Showing posts with label Rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rants. Show all posts

June 9, 2006

You want crackers, I'll give you crackers!

Sometimes someone leaves a comment on your blog that just leaves you scratching your head. Here's one appended to yesterday's now infamous "Crabs in a Barrel" post:

Forget the big words. I got small angry words for you - NO PHILLIES ON TV TOMORROW (Sat.). Thanks to some TV snafu with Fox. I'm sure Anne Coulter is to blame.

Dr Feelgood

Reading this little note, a few thoughts meandered casually across my mind.
Who is this strange "Dr Feelgood" with advance knowledge of Fox's programming schedule? More importantly, who is "Anne Coulter" and how could she be so dastardly as to pre-empt the Phillies from Fox. Being a non-Comcast subscriber, the news cut a deep wound. Damn this Anne Coulter!!! I curse you. Whoever you may be.

I quite literally had no clue who Anne Coulter was and what her possible relationship to the Phillies could be. Obviously, I did what any good 21st century boy does when confronted by the unknown - I googled "Anne Coulter." Little did I know that I had just boarded a bus bound for crazyland, making stops at surrealism, frighteningly delusional, and certifiably insane.

As I scanned the results, I grew wary of having wandered into a strange and unfamiliar world. I clicked on the first link that seemed to make any sense.

The page read:
HEY YOU, BROWSING 'GODLESS' — BUY THE BOOK OR GET OUT!
The long-anticipated book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" was finally released this week. If The New York Times reviews it at all, they'll only talk about the Ann Coulter action-figure doll, so I think I'll write my own review.

"Godless" begins with a murder at the Louvre and then takes readers on a roller-coaster ride through the Church of Liberalism in a desperate game of cat and mouse in which the hunter becomes the hunted — with a twist at the end you simply won't believe! It's a real page-turner — even the book-on-tape version and large-print edition! Who knew a book about politics could make such an ideal gift — especially with Father's Day just two weeks away!

I read the text several times struggling to comprehend its import. Action figure? Murder at the Louvre, hunter becomes the hunted? What the hell does this have to do with my Phillies not being on FOX!!!!

Searching for answers to questions that my innocent mind had heretofor never thought to ask, I nervously read on.
The main problem with "Godless" is that I had to walk through the valley of darkness to find it. You will have to push past surly bookstore clerks, proceed past the weird people in the "self-help" section, and finally past the stacks and stacks of Hillary Clinton's memoirs. If all else fails, ask for the "hate speech" section of your local bookstore. Ironically, if you find "Godless" without asking for assistance, it's considered a minor miracle.

I am completely lost now. I have given up trying to make sense of this blather. I am convinced I am reading some kind of hoax. Hoax on I say!
This is not a book about liberals. I stress this in anticipation of Alan Colmes hectoring the author to name names. (For people who resented being asked to "name names" during the 1950s, these liberals sure aren't shy about demanding that conservatives do the same today.) It is a book about liberalism, our official state religion. Liberalism is a doctrine with a specific set of tenets that can be discussed, just like other religions.

Ahh, now I get it. Some right-wing fascist nut wants us to read her book! It all makes sense now!!!

Having made sense of this foreign world, my attention waned and I clicked on an intriguing link:
DRIVE LIBERALS CRAZY!
Destroy Liberal Lunacy Just Like Ann Coulter Does By Clicking Here!

Whoah. Now I'm wondering if someone slipped something in my morning coffee. Flashing across my screen in bright red letters is the following announcement:
Now You Can Be Quick-Witted Like Ann Coulter To Destroy Liberal Lunacy At Work, At School, At Home Or In Social Environments! Send Liberals Running Away With Their Tail Tucked Between Their Legs!
Imagine: Crushing Liberal Arguments And Exposing Liberal Lies Instantly By Having Facts, Details, Information And Stats at Your Mental Fingertips After Reading "Godless" Using Secrets Of Guinness World Record Holder for Memorization and Fellow Ann Coulter Fan!

I have to be honest, I have often been accused of creating "lunacy" in my "social environment." But more pressing matters encroach. From the looks of this website, I begin to suspect some horrible conservative computer virus will momentarily infect my computer and prompt an error message advising me that my computer has been commandeered by Dick Cheney. But I can't resist, this crackpot site is better than porn.
Who Else Wants To Discover The Amazing Secrets Of A Guinness Record Memory Holder To Unleash Your Own Super-Power Memory, Drastically Increase Your Reading Speed and Improve Your Comprehension Without Costly & Worthless Vitamins, Pills or Potions!

Damn those worthless vitamins. I've always suspected vitamin C, along with fluoride, was a colossal boondoggle foisted upon good god fearing Americans by a vast liberal-scientific complex. Give me a good potion any day!

not.

Back to Anne Coulter. At least she's reasonable!

not.
The Christian religion, for example, frowns on lying and premarital sex. That is simply a fact about Christianity. This does not mean no Christian has ever lied or had premarital sex. Indeed, some Christians have committed murder, adultery, thievery, gluttony.

Anyone who offers simple facts about Christianity or any other religion should be immediately suspected. Moreover, although I am among the most heathen of heathens, I'm pretty sure that Christianity has a bit more in store for "lying and premarital sex" than a "frown." Didn't some guy named Dante write some book about the seven levels of something or other? I'm no expert. So I'll defer to Anne on the "frown."

She continues...
That does not mean there's no such thing as Christianity any more than videotape of Rep. William Jefferson accepting cash bribes means there's no such thing as congressional ethics rules.

Who the hell is William Jefferson? I resist the urge to google and continue my march through her book review of the book she herself wrote.
Similarly, the liberal religion supports abortion, but that doesn't mean every single liberal has had an abortion. We can rejoice that liberals do not always practice their religion.

Rejoice indeed! Although, to be honest, after reading these words several times, I began to ponder the Freudian undercurrent. Would Anne rejoice if in fact every single liberal had an abortion?

The startling implication sets my mind racing. My thoughts overtake me - "Now this is some truly crackers stuff. I mean my writing may be convoluted, self-referential and obtuse. Hell, I'll admit it - if anyone ever was charged with the crime of pleonasm, I'd plead guilty rather than roll the dice with the jury. But this Anne Coulter, she takes it to a whole 'nother level. How could it be little old me, rallying for perfectly sensible causes, that bears the brunt of unsolicited attacks when there is a kook like Anne Coulter on the loose? Her Book sounds like Mein Kampf meets Dr. Phil. This is some end of the world, apocalyptic shit she's spewing."

Still I read on, my previously ignorant mind transfixed by the implications of Anne's words.
The thesis of "Godless" is: Liberalism IS a religion. The liberal religion has its own cosmology, its own explanation for why we are here, its own gods, its own clergy. The basic tenet of liberalism is that nature is god and men are monkeys. (Except not as pure-hearted as actual monkeys, who don't pollute, make nukes or believe in God.)

Liberal Cosmology? Basic tenet of liberalism??? Except not as pure-hearted as monkeys!?!?!?!?! Upon reading such words, I should be doubled over laughing. Tears streaming from my eyes. But the dark knowledge of this woman's existence and the fact our society chooses to celebrate her haunts me.
Liberals deny, of course, that liberalism is a religion — otherwise, they'd lose their government funding. "Separation of church and state" means separation of YOUR church from the state, but total unity between their church and the state.

Huh? Crafty this Anne is. A sure fire plan to retain control of both houses of Congress she has concocted. Use the Establishment Clause to disqualify liberals from office she will. Completely bonkers she must be. A great disturbance in the force she brings.

In case readers do not know who Anne Coulter is - after all I had never heard of this quack before I read the comment left by Dr. Feelgood - here is a short excerpt of her bio:
Coulter is the legal correspondent for Human Events and writes a popular syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate. She is a frequent guest on many TV shows, including Hannity and Colmes, Wolf Blitzer Reports, At Large With Geraldo Rivera, Scarborough Country, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, The O'Reilly Factor, Good Morning America and has been profiled in numerous publications, including TV Guide, the Guardian (UK), the New York Observer, National Journal, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle magazine, among others. She was named one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals by federal judge Richard Posner in 2001.

Richard Posner - shame on you. The only list this kook should be named to is the semi-annual Top 100 Most Dangerously Delusional list.

Just check out the motley assortment of pictures she has posted of herself. Any person who voluntarily shares with the world a picture looking up into her own nostrils is simply not connected to reality.

Judging from her unfrozen-80s-cokehead fashion sense, her political leanings and her virulent case of schizophrenia, I'd say Anne's fragile little mind never recovered from a significant childhood trauma. My diagnosis - she is still reeling the cognitive dissonance caused by her realization that the object of her pubescent affections, Alex P. Keaton, was played by a Democract.

And so, as denouement, I suggest that, instead of attacking harmless peeps like myself for being "contorted, unorganized, rambling, vacuous, self-aggrandizing and desperately in need of an editor," Joey Sweeney ought to use his "weird pseudo-celebrity" and to attack the real, as Joey so artfully put it, "motherfuckers" of the world starting with the certifiably insane Anne Coulter.

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June 5, 2006

The Miseducation of William Reed

Metro reported today that William Reed, the owner of Johnny Brenda's and the Standard Tap, is "disheartened" by the receipt of $1M by House of Blues. Omitted from the story is the fact that last summer HOB received $4M for the Packard Building project.

If $1M left William Reed disheartened, what end may befall him when he learns of the additional $4M? I fear he may end up on the wrong end of a bottle of Elmer T. Lee while he stumbles furtively along Girard Avenue searching for the last, long-lost rivulet of Cohocksink Creek to drown away the wailing dirge of the bahdb.

$4M is a material omission that not only renders the Metro story incomplete, it renders it misleading. Today is June 5th, 18 days since my post disclosing actual amount of cash waived under the nose of the HOB: $5,000,000. How could it be that I scooped the entire Philadelphia press by nearly three weeks and counting?

Why is it left to me, some hobbyist who looses his demons upon the keys of a tired iBook G4 connected to the unprotected wireless connection belonging to the funeral parlour next door, to inform the citizenry? Has the press truly become so irrelevant?

Last week I posited a series of why's in reference to "why give the House of Blues $5 million to come to Philadelphia?" Upon further rumination, a trip to the third stomach of the amygdala and a series of walks with good old Thome the rat terrier, I've arrived upon a decent answer - maybe HOB will provide a venue to compete against the Tweeter Center. Camden gets all the large shows at the Tweeter Center. If HOB was located in Center City, imagine all those concert goers pouring out on to the streets late Friday night? It would be like the swarm that emanates from Irving Plaza or Hammerstein Ballroom.

Despite that hypothetical justification, I still have no answer to my and, apparently with some editing, William Reed's retort:

“You have a local person fighting to put something on with the neighborhood backing them and you’re going to give a $1 million gift to a company from [another state]?” he said. “Philadelphia should be [supporting its own].”
I am in complete agreement with Mr. Reed's sentiment. But I would like to remindstate for the public record that Mr. Reed is exactly $4M short in his estimation of the amount of the gifttaxpayer largess received by House of Blues.

$4M is a significant number, completely material to any discussion of the subsidy received by the HOB to enter the Philadelphia market.

William Reed is a business owner who is himself attempting to build his own music venue. I am sure the availability of $5M large is something that would sure facilitate Mr. Reed's efforts. Yet, he apears to be completely unaware.

William Reed, the owner of the Standard Tap and Johnny Brenda's, should know of the existence of the Commonwealth Financing Authority. Considering his business plan is entirely dependent on the renovation of brownfield sites, how can Mr. Reed not be intimately familiar with the machinations of Business in Our Sites?

If he knew of these programs, Mr. Reed would have corrected Mr. Cornfield's question premised on the House of Blue's receipt of a mere $1M. Mr. Reed would have known that House of Blues had already received the benefit of the $2 million loan to and the $2 million grant received by the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Philadelphia on behalf of House of Blues' plan to redevelop the Packard Building.

$5M large.

To be absolutely clear, I do not fault Mr. Reed.

So who should we fault?

Should we blame Harrisburg for failing to properly educate business owners? Sure, our politicians our lazy. In a perfect world, they should have done a better job of alerting the likes of Mr. Reed of their intent to hand out bags of cash. To regurgitate a tired truism, we don't live in a perfect world. And our politicians keep a tight lid on the availability of such funds to insure their cronies are first in line. But we do live in a world with subsidies provided by the First Amendment meant to facilitate the existence of an informed citizenry.

Which brings me to the point of this little diatribe.

What of our journalists' obligation to create an informed citizenry? I can hardly blame Josh and the bootstrapped organization that is the Philadelphia Metro. But what of Andrew Cassel or even the likes of Flavia "McMakeMePuke" Colgan? What of Will Bunch and his plans to reinvent the newspaper? Are they not culpable for the Miseducation of William Reed? While chasing the bright lights of MSNBC and Fox News, have they not forgotten their obligation to the likes of William Reed?

Does not the blame lie at their collective feet?

To revisit the central protagonist in this story, the Business in Our Sites program provided $4M of the $5M received by HOB. As described by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:
"A $300 million funding pool of grants and loans is available to public and private real estate developers for the acquisition and development of these sites. The program puts special emphasis on communities that lack the resources necessary to invest in site preparation and the renovation of brownfield sites in order to prevent urban sprawl. Business in Our Sites is a vital component of Governor Rendell’s economic stimulus package."
Why are Philadelphia business owners like Mr. Reed not aware of this money? Why does House of Blues take these funds by default?

Unlike my last series of "whys," these are purely rhetorical. House of Blues, instead of the likes of Mr. Reed, will renovate the Packard Building because our press has failed to inform the public.

Which brings me to my answer to the question posited by Above Average Jane, as for our part of the bargain, I posit yet another reason - to make journalism relevant to the likes of William Reed.