Peck Sniffs
Humorless right-wing legacy/professional Walter Peck imitator Brent Bozell, as you probably know, is a very busy man. People are always trying to distract him from the vital issue of condemning gay pigeons by reminding him that there is a war on, and sometimes it’s just too hard to actually read the books that the demands be removed from our schools lest we go the way of Rome.
For example, Bozell, whose idea of standing up for the great conservative principles of liberty and freedom is to stick up for censorship in America’s libraries, recently penned a column in which he expressed his usual nuanced view of the First Amendment:
Some have made the obvious point that challenging libraries to provide titles they’re not stocking would turn the tables and make people realize that librarians can also be censorious in the titles they choose not to display. The mere act of selecting some books and excluding others is a “censorious” act.
What censorship IS: not stocking every book that has ever been written.
In other words, the ALA doesn’t favor open discussion and debate with parents — which is what the “challenges” represent. Its idea of “freedom” is emboldening librarians to be brave enough to indoctrinate children with what they really need to know, whether their parents object or even know about it. If public debate follows, it’s viewed as a distasteful and unfortunate bump on the road to enlightenment.
What censorship IS NOT: demanding that books of which someone might disapprove are expunged from the library.
But, you see, Brent is so busy working himself into a moral tizzy over the possibility that homosexual rodents might weaken the moral fiber of our offspring, he doesn’t always have time to read the books he works so hard on behalf of America’s non-reading parents to condemn. Note, if you will, his blue-nosed chicken cluck over an obscure tome called Uncle Bobby’s Wedding:
Already we can predict how the ALA next year will complain about any objection to a book called “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” the story of a young guinea pig who worries that her Uncle Bobby won’t play with her anymore after he “marries” his boyfriend Jamie. The book ends at the “wedding,” with Chloe as the enthusiastic flower girl.
Note, if you further will, this review in a New England gay newspaper of the selfsame Uncle Bobby’s Wedding:
It tells the sweet story of Chloe, an anthropomorphic young guinea pig who worries that Uncle Bobby won’t keep having fun with her after he marries his boyfriend Jamie. Uncle Bobby explains that their special times together will not end; Chloe will not be losing an uncle, but gaining one. The book ends at the wedding, with Chloe as the enthusiastic flower girl.
Notice the similarity? The author of the review did. She seems bemused more than outraged, possibly because she is not familiar with Bozell’s status as a craven plagiarizing shitbag, but hey, at least there’s an upside: the right wing is finally starting to learn how to use Google!
zed?
As long as S,N!’s gay hamsters keep kicking ass, we’ll keep laughing at that damn dirty ape.
Wow, you mean to tell me they made an animal “anthromorphic”? In a goddam CHILDREN’S BOOK?!! That’s beyond the pale (like Obama, btw).
Has anyone ever seen Zaius and Bozell together? Same place, same time? I believe that proves they’re one and the same.
Wow, you mean to tell me they made an animal “anthropomorphic”? In a goddam CHILDREN’S BOOK?!! That’s beyond the pale.
Plagiarism?!?!?! That’s not plagiarism, didn’t you notice the addition of the scare quotes? Totally changes the tone. For example:
“zed?”
Well, he has gay pigeons and fictional gay rodents covered, but when will he step up and take a stand against actual gay necrophiliac mallards?
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1432991,00.html
Dear Brent Bozell. As an american reader who encourages children to read, I am most offended by your post about Uncle Bobby’s Wedding and demand that you shove it up your ass and drink drano immediately.
mikey
Not the be a twat. too much. but isn’t the line “Dr. Venkman”: not “Mr.”?
Oh boy! An “article” attacking librarians! This should be fun!
“Its idea of “freedom” is emboldening librarians to be brave enough to indoctrinate children with what they really need to know, whether their parents object or even know about it.”
How DARE you teach MY child to not put metal objects in the toaster without MY consent!
You see, Pecker, libraries rotate their selection based on demand and circulation, as opposed to the evil god-hating agendas of the librarians. Librarians themselves have little choice in the exact inventory, because most buildings are not built using Time Lord technology, and thus are not bigger on the inside then they are on the outside; the upshot of this being that they’re working with limited space. As such, older books and ones that see poor circulation (especially of the fiction genre like, say, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding”), are usually sold or donated away after a few years to make room for newer material.
You would know this if you stopped constantly spewing hatred and paranoia and learned something.
You would know this if you stopped constantly spewing hatred and paranoia and learned something.
I dunno.
That just seemed beautiful to me.
I wanted to see it said again.
Kind of, shit, what? A line in the sand? A challenge? A surrender? Tossed casually over the shoulder as you walk away?
It’s got the steel ring of truth, and the power of honesty.
And when it’s all said and done, somebody’s gonna get it.
Or nobody is…
mikey
“You would know this if you stopped constantly spewing hatred and paranoia and learned something.”
Learning something, especially as a shorthand for learning something about how the world really works, will never, ever hold the interest of a wingnut. Of the many great ironies in this post, the fact that (as you nicely explained) the government runs libraries like a business does a much better job of explaining why certain books are on certain shelves. These nattering nabobs of liberal negativism (to mangle a phrase) resort to wacko consipracy theories ’cause they’re too lazy, ignorant, or stupid to think properly. As the same goes for their followers, everyone’s happy. (Why the wingnut welfare providers subsidize this garbage is another question.)
Google? You mean the Google? Heck, anyones can do that!
Shorter Bozell: “I don’t know much about literature, but I do know what I like to throw down in the mud and stomp upon.”
Fuck it, we’ll do it live!1one!!
Fucking thing is teh suXX0rzz!
My local library is inside a blue police call box. What?! The chameleon circuit is broken, okay!
Every library I’ve ever seen usually operate on a tight budget, and have limited means to put books on the shelves, as well as the space limitations mentioned above.
So, Mr. Bozell, if you want every library to carry all the thousands of unattractive, hateful and unpopular books YOU think they should have, I trust you will be spearheading a massive, Carnegie-style nationwide drive to raise funds from all your oligarch buddies and expand the budgets of these institutions….
Until you do, please fee free to, as Henry Rollins says, Shut The Fuck Up and Sit The Fuck Down.
What, no love for “Cousin Jenna’s Wedding”, where the adorable anthropomorphic hamster worries that she and her little siblings will fall victim to the drunken, obscenity-laced manhandling of Uncle Dubya and Mean Mr. Cheney while all the sane adults are busy with bridal preparations?
Things turn out just fine after Uncle Dub’s Secret Service agents assure her that the nasty old farts have been assigned extra extra-special “handlers”, every one trained in 16 different martial arts and wearing the finest frocks salvaged from J. Edgar Hamster’s couture collection, just to prevent such an unfortunate
newsworthyencounter!Yeah, I’m surprised the US has been so lax in doing something to defend itself from the looming menace of those harsh radical librarians – they’ll have your kids wearing cardigans & punctuating correctly if you don’t act to stop their evil scheme to raise literacy rates! DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!
Okay, this is me with my tinfoil beret on – & a few beer in my gizzard for good measure.
No chance this slime (& an abundance of wingnut slime similarly directed) may just kind of sort of remotely tie in, as delayed payback, to American librarians for being among the brave few who very publicly told Bush’s would-be Gestapo, the DHS/NSA spook-cult, to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut (whilst making them look like paranoid idiots) on the laughable-yet-creepy instance wherein they demanded the librarians cough up check-out lists of “questionable titles” ordered by lender, some ways back?
No?
Just the same old straightforward icky closet-case homophobia?
Whew!
Good to know the neocons don’t hold a grudge!
How, I wonder, are these innocent lambs being indoctrinated without their parents’ knowledge? Are librarians driving to the homes of small children, a la the Knight Bus or the Polar Express, to whisk them off to libraries without their parents’ knowledge?
Yeah, how come the Cockettes didn’t re-enact that little upstart bitch’s wedding?
Funny about this topic — I’ve had to spend a lot of time at a local library recently & couldn’t help noticing they have a copy of Liberal Fascism. Though normally against censorship, I did find myself wishing that the library’s director had researched the book a bit before using taxpayer funds to buy it.
I have no problem whatever with Uncle Bobby’s Wedding though. I hope someone gives them a lovely matching set of exercise wheels.
bless you Anne Laurie. You cracked me up with that.
[comments about prior crackedness of the writer will be disregarded]
jim – why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooon?
PeeJ, you write a lot of amusing and insightful comments. Please don’t turn these wonderful comment threads into Atrios. I’ve been “Zed” or “Frist” on pretty much every big blog, and it’s not at all difficult. In fact, I’ve always done it purely by accident, and I’ve always found a way to say something substantive. I’m not bragging about it, because it’s nothing to brag about.
HTH.
OH FUCK! I never thought to check whether Jenna (or was it her whorish sister?) had registered for their little “almost in time” nuptiality. I should have looked at Neimans, Saks, Wal-Mart and Target.
I’m sure Uncle Whoozit and his rough trade thang would have had a much more respectable list. Target, sure, but not Walmart.
Librarians, everywhere, think temper tantrums like this are the funniest thing evar.
One of my oldest friends was a librarian and apparently the basic rule of library patrons is that at least once a week someone will get their knickers in a twist because the library does/does not have a particular book.
His favorite example was some old guy who was always bitching about the nasty icky un-Christian books and always reading modern Westerns which are full of nasty, icky and un-Christian shagging.
BTW, my local librarian is a full grown male orangutan, no one ever complains to him.
Oh me. I mean, OH, “Me.” I was just trying to be a jerk. I usually do well so forgive me this stumble. I blame the gin.
WordPress made me do it.
BTW, my local librarian is a full grown male orangutan, no one ever complains to him.
Thereby demonstrating they have more sense than I would have given them credit for.
By the way, Annie Laurie, it’s 1700 in the history thread.
You mean convert to Christianity and then begin to collapse less than a century later?
I don’t know why wingnuts always offer the fall of Rome as an example of the evils of social and moral turpitude. Pagan Rome under the Julian emperors was at the very height of it’s power. Augustus Caesar launched a campaign of social propriety and conservatism that shaped Roman culture for centuries, and for all the wretched excesses of Caligula and Nero, most Romans were not debauched, drunken orgy-goers – only the moneyed ruling classes went in for that sort of thing (and my oh my, how much things haven’t changed in that respect, eh?)
Up to that point, the Roman government couldn’t care less what gods you worshiped, so long as you did two things: swore allegiance to the Emperor, and paid your taxes (what many early Christian martyrs refused to do, which is why they got fed to the lions – Rome didn’t give a crap who your gods were.) Quite often Romans adopted the gods of their conquests (the Egyptian gods were a big fad in Imperial Rome.)
It wasn’t until Emperor Constantine made Pauline Christianity the state religion, and went about destroying all competition by force of violence, that Rome began to decline. They stopped building roads, baths and aqueducts, and instead went about persecuting and force-converting the people from their ancestral Pagan religions (and utterly wiping out the competing Christian Gnostic sect), while also taking the time to destroy Pagan sacred fields, monuments and schools (like the Athenian Academy). Those guys invented mass religious persecution by the state.
So conservatives citing Rome as proof that “moral turpitude” leads to societal collapse are actually using an example that is evidence of exactly the opposite – that Christian theocracy has catastrophic effects on every society it is forced upon, beginning with Rome. Why do you think the Founders insisted on separation of church and state? Because they knew what happens to a “priest-ridden” society.
When Bozell has finished convincing everyone that it’s censorship to not stock every book he should convince Toscanini’s and Sons that it’s censorship to never have vegetarian chili.
In other words, T&S doesn’t favor open discussion and debate with soup lovers.
L
O
L
Now I know where the idea for Ron Burgundy came from.
I usually do well so forgive me this stumble.
I forgive your stumble, and furthermore, I should have realized that there are bigger things to worry about, like the fucknozzles who regularly spam these threads with their stupidity. I will henceforth keep my priorities in order.
Go and sin no more.
Wow, you mean to say that Bozo is not just a noxious shithead, an anti-intellectual, a bigoted fraud, a liar, and a hypocrite, but a plagiarist to boot? My opinion of this fuckfart has gone from 0% good to, well…
Additionally, Dougie Feith just got his ass kicked on TDS.
OT – photoshopping
Carry on.
oh snarkle.
no you dint.
please provide me an account number where I can bill you for brain bleach and fucking psychological damages.
That’s worse than Junk in a Box
As a good liberal, I try and make whatever contribution I can ensure continuing censorship. Every time I go to ‘Teh Costco’, I stand stealthily near the book section, use of my ocular implant to identify any Coulter/O’Reilly/Goldberg kindling and then surreptitiously flip all of them all over. Keep the fires burning!
“Call me ‘Petraeus’–because I’m about to surge!”
Really, if you think about it, his refusal to do so is itself a kind of “censorious” act. When will he finish persecuting librarians and get around to rogering homosexual guinea pigs? Because until he does so, he is essentially denying those guinea pigs their free speech.
(That speech? “Homina homina homina homina homina”)
Hey, leave us out of this. We don’t find him attractive either.
back to the wheel….
Hey fellas. I brought some pellets.
Whaddaya say? I’m game if you are.
Not the be a twat. too much. but isn’t the line “Dr. Venkman”: not “Mr.”?
I think the “Mr.” would be right – Venkman had Ph.D.s in psychology and parapsychology, but Peck purposefully ignored them and called Venkman “Mr.” to try to annoy him. IIRC. Been awhile since I’ve seen that flick.
I’m writing a children’s book entitled “Uncle Bozell’s Wedding” in which a young girl named Chloretta is concerned that her Uncle Brent won’t keep having fun with her when he marries into a money-grubbing pseudo-religious cult that pretends to be obssessed with homosexuality in order to bilk bigotted dummies out of their hard-earned dough.
Uncle Brent explains to young Chloretta that she won’t be losing an uncle, she’ll be gaining a crew of hateful homophobic closet cases. “Oh, goodie,” quips Chloretta.
But Chloretta was right all along. Once Uncle Brent consumates the relationship, he can’t stop yammering on about teh gays and he has no time for poor Chloretta whatsoever. Chloretta becomes a homeless waif selling flowers on street corners. There, she meets Mike Jones, the escort who exposed Ted Haggard’s proclivities. “Hmmm,” says Mike, when Chloretta tells him her story. “Something about your Uncle Brent sounds strangely familiar…”
It wasn’t until Emperor Constantine made Pauline Christianity the state religion, and went about destroying all competition by force of violence, that Rome began to decline.
I’ve got nothing to add about Brent Bozell but I recommend taking a Catholic friend to go see Constantine’s Sword. It’s a documentary about Catholicism’s violent and anti Semitic history. But not if it’s a Catholic you’re hoping for another date with. That might not be such a smoove move no matter how open minded she/he claims to be about criticism of teh Pope, etc. And man, what an utter douchebag Benedict is.
Hmmm. A cursory glance over the Internets reveals that Sam du Utah is in fact correct, as Peck refers to Peter as “Mr.” However, the line in question (subbing the picture) does not contain any direct reference to Peter Venkman at all, and thus is still wrong. I believe this only furthers proves my point regarding Dr. Venkman.
Glad ya Noses liked my narative. My mom has some experience in the Librarianing, so I like to think I have some degree of insight.
There’s a Constantine’s Sword movie ?
Great. Now I’ve got to see if it’s better than the book. Hope they kept the ending…
I am a librarian, and my oh my are we a sorry lot: sticking up for the right to do things while at the same time not blowing our entire budget on everything under the sun. We’re almost as bad as… well, just about everyone else with a goal. See, the fact is that we can’t do everything we set out to do and thus our principles are worthless unless we are given an infinite budget. And not only that, but we have to have an on-demand copy of everything. So we have to have an available Harry Potter for every interested reader plus a Beowulf that is interesting to everyone who only wants to read its descriptions of Angelina Jolie’s nipples. And why aren’t there any small business guides that show people how to make money?
Also, we don’t do our job as daycare center nearly as well as other governmental operations. For instance, at the dump there are bulldozer rides and lots of tetanus-acquiring possibilities. The police station and jail teach colloquial Spanish, strip-search techniques, and the ability to laugh at desperate people. The emergency room is a great place for children to learn about numbers and the insurance industry a.k.a. Capitalism. And most of the other governmental buildings aren’t open on weekends plus their computers don’t have a reservation system in accordance with Federal internet filtering regulations. All we do is offer little chairs and tables and a do-it-yourself materials selection process, making us complete bastards.
In fairness to Constantine, he never made Christianity the state religion of Rome. He merely made it legal. (Never converted till on his deathbed, either; and was then, ironically, baptised into the competing Arian sect that orthodox Christianity would later destroy.)
It was his successor Theodosius who made Christianity the established religion, undoing the good work of his predecessor Julian, and then some.
And I’ve been fighting for the rights of Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered pigeons all my life!!….the fucker!!
lol arky
Someone as obsessed with curbing the spread of ‘smut’ as Bozo must, allegedly, have a stash that fills an entire self-storage locker.
I’ve had to spend a lot of time at a local library recently & couldn’t help noticing they have a copy of Liberal Fascism. Though normally against censorship, I did find myself wishing that the library’s director had researched the book a bit before using taxpayer funds to buy it.
I wouldn’t fret about the tax dollars, zhac. I’ll bet you a rolling donut that it was donated to the library by one of the wingnut welfare bulk purchasers.
I can’t believe nobody’s posited any speculatory snark on the subject of just how Bozo came across the quote he stole, given the source publication.
“Well, yes, I was, um, walking down the street, and, um, I tripped and fell and landed face-down on an open copy of a New England gay newspaper, the kind of filthy, degenerate rag I would never, ever read, especially not while touching myself. I have always been a quick reader, and the passage in question entered my brain before I had a chance to stop it…”
Well, you can tell it’s conservative right-wing plagiarism because of the scare quotes around “marries” and “wedding”. Here, I’ll illustrate:
Normal sentence: I saw a wedding the other day where some gay people got married.
Conservative sentence: I saw a “wedding” the other day where some gay “people” got “married”.
“You would know this if you stopped constantly spewing hatred and paranoia and learned something.”
Learn something? Unfortunately, wingnuts only venture into libraries to steal books to use as fuel for their KKK bonfires.
* * * * *
What, no love for “Cousin Jenna’s Wedding”….
Speaking of reproducing like rodents, did anyone notice if Jenna looked a bit chunkier around the middle than usual?
I for one think we have a tragic national shortage of librarians. I demand more hot twenty-somethings in square glasses working on their thesis, and laughing at my post modern jokes, dammit!
Golly peej, sorry if I offended you – so which one are you a fan of?
Bozell?
DHS/NSA?
Cardigans?
Closet-case homophobes?
The Patriotic Anti-Librarian Front?
PLEASE don’t be upset.
It won’t happen again, honest!
Incidentally, “Hail to the Geek” is currently my favorite new song of the new year. 2008.
My twenty-something cousin is becoming a librarian, bago, though she does shave a boyfriend.
Ruthie, I to busy being blinding the embarrassingly gaudy limestone cross and Jesus-stone-deathbed they had installed. Seriously, why not just get a giant fresco of dogs playing poker?
That should read “have a boyfriend”. I have no knowledge of their shaving habits.
though she does shave a boyfriend.
Repeated without further comment.
Damn it. Some Guy done started the “Shaved/Not Shaved, Cut/Not Cut” debate again.
And he made me snarf water everywhere.
Thanks for the mention about my review of Uncle Bobby, and your support of the book and the ALA. Just to clarify: I am indeed aware of Mr. Bozell’s reputation. If I seem less than alarmed at his plagiarism, it’s because it doesn’t really surprise me. Not that I’m happy about it.
Also, FYI, Uncle Bobby may be obscure for the moment, but it just came out at the end of March, so it hasn’t had much time to get known. It’s from a major publisher, though (Putnam/Penguin, as it happens), so it should get a fair amount of distribution.
BTW, my local librarian is a full grown male orangutan, no one ever complains to him
Are you sure it isn’t just a guy in an orangutan suit? We had that problem at our library.
Check out the ad banner on Bay Windows (the New England Gay Newspaper) for Provincetown:
http://www.baywindows.com/edge_viewimage_ad.php?id=1101
Hunks? Check.
Gay Clowns/Mimes? Check.
Bearded guys with leather biker hats? Check.
Pretty but butch ladies? Check.
“Provincetown. Like nowhere else!”
Time Lord technology, and thus are not bigger on the inside then they are on the outside
BTW, OT but now that you mention it: was Snoopy a Time Lord?
I am shocked, shocked to find that a website with not just one, but two forms of punctuation in its name doesn’t appreciate the hard intellectual work that goes into adding scare quotes to a review, thus completely transforming it. Harold Pinter won a Nobel prize for his pauses, not for using a bunch of words that had all been used somewhere else before, you know.
…the right wing is finally starting to learn how to use Google!
I think this is jumping to a conclusion. Kiki hints at the more likely explanation: Bozell is a subscriber to this New England gay newspaper.
For any who want to see what we librarians hafta put up with.
First of all, the Ghostbusters reference just made me really happy.
Second of all, Brent Bozell is a douche. No, really. There is a fairly extensive parallel that could be made between a device meant to flush out all the dirty nasty smells of sexual goings-on from womanparts, rendering them clean as fresh linen, but that instead has no impact other than to make things unhealthier than they were before, and Brent Bozell.
Third of all, and somewhat off-topic, I am queer as Tinky-Winky and normally adore children’s books on the subject… but gay rodents with neurotic nieces are somehow not resonating with me.
Arky: Ooook?
Yes, it’s true.
Brent Bozell has no dick.
I had a bit too much gin last night so I didn’t see the follow-up. Whether this will get to you, jim, I don’t know. I wasn’t actually saying you should take a flying fuck at the moon; I was merely continuing from your “rolling doughnut” comment, a la my hero Kurt Vonnegut.
I apologize for putting it poorly. My fault.
Also, we don’t do our job as daycare center nearly as well as other governmental operations. For instance, at the dump there are bulldozer rides and lots of tetanus-acquiring possibilities. The police station and jail teach colloquial Spanish, strip-search techniques, and the ability to laugh at desperate people. The emergency room is a great place for children to learn about numbers and the insurance industry a.k.a. Capitalism. And most of the other governmental buildings aren’t open on weekends plus their computers don’t have a reservation system in accordance with Federal internet filtering regulations. All we do is offer little chairs and tables and a do-it-yourself materials selection process, making us complete bastards.
This was great jim.
More please.
“BTW, my local librarian is a full grown male orangutan, no one ever complains to him.”
Are you sure it isn’t just a guy in an orangutan suit? We had that problem at our library.
Most of the librarians I know confine their wardrobe homage to Terry Pratchett’s wonderful orangutan to pinback buttons saying “LIBRARIANS RULE OOK”…
I saved this from an April 5 (’08) thread on Brent Bozell, and it’s SO apropos:
Fats Durston said,
April 5, 2008 at 9:11
My God he’s hideous. Like if Dr. Zaius raped John Huston.
“He’s my brother! He’s my son! He’s my brother! He’s my son!”
“I said I want the truth!”
“He’s my brother and my son and an Oorang-ootang!”
“Forget it Jake, it’s planet of the apes-town.”
Of course, the Librarian would smoosh up Brent like a rotten orange.
[…] Link via Mister Leonard Pierce at Sadly, No! […]
If you’d been there when someone asked the librarian why he was dressed like a monkey you wouldn’t ask that question.
Took the doctors three hours to get the banana out.
Ook! Eek!