Dept. of Irony: GOP paints Clinton, Dems as old

By Dan Brooks in Department of Irony? 2 Comments
Hillary Clinton, recently upgraded to "old" from "bitch"

Hillary Clinton, recently upgraded to “old” from “bitch”

“In some ways,” Rand Paul says in this article from the Times, “the older Democrats have become more staid and status-quo-like than some of us Republicans.” Thus begins the most tenuous political strategy in recent memory: Republicans’ plan to characterize Democrats as the party of the old. Former Romney strategist Stuart Stevens told reporters last month that electing a Democrat in 2016 would be like going back in time. And Mitch McConnell described the likely Democratic field as like an episode of The Golden Girls, presumably in that he masturbates to it.

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The best paragraph in this NYT story about baby naming

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 6 Comments
Probably Aiden or maybe Oliver prays for the relief of Asperger's Syndrome.

Probably Aiden—maybe Liam—prays for the relief that is Asperger’s Syndrome.

Alex Williams has written this New York Times “First Person” feature about his struggle to find the perfect name for his baby. Williams uses an inoffensively deft touch to address an issue freighted with self-importance, which is more than can be said for a lot of the people he quotes. He’s in the style section, so a certain level of absurd conceit is inevitable. For example:

Looking beyond the Top 1000 [baby names] was not enough for Jenn Lewis-Gordon, a waitress in Lakewood, N.J. She and her husband crossed off any name that had been used more than 100 times in the entire country in the last year. This left “Ptolemy,” “Bombay,” “Thursday” and “Ocean,” as well as “Atlas,” their ultimate choice. “I feel as though he’ll be less likely to be a follower if he starts out from the beginning being different,” Ms. Lewis-Gordon, 35, explained.

Ladies and gentlemen, the modern condition.

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Dead Idea Watch: Elitism

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 4 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSurzeGvPrQ

Behold—behear, I guess—“Accidental Racist,” Brad Paisley’s and LL Cool J’s attempt to settle this black/white thing once and for all. Attention white people, particularly those involved in poetry slams: please stop talking about race. There are lots of ways you can do it cogently and inoffensively, but there are also a lot of safe routes through a minefield. Well before LL says “RIP Robert E Lee, but I gotta thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me,” this song turns into Claymore City. I first became aware of it via Grantland’s Rembert Browne, who argues that the appropriate response is not indignation but smirking disdain. It’s hard to ignore a song from history’s greatest country music singer and today’s hippest rapper, though, which is why Will Shetterly has taken to the New York Times to explain why elitists hate “Accidental Racist.”

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Understand the fundamental dilemma of the United States through addictive food

By Dan Brooks in obesity 5 Comments
A scamp

A scamp

When Hostess went out of business, I immediately faced the prospect of not eating a Ho-Ho ever again. I am familiar with Swiss Cake Rolls; it’s possible I ate an entire box of them this weekend, but they are not Ho-Hos. It’s not even that I like a Ho-Ho so much. It has that flavor and that texture, though, both of which lie between chocolate and wax. A Ho-Ho is not good so much as it is particular, and the idea of never having another one makes me appreciate the alcoholic’s principle of One Day at a Time. In short, I am addicted, like the American food executives in Michael Moss’s million-page exposé want me to be.

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Regarding the 9-year-old “psychopath”

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 2 Comments

Weekends are for speculation at the New York Times, and the paper’s Magazine section speculated it out of the park with this feature about whether young children can be diagnosed as psychopaths. For the purposes of our discussion, we’re going to put aside the question of what “psychopathy” actually is. That’s what reporter Jennifer Kahn has done, parenthetically noting that “the terms ‘sociopath’ and ‘psychopath’ are essentially identical,” connecting adult psychopathy to “cold, predatory conduct” and leaving it at that. Psycho-/sociopaths do bad things and don’t feel bad about them. They obey external rules of right and wrong, but they don’t internalize them in emotionally meaningful ways; they don’t want to be good. If it sounds to you like I am describing every child that has ever lived, you begin to understand the problem. If it doesn’t sound that way to you, it’s probably because there is something wrong with your brain, and society has no choice but to write you off.

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