Well, I'm Glad We Got That Cleared Up

As one or two of you might have heard, there was a bit of a kerfuffle recently regarding the owner of a professional basketball team.

(For the foreign readership, go ahead and google* 'Clippers' to catch up on the backstory.  We'll wait)

*Other search engines are available

Everyone back?  Good.

Short version- A guy named Sterling casually makes a few ridiculously racist comments to his mistress, who of course tape records them as one does and then released them to the press.  Huge outcry.  Another man, named Silver (who is apparently a big high muckity muck with the NBA), responded to this by banning him from the league, warning him against ever even thinking about basketball again, and fining him 2.5 Million dollars.*

*This is roughly the equivalent of fining me twenty-six cents, so don't bother dwelling too long on that point.

Now, a lot of commentary has been put out there in response to the issue.  Lots of it has raised some good discussion points about race, institutionalized racism, the ethics of recording private conversations, and why it's probably a better idea to at least pretend like you're trying to keep your wife from finding out about your mistress.

I'm not actually going to talk about that, beyond recommending a piece Kareem Abdul Jabbar wrote which can more or less be boiled down to - 'Seriously?  Two decades of documented racist activity doesn't raise an eyebrow, but a couple of racist comments on tape and suddenly you're all up in arms?  seriously?'

What I do want to draw your attention to is this-

The two men noted in the story are named 'Sterling' and 'Silver'.

Which I am pretty much taking as proof that the whole world is just being made up by somebody as they go along and that somebody has stopped putting in any effort at coming up with names. 

Now, as to exactly who is half-assing their way through making up the world as they go along I can not speak.  Perhaps it's that kid from the end of St. Elsewhere.  Maybe we're all about to wake up in bed with Suzanne Plechette*.  Personally I'm kind of hoping for Grant Morrison, but I suspect that's not the case based on the general lack of thematic continuity**.

*Awkward.

**Go read his run on Animal Man numbers 1-27 right this very moment.  You're welcome.

No, what I suspect that this pretty much confirms is that we are, in actual fact, in the Matrix.  The increasingly disappointing Wachowski one, not the increasingly disappointing Doctor Who one.

I'm glad we got that cleared up.

Mea Culpa, RE: Your Unfortunate Poisoning

A brief correction as regards yesterday's column.

It was pointed out to me today that there is in fact a third possibility as regards the brightly colored sneaker people*

*Still an awesome band name.  Seriously people, you have to start snatching these up.

Speaking to a coworker, we discussed the dilemma of not knowing if they wanted to have sex with you or to have you attempt to kill them so they would seem sexier to others. 

She quite sensibly said, 'Or they could just be really, really poisonous'

I had completely overlooked this possibility.

So, my official apologies to any of you that may have been inadvertently bitten and killed by someone while attempting to make love to or murder them.

My bad.

Vizsla Flashback - They're Very Nice, But I'm Still Going to Need Drinks First

Now, it may not have escaped your notice that the Vizsla knows a thing or two about a thing or two.  But that is not to say that there aren't a fair number of things out there that I find... well, I'm going to go with 'Perplexing'*.

*Because it's a good word and doesn't get enough usage.  Also, it seemed less judge-y that 'whack-ass'

One of those things that perplexes me is a current trend I've noticed in footwear.

Namely, what the hell is up with the sudden inrush of sneakers with day-glo neon accents, soles, and whatnot?  (Nobody deserves the heartbreak of a dayglo whatnot, btw)


In the last month or so I've seen no end of sneakers (or 'cross-trainers' if you're trying to justify how much you paid for them) in Bright Orange, Radioactive Hulk Green and Hot Pink walking through these our city's skyways.

It's as if suddenly half of the city has had a burning desire to make the unequivocal statement to the world; "Hey!  I have Feet!"

Which got me thinking about bright colors in nature.  From an evolutionary biology standpoint, the whole purpose of having bright colors on or about oneself is to attract the attention of possible sexual partners.  You know - the way the Kardashians use it.

So, is the entire city suddenly making a concerted effort to bed me?  Should I be more cautious walking to the parking ramp?

But then you also have to factor in the work of Lyall Watson - Specifically his book 'Dark Nature: A Natural History of Evil' which I honestly cannot recommend highly enough as a good read.

 I'm sure you've all already read it, so I'll  just get to the relevant point- The reason, he argues, that brightly colored beings are so much more bone-able is kind of counter-intuitive.  Specifically, anything that has predators and is brightly colored is much more visible to the aforementioned predators and is therefor MUCH more likely to get eaten or killed (or shot - if we're talking about North Minneapolis).

Therefore, being brightly colored - which rightly should be an evolutionary disadvantage - actually turns out to be an advantage when it comes to being super-sexy, since it implies that your genes must be extra super strong for your family line to have made it this far, what with all the being eaten, killed and shot that your ancestors must have had to make it through.

So, I think we all see what the only logical conclusion is.

The brightly colored sneaker people* either want you to have sex with them OR attempt to kill them so that they will seem sexier to other people.

You'll have to make your own call on a case-by-case basis.

*Either the best band name ever or the worst.  Possibly both.

Doctor Who Saturday. Or is it...?

So as you may have read here yesterday, I was recently reinstated as a Doctor Who writer for Whatculture.com.

Which is Awesome, and has granted me with a new respect for those little things we call 'deadlines'

Question is, while I was on the outs with them I'd kind of decided to dedicate Saturday's here to a rousing discussion (or tedious monologue, your mileage may vary) on the selfsame topic.

The obvious answer would of course be to re-post weekly Doctor Who articles from there onto here, but I made an agreement with them that I wouldn't do that sort of thing and I think they've probably already forgiven me for enough things this week without adding that to the mix.

So- We'll see how things shape up next Saturday.  I'd kind of like to save the Saturday space here for Doctor Who musings too short, non-linear or ridiculous to be passed on to their site.

But you know how I am about deadlines....

I guess time (in the form of next Saturday) will tell.

Unfinished: Spain, Sedans and Antoni Gaudi

I don't finish things.

So the fact that I lost track of the TV show How I Met Your Mother somewhere in its 5th season shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Recently however, the show finally ended at the conclusion of its 9th season.  Taking this in my stride, I googled how the show had ended and was somewhat surprised to discover that the recap of the final episode was every bit as satisfying as it would have been if I had actually invested the 200+ hours to watch the entire series, so I kind of felt like that was a win.

But then something changed.

I blame Netflix for this (as in so many other things), because a few weeks later I found myself tracking down where I had left off on Season 5 on their service and immediately resumed watching.

As luck would have it, one of the first episodes I watched was titled 'Unfinished' and was expressly about the lack of closure.

The central metaphor was that of Antoni Gaudi, an architect I had been previously aware of but didn't know a lot about.  My sum total of knowledge was: Something to do with Spain and influence for the Doctor Who episode The Brain of Morbius.

One of the things that I did not know but that the episode did was that his signature work (a Cathedral in Spain, which goes to show that I was at least partially right) had remained unfinished because he was hit by a bus.

A bus, people.

This is, I think we will all agree, a fairly defensible excuse for not finishing your cathedral.

So.  With that in mind, and not wanting to die at the hand of any form of public transport, here are a few closing thoughts on a couple of longstanding issues.

-The Grey Sedan

I'm sad to say that I appear to have won.  For almost two months now there has been no sign of the grey sedan in my parking spot.  I've seen it a few times in various other places in the parking ramp.  Sometimes I deliberately get to work a half an hour late just to give them a chance.  But something in their spirit has been irrevocably destroyed.  No matter how long I drag my feet in the morning, I arrive to find my spot wide open and the grey sedan - once so formidable a foe - parked meekly on the other side of P2.  A shell of it's former self.

Sometimes I toy with the thought of leaving a Chuck-E-Cheese token on it's hood.  As if to say, 'Hey Buddy.  How have you been?  I still care.'

But I just haven't had the heart.

-Whatculture

After two entire weeks of soul searching and not knowing how I felt, I sent an email to their editorial staff asking for a second chance and to be re-instated.  My email was impassioned.  It was lengthy.  It was the raw stuff of my soul.

They replied the next morning with 'Sure thing, happy to have you back.'  Which left me wondering if perhaps I wasn't overthinking the whole situation.

So.  There you have it.  Conclusions.  You get what you want and regret it because you miss the drama.  Or you get what you want because it turns out you were the only one who really invested that much time thinking about the issue.  Or you get hit by a bus.

I'm starting to think that closure is overrated.

The Direct Through-Line From Pronouns to Bestiality

Back in the 70s, when there was a brief period where we still believed that there might be hope for the American Educational System*, there was a thing on TV called Schoolhouse Rock.

*We got over that one pretty quickly.  Thanks, Reagan years.

The premise was basically that if you regularly interrupted Saturday Morning Cartoons* with three minute long cartoon songs about various educational topics then kids might mistake them for entertainment and actually pay attention/retain something.

*A time honored ritual now lost to Digital Television and Netflix.  Sad, really.

They started with simple math songs, basically running the multiplication tables for any given integer in any given song.  Two was quite good, if somewhat biblically based.  Eight was positively haunting and beautiful.  Three was charming.  And just for fun, Twelve explained on a ten year old's level of reasoning why we use base ten as our default standard for mathematics and it was freaking brilliant.

Based on the success of the math series, they also did one on science (Telegraph Line - about the nervous system- remains a rock classic.)  Then they did a series on American History, because it was 1976*.  Then they did one on linguistics, and as any of you that have ever met me know - linguistics is where my heart lies.

*  If I have to explain to you why 1976 is important in the annals of American History than I'm afraid you just proved the point I made in the first paragraph.  Or you might be from another country.  If so - it was the Bicentennial.  For the American readership - that means 200 year anniversary.  It was a big deal in 1976.  They painted the watertower across the street from our house red white and blue.

The best of the linguistics songs by a significant margin was Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla.*

*A case could be made for 'Unpack my Adjectives'.

If you are unfamiliar with Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla, you should pause at this point and check it out here.

Now, to address the first question you have - yes.  Apparently Rhinoceroses can hop.

The next obvious question...  Did we just watch an underage girl fall in love with an aardvark???

Like... 'in love' in love...?

Because... that's kind of how it reads.

And in what mythical land do Kangaroos, Aardvarks and Rhinoceroses coexist?  And utilize public transport?

See, this is why it's inadvisable to go back to the things you loved as a child...

Never Yell Pat Nixon in a Crowded Movie Theater

A while back I wrote about how, after years of complaining that my dreams were too straightforward and easy to interpret (in addition to being shockingly prone to the usage of clumsy travel metaphors,) my subconscious chose to respond by beginning to feed me a nightly buffet of inexplicable crap, as if to say, 'Fine.  Spend some time working out what this might be about, asshole.'*

*My subconscious is kind of a jerk.

Well, that trend continues.  Here's the latest serving-

Last night I dreamed - And I can not stress enough that I am not making this up - that I went to the movie theater.  Fair enough, I've been meaning to go see The Winter Soldier for weeks now*, so there's nothing particularly surprising there.

*I know, I know.

What is slightly more surprising is that sitting next to me in the movie theater was former first lady Pat Nixon.*

*Wife of Richard M. Nixon, our 37th president.  Seriously, it would not kill you to do a little of the research.

This is surprising for a number of reasons.  Primarily, she died in 1993 from Lung Cancer, so she's probably unlikely to catch the latest adventures of Captain America, which is too bad, because I hear it's awesome and she would probably have really enjoyed it.  Also, the odds of me recognizing Pat Nixon are slim to none as until I googled her a little while ago I had absolutely no idea what she looked like.*  Or anything else about her beyond her name and who her husband was.

*Interestingly enough, in my dream she looked more or less like the pictures of her online, which probably just indicates that I've actually seen a picture of her at some stage and it just wasn't important enough to be retained in conscious memory.  Still worth noting though.

So, having found myself in a crowded  movie theater sitting next to Pat Nixon, naturally she and I started chatting.  And it turned out that she was absolutely charming.  We chatted, we laughed, we totally bonded in a 'this was just a dream and didn't really happen' sort of way.  Unfortunately, we did this in a movie theater while the movie was playing, and so about half way through the movie we got kicked out, which I'm choosing to view as some sort of irony.

This is why you shouldn't pick fights with your own brain.

Have Dog, will travel

Well, I have once again survived the vampires of Iowa and made it to Omaha to celebrate Easter with cousin Stanley, who is a one year old Labherd (Lab/Shepherd mix)

As a result we have a slight delay not only in the inaugural Doctor Who Saturday post, but also this thing I've been planning about recreating the Lincoln/Douglas debated as performed by a slow Loris and a Teacup Pig.

Keep posted for that one.

Some of your more questionable marriage vows

There's been a lot of talk about marriage lately in America.  And let's be honest - it's kind of expected in this day and age that you write your own vows.  Not doing it is commiserate with basically saying to your future betrothed 'Oh whatever, let's just get this over with'.  Not a great way to start the honeymoon.

So, in the spirit of public service - here are a few of your less preferable options for your self-written wedding vows.  Ignore this advice at your own peril-

- 'I knew the first moment that I looked into your eyes that you were more or less adequate'

-'So I guess this proves I'm not gay'

-'We're honeymooning in Aruba.  That's an amazing place to hide a body...'

-'One last check - your sister's still not single, right?'

-'I'm hoping that this gesture of love will finally convince you to give me the handcuff key'

-'Can we hurry this up?  I feel the chlamydia returning.'

-'Thanks, Hitler.'

-'You know, the things this little lady has taught me about felching...'

-'J/K'

-'thinner.....'

Vizsla Flashback - So I was Googling Joyce Dewitt This Morning...

And why don't more stories begin with that sentence?

Anyway - For those not up to speed, Joyce DeWitt was the actress who played Janet on the TV show Three's Company (which gave the world John Ritter - A sentence that eventually stopped being sarcastic)

So this morning I was thinking to myself, I wonder what Joyce is up to these days?  Is she still alive?  How does she feel about bacon?

As with all matters of pointless curiosity, my first stop was to type her name into Google, which brought me to her Wikipedia page (which I still do not trust as a source of unimpeachable knowledge, but it's often a useful place to start.)

I was somewhat puzzled to see the following vital information included without any further context-

"Contrary to reports, she has never painted actor Abe Vigoda's garage doors, 

and has never met the man"

Um... OK.

Now, is it just me or is that a strange thing to just throw out there without any additional information?

Is that the sort of thing that we, as a people, think that Joyce might do?  That one day the strain of her ongoing feud with Suzanne Somers might cause her to just snap and roam the neighborhood doing some light exterior paintwork?

I can't help but feel like the entire thing is a case of greeting the nice police officer's request to see your license with a hearty 'Well I certainly don't have a dead hooker in the trunk!'

Or is this some form of oblique wikipedia madlibs of which I was previously unaware.  is there a wikipedia add on where it asks for a verb, a noun and a celebrity from the 70s and then creates comical additions to otherwise dull and non-threatening entries?

You be the judge.

But just so you know, I have never decopaged Ron Glass' toaster.

I have never even met the man.

What Culture

As many of you might now, I've been writing articles about Doctor Who for the site WhatCulture.com for awhile now.

Well.... I've been supposed to be writing articles about Doctor Who for WhatCulture... which brings me to the point of the story.

A few days ago, I received an email from the WhatCulture editorial staffletting me know that they had shut down my account as they wanted to focus on a smaller group of more dedicated writers.

I should point out a couple things right off

1: They are absolutely correct on this one.  For a variety of reasons I've been incredibly lazy about ever submitting articles there.  For example, my most recent commission - 11 Doctor Who Stories that the Peter Capaldi era should learn from.  It's currently 6 weeks past deadline and I haven't written a word beyond the initial pitch

2: I have absolutely no ill feelings toward them about it.  Like I said in point 1- it's a totally fair call on their part.

So, all things considered, getting politely let go was hardly surprising under the circumstances.  What was surprising however was that I had absolutely no idea how I feel about it.  Which, when you spend as much time as I do inside your own head over-analyzing the crap out of everything, is not a thing you experience every day.  Or ever.

So I've spent the last couple of days trying to puzzle it out.  And after three days I've come to the conclusion that I still have no idea how I feel about it, but I probably should get off my ass and get back to posting here, since emotional confundity should really not be an excuse for being all slack-ass about things.

So... I may or may not take up the editorial staff's offer to contact them if I'd like to discuss it further.  Who knows, maybe they'd be willing to give me another chance (if I ever manage to decide whether or not I want one)  What I have decided however is that from now on Saturday's are going to be Doctor Who talk here at The 42nd Vizsla.

So... That's the news...

Well, that's one way to keep the numbers down...

As I often mention, I get far too much enjoyment out of trolling the message boards on extreme right-wing 'news' sites and pointing out factual and logical errors in their various ramblings*

* I know, fish in a barrel.  But still.

Today's notable entry involved a long and barely coherent diatribe about how Obama was clearly a Fascist, Socialist, Communist Dictator* because he'd issued more executive orders than any other President in history, which obviously shows that he was a tyrant.

*In the right wing, fox-news viewing world all of these terms are completely interchangeable and can be loosely defined as 'Words that we don't know what they mean'.

 In the real world, for those who are curious, he's actually issued 168 of them, putting him somewhere in the middle of the spectrum as far as Presidents go.  George H. W., for the sake of comparison, issued 166, although that was just in one term so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison.  F.D.R apparently issued over 3,000 of them, but he did have a depression and a World War to deal with, so I'm willing to concede that they may have been justified.  Further research required.

I should come clean and admit that I didn't know any of this off the top of my head, I did a thorough and exhaustive review of the issue involving a three second Google search and a quick glance at the first website that came up.  Which still puts me ahead of the commentators at OneNewsNow, I might add.

Further review of the list, because I'm curious about this sort of thing, led me to the discovery that the record for least number of Executive Orders, coming in at a firm '0' is held by William Henry Harrison, our nations 9th President.

Before giving him any resounding accolades for this however, we should remember that William Henry also holds the records for two other things - Longest Inaugural address and shortest term in office.  The two things are related.

What happened was this; William Henry Harrison was, prior to Reagan* the oldest President elected to office.  His opposition played on this, and William Henry was eager to not appear in any way elderly or decrepit.  So in the parade to his inaugural address he refused to wear a jacket and rode on horseback, in order to look younger and sprier.  Unfortunately, it was freezing cold and sleeting on that particular day.  He followed this by giving an inaugural address just shy of two hours long, also in the freezing sleet.

*381 Executive orders, for the record 

He followed this by collapsing with pneumonia almost immediately upon taking office and dying after spending a mere 32 days as President, roughly 30 of them in a coma.  

So, yes.  He is a shining example of not riding roughshod over the will of congress by using executive orders.

He is also a poster boy for wearing a coat and having a speech editor.

The moral of the story - sure, it's possible to break a record.  But it's not always your best plan.

Vizsla Flashback - Well. That Plan Certainly Ganged Aft Agley, now didn't it.

I don't recall if I've ever mentioned it, but Vizsla's love rearranging furniture.

So the other day, in amongst a fit of trying to get the stupid computer working again (a struggle which I ultimately won, as you will observe) I decided that the obvious approach to the problem was to rearrange the den.

Step one of this plan, for reasons that are far too complicated to go into here, was to clear off the bottom two shelves of a bookshelf on the far side of the room so that I could lovingly display the VHS copies of Doctor Who episodes circa 1963-1989 in broadcast order next to the shelves of the DVD releases of same.*

*Yes, I realize how sad that sounds typed out.

In any case, part of the rationale of clearing off the shelves was that I really do have a hell of a lot of books in the den that don't really need to be there and now live quite happily on a shelf in the basement.  See, Doctor Who does fix everything.

So there I was, going through a buttload of P.D. James and Charlaine Harris and god knows what else, when I came across a small copy of Robert Burns' Tam O'Shanter (which as I recall I bought in a W.H. Smiths in Ayr, although I might be mistaken about that.)

Robert Burns, for those who are unfamiliar, was a Scottish poet (and so much more actually, but we'll keep it to the cliffnotes here) who - amongst other things - wrote a poem called, 'To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November, 1785.'

The title may not immediately ring any bells for you, however it's relatively certain that you've quoted it at some point, as this is the one that contains the bit about 'The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...'

The actual quote, second stanza from the end of the poem, runs thus-

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o' Mice and Men

Gang aft agley,

An' lae'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy

   
Now it's a safe bet that a reasonable percentage of you just said - 'That's not how it goes' or 'I learned it went 'Go Oft Astray' or 'I'm only here for pictures of Markie Post in a bikini.  Where are the pictures of Markie Post in a bikini?'

Robert Burns' primary contribution to poetry, literature, and art in general lies in this exact point.  He was one of the first - if not the actual first - writers in modern English (ish) to say 'screw all that formal English, I'm going to write in the dialect that people actually speak.'  Which is where all that so-called 'Mongrel' Gaelic blend 'Gang aft agley' business comes from.  It means more or less 'go oft astray', but no one in the real world would actually ever put it that formally.  In 1785 Scotland they would have said 'Gang Aft Agley', and so that's how Robert was Damn Well going to write it, formality and convention be damned.  He was tearing down the artificial distinction between 'legitimate' 'highbrow' language and the low-brow 'common' way that actual human beings spoke to one another. If you don't see why this appeals to me, allow me to refer you to Vizsla versus the Myth of High and Low culture, 17 Limericks about Orthography, and several other previous columns.

It's also worth noting that this is the same poem that gave the world (and Russell T. Davies) the phrase 'Tim'rous beastie', Which means that Burns is responsible however indirectly for John Steinback, Eddie Izzard and Tooth and Claw.

The point of the poem, should anyone care is that Robert was out plowing his field, accidentally ran over a mouse hole, thus destroying the tim'rous beastie in questions home, and basically spend a few pages saying, 'wow.  Sucks man.  You spent all that time building a nice house and somebody just comes along and screws it up for you.  Just goes to show, no matter how hard you plan things can still go wrong.  That's why it's a mistake to try.  Or care about anything.'*

*That last part is merely implied.

All of which is my way of leading up to the revelation that the diet isn't going terribly well.

To bring us all up to speed - Previously on: The 42nd Vizsla - I announced that I was attempting this 30 days with no carbs and no sugar thing despite the many reasons why that was a horrible idea.

Day 1 - All went well.

Day 2 - did pretty well until about 10:30 pm at which point I determined that I could not carry on working on my Halloween costume without a glass of scotch.  (In my defense, I was nearly done and the cuffs were kicking my ass.

Day 3 - Was a weekend.  Can of Soda on the way to a work event.  Large soda at the work event.  Large Scotch after the work event (In my defense, it was a kids movie screening.  I defy anyone working such an event to not have a largish drink afterwards.

Day 4 - Sunday.  Well, the weekend was already shot anyway...

Day 5 - Back on the wagon.  Until early evening when we had a chicken with rice hot dish, but it was delicious and I don't regret a thing.

Day 8 - Work Halloween party.  Then Halloween.  The predictable occurs

Day 9-12 - Who are you to judge me.

And so... I have to decree the great no crab/no sugar event of 2013 to be less than an entire rousing success.

BUT...

I have cut pop intake down to less than a can every other day

I haven't actually had any carbs at work since I started - it turns out the vending machine has almonds.

It actually got me to start working out daily again.

So, all things being equal, it can't be said to be a total failure either.

Now I just have to deal with this guy who just drove a plow through my house...

Amazingly, Michelle Malkin actually contributed something positive

Not that she meant to of course.

But in her own bile-filled way, Michelle Malkin has brought me to a new awareness of why exactly I hate Michelle Malkin; something I've been trying to verbalize properly for some time now.  This is significantly more than I ever expected her to contribute to the world, so - there you go.  Way to exceed my expectations, Michelle Malkin.

She does a regular(ish) column that appears, among other places, on one of the far right wing 'news' websites to which I occasionally like to go to check out the crazy.  I rarely read the opinion pieces there however, as they're really not worth wasting any of your time on.  Go straight to the comment threads - that's where the Grade-A Crazy lives.

This week however I made an exception and read her latest venom-soaked delusional rant - a piece entitled 'Dear Mr. Colbert: Me so stupid.  You so funny'*

*No, I'm not going to link to it.  You can Google it for yourself if you want, but it really isn't worth your time.

For those who haven't been following the Colbert story, the essence of it is that a short while back Stephen Colbert did a piece on his show about the Washington Redskins in which he did what he always does - takes the thing in question out of context so that you can see how ridiculous it really is.  In this case he replaced American Indian with Asian in order to make the broader point that just because you open a foundation for people that you've been stupidly racist about doesn't mean that it's OK to continue being stupidly racist about them. 

A line from this piece was sent out over Twitter where - without the context - it was simply a line of racist dialog.  Big bru-ha-ha erupted. 

Now, after the dust has largely settled and most people have gone back to the actual point  (the point being, 'Oh Yeah... why are we OK with that wildly racist team name?') Michelle Malkin has boldly stepped in to make sure that we hold on to that righteous, misinformed anger, insisting that - no, it isn't at all about the football team, gosh no.  It's all Colbert being a big bad racist and anyone who doesn't agree with her must just be trying to suck up to Colbert in order to seem cool.

And so I puzzled over this for a while.

And then it crystalized for me exactly why I hate Michelle Malkin so much.

It's because this is what she does.  And it's all she does. 

Michelle Malkin exists solely to misinform people.  She takes the world and weaponizes it, solely for the sake on making people angry. 

This, in a nutshell, is what I've always disliked about her and never quite been able to put into words-

Michelle Malkin exists to increase the sum total of hate in the world in whatever ways she can.
Whatever lies she has to tell.  Whatever deliberate distortions she has to make to the stories she's relating.  Whatever it takes. 

She is a machine that makes hate.

So, for what it's worth, thanks Michelle Malkin.  Your one positive contribution to my world is that you've finally shown me clearly why I don't like you. 

I look forward to never thinking about you again.

So... Forward Planning was clearly not a Crusade 'Strength Area'...

A fair few years ago, during my Freshman year of College, I came across a large number of photocopied pictures of Jesus dumped in the dorm hallway recycling bin.

I have no idea where they cam from, probably some sort of recruitment rally for the incoming students by one of the various pro-Jesus lobbying groups on campus - possibly the Campus Crusade for Christ, as I'm pretty sure they were involved with the rest of this story.  For some reason the Freshman year of college is particularly prone to a subsection of students discovering religion in a serious and enthusiastic way.  Also, they tend to put on about 15 pounds.  Make of the correlation there what you will.

I lived in the dorms that year, and not being a member of the subsection that found religion, I picked up the stack of pictures of Jesus, got a sharpie, and wrote across one of them 'Mikey, thanks for everything- Jesus'.
This I taped to the outside of my dorm room door.

Now, as funny as I thought this was at the time, I'm pretty sure the amusement factor would have worn off in a day or so, but for the fact that two days later my autographed picture of Jesus was unceremoniously stolen.*

*A case the campus police have yet to crack, I might add.

The Thief in question however was missing the important bit of information located in the opening paragraph.  I had not found A picture of Jesus in the recycling bin.  I had found a stack of pictures of Jesus in the recycling bin.  And so, that same evening, after walking to the campus bookstore to purchase a gold autographing pen so that the whole thing would have more of a sense of occasion, I replaced the autographed picture of Jesus with a new one bearing the inscription, 'Mikey - I can never thank you enough for fixing me up with that foxy Mary Magdalene.  All my best - Jesus'

This disappeared the following day.

It was replaced that night with a newly autographed 'Mikey - Those chicks were mad crazy.  Promise me you'll never show anyone the pictures!  You're the Man! - Jesus'

This disappeared the following day and was replaced with a stern page long handwritten note outline some fundamental objections to my decoration policies.

Night four's autograph read, 'Mikey - No one must ever find those four kilos of Brazilian Heroin.  Your pal - Jesus'

This disappeared the following day, but sadly no further correspondence was left in its place.

I don't recall what night five's inscription was, but I'm relatively sure it was more offensive than night four's.

On Day seven I came home to find a blackened scorch mark exactly the size and shape of my autographed picture of Jesus in the middle of my dorm room door because someone had set fire to whatever Jesus had signed the picture with that day.

I went ahead and replaced the picture with a new (and one assumes more offensive) version, but let's take a second with the implications of this...

If they saw the picture on a daily basis, odds are that they themselves live in the building.

The building that they had just set on fire.

See, this is why more people don't take religious fundamentalism seriously.