified beyond the report on (sigh) World Net Daily. I make no promises as to accuracy. Magouirk's nephew, Ken Mullinax, was interviewed on the Glenn Beck show, and that audio is available here (via Straight Up with Sherri).

Pretty Much

Lileks:

Speaking of [Terri Schiavo]: if nothing else, this entire affair has made me heartily sick of the very act of reading the Internet.

Yep.

Also of writing on it.