Category: Humor
ROFLMAO
Everything you need to know about being a husband from reading “50 Shades of Grey,” by Dave Barry.
No, really, this is a satire
Top o’ the mornin’ to you!
Swamp Rabbit was in a foul mood. “Snow on St. Patrick’s Day,” he muttered. “And no food in the shack. It’s the end of the world, I tell ya.”
“The end of the world for you if you don’t shut up,” I said.
I dragged myself outside and jogged down the snowy road that winds through the swamp and out to the highway. Three more miles of jogging and I was at the SuperFridge, searching for something edible to steal. I grabbed carrots and bricks of cheese and canned tuna, then looked for a treat for the rabbit. I’m trying to wean him off the Wild Turkey again.
All around me were green tinsel flowers and Mylar balloons, each emblazoned with a maniacal image of a leprechaun. Pallid, doughy customers waddled between a St. Pat’s layout — boxes of Oh Ryan’s Irish Potatoes and Lucky Charms cereal — and a wall display of boxed Trojans and other condoms. Lay off the sweets, I wanted to tell them. Use more Trojans.
Each Lucky Charms box bore the same crazed leprechaun image that was on the balloons. A cross between Frodo Baggins and the Gollum, pushing sugar-coated oats and multicolored, marshmallow-y bits shaped like stars and clovers, and so on. Customers were pawing at the boxes, caressing them. “What is the meaning of this?” I mumbled. I wanted to steal a box, but it was too bulky to fit under my skimpy coat.
Back at the shack, I looked up Slavoj Zizek’s notes on Coca-Cola and read them to Swamp Rabbit as he ate his carrots:
…Coke has the paradoxical quality that the more you drink it, the more you get thirsty. So, when the slogan for Coke was ‘Coke is it!’, we should see in it some ambiguity — it’s “it” precisely insofar as it’s never IT, precisely insofar as every consumption opens up the desire for more…
“It’s the same with Lucky Charms,” I said. “The more you eat, the more you get hungry. They’re magically delicious. Living on Lucky Charms would be like living on nothing. Bring me another bowl of nothing, I can’t get enough of it!”
“Put a lid on it, Odd Man,” the rabbit said, washing down his last carrot with Wild Turkey. “Lighten up a little.”
“You dumb rodent.” I said. “Why do you drink that stuff?”
“It’s magically delicious,” he said, already in a better mood. “Like Lucky Charms, but with a kick.”
He took another swig and added, “Just the thing for St. Pat’s Day.”
Footnote: Almost forgot — it’s the 50th anniversary of the invention of Lucky Charms. Another reason to celebrate!
Oh yeah
MSNBC: The Russians are coming!
Robert Parry in Consortium News:
If you were living in Crimea, would you prefer to remain part of Ukraine with its coup-installed government – with neo-Nazis running four ministries including the Ministry of Defense – or would you want to become part of Russia, which has had ties to Crimea going back to Catherine the Great in the 1700s?
Good question, and one that is rarely if ever addressed at mainstream news outlets, including MSNBC, home of reputedly progressive talking heads who seem content to repeat the same anti-Russian propaganda you can hear on other channels, including Fox News.
Last night, in typically long-winded fashion, Rachel Maddow rehashed an old report on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, tiny territories in Georgia that Russia recognized as independent states after it intervened on their behalf in a brief war with Georgia in 2008. Maddow segued to an on-air interview with NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who suspects the upcoming referendum in Crimea is part of a long-range Russian plan to reclaim more territories lost when the Soviet Union imploded.
At one point, referring to Russia’s possible annexation of Crimea, Engel portentously said, “The question is, does [Vladimir] Putin stop there — does Russia stop there.” In other words, maybe Crimea is a prelude to a Russian takeover of the rest of Ukraine (the part that’s actually Ukrainian). And who knows what’s next, Richard. Maybe the rest of the freaking free world!
“What in the hell we watchin’?” my friend Swamp Rabbit said. “I thought the Cold War was over and done. This Engel guy sounds like he wants to be John Foster Dulles.”
The segment, it turned out, was called “Crimea feared as first step in Russian land grab.” Amazingly, Maddow and her guest never once addressed the fact that Russia is reacting, at least in part, to non-stop anti-Russian activity by the United States and NATO in countries that border Russia. Not one word, not even about Kosovo, the territory that broke away, with lots of help from the American military, from Russian-allied Serbia.
Maddow does a great job with domestic stories about the rights of minorities. She has helped shine a light on the dirty governing style of Chris Christie, an elected official who arguably is even more piggish than Putin.
“But why is she harping on the Russian menace, given the fact that American foreign policy is even more pernicious?” I asked Swamp Rabbit. “Sounds like she’s playing into the hands of the neocons who have pressured Barack Obama into talking like a Cold Warrior. Not that he needed much pressure.”
“Well, there’s your answer,” the rabbit said.
Do as we say, Russia, not as we do
If I read one more time that President Obama thinks Russia’s support for a referendum on the status of Crimea “violates international law,” I’ll scream. This will mean nothing, because I live in a swamp and only my friend Swamp Rabbit and a few birds will hear me. But still, where is the mainstream media on this?
How can any self-respecting reporter quote Barack Obama’s contention in Paragraph 2 without stating in Paragraph 3 that our country has, on dozens of occasions since World War II, taken military action against sovereign states that posed no threat to the US of A? How can she or he not mention that, in the opinion of many, the invasion of Iraq — the most egregious 21st century example of U.S. imperial aggression — more or less disqualified U.S. politicians from invoking international law?
I’m not defending Vladimir Putin’s style of governance — I’ll take Pussy Riot over Putin any day. The point is that the United States can threaten or cajole Russia on the Ukraine controversy, but it can’t pretend to stand on principle. The appropriate response when we hear Obama or that dolt John Kerry complain that it is morally wrong of Russia to reclaim Crimea is, “Shut the f**k up, you ponderous, self-serving hypocrite.”
When the Obama administration attempts to bring Dick Cheney and his mascot/mouthpiece George W. Bush to justice for war crimes — that’s when the world might begin to take seriously America’s moral outrage over Russia’s pressure on Ukraine.
As Swamp Rabbit said, quoting Buddy Holly quoting John Wayne in The Searchers, “That’ll be the day.”
Invisible-Hand-Of-The-Free-Market-Man
Tom Tomorrow:
Porn flick about Comcast would be called ‘Insatiable’
Swamp Rabbit and I were reading that Comcast, the nation’s No. 1 cable provider, has bought out Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 provider. I wondered aloud what’s become of the Federal Communications Commission, the outfit that is supposed to prevent media corporations from establishing monopolies that exploit consumers. And where is the so-called Department of Justice? These questions are at least as old as the 1980s, when Ben Bagdikian wrote The Media Monopoly.
“The FCC done got neutered,” the rabbit said. “I been livin’ in this swamp for years, but I know that. Where you been?”
Good question. I try to keep up with change, but I can’t figure out how the feds justify allowing companies like Comcast to make such crudely obvious power grabs. It’s hard to overestimate the effect of Comcast’s multimillion-dollar lobbying efforts, or the power of David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president. But still…
Here’s part of the explanation, from Guardian UK’s Dan Gilmor:
America’s cable companies grew up in the cozy embrace of local governments that gave them monopoly franchises, which they’ve expanded over the years via mergers and acquisitions, not just normal growth. The noncompetitive local franchise model means that when one cable giant buys another, the customers generally have the same choices as before for subscription TV (cable or satellite) and internet service (cable or phone company DSL).
Whose interest is served by such a deal? The shareholders of TWC and Comcast would be thrilled, for sure. So would the NSA and other surveillance statists, who would undoubtedly be happiest if we reverted to the era when a single behemoth telecommunications enterprise served, for all practical purposes, as an arm of the spy services.
The other main winners would be the remaining telecom “competitors” that would be part of an ever-cozier oligopoly of enterprises that upgrade reluctantly and, compared to providers in other developed nations, grossly overcharge their customers. So look for more mergers, even less user privacy, higher prices and – if this is possible for the generally loathed cable companies – even worse service.
Call it the reality of pervasive political corruption. As City Paper’s Daniel Denvir wrote:
Philadelphia’s elected officials will no doubt line up to back Comcast, which recently announced its plans to build a second (taxpayer-subsidized) skyscraper here in its hometown. This is a company that works hard to make political friends, and which is energetically supporting Gov. Tom Corbett’s imperiled reelection campaign.
But still… Isn’t it the job of the feds to make sure gluttonous corporations don’t morph into entities so powerful they can crush competition by buying the people who write the laws? And wasn’t that a naive question?
Maybe the current FCC commissioners and the DoJ have decided today’s media monsters are too big for quaint anti-trust laws. We should know by the end of the year.