“A Rising Star in the Republican Party”. What the fuck does that even mean? Here’s a small smattering of those GOP “rising stars” (i.e. the MOST promising, the creme de la creme, the BEST WE GOT). Each of these fine folks was – at time or another – proclaimed to be a “Rising Star in the Republican party”:
“Mayda Munny”
Wanna-be girlfriend/stalker of Richie Rich. Beautiful and filthy rich, Mayda is immensely jealous of humble (poor), ginger haired Gloria Good, using nefarious means to alienate Richie’s affection for Gloria. Ms. Munny is a colossal snob, addressing those beneath her as “peasants”. She flaunts her wealth at a party by filling her pool with cash and wearing a dress made out of it. Demanding and ostentatious, she buys her way out of work and trouble. Curvaceous with long black hair, Mayda Munny is a vain, cruel, selfish, foul-tempered, pre-teen Veronica Lodge.
DISCLOSURE: I’ve kicked ass on every standardized test I’ve taken, and reading comprehension was my strong suit. Also, I produced the “Dilbert” cartoon series in 1999.
Scott Adams has a blog, a really weird, bad blog. In March, Jezebel reported on one of the Dilbert creator’s posts – a withdrawn-but-not-retracted, reposted-with-caveat, pathetic misogynist-rant over the limited and flawed liberation of women and how it’s somehow part of a monolithic feminist utopia which men are threatened by, and should be resentful of. Adams deleted his post after being eviscerated by feminists and other normal people, who labeled him a misogynist and a weirdo. In a post titled, “I’m a What?”, Adams reinstated his original post, claiming it to be some sort of crafty forensic exercise that only his loyal readers — that über-rational Dilbert gestapo — could possibly understand. Because, when one gets a ton of blowback for saying something stupid, the easy way out is to pretend it’s satire. And really, the only things men are worried about saying that could attract criticisms of misogyny, are misogynistic things – which naturally they want to express without being called out on – like claiming women have usurped all their power, ruined their ass-pinching fun at work, and that they’re responsible for their own harassment and rapes. I suppose behind their bizarre resentment is the simple fact that we live longer than they do – the obvious remedy being to coercively calibrate women’s reproductive rights so that they die earlier, at just the right age. Then perhaps Adams and his army of resentful, puffed-up with outward confidence and rotting with inward self-loathing pantywaists can see the rise of The Men’s Movement. Subsequent Adams posts involve Gwyneth Paltrow, a flattering impostor commenter, and Adams’ self-proclaimed genius. I’m going to share reports on these in installments because they are so freaking funny.
This is the first: [click to continue…]
IDIOCRACY
I find the UK’s frenzied, orgasmic media circle-jerk leading up to the royal wedding seductive and annihilating in equal measure. Despite the outward banality of the couple, and the bourgeois nature of the monarchy, I like the royal family. Despite the obvious moral repugnance of a “monarchy” in the 21st century, its odious paradigm, and its concomitant notion that some people are inherently better than others simply due to the circumstances of their birth, I wish we had one in America. Not because I don’t find the modern monarchy boring as hell – with their middle class tastes, behaviors and interests – but because its existence is living, unarguable proof that we do not live in a meritocracy, and never have.
Icebox cake, refrigerator cake – or as we inexplicably call it, freezer cake – was a special occasion staple in my house. Delicious cultural artifact and a symbol of post-modern cookery in which convenience rules, the hardest part about making a Freezer Cake is finding the cookies: Only Famous Chocolate Wafers will do. Crispy, thin and not too sweet, Famous Chocolate Wafers have been around since 1924, according to Nabisco’s archives. Uneeda Bakers, a long-ago division of the National Biscuit Company (a.k.a. Nabisco), concocted the icebox cake recipe as a way to promote their simple chocolate wafers, promoted as festive party fare, easy to make and pretty to present. The old-fashioned wafers are not a big seller anymore, and many supermarkets have stopped carrying them. I’ve had to search high and low for the necessary wafers (search high–they’re almost always on the top shelf at the grocery store, often nowhere near the cookie aisle).
Maybe it’s the idea of the soap opera that I’ll mourn more than the soap opera themselves. By design, the basest form of television escapism – poor production value, hammy acting, preposterous storylines. At one point in my teenage life I watched All My Children, I think because it took presumably took place on Philadelphia’s main line. The good folks of Pine Valley refer to their centre ville as “center city” – and only Philadelphians do that, right? – and the show’s creator Agnes Nixon is a Bryn Mawr denizen. The AMC world was lousy with scandal, naturally, but nothing too too terrible could happen in Pine Valley. The world was a representation of constants. Banal tradition was tantamount. I loved how their holidays mirrored our own, how at Christmas time, the characters would don Christmas sweaters and go a-visiting. Everyone’s living rooms were heavily decorated, coated in The Home Goods style. It was comforting to me for some insane reason that on Thanksgiving, it would be Thanksgiving in Pine Valley.
My sister sent me this, from Guardian UK. Because we never understood macaroni salad. Whether you “make it” (boil macaroni, slather it in Mayonnaise, add relish), or buy it at Wawa, it’s not really food, is it?
Celebrity cook Elizabeth David. Photograph: PA/Empics
Elizabeth David was the doyenne of food writers. But, says Tim Hayward, the bitchy annotations she wrote in her cookbooks reveal another side of her. [click to continue…]
