Pensing about it a little more, I think it's the sense of powerlessness that drives the hatred, more so than a sense of others' cluelessness. Not a particularly fresh observation, this.
I must be hanging around Ben too much, because I'm suddenly hyper-aware of triteness. (It's the hyper-awareness I'm getting from him, not the triteness.)
Re #10. It's fine. I don't think he's really scaring off that many people. Though it would be funny if you had a thread for frightened lurkers to self-identify in, and which Wolfson was honor-bound never too read. (Think of the delicious temptation for him.)
Also, it would be easier to be supportive of the whole "Wolfson" project if he would just let us deploy him as weapon at other blogs.
That's a very good explanation for the parallel. I think another one is that, for Clinton haters, one of the most objectionable things about the state of America under Clinton's watch is that it included Clinton as president and the same is pretty much true for those of us Bush haters about the state of America under Bush. That is, even if Bush wasn't running this country to the ground, I would still take great offense at the mere idea of this smug, morally self-righteous frat boy becoming president, just as conservatives found the idea of someone like Clinton being president deeply at odds with everything they believe in. In both cases, the hatred is focused on the cultural archetype the president represents, and not merely in his policies.
It is very in-jokey. If you step back and look at the threads, they're almost impossible to follow without a lot of background knowledge. Or just try going away for a few days and coming back to the comments.
But it's not at all cliquey. Typically, when someone drops in and asks a question, five people immediately provide links and an explanation. And all you have to do to become a "regular" is comment regularly. Look at Judy: she's always drunk off her ass, dropped in from nowhere, and if she keeps it up, in two weeks she'll be a regular.
Also, I have trouble of understanding these claims of Wolfson fear (if you pronounce it, it sounds like Wolfsonsphere). I make mistakes in comments all the time. One of my most common mistakes is writing things which are wildly uninteresting. But what's scary about having mistakes you're making noted?
I hadn't refreshed this thread for awhile, thankfully I previewed.
I thought I had used the same strike command on the first line of 22 that I used in 23, but I now I see that I wrote "." That's not really poetic justice, more poetic "fuck to oboe"ness.
ogged, i don't think you're thinking this all the way through. this place is so in-jokey that you can't understand half the posts unless you're a regular commenter.
Anyway, the more intersting comments on Ob_Wi tonight was elliptical references to some background about their (best) posters family. Wild and crazy stuff.
You know what happens when you make an assumption, Wolfson? (especially given 1) the not indistinct possibility that you do coke to keep up your prolific commenting and 2) your hypercritical reputation)
I'll let all of you decide whether the disagreement that the subject and verb were having in my most recent comment was a mistake on my part. But to avoid holding you in suspense, I will tell you that they've made up from their quarrel and decided to agree from now on.
i forgot, what i originally meant to post here was what does baa thinking about the comparison b/w clinton hate and bush hate? i wanna hear from someone from the other side of the river.
I tried to come up with a plausible biscuit conjunction, but the best I could do was a biscuit zeugma. "He left the biscuits on the counter and his wife for his secretary."
According to some site I just found on google, 43 is more accurately syllepsis than zeugma. I think we should defer judgment on this until Alameida arrives though. That'll be sometime this week, right?
People who are casually familiar with the terms which describe different rhetorical devices, would you mind explaining in what manner you came to learn them?
I saw "zeugma" and "chiasmus" used casually in this Slate article, looked up those two, and then went on a tear, reading up on all the others I wasn't familiar with.
I don't think there is any problem with saying this, but if I'm missing a problem, feel free to redact, edit or delete. Isn't the whole referring to that person as "Alameida" thing a farce? I mean, I remember when she joined the blog and all, but I have trouble imagine that there are people who are aware of her here and don't know anything more...
Also, I originally misread the above comment to say that she was in grade school for classics, which is both funnier and more explanatorily efficacious.
Also also, it seems like she isn't the only one who is an adept user of these terms, and she wasn't who I was wondering about. I wasn't wondering about anyone in particular, but I was particularly not wondering about her.
We refer to her as Alameida because we don't want google bringing people here in search of her, because this is the place where she can vent about her relatives without them reading it.
No one should fear Wolfson - all one has to do is get him drunk and his grammar becomes distinctly less exact.
Rabid political hatreds are not at all novel; however, in the past, both the press and the pols had the grace to keep the vitriol [and the mistresses] private. Now we're too Jerry Springer for that. But petty bitch that I am, I would be thrilled to death if the Dan Savage definition of "santorum" made it into a dictionary...
In-jokey, sure. That's half the charm of it. But cliquey? Cliques are exclusive. I think the community here is pretty accepting of anyone who wanders in and makes an effort. It would be interesting to see a table of the dates of the first comments of the regulars 'round here, as it would span a wide, wide range of dates.
I commented on this on Ezra Klein's site -- I always thought a lot of the Clinton-hatred had a class base. From the upper-class side you just have to look at that comment from someone in the DC media elite (I'd have to google to remember who said it) "He came here and trashed the place and it's not his place." I don't think the use of the word 'trash' there was entirely an accident -- Clinton was trailer-trash, and the political and media elites despised him for not knowing 'his place'.
For the masses, I think the same thing operated from a different angle. Everyone is used to rich, privileged people getting away with things -- no one ever got all that excited about Bush not going to Vietnam because honestly, what were the odds that a Congressman's kid was going to have to go to Vietnam if he didn't feel like it? Clinton, on the other hand, came from nothing, managed his way through the draft in a manner that people from his class often couldn't, and ended up with a Yale law degree, a corporate lawyer wife, a nice kid, running the most powerful country in the world, and (at least the reputation of) all the women he ever wanted.
Another man from Arkansas who grew up in a trailer with an abusive alcoholic stepfather, and now works for minimum wage in a meat-packing plant, is probably not going to resent Bush all that much for being privileged, because there have always been privileged people, it's normal. He's going to look at Clinton, on the other hand, and think "That lousy bastard -- if he can have a life like that, where's mine?"
(and even though I certainly do it too, I kind of wish the comments were a little less in-jokey and self referential.)
and even though I certainly do it too, I kind of wish the comments were a little less in-jokey and self referential.
Isn't it possible that you really wish that you were other than you are, and you are simply projecting that feeling on to the comments? LB, you've got to learn to love yourself first. Only then will you really be able to love the comments.
What if I'm relying on the unfogged comments to make me a better, more moral, and intellectually more respectable person, and am disappointed in them for falling short in this endeavor?
A lot of these aren't really in-jokes. They're language dork jokes, and I don't understand a full third of them. But to the extent they exclude some people, it's because we lack technical knowledge necessary to understand what the hell you're talking about.
But that only makes us want to learn more. And grow stronger. So that someday we may be able to beat Wolfson to death. Metaphorically.
Of the latter, it probably did not contain the nearly forgotten but once fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks, now a cold and desolate spot of difficult access. But that is of no importance.
Also, I'm new around here, but how the hell do you people comment so much? Don't you have jobs?
Oh V. Botkin. Either silently or explicitly, everyone asks that question when they first start commenting. (I did.) Those who have been here a little longer chuckle at the questioners' childish innocence. The questioners have asked the wrong question. Having a job is not the same thing as doing a job. Soon you will see this too, and feel mild pity for those who would confuse the two.
Also, SCMT, it seems that V. is still under the impression that we're actually different people, rather than one skinny kid posting feverishly in his parents' basement.
I don't think president hatred has gotten out of hand just recently. Think of the fake story about LBJ fucking Kennedy's corpse on Airforce 1 on the way back from Dallas.
Alot of Bush hatred stems from what Bush has done. Bush Sr. didn't get much hatred because he was a centrist. If Bush jr. was really a "compassionate conservative" he wouldn't have gotten much hatred either.
Clinton got a lot of hatred for cultural reasons. Republicans hated his cultural style and were never sure he wouldn't try to put through Liberal policies. Plus, baby-boomer self-loathing screwed him with the press.
Bush also had an opportunity to appeal to the whole country, with September 11th. You felt that people might have been willing to suspend their hatred of him--a collective holding of breath. But he has chosen to make every issue a partisan issue. So hatred of him seems more pinned to his policies.
Highschool nickname, for me. (Well, actually, people just called me "Lizard", but the longer version makes the reference explicit.) I assume baa bears a striking resemblance to a sheep.
Baa has good points in his link, but I think policies still have alot to do with things. Reagan hatred was strong in the eighties. But to me, this just highlights how little Bush Sr. hatred there was. Bush Jr. is just more ideological.
My dad's a pretty conservative Republican and his biggest complaint against Clinton, whom he loathed, was roughly that the guy was obviously a dirty, smarmy liar, and that he obviously knew he was a dirty, smarmy liar , and I get the distinct sense that it was the appearance of self-awareness of that fact that really bothered my dad.
I found it annoying that Clinton seemed to think that you liked his whole 'sincere' act, the clenched jaw and moist eye, when it was so obviously an act. (I never liked the act. But I never hated Clinton, either.)
I suspect the appeal of the act to some people (most voters?) is related to Clinton's alleged personal irresistibility -- it's in the nature of seduction that it can be an act, and known to be an act, and still succeed.
Likewise, Bush's fake-hick machismo. It's an act, and he thinks you should buy it even though it's pretty clearly an act. And many people (most voters?) do buy it.
The comparison breaks down at the 'seduction' point -- but perhaps this only proves, properly speaking, the validity of the point. For Clinton appealed more to women voters, and Bush appeals more to men. (If I remember my electoral data correctly.)
The lesson, surely, of the last canvass is that the candidate must have some nonrational appeal to gain voters beyond the core loyalists. And many rational people find non-rational appeals off-putting, even insulting.
Do you not think there is a difference in the attacks b/w Reagan and Clinton? For instance, the Clinton attacks, as Cala reminds us, are personal. I would be a rich, rich man if I had a dime for every time someone went on about how awful a father Bill was to Chelsea while growing up. (By people who didn't know him, of course) Now, I'm too young to actually remember Reagan, but he came in with real controversy and left with real controversy (strike breaking/iran contra) And with Bush2, he's certainly inspired a lot of controversy. But personal attacks are fairly rare. Certainly not mainstream, the way they became with Clinton. But, I also suppose I may be blind to personal hatred of Bush, it may just not register in my perception the way Clinton-hatred does.
Kevin Drum wrote that he supposed that there's always been vitrolic, personal hatred of presidents, but only with Clinton did it become mainstream, and that's his explanation of the difference.
Yeah, what stands out for me about Clinton is the crazy lying that made it into the mainstream. Illegitimate child with a black prostitute, complicit in the murder of Vince Foster, smuggling cocaine... even if you think that he did all sorts of bad things, you have to admit that the vast majority of the weird personal accusations against him were just invented. That was different. I remember spitting with rage over Reagan, but it was over his public acts and words, not about speculation that he was having sex with donkeys.
I'm dissatisfied with baa's response. I'm willing to admit that the amplitude of anger at Presidents has reached this level before, including with Reagan. I am not convinced that the anger was so widespread with Reagan. To say that a Republican was hated in Cambridge is to say absolutely nothing at all. To say that a Republican is hated by my Red State (and till recently) Republican friends is to say something very different.
Moreover, in other cases, including GWB, you can usually point to exacerbating circumstances of war (LBJ, Nixon, GWB) economics (Nixon, Carter, Reagan). But the 90s were a pretty good decade for almost everyone, and the actual policies enabled by laws Clinton sought were generally pretty centrist. As Barbara Bush reported said, "What's so bad about peace and prosperity?"
Finally, I agree that anger/political affiliation is largely a matter of deciding (if possible) to join a specific culture. What is strange about GWB is that he has fractured the lines along which we normally discuss culture. In my neck of the woods, there are a lot of people who normally vote Republican who loathe GWB. And there are a lot of people we expect to vote for Democrats (e.g., married white women) who went the other way. (The point is probably better made in terms of discomfort, as I suspect there were a lot of people who voted as expected with some grave misgivings.)
Mel Brooks once said something like, "if they're not doing it to the women, they'll do it to the country." Possibly, which President you hate depends on which activity more alarms you.
I can't help connect slolernr's 98 with the Why Pop Sucks discussion. All that hating on the fakery of pop makes sense when you've got no other reason to like it, but when the song's got something else good going for it, often just some personal association, you can overlook it. Thus we have
This from baa's post - "I would be amazed if less than a third [of] Americans with party affiliation don't actively detest the opposition" - is almost certainly true. I was in diapers for Johnson and Nixon, so I don't have a clear bead on how nasty the rhetoric (from citizens, not electioneering) was then, but certainly the level of vituperation during Clinton was of a higher level than we'd seen in the post-Watergate era. It has remained there for his successor.
However, Clinton was as conservative a Democrat as any Republican could reasonably hope for - welfare reform, free trade, deficit reduction, protection of the investor class, streamlined the federal government, high military funding, etc. He was, for all intents and purposes, a Rockefeller Republican. Meanwhile, Bush goes out of his way to give the finger to the Democrats whenever he possibly can.
What is qualitatively different with Bush is that a wide majority of the rest of the world shares a spitting hatred for this American president in a way I have never seen during my (politically aware) lifetime. That makes it a bit harder to assign the American left's Bush-hatred to irrationality.
Let's be honest. The theory that best fits the available data points is that Dick Cheney is the devil, George Bush his puppet, and baa his creature.
Also - baa, is a Cambridge boy of about my age who can also be found under the name Ben A. He claims to be married, but might he be this guy? Enquiring minds want to know, baa.
exactly, apos. Clinton tried to unite both sides with his policies. He had his personal wars, and he went on the attack, but his offense was by way of defense. Bush, OTOH, is actively divisive. He doesn't try to unite, and is patronizing to any suggestion of an opinion other than his own. So, to the extent that there is Bush-hatred, there are many reasons for it (whether or not one agrees with them). But, when looking for reasons for the vitrolic, personal Clinton hatred, it gets more difficult.
If you do read some Clinton-bashing, it's not exactly a mystery what the material is. I know a lot of the allegations, and there's certainly more than I'm aware of (i mean, there's just so many). There is an active, large, mobilized rumor-mill for allegations against Clinton. And a rumor mill that has a certain amount of credibility with not an insignificant number of people. That's what is unique among President-hating, as far as I'm aware.
Actually I always thought that what made a lot of guys spitting mad about Clinton was their suspicion that he could get laid when ever he wanted, and they couldn't. Personally, what drives me nuts about Bush and a number of others in the administration is that whole "the rules don't apply to me" attitude--that has driven me crazy whenever I cae across it ever since I was a small child.
Funny you should link to a post that ends,
If only.Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:28 PM
Unfortunately, in this case, 49% of everyone else is cold comfort.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:29 PM
Aw, did you have to bring all this up, now? On the same page as the worm trails? And it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:34 PM
Pensing about it a little more, I think it's the sense of powerlessness that drives the hatred, more so than a sense of others' cluelessness. Not a particularly fresh observation, this.
I must be hanging around Ben too much, because I'm suddenly hyper-aware of triteness. (It's the hyper-awareness I'm getting from him, not the triteness.)
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:37 PM
OT, but I thought you'd get a kick out of this ogged. As seen at the Revolution (or at least ObiWi):
"Toughest crowd on the Web."
Try commenting at Unfogged.com.
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 16, 2005 10:52 PM
...
The name "ben wolfson" is enough to scare me away."
...
In general, I only lurk at the high academic blogs. But God Bless the Web, that I can listen to so many people smarter than I.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | June 16, 2005 11:28 PM
If only I could end this with the Wolfson-Klink mp3, eh?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:37 PM
No, it's the triteness, too.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:39 PM
(Kidding, Wolfson, kidding. Please don't break my mind.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:39 PM
That's true re the powerlessness, SB. Seems that and others' cluelessness are related: "why can't you see?"
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:43 PM
Or, "why can't I make you see?"
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:43 PM
That's pretty funny, Tim. I wonder just how many people Ben is scaring off. I wonder if it's a bad thing.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:44 PM
Who's afraid of the big bad ...
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:46 PM
Re #10. It's fine. I don't think he's really scaring off that many people. Though it would be funny if you had a thread for frightened lurkers to self-identify in, and which Wolfson was honor-bound never too read. (Think of the delicious temptation for him.)
Also, it would be easier to be supportive of the whole "Wolfson" project if he would just let us deploy him as weapon at other blogs.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 10:52 PM
That's a very good explanation for the parallel. I think another one is that, for Clinton haters, one of the most objectionable things about the state of America under Clinton's watch is that it included Clinton as president and the same is pretty much true for those of us Bush haters about the state of America under Bush. That is, even if Bush wasn't running this country to the ground, I would still take great offense at the mere idea of this smug, morally self-righteous frat boy becoming president, just as conservatives found the idea of someone like Clinton being president deeply at odds with everything they believe in. In both cases, the hatred is focused on the cultural archetype the president represents, and not merely in his policies.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:01 PM
Who's afraid of the big bad ...
Maybe we should tell people they need not fear a sheep in ...
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:03 PM
Maybe we should tell people they need not fear a sheep in ...
Did Wolfson ever tell you about the time he shot a sheep in his pajamas?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:13 PM
What was the sheep doing in his pajamas?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:22 PM
No, I haven't heard the story. I wonder:
Was Wolfson wearing the pajamas?
Was the sheep wearing the pajamas?
Does it involve pajamas decorated with a sheep pattern?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:25 PM
Once again, I find that I am too slow for this blog.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:25 PM
From the same ObiWi thread, later:
"Try commenting at Unfogged.com."
Eh. Too cliquey/in-jokey. I don't have the patience - or the cliff's notes - to bother figuring out what Regular #22 is saying in code to Regular #43.
Posted by: November Christmas | June 17, 2005 01:13 AM
What a perfect place to deploy the Wolfson.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:26 PM
Let's coin a new phrase: "The Wolfsular Option."
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:30 PM
It is very in-jokey. If you step back and look at the threads, they're almost impossible to follow without a lot of background knowledge. Or just try going away for a few days and coming back to the comments.
But it's not at all cliquey. Typically, when someone drops in and asks a question, five people immediately provide links and an explanation. And all you have to do to become a "regular" is comment regularly. Look at Judy: she's always drunk off her ass, dropped in from nowhere, and if she keeps it up, in two weeks she'll be a regular.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:37 PM
How did the sheep get in his pajamas?
Also, I have trouble of understanding these claims of Wolfson fear (if you pronounce it, it sounds like Wolfsonsphere). I make mistakes in comments all the time. One of my most common mistakes is writing things which are wildly uninteresting. But what's scary about having mistakes you're making noted?
I hadn't refreshed this thread for awhile, thankfully I previewed.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:40 PM
testPosted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:40 PM
I thought I had used the same strike command on the first line of 22 that I used in 23, but I now I see that I wrote "." That's not really poetic justice, more poetic "fuck to oboe"ness.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:51 PM
bob mcmanus used to comment here, right? Or am I on crack?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:54 PM
I could have sworn he had, but now I can't find him.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-16-05 11:56 PM
Wow, time for a fourth comment. What appears in 24 as "." was written as "<stikre>"
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:00 AM
those aren't exclusive options, ben.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:00 AM
ogged, i don't think you're thinking this all the way through. this place is so in-jokey that you can't understand half the posts unless you're a regular commenter.
(goddamn i have to re-type a lot when i'm stoned)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:02 AM
I know, Michael, and was considering adding a note to that effect, but I assumed y'all would figure it out.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:03 AM
Anyway, the more intersting comments on Ob_Wi tonight was elliptical references to some background about their (best) posters family. Wild and crazy stuff.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:03 AM
i somewhat think it would be cool if this were a democratic blog, since it almost is anyway. And we could vote to delete bad posts.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:04 AM
It's a biscuit disjunction. The name is taken from the model sentence, "am I crazy or are there biscuits on the counter?".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:04 AM
I was just about to type that!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:04 AM
"biscuit disjunct," I mean.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:05 AM
I assumed y'all would figure it out.
You know what happens when you make an assumption, Wolfson? (especially given 1) the not indistinct possibility that you do coke to keep up your prolific commenting and 2) your hypercritical reputation)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:05 AM
bad posts
I'm sure no one has any idea what you're talking about.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:06 AM
Let's not mess with ogged's benign dictatorship. Also, biscuit disjunction is pure tingly cheese-sandwich excellent.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:07 AM
that would follow the opening-up of the blog, ogged, not referring to posts-to-date. i just thought of it as abc-insurance.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:08 AM
I'll let all of you decide whether the disagreement that the subject and verb were having in my most recent comment was a mistake on my part. But to avoid holding you in suspense, I will tell you that they've made up from their quarrel and decided to agree from now on.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:08 AM
ha, wd, i am entirely incapable of experience suspense. (atm)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:09 AM
i forgot, what i originally meant to post here was what does baa thinking about the comparison b/w clinton hate and bush hate? i wanna hear from someone from the other side of the river.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:10 AM
I tried to come up with a plausible biscuit conjunction, but the best I could do was a biscuit zeugma. "He left the biscuits on the counter and his wife for his secretary."
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:11 AM
You know what happens when you make an assumption, Wolfson?
No, but I know what happens when you assume.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:12 AM
I do wonder what the comments here would be like if we had a "no googling" day.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:15 AM
If I recall correctly, what happens is that I hatch a nefarious scheme to talk about Randy Cohen instead of whatever we were talking about.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:15 AM
i can assure you it's nothing like that, ben
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:16 AM
Help me out here Michael. What is it like?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:19 AM
It's OK to assume, as long as you remember to discharge eventually.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:20 AM
According to some site I just found on google, 43 is more accurately syllepsis than zeugma. I think we should defer judgment on this until Alameida arrives though. That'll be sometime this week, right?
People who are casually familiar with the terms which describe different rhetorical devices, would you mind explaining in what manner you came to learn them?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:24 AM
I think Alameida was in grad school for classics.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:26 AM
When you make an ASSUMPTION you make an ASS out of U and MPTION.
(that joke kills in china)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:30 AM
I saw "zeugma" and "chiasmus" used casually in this Slate article, looked up those two, and then went on a tear, reading up on all the others I wasn't familiar with.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:32 AM
I am a completist. I must collect them all.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:33 AM
I don't think there is any problem with saying this, but if I'm missing a problem, feel free to redact, edit or delete. Isn't the whole referring to that person as "Alameida" thing a farce? I mean, I remember when she joined the blog and all, but I have trouble imagine that there are people who are aware of her here and don't know anything more...
Also, I originally misread the above comment to say that she was in grade school for classics, which is both funnier and more explanatorily efficacious.
Also also, it seems like she isn't the only one who is an adept user of these terms, and she wasn't who I was wondering about. I wasn't wondering about anyone in particular, but I was particularly not wondering about her.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:34 AM
We refer to her as Alameida because we don't want google bringing people here in search of her, because this is the place where she can vent about her relatives without them reading it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:38 AM
And now I am finally going to my no-electricity-having home. Night all.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:38 AM
Syllepsis is a specifc type of zeugma. Nyah.
Posted by Yaya | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:48 AM
Syllepsis is a specifc type of zeugma.
And they're both contagious.
No one should fear Wolfson - all one has to do is get him drunk and his grammar becomes distinctly less exact.
Rabid political hatreds are not at all novel; however, in the past, both the press and the pols had the grace to keep the vitriol [and the mistresses] private. Now we're too Jerry Springer for that. But petty bitch that I am, I would be thrilled to death if the Dan Savage definition of "santorum" made it into a dictionary...
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 2:16 AM
I would say that Ben is really a pussycat, but I don't want to undermine his rep. Plus, he may actually have lulled me into a false sense of security.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 5:18 AM
Too cliquey/in-jokey.
In-jokey, sure. That's half the charm of it. But cliquey? Cliques are exclusive. I think the community here is pretty accepting of anyone who wanders in and makes an effort. It would be interesting to see a table of the dates of the first comments of the regulars 'round here, as it would span a wide, wide range of dates.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 7:21 AM
I commented on this on Ezra Klein's site -- I always thought a lot of the Clinton-hatred had a class base. From the upper-class side you just have to look at that comment from someone in the DC media elite (I'd have to google to remember who said it) "He came here and trashed the place and it's not his place." I don't think the use of the word 'trash' there was entirely an accident -- Clinton was trailer-trash, and the political and media elites despised him for not knowing 'his place'.
For the masses, I think the same thing operated from a different angle. Everyone is used to rich, privileged people getting away with things -- no one ever got all that excited about Bush not going to Vietnam because honestly, what were the odds that a Congressman's kid was going to have to go to Vietnam if he didn't feel like it? Clinton, on the other hand, came from nothing, managed his way through the draft in a manner that people from his class often couldn't, and ended up with a Yale law degree, a corporate lawyer wife, a nice kid, running the most powerful country in the world, and (at least the reputation of) all the women he ever wanted.
Another man from Arkansas who grew up in a trailer with an abusive alcoholic stepfather, and now works for minimum wage in a meat-packing plant, is probably not going to resent Bush all that much for being privileged, because there have always been privileged people, it's normal. He's going to look at Clinton, on the other hand, and think "That lousy bastard -- if he can have a life like that, where's mine?"
(and even though I certainly do it too, I kind of wish the comments were a little less in-jokey and self referential.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 7:37 AM
I'd have to google to remember who said it
Without googling, I think it was David Broder.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 7:41 AM
You're either a poet, or you're a lover, or you're the famous Benjamin Wolfson.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 7:49 AM
and even though I certainly do it too, I kind of wish the comments were a little less in-jokey and self referential.
Isn't it possible that you really wish that you were other than you are, and you are simply projecting that feeling on to the comments? LB, you've got to learn to love yourself first. Only then will you really be able to love the comments.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:20 AM
What if I'm relying on the unfogged comments to make me a better, more moral, and intellectually more respectable person, and am disappointed in them for falling short in this endeavor?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:24 AM
In-joke 16!
Posted by Regular 43 | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:25 AM
LB, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:25 AM
In-joke 16!
Ironic response 37b!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:26 AM
It's not funny, apo—your French accent is terrible.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:27 AM
What's the number for the joke about the prison where everybody knows each other's jokes and they all assign the jokes numbers?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:30 AM
Aleph-null?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:30 AM
Sockray blew!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:31 AM
Damn that regular 43, I was going to make in-joke 19, but now it would just be awkward.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:36 AM
What's the number for the joke about the prison where everybody knows each other's jokes and they all assign the jokes numbers?
That's a Borges story, isn't it?
Posted by V. Botkin | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:37 AM
I was thinking it was a Gödel proof. But there's a lot of overlap.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:37 AM
Bakhtin! That's the guy I was thinking of!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:38 AM
Oh no! Does that mean the Library of Babel is incomplete?
Posted by V. Botkin | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:39 AM
A lot of these aren't really in-jokes. They're language dork jokes, and I don't understand a full third of them. But to the extent they exclude some people, it's because we lack technical knowledge necessary to understand what the hell you're talking about.
But that only makes us want to learn more. And grow stronger. So that someday we may be able to beat Wolfson to death. Metaphorically.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:40 AM
Also, I'm new around here, but how the hell do you people comment so much? Don't you have jobs?
Posted by V. Botkin | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:40 AM
Going back to 5, who's he calling "high," anyway?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:40 AM
How does Bakhtin enter into this?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:42 AM
Oh no! Does that mean the Library of Babel is incomplete?
Did it contain Tlön, or Zembla?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:43 AM
Did it contain Tlön, or Zembla?
Of the latter, it probably did not contain the nearly forgotten but once fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks, now a cold and desolate spot of difficult access. But that is of no importance.
Posted by V. Botkin | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:46 AM
(Exposing the family jewels, so to speak.)
Posted by V. Botkin | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:48 AM
Also, I'm new around here, but how the hell do you people comment so much? Don't you have jobs?
Oh V. Botkin. Either silently or explicitly, everyone asks that question when they first start commenting. (I did.) Those who have been here a little longer chuckle at the questioners' childish innocence. The questioners have asked the wrong question. Having a job is not the same thing as doing a job. Soon you will see this too, and feel mild pity for those who would confuse the two.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:57 AM
Also, SCMT, it seems that V. is still under the impression that we're actually different people, rather than one skinny kid posting feverishly in his parents' basement.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 9:27 AM
I don't think president hatred has gotten out of hand just recently. Think of the fake story about LBJ fucking Kennedy's corpse on Airforce 1 on the way back from Dallas.
Alot of Bush hatred stems from what Bush has done. Bush Sr. didn't get much hatred because he was a centrist. If Bush jr. was really a "compassionate conservative" he wouldn't have gotten much hatred either.
Clinton got a lot of hatred for cultural reasons. Republicans hated his cultural style and were never sure he wouldn't try to put through Liberal policies. Plus, baby-boomer self-loathing screwed him with the press.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 12:23 PM
Bush also had an opportunity to appeal to the whole country, with September 11th. You felt that people might have been willing to suspend their hatred of him--a collective holding of breath. But he has chosen to make every issue a partisan issue. So hatred of him seems more pinned to his policies.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 1:22 PM
Valentine B,
how the hell do you people comment so much?
How the hell can you not?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 1:40 PM
How the hell can you not?
Those two ping-pong tables in the basement of the Mineshaft? He's the one who installed them.
Posted by oztk | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 3:02 PM
Michael asks, I answer
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 3:32 PM
How do you all come up with your online names? Abby's my real name, but I long for a cool pseudonym.
Posted by Abby | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 3:35 PM
Highschool nickname, for me. (Well, actually, people just called me "Lizard", but the longer version makes the reference explicit.) I assume baa bears a striking resemblance to a sheep.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 3:40 PM
Baa has good points in his link, but I think policies still have alot to do with things. Reagan hatred was strong in the eighties. But to me, this just highlights how little Bush Sr. hatred there was. Bush Jr. is just more ideological.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 3:53 PM
It's an extraordinarily obvious pun on my last name which I began using on aol in middle school. Glad you asked.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 4:35 PM
[cockjoke permutation 12]!!! pwned!!!
My dad's a pretty conservative Republican and his biggest complaint against Clinton, whom he loathed, was roughly that the guy was obviously a dirty, smarmy liar, and that he obviously knew he was a dirty, smarmy liar , and I get the distinct sense that it was the appearance of self-awareness of that fact that really bothered my dad.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 4:44 PM
I found it annoying that Clinton seemed to think that you liked his whole 'sincere' act, the clenched jaw and moist eye, when it was so obviously an act. (I never liked the act. But I never hated Clinton, either.)
I suspect the appeal of the act to some people (most voters?) is related to Clinton's alleged personal irresistibility -- it's in the nature of seduction that it can be an act, and known to be an act, and still succeed.
Likewise, Bush's fake-hick machismo. It's an act, and he thinks you should buy it even though it's pretty clearly an act. And many people (most voters?) do buy it.
The comparison breaks down at the 'seduction' point -- but perhaps this only proves, properly speaking, the validity of the point. For Clinton appealed more to women voters, and Bush appeals more to men. (If I remember my electoral data correctly.)
The lesson, surely, of the last canvass is that the candidate must have some nonrational appeal to gain voters beyond the core loyalists. And many rational people find non-rational appeals off-putting, even insulting.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 4:59 PM
baa,
Do you not think there is a difference in the attacks b/w Reagan and Clinton? For instance, the Clinton attacks, as Cala reminds us, are personal. I would be a rich, rich man if I had a dime for every time someone went on about how awful a father Bill was to Chelsea while growing up. (By people who didn't know him, of course) Now, I'm too young to actually remember Reagan, but he came in with real controversy and left with real controversy (strike breaking/iran contra) And with Bush2, he's certainly inspired a lot of controversy. But personal attacks are fairly rare. Certainly not mainstream, the way they became with Clinton. But, I also suppose I may be blind to personal hatred of Bush, it may just not register in my perception the way Clinton-hatred does.
Kevin Drum wrote that he supposed that there's always been vitrolic, personal hatred of presidents, but only with Clinton did it become mainstream, and that's his explanation of the difference.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 5:11 PM
though, speaking of personal attacks, i think the Daily Show nailed Bush the other night when it referred to Bush's "patronizing tone."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 5:15 PM
btw, baa, thanks for anserin'
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 5:16 PM
Yeah, what stands out for me about Clinton is the crazy lying that made it into the mainstream. Illegitimate child with a black prostitute, complicit in the murder of Vince Foster, smuggling cocaine... even if you think that he did all sorts of bad things, you have to admit that the vast majority of the weird personal accusations against him were just invented. That was different. I remember spitting with rage over Reagan, but it was over his public acts and words, not about speculation that he was having sex with donkeys.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 5:16 PM
I'm dissatisfied with baa's response. I'm willing to admit that the amplitude of anger at Presidents has reached this level before, including with Reagan. I am not convinced that the anger was so widespread with Reagan. To say that a Republican was hated in Cambridge is to say absolutely nothing at all. To say that a Republican is hated by my Red State (and till recently) Republican friends is to say something very different.
Moreover, in other cases, including GWB, you can usually point to exacerbating circumstances of war (LBJ, Nixon, GWB) economics (Nixon, Carter, Reagan). But the 90s were a pretty good decade for almost everyone, and the actual policies enabled by laws Clinton sought were generally pretty centrist. As Barbara Bush reported said, "What's so bad about peace and prosperity?"
Finally, I agree that anger/political affiliation is largely a matter of deciding (if possible) to join a specific culture. What is strange about GWB is that he has fractured the lines along which we normally discuss culture. In my neck of the woods, there are a lot of people who normally vote Republican who loathe GWB. And there are a lot of people we expect to vote for Democrats (e.g., married white women) who went the other way. (The point is probably better made in terms of discomfort, as I suspect there were a lot of people who voted as expected with some grave misgivings.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 5:19 PM
Mel Brooks once said something like, "if they're not doing it to the women, they'll do it to the country." Possibly, which President you hate depends on which activity more alarms you.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 5:22 PM
I can't help connect slolernr's 98 with the Why Pop Sucks discussion. All that hating on the fakery of pop makes sense when you've got no other reason to like it, but when the song's got something else good going for it, often just some personal association, you can overlook it. Thus we have
"I feel your pain" : "Mission Accomplished" ::
The Supremes: Backstreet Boys
Posted by oztk | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 6:42 PM
This from baa's post - "I would be amazed if less than a third [of] Americans with party affiliation don't actively detest the opposition" - is almost certainly true. I was in diapers for Johnson and Nixon, so I don't have a clear bead on how nasty the rhetoric (from citizens, not electioneering) was then, but certainly the level of vituperation during Clinton was of a higher level than we'd seen in the post-Watergate era. It has remained there for his successor.
However, Clinton was as conservative a Democrat as any Republican could reasonably hope for - welfare reform, free trade, deficit reduction, protection of the investor class, streamlined the federal government, high military funding, etc. He was, for all intents and purposes, a Rockefeller Republican. Meanwhile, Bush goes out of his way to give the finger to the Democrats whenever he possibly can.
What is qualitatively different with Bush is that a wide majority of the rest of the world shares a spitting hatred for this American president in a way I have never seen during my (politically aware) lifetime. That makes it a bit harder to assign the American left's Bush-hatred to irrationality.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 7:34 PM
Let's be honest. The theory that best fits the available data points is that Dick Cheney is the devil, George Bush his puppet, and baa his creature.
Also - baa, is a Cambridge boy of about my age who can also be found under the name Ben A. He claims to be married, but might he be this guy? Enquiring minds want to know, baa.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 7:48 PM
exactly, apos. Clinton tried to unite both sides with his policies. He had his personal wars, and he went on the attack, but his offense was by way of defense. Bush, OTOH, is actively divisive. He doesn't try to unite, and is patronizing to any suggestion of an opinion other than his own. So, to the extent that there is Bush-hatred, there are many reasons for it (whether or not one agrees with them). But, when looking for reasons for the vitrolic, personal Clinton hatred, it gets more difficult.
If you do read some Clinton-bashing, it's not exactly a mystery what the material is. I know a lot of the allegations, and there's certainly more than I'm aware of (i mean, there's just so many). There is an active, large, mobilized rumor-mill for allegations against Clinton. And a rumor mill that has a certain amount of credibility with not an insignificant number of people. That's what is unique among President-hating, as far as I'm aware.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-17-05 8:00 PM
Actually I always thought that what made a lot of guys spitting mad about Clinton was their suspicion that he could get laid when ever he wanted, and they couldn't. Personally, what drives me nuts about Bush and a number of others in the administration is that whole "the rules don't apply to me" attitude--that has driven me crazy whenever I cae across it ever since I was a small child.
Posted by quartz | Link to this comment | 06-19-05 2:56 PM