Interestingly, I got my start in the political arena working for the due who now writes Blagojevich's speeches. At the time, I wrote something for a senator that included the line "You shall not crucify mankind upon this cross of corn" (it was about ethanol subsidies) and he made me take it out because it was "over the top." Little did I know that a little "testicular verility" reference was what I needed to pass muster.
Astounding. It's a wonder he didn't pull an LBJ while he was at it. I think non-chordates would have forgiven him for saying "backbone". For instance.
It's the Jesus problem. We're still many years away from hearing a politician use my favorite bumper sticker: Jesus is coming, stick out your tongue.
Could this be a variation on "testicular fortitude", the phrase popularized by the WWF's Mick Foley (aka Mankind)? Here's hoping there are some etymologists reading.
Obviously, now our political discourse has become refined.
tom,
I think you are on to something. I recall when "abdominal fortitude" came in as a tongue-in-cheek synonym for "guts." So you go from "abdominal fortitude" to "testicular fortitude" to "testicular virility."
you shall not crucify man's testicular virility upon this cross of landfill materials!
I thought it was intenstinal fortitude = guts.
abdominal fortitude = ripped.
that is, intestinal. I don't know what intensital equals.
Is the title some joke that I'm missing, or an editing failure?
And this has to be a descendant of 'intestinal fortitude' for 'guts' -- just much, much dumber sounding.
"Editing failure?" Please, madam. A missing joke, maybe.
ogged doesn't have the balls to write a title.
"Title" is in quotation marks to make you think of tits.
Not that I would use such a word.
bw has solved it. Now we need a new thread.
Partly, I couldn't think of any title that wouldn't detract from "testicular virility." I also had a joke in mind by putting "Title" in quotation marks, but damned if I can remember what it was.
You know the brand "titleist"? I always parse that as "tit-leist", and wonder, what the hell is "leist" supposed to mean? That's not even a word.
That is a lot of parsings, by gum.
He can close a landfill, but can he fill a mineshaft?
at the mineshaft, one opens landfills, not closes.
So maybe what he really needed to say was that he had testicular fortitude. Which is like the Fortress of Solitude, but different. Warmer, for one thing.
Maybe he also has intestinal virility. Insert your joke here, it should be easy!
Hopefully he has colonic serenity to go with it.
ash
['Give me the wisdom to change my diaper....oh, fuck it.']
I just want to know how testicular virility differs from, say, ovarian virility...
A description of someone who lacks testicular virility, said of an actual Senator.
And then there was this:
The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote, in behalf of his wench, Dulcinea del Toboso, is all surpassed.
Followed, hours later, with:
With regret, I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. BUTLER,] who, omnipresent in this debate, overflowed with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied for admission as a State; and, with incoherent phrases, discharged the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was no extravagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not make, with so much of passion, I am glad to add, as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure - with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in the details of statistics or the diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope his mouth, but out there flies a blunder.
The mixture of allusion and insult would seem to indicate that our political discourse has indeed coarsened. The fact that Sumner was beaten to a pulp on the Senate floor by a Representative from South Carolina only a few days later suggests that it has not.
Two conflicting points: I often think that but for the beating of Sumner, people would be quick to grant that things are worse. But, they aren't in fact worse, as you surely know better than I, eb: nasty personal insults about mistresses, diseases, and disabilities have been a staple of political discourse; the relatively tame period from, what? FDR to Bush I? was an aberration.
Beatings are the price one pays for elevated discourse.
Even Cicero's speeches against Catiline aren't free from nasty personal details.
For what is there, O Catiline, that can now afford you any pleasure in this city? for there is no one in it, except that band of profligate conspirators of yours, who does not fear you- no one who does not hate you. What brand of domestic baseness is not stamped upon your life? What disgraceful circumstance is wanting to your infamy in your private affairs? From what licentiousness have your eyes, from what atrocity have your hands, from what iniquity has your whole body, ever abstained? Is there one youth, when you have once entangled him in the temptations of your corruption, to whom you have not held out a sword for audacious crime, or a torch for licentious wickedness?
What? when lately by the death of your former wife you had made your house empty and ready for a new bridal, did you not even add another incredible wickedness to this wickedness? But I pass that over, and willingly allow it to be buried in silence, that so horrible a crime may not be seen to have existed in this city, and not to have been chastised. I pass over the ruin of your fortune, which you know is hanging over you against the ides of the very next month; I come to those things which relate not to the infamy of your private vices, not to your domestic difficulties and baseness, but to the welfare of the republic and to the lives and safety of us all.
Is your complaint that this guy is talking about balls at all, or that he's talking about balls in such an idiotically anemic and anti-eloquent way?
Damn, you beat me to it: O gods, for a bit of artfulness in our debased political discourse.
the relatively tame period from, what? FDR to Bush I? was an aberration.
I haven't been through much 20th century political stuff, so I'm not completely sure, but I have the same impression. It seems like the public discourse started to soften during the progressive era around the time professionalization was sweeping through government, business, law, academia, etc., and middle-class Victorian values of restraint and decorum finally started replacing the old honor culture of personal attacks and even duels. Research on this is sort of new, but it appears that both sets of values existed side by side for a while. Previously the assumption was that honor culture had receded much earlier in the 19th century.
Private discourse may not have changed much, though. See the LBJ comments linked to above, but note that they were not reported at the time. It may be that when this kind of speech was not acceptable in public politicians felt pressure to deliver their attacks with a certain degree of artfulness, but now that they can say whatever whenever, they don't bother to change the quality of their speech.
I often think that but for the beating of Sumner, people would be quick to grant that things are worse.
I can see why someone would think this; the crime against Sumner was extreme even by the standards of the time. But there were a number of other incidents involving insults and threatened violence. And the occasional brandishing of a weapon on the Senate floor.
I've heard good things about this book, but have not read it.