Old Yeller Conservatism
Y’know, wingnuttery is sort of like an Everlasting Gobstopper where the flavor actually gets worse the more you chew it. It starts out tasting like boiled cabbage, then rotten cod, then human body odor, then rhinoceros feces, then… well, you get the idea. The point is, just when you think you’ve found the absolute stupidest and most ignorant winger, there is always one more waiting just a notch below the totem poll. Today’s example of this is Dan Riehl, who pulls off the amazing feat of being more delusional and ridiculous than Jonah Goldberg (via TBogg):
Jonah Goldberg has apparently concluded that the war in Iraq was a worthy mistake. […]
Jonah Goldberg has lost his faith, not in God, but in what freedom can bring to a free Iraq and ultimately a more free Middle East. Nothing else is going to eventually lance the festering boil which is radical Islam.
Yes, I know it’s hard. I know more people will die. And I know it’s easy for me to say because I’m not one of them. But I also know how easy it is to lose faith when you set out upon a noble cause.
I hope for Jonah’s sake he finds comfort while he meditates in the belly of the whale. And I hope one day he is regurgitated on the shores of a more free, more Democratic Iraq.
Most importantly, I’m grateful that the effort is being led and fought by, whatever else their flaws and mistakes, men and women with a truer faith in freedom than the likes of Jonah Goldberg. Evidently the political conversion that is absolutely required for genuine peace in the Middle East didn’t come easy or fast enough for him.
You remember the first time you saw Old Yeller? You know, the movie about the lovable mut who contracts rabies while fighting a wolf, and eventually has to be shot? And do you remember how you cried and refused to believe that Old Yeller was really dead? “But mom,” you whined. “The dad didn’t really shoot Old Yeller, did he? And even if he did shoot him a bit, getting shot the face wouldn’t kill him, would it?”
Well, Dan is a lot like you were back then. But instead of clinging to the notion that poor Old Yeller might still be alive, he’s desperately clinging to his bizarre ideological conviction that the Iraqis enjoy having their country invaded and occupied. And while you eventually came accept that Yeller had indeed kicked the bucket, I get the feeling that Dan won’t ever realize what a goddamn disaster the Iraq war has been. Sad, really.
Above: Old Yeller. No, Dan, he won’t be home for dinner tonight.
I dunno, Brad. For once I agree with Dan: I too hope that Jonah Goldberg will be regurgitated on the shores of Iraq.
My extensive recon reveals that Old Yeller was owned by both the Allen and Santorum families. It seems that the dog was such a ferocious deer-hunting dog that he would tear off the head of the deer! After George Felix got tired of having to find mailboxes to put the deer heads in, and he sold the dog to his bestest childhood friend, little Rickie. But then the dad caught little Rickie in flagrante with Old Yeller, and had to shoot him (Old Yeller, that is, not little Rickie). But little Rickie cried so much that instead of burying the dog after he shot him, the dad put him in a giant mason jar that Rickie kept on his desk for years afterward.
To paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith, for some people, it was worth losing everything in October 1929, just to have been so rich while it lasted.
And for the wingnuts, no possible confrontation with reality in Iraq will ever diminsh the sweet days of 2003-2004 when we could shock and awe the world; but best of all was accusing war opponents of being traitors and cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
My own Strained Biblical Metaphor would involve Jonah Goldberg being turned into a pillar of lard.
At least, this Dan guy seems to be aware that he’s not actually fighting anything except bedsores. Of course, he can’t help but prop up his ego with a reference to “setting out on a noble cause”, which apparently has something to do with sitting on your ass all day masturbating to Jack Chick comics.
Wow is Dan Riehl an idiot — just read his entire post, including his brainless and hostile responses to commenters, which remind me of the subliterate letters Duke Cunningham has been sending from jail to the reporter who helped bring him down. Excerpts from said letters appear in Matt Taibbi’s brilliant analysis of the 109th Congress in Rolling Stone. If you haven’t read it yet:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12055360/cover_story_time_to_go_inside_the_worst_congress_ever
The sick thing about this is Riehl will continue to believe that we should stay the course because of the “nobel” cause, no matter what. And when the ongoing disaster invariably makes it politically untenable to maintain troops in Iraq, people like Dan Riehl will villify the anti-war left for making America lose it’s nerve, as if staying the course is actually accomplishing anything, other than getting lots and lots of people killed.
Hell even Jonah Goldberg in his insane mea culpa maintains that those of us who had the foresight to see this as becoming an unmitigated disaster 9999 times out of 10000 (and a mitigated disaster the remaining 1 time) are wrong because of our rejection of stay the course as a viable option. It seems elementary logic to me that if the current path is leading to a civil war in the heart of the middle east, perhaps a change in course is badly needed, even if that change in course leaves the US somewhat short of the “flowering democracy” the neocons wanted.
Of course Iraq enjoyed it – she’s just trying to act like she didn’t now because she’s a bitch. She totally wanted it….she wouldn’t have been dressed up that way if she didnt.
[/sarcasm]
Am I the only one who sometimes gets a creepy rape porn vibe from the pro-war contingent?
The Shi’ites are enjoying it. Just look at the armies they’ve built and the death squads for Ali, it’s a festival of freedom and delights for those nutbars.
Jillian:
Am I the only one who sometimes gets a creepy rape porn vibe from the pro-war contingent?
No. You are not the only one.
Setting aside the obscene, death-worshiping racist idiot that is Annie..
There really, at this point, is only one thing left for them to realize. Sure, there were no WMD. Sure, they didn’t welcome our tanks and soldiers as liberators. Sure, when you take the cap off the bottle, all the pressure is released at once, and it’s not like we didn’t have Yugoslavia as a viable example of what happens when you remove the strong man from the leadership of an artificial, multi-ethnic society. Sure Sistani played Bush and prevented him from installing an american puppet regime under Chalabi. And sure, things have deteriorated to the point where the American presence in Iraq is more and more meaningless. So now, it comes to this. The only remaining dose of reality, the only kool-aid left for the wingnuts (and their asshat leader) to drink. And that is simply this: There is no military solution to this problem. No, it is not an intractable problem, but you can’t kill your way out of it. You can’t imprison and torture and bomb your way out of it. It requires a political and economic solution. People need to feel secure and safe in their homes, jobs and families. All parties need to feel like they’re getting a fair shake. And there has to be some improvement in the standard of living.
America has no control in Iraq. Will it be partitioned? Will the civil war get worse? Will the iraqis, in their own interest and wisdom, find an inclusive political settlement? The only thing that is for certain is the american presence is at best meaningless to the solution, and at worst a large contributor to the problem.
The irony is that the best route to what the wingnuts SAY they want is to withdraw the american forces. But bush is opposed to that. Could it be he really wants something else?
mikey
The Shi’ites are enjoying it. Just look at the armies they’ve built and the death squads for Ali, it’s a festival of freedom and delights for those nutbars.
Your cult leader has done one heckuva job!
Am I the only one who sometimes gets a creepy rape porn vibe from the pro-war contingent?
Just look at their particular defenses of Abu Ghraib for further disgusting vibes.
And I know it’s easy for me to say because I’m not one of them.
I really can’t think of a sentence that sums up the right wing of the past six years better than that.
So… wait. You mean Old Yeller DID die? But…. mom told me *sob* told me he just went to a big farm where he could run *choke* free! Er, a different big farm….*sob*
I rather relish the thought of Jonah as whaleshit.
I’m not certain if any respectable whale would find the Doughy Pantload delectable. I suppose with a little salt, some sweet mustard and a chardonnay he may prove digestable, but tasty? Methinks not.
In 2004 most GOP pundits and candidates were traveling downstream in their “swiftboats” attacking every Democratic candidate that dared to criticize the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. In 2006 you not only can’t find the GOP “swiftboat”, you can’t find a Republican willing to jump in and try to navigate the hapless dingy against the strong current of voter dissatisfaction with the seemingly never ending war.
Someone throw Jonah a lifeline!
Read more here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com/2006/10/dem_candidates_singing_iraq_around_the_clock.php
Hm. I was waiting for Gary Ruppert to write something like, “The fact is that Old Yeller was saved at the last minute by a wandering hobo who adopted him and (yadda, yadda, yadda).” I’m very disappointed.
That wandering hobo was Little Gary’s grampaw, so the boy caught the hydrophobie early and often as a youngun. And now you know the rest of the story.
The fact of the matter is that Old Yeller was liberated from the clutches of those freedom hating terrorist enabling pro-wolf democrats. We support our dogs in the struggle against violent wolf aggression. Only defeatocrats would support the shoot and run policies that run contary to our culture of life. Indeed, the only option once Old Yeller got rabies, was to stay the course, lest the wolves win with their asymmetrical rabid warfare.
The fact is that Old Yeller was a well-known Yellow Dog Retrievocrat and therefore objectively pro-rabies so he has no credibility on the question of . . . um . . . getting shot. Or something.
Sorry, Brad. I meant to post that earlier, but I was — well, let’s just leave it at busy, OK?
Worst. President. Ever. said,
I laughed at the way the Balloon Farts guy put it, in a moment of panicky sweaty foreshadowing of President Billary late one night this week, after inhaling waaaay too much of his own waste gases:
Sure, it was ‘fun’ passing those laws and using those votes to portray all Democrats as terrorist-loving defeatocrats, and it may have yielded some short-term political gains, but we’ll see how much fun those broad powers are in the future.
You know, the movie about the lovable mut who contracts rabies while fighting a wolf, and eventually has to be shot?
Jesus, Brad, would it hurt to type “Spoiler Alert?” It’s just common courtesy for those of us who haven’t seen the movie. Good thing I rented “Brian’s Song” for tonight as well – though I’d better not read S,N! until after I watch it, I guess.
The fact of the matter is that the lack of faith in Iraqis is just disturbing.
Bush has faith in Iraqis to defeat terrorists.
But, the Democrats don’t, and some of the wishy-washy Republicans don’t have that faith.
The Republicans should be more aggressive in telling people that a vote for the Democrats is a vote for a surrender in the War on Terror.
The Republicans should be more aggressive in telling people that a vote for the Democrats is a vote for a surrender in the War on Terror.
Uhh, Gary? The reason they haven’t been so aggressive there is that you and dick cheney are pretty much the last people who actually believe it…
mikey
I hope for Jonah’s sake he finds comfort while he meditates in the belly of the whale. And I hope one day he is regurgitated
The fact of the matter (according to Wikipedia) is that ambergris is worth about $20 per gram. That’s going to be one valuable chunk of whale puke.
The fax of the matter seems to have taken a long time to shudder to life this morning. Anybody else think today’s talking points seem a mite tepid? Like, you can almost hear Gary’s lower lip trembling?
I’m pretty sure Iraq doesn’t have any shores.
Rivers don’t count.
Hmmm…..
The fact is that only Republicans can cure Old Yeller of his rabbies.
The fact is that Democrats have given up on Old Yeller, and what to cut and run. And shoot him in the face. Cause he has the rabbies.
The fact is that Bush has faith in Old Yeller to overcome his rabbies.
The fact of the matter is that Old Yeller’s rabid froth is freedom juice, and only a true man like Bush or Chuck Norris or John Wayne’s corpse can drink that shit pure and still live.
The fact of the matter is that the small amount of freedom froth we each get when bitten by the rabid dog of freedom represents the challenge of liberty, the challenge to survive being infected with real freedom.
And the fact of the matter is only terrorists and defeatocrats will be killed by this infection, because THEY HATE FREEDOM.
Clearly.
I’m pretty sure Iraq doesn’t have any shores.
Ah, but once Iraq has been re-unified with its historic 19th province — currently known as Kuwait —
No, wait. That’s been tried.
Daniel DiRito, the rethuglicans are running plenty delightful commericials this campaign season, try The Day in Scumbaggery.
The fact of the matter is Gary is afraid that once Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, she’s going to imprison him in a giant birdcage, fatten him up, and then bake him in a cake.
Actually Iraq does have a small area that borders on the Persian Gulf, and a Port City, Umm Qasr. I think we don’t hear much about it because the Brits are there.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/middle_east_graphic_2003.jpg
Yup, you’re right. Damn.
“Bush has faith in Iraqis to defeat terrorists.”
Yes, they’ve made such progress so far.
The fact is Old Yeller is alive.
Only liberals who hate America think he’s dead.
But, the Democrats don’t, and some of the wishy-washy Republicans don’t have that faith.
Wishy-washy Republicans? I’m all with you, Gar. Better to vote Democrat than Democrat-lite.
I think the wingnuts should split off and form their own wingnut party. You can have Roy Moore run for President and Gary can be head of the WNC (Wingnut National Committee.) Coach Dave will totally vote for you guys.
The fact is that everything is going swimmingly well in Iraq.
The fact is that Republicans will gain seats in the House next month.
The fact is that Bush was a war hero in Vietnam.
The fact is that the Earth is 6,000 years old.
The fact is that the Democrat party will be consigned to the Dustbin of History, which I keep in my laundry room closet.
I’m surprised that this far into the discussion nobody has brought up Pet Semetary. Maybe throw in Cujo while I’m larding on the Stephen King refs.
Scooby Doo? “Ruh-roh, Rove!”
Catch the rerun of Real Time with Bill Maher from this week. Watch the whole thing, especially Mr. Kuo’s interview. Also Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) decimates economist Steve Moore of the WSJ board of editors. He calls his bullshit through out the round table discussion. At one point he clearly points out that Steve Moore, can’t, in fact, read minds! It was da /pwn.
BTW, my Evangical Christian aunt thinks Daivd Kuo is lying. A Christian distrusting another fellow Christian… odd indeed…
Smiling Mortician: thanks for the link to the Rolling Stones cover story about the 109th Congress, nothing new, but nice to have most of it in one spot for easy reference. I’d recommend it to people like my Aunt, but it has too much cussing =/
Oh, and, bring back the preview button, WTF?!
The fact of the matter is Gary is afraid that once Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, she’s going to imprison him in a giant birdcage, fatten him up, and then bake him in a cake.
If that doesn’t happen, my vote for the Defeatocrats will have been wasted.
The fact og the matter is (phhhhbbbbttthhthtttt!!!11!) Old Yeller was made in 1957, so the dog would be at least 49 years old today… and, thus, dead, regardless of rabies.
Allllllllllllllll riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!1!!1!!!
Party at Gary’s place!1!!!
Everybody get drunk and naked!!!1!!!!1!
Party at Gary’s place!1!!!
That’s the good news. The bad news is that his Liquor Cabinet of Proletarian Revolution contains nothing but 17 bottles of Tenafly Viper.
Well, I think the Republican leadership has leerned it lesson and shuold be given anothe chance. Nothing could be ais bad as letting the Democrats take over power again. Can you imagine Nancy Pelossi as Speakr of the House? It’s to frigtening. I can’t nam a single extreem leftist thing she evr said, but I heard Bill O’reilly call her an extremis who hats Amersica so it most be true.
The demonization of Pelosi is pretty ridiculous. I had an ineresting conversation with an ex-girlfriend last night. We broke up about a year ago but still stay in touch. She never really followed politics closely, but she just got cable TV, so she’s being subjected to the nonstop FOX News-dueling pundit show crap for the first time.
All she knows is that she doesn’t like Nancy Pelosi and she likes Tucker Carlson. Now, my ex is a classic welfare mom. She has gotten every type of Section 8 government handout you can possibly get, and I’m glad she did because it helped turn her life around. I was going to tell her that her heartthrob Tucker would probably consider her human filth, and that the only reason she was able to get any government benefits was because of liberals like Nancy Pelosi, but I didn’t bother. I just lost whatever respect I had left of her and made a mental note to start pushing her farther out of my life.
Anybody who is that easily brainwashed by a few weeks of cable tv news is a freaking idiot.
Yur girlfriend soonds lik a Good American! STucker Carson say thinsg I want to hear so it mus be true. He realy told off that crazy leftie extremiss John Stewart! John Stewatr couldnt BEG Stucker to have dinner wiht him. So there!
Heh. In Fox News Land, the country is made up of three groups: conservatives, right of center moderates, and far left extremist nutjobs out to force everyone to beat beancurd three meals a day and never bathe.
Bush has faith in Iraqis to defeat terrorists. Posted by Gary Ruppert
There aren’t any “Iraqis” — not any more. There are Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis. Having faith in an imaginary set of beings is polytheism, Gary, and don’t you tighty-righties just hate that?
And I will be delighted if the “Democrat Party” goes into the Dustbin of History, since that only exists in the lies and spin of Republicans. It’s the Democratic Party, Gary. Learn to speak English, if you can.
The fact of the matter is the Dustbin of History is now full, and I must clean it out, take it out to the trash and wash the Dustbin thoroughly, though my allergies might make it difficult.
The problem is that the Democrat party barely fits into the Dustbin of History. I had to really stuff it in there, since I also empty my vacuum cleaner bags and used dryer sheets into it. I really need to get to Target to get another bin for those…
Well, Gary, if you would just once in a while remember to take the Democrat party out of the Dustbin of History, pack it into a Hefty Lawn ‘n’ Leaf bag of Media Studies and carry it out to the curbside where you can safely jam it into the neighbors’ Dumpster of Political Science, then we wouldn’t have this problem every goddamn week. I am so tired of having to remind you.
I love you guys.
Great day in the morning, people. The sun is shining here in the beautiful pacific northwest, the evangelicals are scurrying off the sinking ship of GopState, senior U.S. diplomats are publicly calling the Bush administration arrogant and stupid, and I’ve just brewed a fine pot of coffee. On the other hand, I just read that Google is donating money to Sensenbrenner’s campaign. Anybody know what’s up with that?
The fact of the matter is that the lack of faith in Iraqis is just disturbing.
Yeah, especially after they were so kind as to greet our liberating troops with flowers and name the public square after George W. Bush and everything.
Gary’s Mom, I’m still laughing out loud after about 2 minutes! You nearly made me squirt diet coke out of my nose!
Does the real Gary post here or are these merely (funnier) imitations?
I took my coffee and newspaper out on the back deck this morning. Beautiful sunny morning. Then, a wasp landed on my coffee cup. I looked up, and a whole bunch of the wasplasmofascists were building a nest in an abandoned mourning dove nest in the overhang above the deck. Well, this aggression will not stand. A quick trip to the home center store for some weapons of wasp destruction and they have been consigned to the ever-more-crowded dustbin of history. Wasp and GOP free, I face the rest of my Sunday with a shining optimism. Now if only I could have a preview button…
mikey
Yes he does, mattsmom. I think in this thread, though, you have to scroll all the way up to 22:06 for the real article. Unless that post was just a really, really good Gary impression, which of course it could be. Man, this is all so meta. Sometimes, I admit to a secret hope that Gary actually posts parodies of himself on here and then sits back and giggles until he coughs cheeto dust onto his monitor.
At first I kept looking for the preview button because I just couldn’t accept that it was gone. Then for a day or two I was really pissed that I couldn’t preview, so I sent a couple of messages to Brad, Travis et al, promising to behave myself if they’d just give us back the preview button. They didn’t even respond, so I took to my bed with ice cream and scotch. But now? *sigh* Now I guess I’m finally over it.
Thank you, Mikey. You fought them there so I don’t have to fight them here. Now get busy and convert any survivors to Jeebus.
High of 43 here today, windy, overcast… but Chet Culver leads by a few percentage points in the gov’s race, and things could be worse.
ironically, Culver’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Ed Fallon, was a left of center guy who, by any estimation, is a truly honest, decent human being who served admirably in the state legislature. Outside of Des Moines, in the rural areas, he was of course viewed as far too liberal, and so Culver got the nomination. (It didn’t hurt that Culver’s dad is Big John Culver, a hero in Democratic politics in Iowa.) But the ironic part is that I’m sure that, given the current political climate, Ed Fallon would be handily trouncing Jim Nussle, had Ed won the nomination, by more than a few percentage points. People are, shall we say, a bit waspish these days.
Ah, Mortician, I wish I was back in the beautiful Pacific Northwest… I surely do miss Seattle and environs – well, not the I-5 part of it. Or the valley freeway – or Tim the Eyeball…. but everything else, pretty much. I wish I could head up to the U and spend the day sitting around in the Irish Emigrant drinking Guinness and eating those rockin’ cheese fries…. The E on the Ave in the U…
Was just there the other day. A nice trip down Memory Lane.
Sensenbrenner is chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and he supports “net neutrality”, which companies like Google have been lobbying hard for.
Well, if it’s any consolation, Candy, the beautiful day is largely wasted on me, as I have this frightening stack of papers to grade and I’m running out of procrastination time before Monday morning slaps me in the face . . .
Desperately trying not to get my hopes up too much here, but it sure would be nice if Sensenbrenner were soon relieved of that chairmanship.
Mortician:
1. I will soon have a large stack of exams to grade, so by next Sunday, I’ll probably be in your position. One with which I am very familiar.
2. I agree with you on Sensenbrenner; the Democrat who would replace him also, I believe, supports net neutrality. But I can understand why Google would throw him some cash.
I’m hoping a lot of the conservatives will be relieved of ‘command’, Senlessbrenner included. Like Molly Ivins said in the column I read this morning, I’m not calling it yet. I’m too superstitious.
My friends used to go to the E a lot, Linnaeus, and still go when they get the chance. One of them wil call me from there or from a show now and then. I live my life in Seattle vicariously in this fashion. She called me from a Mark Lanegan show one night. It must not be possible to actually die of envy, because I’m still alive.
Mort, I know the feeling. I read a little, get up and clean something, check the comp, go clean something else…. this is my Sunday afternoon. If it had been a nice day, it would have had to go on without me. I do have something fun to do tonight; a movie my significant other was in is being shown to cast and crew tonight at the Wild Rose Film Festival, and we’re going to go out to dinner and then to the show. I’ll pay for it tomorrow, when I’ll be mentoring new hires and working on a new project , but it will be nice to get out and about.
Jeez, you guys, you’re *almost* making me feel bad. Didn’t any of you get issued the procrastination gene? Here’s just a few things I SHOULD be doing today, but won’t:
Work on the training video script – I’ll do that tomorrow
Put the new pages up on my friend’s website – Maybe tonight during cocktail hour, maybe later in the week
Vaccuum. Fuggedaboutit
Laundry. Who can tell if your jeans are dirty?
Work on the book. Yeah, right
Lay around reading with football on the box, sound muted and rocknroll playing. Oh! I’ll get right on it…
mikey
Lay around reading with football on the box, sound muted and rocknroll playing. Oh! I’ll get right on it…
The fact is liberals are LOZRZ!!11! who never accomplish anything.
What are you listening to? I was listening to “Exile on Main Street” earlier, but it was kind of simultaneously exhilarating and depressing me.
I always went to the College Inn instead when I hung out at UDub. But I prefer the Athenian at the market. Or whatever they turned it into after we left Seattle, dammit.
Here in southern California we’re baking – it’s quite hot. My significant other is preparing the Weber for a slow-cooked pork shoulder. The laundry is spinning in the basement. We don’t have wasplamofascist but there’s a enemy combatent rat living in the TV cabinet we’ve been trying to smoke out and bring to justice.
What are you listening to? I was listening to “Exile on Main Street� earlier, but it was kind of simultaneously exhilarating and depressing me.
I’m kind of indulging my attention deficit. I started with early Rancid ’cause it goes good as a soundtrack to football. But then I went to old school big with Blondie, Meatloaf and Benatar. Which caused me an urge to alterno, so I went with Archers of Loaf, Placebo, Flaming Lips and Rilo Kiley. Which led to Guy Clark and currently, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. No idea what’s next…
mikey
Oh, mikey, I’ve got that procrastination gene, believe me. See, I’ve had this stack of papers sitting on my desk for three days now . . . here it is crunch time and I’ve dealt with about 6 out of 50 — which surely explains my need to take a break and check out what’s happening here at SN. (Well, that and I was online anyway Googling a suspicious sentence — can’t wait to hear this student try to explain to me tomorrow how somebody managed to steal his essay and retroactively post it online . . . )
I started with early Rancid ’cause it goes good as a soundtrack to football. But then I went to old school big with Blondie, Meatloaf and Benatar. Which caused me an urge to alterno, so I went with Archers of Loaf, Placebo, Flaming Lips and Rilo Kiley. Which led to Guy Clark and currently, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. No idea what’s next…
Sounds like a full day already. Isn’t it cocktail hour yet?
The fact is liberals are LOZRZ!!11! who never accomplish anything.
Damn straight, “Gary.” Could you bring me a beer while you’re up? I think mikey could use one, too.
Just got back from an unexpected run, taking my son to pick up his guitar. Now he’s back, and we are simultaneously listening to the Meat Puppets and the bass thump from the neighbor’s TV.
i’m pretty OCD about housework, but I can procrastinate like crazy at my day job when the situation calls for it.
Damn! Four o’clock already and I have to get the rest of the work done and jump in the shower by five. Back to the salt mines. I’m a poor man’s Martha Stewart.
Procrastination? Shit, that’s my middle name. I fully admit it.
Ah..the College Inn. My home bar for a few years. I then switched to another, but that bar’s “turned” in a way I don’t like, so maybe it’s time to go back home.
Countdown till Gary giddily posts the latest headline from drudge.
in 5…4…3…
Mort….does your school know about http://www.turnitin.com?
[…] Poise! Poise! « Old Yeller Conservatism Oct23 […]
The fact is, Gary is suffering from a bout with Hepatitis B, which greatly reduces his ability to respond to snark. I feel for him (if it is indeed true) but I would never doubt his constitution (even though he has no problem trashing the real one) and he will be back, badder than ever. The power of Ruppert is real, my good friends, and to mock it will only bring pain. You have been warned, now go and spread the word.
Ruppert will be back.
And there will be pain.
Jillian, yes, our campus library was looking into subscribing to something like that (not sure if it was turnitin or another product). We haven’t done so yet because most of the plagiarism we see on a regular basis is so damned boneheaded that we can catch it pretty easily with Google or another search engine. The problem these days is that the online paper mills have successfully put most of their product behind pay/password walls so when students buy their crap, we can’t easily Google it unless the passage we’re searching happens to be in the first few sentences that the paper mills use as a teaser on the open web.
And I really hate having to think in terms of how to catch them. It’s so demoralizing, earnestly talking to a largely unimpressed audience about academic integrity as a positive thing (instead of as a thing you’ll get in trouble for not having . . . ) In their defense, I think it’s getting harder and harder for students to see much rationale for integrity, given the role models they have in government and business . . .
Well, I never went to college, and I have never had to teach more than one or two people at a time, but speaking to you teachers on behalf of the rotten, angry, rebellious, troublemaking smart underachiever class, at least consider the possibility that in the course of plagerising or buying a good, well concieved paper the student may actually learn more about the subject at hand than writing something altogether silly and wrong. Just a thought, I have very little standing in a discussion like this…
mikey
This is one reason why I’m probably going to turn away from academia as a career path once I’m done. I just don’t want to do this anymore, and I don’t mean that in a “kids these days don’t want to work” geezer sense; there are very good contextual reasons why we see the lack of enthusiasm we do. Instead, I would say that it takes a certain talent to be able to break through that, and I don’t think I have it.
Well, guys, I don’t mean to make it sound completely horrible. In any given quarter I have a hundred students, give or take. Of those, three or four will be frighteningly void of ethics. Seven or eight will be delightful, brilliant, and full of curiosity. The remaining eighty-some are generally giving it their best shot but not always very sure about why. My usually enthusiastic conversations with them about integrity really don’t always fall on deaf ears — I just felt like kvetching today.
As for your theory, mikey — I wish it were true more often than it is. I have occasionally had a student learn a lot through plagiarism (typically, the lesson learned is that everybody’s stealing from everybody and nobody bothers to check their facts — academia’s a lot like the webbosphere). And as for the myth of “buying a good, well-conceived paper”? Sadly, no. They’re very expensive if they’re any good at all, and most students who can afford those prices won’t even take the time to read the papers they’ve bought (I once had a student so lazy that he turned in a purchased paper without bothering to substitute his own name for the fake-student name with which the paper was equipped).
But the good news is that the “rotten, angry, rebellious, troublemaking smart underachiever class” typically doesn’t cheat. They’re the kids who get in my face and tell me how stupid the assignment was and tell me what they’re going to do instead. Generally I say OK.
just when you think you’ve found the absolute stupidest and most ignorant winger, there is always one more waiting just a notch below the totem poll
Here’s one running challenging Bill Nelson for his spot in the Senate—Roy Tanner. Yeah, I know, he has no chance, but it’s fun to check out the kooky ideas anyways. Like his positions on security (don’t miss the picture) and something he calls sanctity.
But the good news is that the “rotten, angry, rebellious, troublemaking smart underachiever class� typically doesn’t cheat. They’re the kids who get in my face and tell me how stupid the assignment was and tell me what they’re going to do instead. Generally I say OK.
Yep. The teachers that seemed to me to be “good teachers” were the ones who let me turn in fiction, complete with dialog, even in classes other than creative writing. My report in 11th grade about Slaughterhouse Five was set in Dresden the night before the bombing, and got an A.
On the other hand, I HATED Fitzgerald, and when I had to do a book report on Tender is the Night, I flipped through it, read maybe a total of five pages, and figured I had it. Except I got that Dick and Nicole were brother and sister, making the entire premise of the paper laughable. Ouch. Got an F on that one…
mikey
the online paper mills have successfully put most of their product behind pay/password walls so when students buy their crap, we can’t easily Google it
Smiling Mortician: A paper retrieved from one of those pay/password sites can slip by Turn It In as well, but only the first time. Once a text is run through the Turn It In checker, it is incorporated into its ever growing database. So the second time the text is used, it’ll get caught.
education is definately wasted on the young, I think, having squandered my own.
altho maybe its just our generation. As the parent of the college freshman, I had some conflicted feelings when we took him around to tour campuses. We saw some pretty incredible schools, and I remember wishing that I were the one considering attending. Perhaps to pursue my dream of studying….I dunno….Medieval History, perhaps, or Botany, or International Studies…..
Although I am grateful to my parents for footing the bill for my undergraduate degree, I have to say that I cannot remember ever having a serious conversation with them about where I would go to college. I went to the college my friends were going to. I don’t recall anyone ever asking me what my learning style was, what fields I was interested it, what kind of environment I wanted…..I never even visited a college — except for the time my high school band played in All State at one school, or the time my friend and I went up to the Big State College where her brother went to attend a football game.
I did, in fact, find my passion in college, but only by happenstance — it was certainly not one of the best schools in that field, and after I left and began working in my field, I was struck by how many things I’d been taught that were wrong.
I’ve actually spent a lot of my life in an academic environment, as a staff employee. And one of the perks of being a staffer is that you can take classes.
So I’ve come to actually value college later in life, and am a much better student now.
Hey, g, I love your story. Stories like yours are why I’m glad I teach at a small community college instead of a university, which is where I began my career. Many of my students are older & returning and yes, they tend to value the experience a lot more than the 18-year-olds do. But even the recent high school grads are somehow more into it than many of my university freshmen were — maybe because they don’t come from privileged backgrounds and often are first-generation college students. Still, none of those good things can quite make up for how unprepared most students, young and old, are for what’s expected of them in college.
And mikey, I also had a couple of teachers, both in high school and college, who let me play with the assignments. One I will always remember fondly is the guy who let me bag the analysis of thematic significance in a Greek myth and instead write a one-act play in which Jason was a beer-drinking redneck and Argo was not a ship but a hunting dog. I also got an A.
“But mom,� you whined. “The dad didn’t really shoot Old Yeller, did he?
Picking nits here, but, no, Dad didn’t shoot old Yeller–
. . . To protect his family, Travis tearfully shoots Yeller and in doing so takes a painful first step into manhood.
So Old Yeller is basically a ripoff from The Yearling?
“The fact of the matter (according to Wikipedia) is that ambergris is worth about $20 per gram. That’s going to be one valuable chunk of whale puke.”
Yes, but now that Iceland has announced they’re taking up commercial whaling again, I expect the price to fall.
So, slightly less valuable chunks of whale puke…cheers!
It seems a little too convenient that Old Yeller should come down with rabies so close to the midterm elections. Do we have any proof the Democrats weren’t involved?
“The fact of the matter (according to Wikipedia) is that ambergris is worth about $20 per gram. That’s going to be one valuable chunk of whale puke.�
Yes, but now that Iceland has announced they’re taking up commercial whaling again, I expect the price to fall.
Good point. But I think ambergris comes specifically from the stomachs of sperm whales — “Protein Wisdom Whales”, if you prefer — whereas the Icelanders are targetting minke and fin whales. So don’t worry about price changes, if you happen to be investing heavily in whale-puke.
[…] They sure would. Hey, anyone think Old Yeller’s gonna be home for dinner tonight? […]
old yeller did not dye but his ass got kick yeller is a aeline so he went to space
no he is not home for dinner you noob
i bet bill clinten gave old yeller radies so he could win hahahahahaha