As IF Times

link Fans support, defend Paula Deen.

So the knives are out for Paula Deen.  After almost a lifetime of promoting a diet that would give an elephant diabetes, she is felled by her use of a common racial epithet…some years ago.   For those who don’t know who Paula Deen is, she is the doyenne of down south American cuisine, where the staple ingredients are buckets of butter and slabs of bacon.  And that’s for the kid’s meals.  She is to butter and bacon what Emeril Lagasse is to pork fat.  Much of her cooking caters to the theme of “if it ain’t fried, it ain’t cooked”.  Ironically, it’s something that came out of her mouth, not what she put into it that gets her in trouble.

It’s actually amazing that up to now, no diet group has come around to denounce her cooking repertoire since she is essentially pushing crack cocaine to fat people.  It’s no argument that, notwithstanding any culinary benefit, she probably did more damage to people with her recipes than with any racial slur cast over the years. This is a twist on the old refrain of “you can call me anything you want, but don’t call me late for dinner”.  So she gets taken down not by the health police, but by the speech police.

It’s quizzical to witness just how quickly the media have circled like vultures to peck on the still warm body of Ms. Deen, served up with a whole mess o’ righteous hypocrisy.   It’s as if her admitted transgression is the most egregious issue facing people today, a crime worse than terrorist bombers, child kidnappers, global warming and IRS bullying.   The Food Network even cancelled her show’s renewal.  While there’s little evidence of malicious intent on her past utterances, nevertheless, she is now held to the standards of the day by virtue of her fame.

If poor Paula has fallen victim to the modern world of PC speech and sensibilities, then it’s a fair bet that everyone with a public persona should be worried.  We can literally hear the din of phones ringing at lawyers’ offices nationwide as opportunistic people from the pasts of present day celebrities rush to file grievances for some perceived slight 30 odd years ago.

Wop, Dago, Chink, Jew, Mick, Spic, garlic eater, Limey, Gook, Chief, Kraut, Polack and Frog are a partial list of verboten words that if ever were revealed to have been uttered by anyone famous, should also be career enders.   But it’s potentially worse that that however.  With the inexorable march of politically correct sensitivity, a big chunk of the language will likely achieve scarlet letter status, so that even the most lame pejorative epithets will arouse horror among civilized people.  No more calling people: four eyes, dufus, stupido, fatso, gimpy, wimpy, shorty, stretch, goof, or even slowpoke.

Unless of course, you happen to be a member of the mentioned groups.  So for instance, it’s perfectly ok for a homosexual to call another a fag.  Or two dumb people to call each other out, as in “I’m not stupid, you’re stupid!”

There may be a bright side to this made for TV controversy.   It may bring on the age of creative and oblique epithets.  Instead of the most commonly hurled basic insult you hear these days, perhaps referring to someone as a butt sphincter may be more creative.   Instead of idiot, you can refer to someone as “thick as manure and half as useful”.

Doing a very quick search of the web turns up some pretty artful ones:

bawdy, bat-fowling baggage
beslubbering, beef-witted barnacle
bootless, beetle-headed bladder
churlish, boil-brained boar-pig
cockered, clapper-clawed bugbear
clouted, clay-brained bum-bailey
craven, common-kissing canker-blossom
currish, crook-pated clack-dish
dankish, dismal-dreaming clotpole
dissembling, dizzy-eyed coxcomb
droning, doghearted codpiece
errant, dread-bolted death-token
fawning, earth-vexing dewberry
fobbing, elf-skinned flap-dragon
froward, fat-kidneyed flax-wench
frothy, fen-sucked flirt-gill
gleeking, flap-mouthed foot-licker
goatish, fly-bitten fustilarian
gorbellied, folly-fallen giglet
impertinent, fool-born gudgeon
infectious, full-gorged haggard
jarring, guts-griping harpy
loggerheaded, half-faced hedge-pig
lumpish, hasty-witted horn-beast
mammering , hedge-born hugger-mugger
mangled, hell-hated joithead
mewling, idle-headed lewdster
paunchy,  ill-breeding lout
pribbling, ill-nurtured maggot-pie

Of course for those of you unable to bring wit to the discussion, you can always fall back on “am not!”

link Reception for Obama Is More Sober Than in 2008 – NYTimes.com.

Well it has been 5 years and the comedown was bound to happen.  The swooning crowds, the breathless adulation, the rock-star persona, the trance-like state of delusion by the masses.  They are all subsiding.  We’re not talking Justin Bieber here, that’s still going on.  We are talking about an obscure senator from Illinois five years after bursting on the scene seemingly out of nowhere to reach the world’s highest office.  That the fascination has lasted this long is amazing by itself.   Justin Bieber, to his credit, at least has a basic talent.

On any given day as you stand in line at the checkout stands at the supermarket, you will be exposed to the numerous blaring headlines of Hollywood gossip magazines offering profoundly important news about the most picayune activities of the glitterati. We find that Kim Kardashian is pregnant!  It’s a miracle! We know that Justin likes Selena, but she likes someone else’s boyfriend and Taylor Swift is miffed and Jennifer’s wedding is postponed and Brad suffers heartbreak and Jessica is fat.

Gripping stuff, but mostly it’s all noise to normal and intelligent people.  Only 12 year old girls have an obsessive appetite for these morsels of drivel dressed up as fresh news on their idols.

Apparently there remains that hard core journalistic equivalent of 12 year old girls that are still intoxicated by the cloud of greatness that emanates from the incumbent healer of the earth and saviour of mankind.   According to stories such as the one in the linked article, by the New York Times no less,  journalists that are not Chris Matthews and increasingly much of the general public are sobering up.  It’s the equivalent of the realization that the Korean rapper Psy is a one act phenomenon…which he is.  Like William Hung of American Idol fame, his 15 minutes are over.   Over the past half year, there is increasing evidence that the adoring Obama fan base is falling away as it becomes obvious that beyond the ability to read off a screen, the man has no talent.  It would be as if people listened to Vanna White’s opinions on world affairs solely by virtue of her skill at turning letters on a board.

When you hear the same old banalities and cheap bromides offered again and again as sage wisdoms delivered in that same condescending pedantic tone, especially if read off a screen, the credibility is lost.  When you lose credibility, you lose audience.  When you lose audience, you lose effectiveness and influence.

When people are at raucous party and especially if they are in an altered state, every conversation is witty, every person is fascinating and the loud amorphous music all sounds intoxicatingly brilliant.  In the sober moments of daytime however, those same conversations are banal, the people are bores and the music becomes just so much cacophonous noise.  Methinks we are at that sobering moment.

Update: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/obama-second-term-doldrums-93295.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1627b9a4-e234-11e2-87ec-00144feabdc0.html#slide0