Thursday, September 29, 2005
Duncewatch II: More Duncewatch
The Necktie Daily Excess, the grimy and exceedingly yellowish newspaper that services my hometown of Necktie (the Sewer of Scotland) is notorious for being last with the news. I believe their October 19th, 1947, edition announced to the world that GERMANY SURRENDERS! HITLER PRESUMED DEAD!.
I dare say eighteen formative years of exposure to that lamentably flaccid organ have had their effect on me, because I am returning to the very stale Katrina-dunces theme. I want to talk about Kanye West.
Now, Kanye West does not, strictly, belong in the Duncewatch thread because he is not a dunce: if anything, he is, as a Brit would say, too clever by half. What he said was stupid, but he is by no means stupid for saying it.
(BTW my apologies for the link to the National Review; I was forced to link to a publication that is prepapred to employ John Podhoretz when I could not find any genuine news sources on Google. For obvious reasons, I do not consider Dan Rather's former employer to be a news source.)
No: I remember reading about Mr West's remarks a few weeks ago (via protein wisdom I think, though it may have been Instapundit) and thinking "uh-huh"; and I remember that two days after this I noticed that a rash of posters promoting Mr West's latest album had erupted all over London's Tube system, and I thought "uh-huh". Publically proclaiming virulently controversial opinions when ones latest record is about to hit the Tower and Virgin outlets on six continents? Nooooo.... I do not believe Mr West is stupid.
Nevertheless: Kanye - you said stupid things in public; you stupidly incited people to Fear, Uncertainty and Despair on the back of a natural disaster... Kanye: you're a Dunce.
BTW what brought this on? I was watching a show on what passes for television here in Formerly Great Britain, and they were praising Kanye West so fulsomely that I was forced to switch over to the Bollywood spectacular on the next channel, lest I choke on my own bile. Which reminds me of an incident today: over on Pejman's new site I saw a graf insinuating that the "AIDS" virus (presumably HIV) is weakening over time: good news for xj and fellow louche man-whores. So I was about to click on the link and check out the good news... when I saw the URL: www.bbc.co.uk. So I didn't bother.
It's not that I no longer trust the BBC to tell the truth; it's not even that I expect them to tell lies; it's that I honestly believe they can no longer tell the difference. They no longer even possess the limited evidentiary value of Newsweek or Investors' Chronicle and similar consistent negative indicators: they cannot even be relied upon to be wrong.
I dare say eighteen formative years of exposure to that lamentably flaccid organ have had their effect on me, because I am returning to the very stale Katrina-dunces theme. I want to talk about Kanye West.
Now, Kanye West does not, strictly, belong in the Duncewatch thread because he is not a dunce: if anything, he is, as a Brit would say, too clever by half. What he said was stupid, but he is by no means stupid for saying it.
(BTW my apologies for the link to the National Review; I was forced to link to a publication that is prepapred to employ John Podhoretz when I could not find any genuine news sources on Google. For obvious reasons, I do not consider Dan Rather's former employer to be a news source.)
No: I remember reading about Mr West's remarks a few weeks ago (via protein wisdom I think, though it may have been Instapundit) and thinking "uh-huh"; and I remember that two days after this I noticed that a rash of posters promoting Mr West's latest album had erupted all over London's Tube system, and I thought "uh-huh". Publically proclaiming virulently controversial opinions when ones latest record is about to hit the Tower and Virgin outlets on six continents? Nooooo.... I do not believe Mr West is stupid.
Nevertheless: Kanye - you said stupid things in public; you stupidly incited people to Fear, Uncertainty and Despair on the back of a natural disaster... Kanye: you're a Dunce.
BTW what brought this on? I was watching a show on what passes for television here in Formerly Great Britain, and they were praising Kanye West so fulsomely that I was forced to switch over to the Bollywood spectacular on the next channel, lest I choke on my own bile. Which reminds me of an incident today: over on Pejman's new site I saw a graf insinuating that the "AIDS" virus (presumably HIV) is weakening over time: good news for xj and fellow louche man-whores. So I was about to click on the link and check out the good news... when I saw the URL: www.bbc.co.uk. So I didn't bother.
It's not that I no longer trust the BBC to tell the truth; it's not even that I expect them to tell lies; it's that I honestly believe they can no longer tell the difference. They no longer even possess the limited evidentiary value of Newsweek or Investors' Chronicle and similar consistent negative indicators: they cannot even be relied upon to be wrong.
