Count Every Vote…For Us We,

Count Every Vote…For Us

As far as we’re concerned, the 2000 election is officially old news: No one but Al Gore should care about it, and no one should care about Al Gore. Not even Tipper.

Still, months of reporting on the vicissitudes of the current presidential campaign have compelled us to reflect anew on the fervor with which Democratic partisans harped about the necessity of “letting every vote count.” Naturally, by “letting every vote count,” the Democrats meant “fishing through piles of ballots until enough votes could be manufactured for Al Gore.”

But let us be kind, dear reader, and assume that our friends on the Left were earnestly calling for the counting of every ballot in a non-partisan fashion. If this is so, surely the Democrats’ actions regarding the current Ralph Nader campaign seem odd.

Now, don’t get us wrong, dear reader: We are not big fans of Mr. Nader, as it is hard to tell whether his paranoia is larger than his megalomania. We think it’s the reverse, but we’re not sure. As far as one-eyed Semites go, we much prefer the late Sammy Davis, Jr.

Yet it has amused us that so many Democratic partisans have done their best to ensure that thousands of citizens—who have signed petitions to allow Mr. Nader on their home state’s ballots—do not get their wishes. It seems as if “letting every vote count” merely refers to every “Democratic Party vote.”

None of these thoughts, you may be saying to yourself, is particularly novel. And, to be sure, pundits have nattered on about these matters for months. We’re very far behind the talking heads on this one.

Yet the recent electoral fiasco in Venezuela, in which it appears as if Castro-in-training Hugo Chavez has manufactured a stunning victory, has led us to consider how the Democratic Party might streamline its wholehearted embrace of “letting every vote count.”

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” humbly suggest that the Democratic Party invent its own Ferdinand Marcos Voting Machines. These babies make voting Democrat far, far easier than those infamous butterfly ballots. In fact, thanks to the Ferdinand Marcos Voting Machines one can only vote Democrat.

Naturally, Jimmy Carter would be enraptured by such contraptions, and claim that he recommended that his pal, the late Nicolae Ceausescu, use similar devices. John Kerry, moreover, can get the same percentage of the popular vote that Saddam Hussein did in his last election.

It all makes a lot of sense, actually: Since the Democrats believe that they know how to run everyone’s life much better, they might as well vote for them all, too.

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Things That Are Pretty Good:

Things That Are Pretty Good: Being the Second Installment in an Extremely Intermittent Series Discussing Some of the Pleasant Phenomena We Associate with Life as We Know It

In fact, it seemed to us as if all we did each weekday was offer our readers various straw men (or straw womyn) for us to demolish. Granted, some of the targets of our opprobrium fully merited such scorn: Aryan racists and Charlie Rose, for example. But sometimes we came across as just plain nasty.

As such, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” offered our first post in our “Things That Are Pretty Good” series on—you guessed it—road rage. And, to be honest, writing in favor of something instead of ripping it to shreds felt very fine indeed.

But, to our chagrin, we could not choose another person, place, or thing that gave us such collective joy. And believe us, dear reader, we tried: Denny Terrio; red blood cells; corn muffins; Calvin Trillin. Nothing seemed to fit the bill.

Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” resumed our usual modus operandi: The excoriation of figurative sitting ducks.

Until now, dear reader. After (literally) months of reflection and soul-searching, we have discovered something that makes us as blithe as—if not blither than—road rage. What, you may be asking yourself, is this new paragon of goodness?

Well, we’re glad that you asked. The answer: Grape soda.

Now, we know what you are thinking, dear reader: Grape soda? That’s an awfully nugatory product to laud to the skies. Why, even Adam Sandler is superior to grape soda. To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: That’s an interesting comparison, but we humbly and respectfully disagree. You chucklehead.

For grape soda is no trifling joy. Rather, it is the very elixir of life—the ambrosia of mortals.

Right now, in fact, we are sitting next to an entire case of Fanta grape soda, a product of Coca Cola that has the added benefit of being “artificially flavored.” So, dear reader, this beverage doesn’t offer its consumer anything as unsavory as grapes; rather, it presents such uplifting contents as “sodium benzoate.”

And its taste? Oh, simply heavenly. And its nutritional value? Well, that’s a bit harder to say. But it doesn’t have any fat, which may be good, if you haven’t fallen for the Atkins diet (no pun intended).

So, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” shall be so bold as to declare grape soda one of life’s true pleasures. And it doesn’t have any caffeine, which means you won’t be up all night thinking about it.

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Keep ‘Em Coming, Kids As

Keep ‘Em Coming, Kids

Naturally, we have received a bevy of gut-wrenching lyrics from readers worldwide. Even so, to make sure that the competition, like Delta Burke, is hot and heavy, we want to offer a few more choice examples of horrid lyrics, in order to inspire prospective entrants to our humble contest.

Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have troubled ourselves to offer this weekend post—a rare treat for our rabid fans. Without further ado, then, our Official Research Department has come up with the following abominable lyrics.

First, here’s a couplet from "Islands in the Stream," a saccharine duet sung by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers:

Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown
I set out to get you with a fine-tooth comb.

A fine-tooth comb? Oh, dear. Approximately how long did it take the lyricist of this wretched song to come up with that rancid line? Off the top of our collective heads, we can think of at least three rhymes that work better:

I love you even though your head’s a big old dome

or

Like a rabid dog my mouth was full of foam

or

I want to pluck the cherry on your ice-cream cone.

Now there’s some good rhyming, dear reader. Unlike that pathetic “comb” line, these verses actually make some sense. Perhaps Ms. Parton and Mr. Rogers will contemplate a switch for their next reunion tour?

Having lambasted the feculent “Islands in the Stream” tune, we may move on to another atrocious ditty, this one entitled “I Am Woman,” and sung by the largely unheralded Helen Reddy:

I am woman, watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe

Watch you grow? What a bunch of garbage. We’d prefer to get some weed killer and watch this woman curl into a ball and melt. You might be woman, Helen Reddy, but we’re the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” and we don’t take kindly to pseudo-feminist pop.

So, dear reader, by now you must be psyched up to send a torrentially bad lyric to us via the “Contact Us” link in the upper right-hand corner of your computer screen. We eagerly await your entries.

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“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School Week: Day the Fifth—Graduating

In fact, we’d argue that our Official Back-to-School Week served up the quintessential pearls of wisdom regarding higher education in these here United States of America. If back-to-school weeks were colleges, we’d be Harvard. Or, even better, Austin Peay. We covered every topic of grave concern: Drinking games; orientation; diversity; dating.

Some of you might be saying to yourselves: But wait, uproarious crack young staff; you left out some consequential topics, like note taking and homework.

To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: Anyone who believes that “note taking” and “homework” are key collegiate concerns has never spent a minute on a contemporary college campus. To alter Michael Landon’s famous phrase, where there’s no will, there’s a B+. These days, universities are easier than Paris Hilton.

Still, dear reader, we are left with one subject that needs our attention—something that the great Tom Lehrer referred to as “sliding down the razorblade of life.” And that, dear reader, is graduating.

Sometime during the second semester of his senior year, a college student—when neither torrentially tipsy nor blissfully baked—begins to feel pangs of insecurity. What, he thinks to himself, am I going to do when I graduate?

And there is a reason for such concern. After all, this pupil has spent almost four years during which his most important decisions revolved around where to vomit. Now, however, this same student must face some important life choices.

He must, moreover, face these decisions essentially alone. For some reason, college juniors haven’t the requisite foresight to realize that irritating questions such as “What are you going to do when you graduate?” will soon be visited upon them. As a result, such younger folk offer no succor.

Nor should students waste their time and energy searching out their college’s employment advisors. One must wonder how anyone who himself chose such a laughable profession as “career advisor” at the University of Southeastern Wyoming could serve as any kind of resource for a person who requires gainful employment. One might as well ask Rob Reiner for nutritional advice. (Or, come to think of it, Wilfred Brimley.)

Accordingly, thoughts of graduation continue to vex the college senior until he has dawned a cap and gown, endured an incoherent, bromide-filled lecture by the likes of Madeline Albright, and shuffled home, diploma in hand.

Soon enough, our graduate will round up some ridiculous gig as an ice-cream scoop or a waiter, and live with five other twentysomethings. That’s right, dear reader: Four years of economic theory and sociology can land you a job at a record store. Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Well, if you’re a carnie.

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“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School Week: Day the Fourth—Dating Tips for College Girls

Need we remind you, however, that roughly 47 percent of the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” is of the feminine persuasion. And we’re not even including Carl. Although we haven’t asked them, we are reasonably certain that the women on our staff would not be offended by a reference to “college girls.” If one is incapable of uttering a sentence without repeating the word “like” 10,000 times, one isn’t exactly a fully mature woman, now is one?

But we digress. Today’s edition of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” is designed to acquaint our readers—both male and female—with some pertinent dating tips for the weaker sex’s years in higher education. So pay attention, ladies: These are crucial bits of advice for those of you about to head off to school. In fact, college gals need to know these rules as much as they require an entire Abercrombie & Fitch wardrobe. Skip out on this edition of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” ladies, and you might as well shop for your clothes at the nearest branch of the Salvation Army.

Alright, alright, you say: We understand that these tips are fundamental. Now get on with it. To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: As you ordered.

There are a couple of hard-and-fast rules to which college gals must always adhere. Allegiance to these rules is compulsory; failure to follow them inevitably entails the college equivalent of excommunication.

First, college girls must realize that they are in a stage of their lives in which they are young and capricious. Accordingly, there is no need—we repeat: No need—to find a match who will be at all suitable for later life. Finding a husband in college (which used to be labeled “obtaining an Mrs. Degree”), is becoming the new version of marrying one’s high school sweetheart: Only dirty slack-jawed yokels do such things.

As such, today’s college girls must make sure that they choose disastrously inappropriate people to date. (By “date,” of course, we mean “have repeated sexual encounters.” We collectively weren’t born yesterday, you know.) The more unsuitable the character, the better. Any college boy who appears to be headed anywhere else than a suite at the Betty Ford Clinic is strictly off limits.

In addition to choosing a terrible mate, college girls must make sure that they keep up the fiction that their choices are not as catastrophically abysmal as they are. They must repeat the following tired mantra: “I just want a guy with a good sense of humor.” For some reason, a “sense of humor” among college girls translates to “cocaine addiction,” or “penchant for cheating on women,” or “hankering for offering physical abuse.”

So, dear reader, now that you have learned our Official College Girl Dating Tips, you can answer the following quiz.

Teresa, a pretty college lass, can date either Alan or Thor. Here are the essential biographical facts about them:

Alan: Economics major; friendly; charming; good with children; not a member of a fraternity; good sense of humor; boring; favorite rock group: Dave Matthew’s Band (“They, like, totally are cool”); favorite actor: Tom Hanks.

Thor: Alcoholic; womanizer; often seen urinating in bushes outside his dorm at 3:00am; abrasive; demanding; abusive; looks like Fabio and Yanni’s love child; favorite author: Anyone writing in to Penthouse Forum; favorite rock group: Dave Matthew’s Band (“They, like, totally are cool”).

So, dear reader, if you were Teresa, whom would you choose?

It looks like it’s going to be a lonely four years for Alan.

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“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School Week: Day the Third—“Diversity”

And we could hardly discuss a term of greater import than today’s topic. In fact, we shall be so bold as to claim that this term is the most crucial word in the vocabulary of the contemporary academic. No, dear reader; not “tenure.” And certainly not “discursive.” We’re talking about a real heavy-hitter—the kind of word that has talismanic power in contemporary academe.

For those of you who did not trouble yourselves to read the entire title of today’s edition of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” allow us to inform you that we are talking about “diversity.”

And what, you may ask, is “diversity”? First, we should note that it is the word most often used by current college administrators. Including “and” and “the.”

As such, the word “diversity” often seems much like the word “smurf” according to those lovable blue characters known as Smurfs. It’s a kind of all-purpose word: The Smurfs may say that “This is really smurfy,” whereas administrators will opine that “This is not sufficiently diverse.” That sort of thing.

Still, you may say to yourself, we are no closer to a definition of this slippery term. What does “diversity” mean?

Well, dear reader, all college students with an ounce of wisdom (i.e., roughly three of them) realize that “diversity” most assuredly does not refer to any kind of spectrum of opinions regarding intellectual matters: As befits an institution of higher learning (in Saudi Arabia), colleges do not allow a whole assortment of politically incorrect (read: right-leaning) ideas on campus. Being a conservative on today’s college campus is sort of like joining the army: It’s something that people just don’t do.

Instead, “diversity” appears to refer to an assortment of people of disparate hues and genders—all of whom hold fast to certain core shibboleths. Accordingly, college student in-the-know can easily ascertain the hidden message to be found in all sorts of flyers strewn about campus.

For instance, a poster that reads:

THE DEPARTMENT OF BLACK STUDIES
Proudly Presents a Panel Discussing the Virtues of Diversity

translates to “Come hear a passel of the most occupationally privileged people in the Western hemisphere attempt to guilt-trip white liberal administrators into offering the Black Studies Department even more lavish perquisites.”

Does this kind of ploy work, you may ask? Well, why not have eminent socialist philosopher-cum-six-figure academic huckster Cornel West answer that question for you?

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“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School Week: Day the Second—College Orientation

Today’s edition of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” however, tackles a far more fleeting portion of one’s academic career—a ritual that is usually only visited upon freshmen, transfer students, and other assorted ne’er-do-wells. We refer, of course, to orientation.

Some superannuated readers of our humble “weblog” may be asking themselves: What the heck is “orientation”? Is that some sort of “transgender” thing? To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: No, old timer; orientations are the few short days in which college administrators introduce incoming students to the glories and dangers of college life.

Sounds pretty reasonable, you say. And, indeed, as college amounts to the period of time during which most students are first living apart from their mothers and/or fathers, an orientation session is reasonable. Having been thrust into a new environment, students need to learn all kinds of essential informational tidbits: For instance, the lady who will be cleaning up your vomit will no longer be your mother, but some illegal alien who doesn’t even make minimum wage. That sort of thing.

Immediately upon embarking upon one’s college orientation, however, today’s pupil finds that those in charge of this three-day boot camp have no interest in such quotidian details. Rather, the chieftains of orientation sessions—who are often “college orientation professionals”—have much bigger fish to fry, much bigger oxen to gore.

In fact, ever since our friends on the New Left began what Antonio Gramsci referred to as “the long march through the institutions,” college orientations have served to welcome 18-year-olds to school by means of informing them of a few important facts:

1. White males are ineluctably evil. Anyone who belongs to this oppressor class is a disgraceful collaborator in such malign phenomena as “institutional racism,” “institutional sexism,” and “imperialism.”
2. College is a place to explore all kinds of ideas—if by “all kinds of ideas” one refers only to officially sanctioned left-leaning opinions.
3. Eleven out of every ten college females are raped by the time of their sophomore year.

Welcome to college, kiddies! Doesn’t it sound like fun? In order to ensure that students become suitably brainwashed regarding these key topics, the commissars of college orientations will normally compel students to read some sort of radical partisan screed: A work by, say, Howard Zinn or bell hooks.

Here, of course, is exactly where college administrators begin to lose their battle to force-feed leftist dogma down the throats of unsuspecting students: Most American college students don’t know how to read.

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“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School Week

And what are we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” going to do about it? We’re glad you’ve asked.

Today’s post marks the first in a week-long series of back-to-school animadversions (or, as college students call them these days, “things”). All this week, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” shall be dilating on the four-year date-rape-a-thon known as “college.” As the sorority gals say, it’s gonna’ be, like, totally awesome.

That’s right, dear reader: For the next five days, our “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Higher Education Task Force shall offer you all kinds of disquisitions on life at American universities.

And, to be sure, there is much to discuss. So, before you send your charming little beer-swiller off to campus, check out our daily musings on the life of the mind. Or, given college students’ aptitudes these days, the life of the libido.

In fact, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” believe that it would be useful to think of this week’s postings as a kind of informal U.S. News & World Report guide to colleges. Except we have an ounce more of credibility.

From tweed-clad professors to nattering about “the discursive Other,” we shall pontificate on all things academic.

Right now you’re probably wondering to yourself: Does “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Back-to-School Week require me to own any fancy equipment? Again, dear reader, we’re glad you asked. Indeed, you’ll need a couple of things handy for this week’s postings. In fact, you’ll need everything the average college student requires: An extremely short attention span; an I’m-Ninteen-Years-Old-and-Know-Everything attitude; and a number two pencil.

So, dear reader, skip class, log on to your computer, and check out this week’s higher education rants. And yes, this will be on the test.

Let’s begin this week’s discussion on all things collegiate with a topic that is near and dear to most students’ hearts. No, dear reader, not calculus. And not philosophy—it’s too bookish. Our topic? Drinking games.

That’s right, dear reader: You have spent well over $30,000 a year to make sure that the fruit of your loins, after a hard day of sleeping through classes, is working on a secondary career as a dipsomaniac. After all, what else do you expect the kids to learn at college these days? Every class deals with race, class, and gender, regardless of their relevance to the topic at hand: Women’s Studies 101 “Racism, Sexism, and Oppression”; Math 222 “Black Feminist Algebra.”

In order to keep their minds off of these dreary topics, today’s university students spend their copious free time attempting to chuck ping-pong balls into plastic cups full of Milwaukee’s Best. In the good old days, Trotskyist and Stalinist students at the City College of New York sparred over the intellectual and political topics of the day. Today’s kids argue about the best way to make Jell-O shots. Altera tempora, alterae mores.

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A Little Incentive for Entries

A Little Incentive for Entries to “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” First Annual Stupidest Lyric in Rock Music History Contest, or What Rhymes with Zen?

Indeed, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have received so many entries to our humble contest that we almost felt no need to beg for more. But then it struck us: We’re talking about horrible lyrics to rock songs—they must be more plentiful than hairs on Chewbacca.

As such, we have decided to offer our manifold readers a rare weekend post, and present a couple of rock lyrics that our Official Research Division found particularly noxious. This, we suppose, shall encourage you to drudge up a few choice exempla of rancid lyrics, and send them our way.

The first example comes from the oeuvre of—who else?—Neil Diamond. In his deleterious tune “I Am I Said,” Mr. Diamond croons:

"I am," I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair.

“Not even the chair”? Oh, come on, Neil: Even a third-grader could come up with a better rhyme than that. And how, pray tell, would this chair acknowledge that it had heard you in the first place? This is flagrantly sub-par balladry.

And we need not point to Mr. Diamond as the only source of atrocious rock lyrics. Savor, dear reader, the following line from a ditty entitled “Brave New World” by the group Styx:

See the now, see the Zen
There is no division.

Uh, guys, that doesn’t even rhyme. And it ain’t a clever off-rhyme, either. We have a collective hunch that, sometime around 1979, an excessive use of hair-styling products left the members of Styx mentally impaired.

So, dear reader, there you have it: A couple of miserable lyrics sure to inspire even the boldest rock-n-roll enthusiast. All you must do to enter is click the “Contact Us” link at the top right-hand corner of your computer screen. There’s so much Peter Cetera, and so little time.

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The Top Ten Ways to

The Top Ten Ways to Make Our “Weblog” Popular Again

Simply put, we’ve been up and down more than a fastidious crack whore. Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have been pondering ways to make our “weblog” a staple of the “web”-goer’s daily browsing. In fact, we have appointed a new committee to determine the best ways to become, as they say, bigger than Nell Carter.

This brand new committee—the official name of which is actually the Official Make Us Bigger than Elvis (or at Least Tiny Tim) Committee—has stumbled upon a few clever ideas. After watching manifold hours of the E! Entertainment network (which, by the way, has the most fraudulent moniker in all of television), our Official Committee realized that the mindless listing of insignificant items is a key way to ensure popularity.

Let us, dear reader, offer you an example. If someone volunteered, say, 34 desultory and trivial facts about soft-rock bands, he would find himself very unpopular indeed. Especially, we think, with the ladies. The minute this fellow ranked these 34 facts and put this ranking on television, people would come a-flockin’ to the tube.

We know, we know: It doesn’t make much sense. But it appears to be true. As a result, the meat and potatoe (as Dan Quayle might spell) of various B-List television networks are lazy programs such as “The Top Fifty Hair Bands of the Eighties,” “Jimmy Carter Presents the Top Seventy Foreign Policy Disasters of All Time,” and “Santa Claus and the French Army Present the Top Forty Non-Existent Items.” That sort of thing.

Our Official Committee figured that, if such dross can keep VH-1 afloat, it could certainly make our “weblog” a paragon of popularity. Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are content to present:

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official Random Rankings of Things in a Feckless Attempt to Maintain Its Rapidly Declining Popularity:

List the First: Top Ten Words and Phrases to Use in an Interview for a Job as an English Professor:

1. Subaltern
2. All Republicans are evil
3. Socially constructed
4. The phallocentricity of the dyadic mirror phase
5. As Marx has demonstrated
6. Paradigm shift
7. Hegemony
8. Hybridity
9. The Other
10. I’m an African American

List the Second: Top Nine Swedish Tennis Stars:

1. Bjorn Borg
2. Bjorn Borg
3. Bjorn Borg
4. Bjorn Borg
5. Bjorn Borg
6. Bjorn Borg
7. Stefan Edberg
8. Bjorn Borg
9. Bjorn Borg

List the Third: Top Six Prospective Employment Opportunities for Failed Presidential Candidate Al Sharpton:

1. Stunt double for Don King
2. Professional doughnut eater
3. Poster-boy for “Poor Dressers Anonymous”
4. Start up law firm with Tawana Brawley
5. Official Mascot for the University of South Carolina Game Cocks
6. Racial Huckster

Well, dear reader, if that doesn’t make us extraordinarily popular, nothing will. Just like Tina Turner, we’ll let the hits roll in.

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Can You Handle Radical Charlatanry?

Can You Handle Radical Charlatanry?

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” know what you are thinking, dear reader: The folks at “Wisdom of the Heavens, Earth, Body, Mind & Soul” left out a few kinds of wisdom from their title. How unfortunate. What about the wisdom of, say, the ducks? Or clambakes? Or Barbara Boxer?

But we digress. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have decided to devote today’s edition of our humble “weblog” to a curious advertisement that appears in the aforementioned issue of “Wisdom.”

This ad, found on page 13, bears the heading: “Can You Handle Radical Honesty?” We, the crack young staff of "The Hatemonger's Quarterly," thought to ourselves: You’re darn right we can! Accordingly, we read on:

In today’s world many people make themselves spiritually, mentally and yes [sic] physically ill by either lying or withholding their feelings and thoughts from others.

Some people make us spiritually, mentally, and, yes, physically ill by means of their failure to use commas where they are needed.

Brad Blanton will discuss how we can transform our lives by “living out loud”.

Perhaps Brad will also discuss how he employs pseudo-British punctuation at the end of his sentences. Has Brad, we wonder, ever taught a pupil who is deaf? How can he tell if this student is “living out loud”?

This is a process where [sic] one expresses what they [sic] honestly think, feel, and have done.

Is this process only intended for those with a radically poor sense of grammar?

We’ll explore what it would be like to live in a world where everybody told the truth all the time.

How nauseating. Naturally, Brad Blanton uses this savvy introductory paragraph as a means to entice the reader to shell out $35 for the benefit of a “mixer” with him and $295 for an accompanying “one day intensive workshop.”

Okay, Brad. It’s time for your own dose of “Radical Honesty.” For someone who trumpets his Ph.D. in his advertisement, you have an appallingly poor grasp of the English language. How’s that for radical? Your “mixer” and “intensive workshop” appear to be scams that will radically boost your income. Pretty radical, eh? We’d rather sit through a version of the complete operatic works of Wagner sung entirely by Roseanne Barr than attend your feculent “workshop.”

So, the question beckons, Dr. Blanton: Can you handle Radical Honesty?

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Losing the Aryan Race Every

Losing the Aryan Race

Anyway, a few days ago, the Official Team Leader of the Official Statistics Department—let’s just call him “Chip”—alerted us to something rather alarming. Upon examining the search words used by visitors to our “website” who came from Google, this intrepid Team Leader found that one of our readers linked to our “weblog” via the search words “Bush the Jew-Lover.”

It turns out that this reader—whoever he or she may be—was strolling through the World-Wide Web, attempting to look up Aryan supremacist propaganda. As such, he found our post discussing potential titles for I-Hate-George-Bush polemics. It seems, however, that said reader didn’t come to our “weblog” expecting the term “Bush the Jew-Lover” to be used in irony.

So we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” felt rather horrid indeed. Our highbrow attempts at humor have apparently ushered in some rather lowly characters to our “weblog.”

Although our regular readers know that we are not fans of sanctimonious preaching, we feel as if this disgraceful character has somehow sullied our lily-white “weblog.” Well, perhaps that wasn’t the best turn of phrase.

Thus, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have decided to use today’s edition of our humble “weblog” as an exercise in lambasting the feculent monstrosities known variously as neo-Nazis, Aryan racists, white supremacists, &c.

Before we begin our excoriation, however, we must inform our readers that about 47 percent of the crack young staff belongs to what Joseph Goebbels and Pat Buchanan would characterize as the Aryan race. They’ve got all the telltale signs of Aryan racehood: Button noses; Lotus Esprits; trust funds; non-kosher beef franks.

Nor, dear reader, are these crack young Aryans a passel of self-hating whiteys. Why, just the other day, they enjoyed some mayonnaise. As a result, no one can argue that today’s posting is merely an example of what our friends on the Left refer to as “internalizing the oppressor.”

With all that preamble out of the way, we can begin in earnest. Have you ever noticed, dear reader, that the people who are the noisiest cheerleaders for the Aryan race are usually the worst examples of it? Pretty odd, is it not?

In addition, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have a hunch that members of the elusive Aryan race—the world’s masterful conquerors—were not the ancestors of a gaggle of mullet-wearing, wife-beating fascists. We could be wrong about this—we’ve been wrong in the past. (For instance, we had no idea that Dennis Kucinich wasn’t going to win the Democratic nomination for President. Who would have thunk it?) Still, we are left with the distinct impression that the elusive Aryans—the swashbuckling speakers of Indo-European—wouldn’t be caught dead with such closely cropped haircuts.

And this leads us to our Official Position on White Supremacy: We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are against it. Yes, yes, we know: We’ve gone out on a heck of a limb. But that’s what differentiates us from more tepid “weblogs”: We’re willing to make the moral stands from which others shy away.

So, dear reader, today’s edition of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” was a two-for-one offer: Not only did it present its sundry readers with manifold yuks, it also taught them that racism was wrong.

Perhaps we should make bumper stickers that read: “Everything I know I learned from the crack young staff.” Nah: We detest bumper stickers almost as much as we hate racists.

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Announcing “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” First

Announcing “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” First Annual Stupidest Lyric in Rock Music History Contest:

This tune started, he thought, with what surely must be the most insipid lyric in the history of what Little Richard calls “Rock-n-Roll,” and Tom Lehrer more reasonably refers to as “children’s music.”

Whitney warbled: “I believe that children are the future…”

Chronologically speaking, is there anyone who disagrees with her? Does anyone think that, say, sexagenarians are the future? Way to go out on a limb, Whitney. If you could only get that husband of yours out of rehab, we’d be really impressed with you.

The discussion regarding this pathetic lyric made us wonder: Is this truly the stupidest line in the history of rock-n-roll music (pardon the oxymoron)? Although we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have been in numerous department stores, and have therefore been subjected to countless rock songs, we aren’t sure whether Ms. Houston’s expatiation on children as the future merits such opprobrium.

For instance, there’s a horrid line in Elton John’s “Your Song.” Whilst discussing all the things he would give to his object of affection, depending on what job he held, Mr. John croons:

If I was [sic] a sculptor—but then again, no

That’s mighty foolish too. After all, the second time Sir Elton sang this feculent number, he’d ditch that lyric.

After (literally) minutes of in-house reflection on this topic, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” decided to allow our readers to weigh in on the matter. As such, we are pleased as peaches to announce:

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” First Annual Stupidest Lyric in Rock Music History Contest:

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” humbly invite submissions of unspeakably awful rock music lyrics, so that we may determine the worst line in rock music history. Granted, bad lyrics in rock music aren’t exactly unexpected; in fact, calling rock music bad reminds us of the Firesign Theatre’s “Department of Redundancy Department.” Still, though we detest rock music, we are certain that some examples are even more nauseating than others.

We must, however, establish a few ground-rules for our contest. Entrants must send their submissions to us (via the “Contact Us” link found at the top right-hand corner of your computer screen) by September 9th, 2004, 5:00pm EST. In addition, the lyrics in question must be from albums actually recorded, and must be available on-line from some “rock lyric website.” So, if your first cousin is in a band called “Horace Tilson and the Hot Rat Pasties,” you can’t send in a line from their thoroughly unheralded song “Sister Vampire.”

The winning entrant will have his selection published in a future edition of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” and will bask in the luminous glow of Internet fame. He—or she—shall receive all kinds of kudos from the crack young staff.

So, dear reader, what are you waiting for? Break open all those old Dave Clark Five albums, and get to work.

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Amazon Women on the Move

Amazon Women on the Move

Oh, one more thing: The team of movers you plan to hire must be entirely female.

Gee, how many times has this happened to you, dear reader? If you’re anything like us, about a billion times—give or take a billion.

But don’t worry; help is on the way. Recently, a correspondent from our Santa Cruz (CA) office sent us an unusual business card. The card, which features a tiny silhouette of a bikini-clad woman flexing her biceps, offers the following information:

AMAZON MOVERS
Strong Female Movers
Van or Truck
Sensative [sic] Touch
Available 24/7
Sliding Scale
Satisfaction Assured
1-800-428-4095

Now we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t want to belabor our readers with obvious questions, but we simply can’t let this one go: Who in his (or her) right mind would insist on female movers? How many Kate Millet books do you have to read to sink to this level of über-feminism?

We can’t vouch for anyone else, but when we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” move from Point A to Point B, our major--nay, our only--concern is that we employ a dutiful and inexpensive moving company. Thoughts of gender—whether it is, as our feminists friends say, a “social construct” or not—never even cross our minds.

Does anyone really believe that female movers will show a more “sensative” touch with a stack of Ms. magazines? Can’t a gaggle of guys just as easily cart copies of Andrea Dworkin screeds? In addition, if we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” were a passel of radical feminists, we might enjoy putting a bunch of guys to work. Serves the sexist oppressors right, eh ladies?

So, regardless of Amazon Movers’ “sensative” touch, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have very simple guidelines for potential moving companies: Don’t ask, don’t spell.

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The “bl(A)ck tea society,” or

The “bl(A)ck tea society,” or Say Wh(A)t?

And there seems to be no end to the Bostonians’ munificence. A few days ago, one of the employees from our mailroom—let’s just call him “Chip”—relayed to us a flyer found hanging in a Boston area retail establishment.

This odd little flyer begins as follows:

bl(A)ck tea society

(The DNC will be held July 26-29 in Boston.)

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” know exactly what you are thinking: How can we become members of the society? After all, we dislike authoritarians as much as the next Stalinists. Further, we are comforted by the fact that the “bl(A)ck tea society” is merely “an ad-hoc coalition”; it doesn’t plan to resist authoritarianism forever, but has set its sites on one goal alone. That seems reasonable enough.

Still, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are genuinely puzzled about this organization. First, we wondered how this group, if it is truly “ad hoc” and bent on exposing the Democratic Convention as a bastion of fascism, could be organizing “in the Boston area and beyond.” What does “beyond” mean? Lexington (MA)? Lexington (KY)? Lexington (NE)? We hope that the “bl(A)ck tea society” doesn’t get too wrapped up in Kentucky politics; we aren’t experts on the subject, but we’d say that Democratic authoritarians in Kentucky are a whole different breed from their counterparts on the East coast.

In addition, we are left mystified about the name of this organization. The “bl(A)ck tea society”? What the h(E)ck is that? Don’t the ad-hoc anti-authoritarians who run this high-powered cabal realize how parentheses are used in the English language? Never mind the odd capitalization of the letter A inside “bl(A)ck.” Even if you let this go, the title still makes no sense: Without the A, it reads “blck tea society.” We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” admit that we aren’t much for hot potables, but we’ve never even heard of “blck tea” in our lives. Earl Grey?: Yes. English Breakfast?: You bet. But “blck tea”?: Nope.

After perusing the “bl(A)ck tea society” “website,” we concluded that this decent organization is made up of characters who buy the whole Ralph Nader argument: There’s nary a difference between Republicans and Democrats. They’re all a bunch of, well, authoritarians.

To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: True, very true. In fact, now that the Democratic National Convention went off without a hitch, perhaps the American people require an anti-authoritarian coalition that isn’t so, in a word, ad hoc?

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Garbled Garber Recently, a senior

Garbled Garber

Even so, there should have been many reasons for “Chip” to be wary of the book he purchased—a book that discusses the academic culture wars. First, there’s the matter of Ms. Garber’s earlier work. Among her learned lucubrations one can find such studies as Dog Love, Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life (very lascivious, aren’t we?), and Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety.

If this didn’t make “Chip” realize that Ms. Garber belongs to that infamous academic group that Roger Kimball delightfully dubbed “tenured radicals,” nothing else would. Whilst reading the jacket of Ms. Garber’s latest work, one can almost see the self-important grin of this academic huckster: I wrote a book on cross-dressing; aren’t I clever and avant-garde? Sure, you’re clever and avant-garde, provided you ignore the umpteen other books on cross-dressing that are coming from the transsexual pens of professors these days.

But there was another warning sign that “Academic Instincts” isn’t going to be a masterwork. One of the blurbs for the book is provided by one of Ms. Garber’s colleagues, Homi K. Bhabha, a doyen of postcolonial studies, and a writer of some of the most jargon-filled, obscurantist prose this side of Jacques Lacan. On the cover of “Academic Instincts,” Mr. Bhabha claims that Ms. Garber argues “lucidly.”

Hmmm. Homi Bhabha says you argue lucidly, eh? That’s kind of like Pete Rose claiming that you show great self-control. Or Jimmy Carter telling you that you have a good handle on foreign affairs.

None of these concerns stopped “Chip” from reading Ms. Garber’s book. He reports, however, that the tome is seriously flawed. Throughout most of the slender volume, Ms. Garber pretends as if she is not “merely taking sides.” This, of course, is arrant nonsense: At every turn, Ms. Garber makes sure to defend her fellow tenured radicals.

Curiously, in her chapter touting the glories of postmodern jargon, Ms. Garber writes without using any of it. Although she excoriates those who dislike the impenetrable prose of po-mo academics, she sees no need to ape this fancy-pants style. This led us to wonder: Why not? Perhaps Ms. Garber actually wants her reader(s) to understand her specious defense of her colleagues, and thus determined to write, in Homi Bhabha’s description, “lucidly”?

Gee. Maybe this disconnect would strike Ms. Garber as interesting. It might even lead her to question her positions.

Nah. She’s probably busy on her latest work, “Heteronormatizing the Afrocentric Other: Toward a Hybridity of Problematizing."

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A Dissent into Madness In

A Dissent into Madness

Or, we should say, it was, up until the most recent issue appeared. In said number (Summer 2004), Mr. Walzer appears to have taken some time off and allowed the less stellar Mitchell Cohen to run the magazine. The results are unfortunate: Pro forma articles by Harold Meyerson, Shalom Lappin, and Marshall Berman. (Some might say that Marshall Berman has never met an argument he didn’t ruin. We’d say he’s never met an argument. Period. Perhaps one day someone will introduce him to an argument. What a glorious day that will be!)

But surely the most disastrous piece comes from the pen of one Nicolaus Mills, a professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College. Now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” know what you are thinking: “American Studies” is a high-toned way of saying “ideologically motivated history produced by dubious radicals.”

Sarah Lawrence, moreover, is a whilom enclave of hippies. It’s the sort of school that used to be hip when “pot” smoking among collegians was daring and avant-garde; by now, it’s gone downhill faster than Lance Armstrong. These days, Sarah Lawrence is Smith College--but for women.

Due to Mr. Mills’ pedigree, there was good reason to be mighty suspicious of his arguments. But, we thought to ourselves, this is Dissent—a journal run by one of the cleverest men of the Left.

We must say, moreover, that Mr. Mills’ piece, entitled “Television and the Politics of Humiliation,” begins on a high note: Its author rightly lambastes the sordid world of so-called “reality television,” dilating on its tendency to bring out the worst in human nature.

Bravo! Bravo! We, the crack young staff of "The Hatemonger's Quarterly," prefer television programs with more intellectual heft--like "Who's the Boss." But wait, dear reader: The article gets worse, much worse. The esteemed Mr. Mills ends his article thus:

None of this [reality television] is good news for the Democrats or the left. At a time when the election debate over the economy should be about the race to the bottom that is occurring as the result of the outsourcing of middle-class jobs and the growing number of families without health insurance, the worst possible television culture is one that tells us empathy has no place in our lives. It is a development that even the new liberal talk radio will be hard pressed to take on, for what humiliation TV represents is the rise of a pop culture in which schadenfreude has been so artfully disguised that it gives the illusion of being without political content.

Oh, dear. After a perfectly reasonable excoriation of “reality television” (a.k.a. “humiliation TV”), Mr. Mills lets loose a gaggle of tired left-wing shibboleths. This final paragraph is so rebarbative that you might think the editors at Dissent forgot to read it. Or, they momentarily imagined that they were the staff of The Nation.

It is true, no doubt, that “even the new liberal talk radio will be hard pressed to take on” the visual disgrace known as “reality television,” precisely because the new liberal talk radio, with its three listeners, will be hard pressed to take on anything—including advertising revenue. Just ask erstwhile funnyman Al Franken about his stellar salary from WLIB. It appears as if more people yearn to hear scratchy versions of “Volare” on AM radio than the insightful commentary of such intellectual luminaries as Janeane Garofalo. Who would have thunk it?

Alas, Mr. Mills’ coda is chalk-a-block with tired platitudes. And mistakes: He means “sympathy” when he writes “empathy.” Come on, Mr. Mills: We know that, according to our lit-crit friends, language is just a social construct, but couldn’t a professor—even a professor of “American Studies”—do better than this?

Yet certainly the most ridiculous aspect of this literary peroration is its insinuation that “reality television” is somehow good for Republicans. According to Mr. Mills, such right-leaning characters as Robert Bork and Irving Kristol should be hooting and hollering over the success of “Joe Millionare” and “The Swan.” Sure, they are moral abominations. Yet as long as they help starve the poor—clearly the political goal of the Right, as Mr. Mills would blithely tell you—these shows are simply heavenly.

Perhaps Mr. Mills should spend a half hour of his time watching “The Real World” along with, say, Gertrude Himmelfarb. We think he’ll find that she isn’t as impressed as he supposes.

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Exploring Our Life Mission—For Free

Exploring Our Life Mission—For Free

For those of you unacquainted with this delightful—nay, life-changing—periodical, let us give you a brief survey of its contents. “Spirit of Change” appears to be chock-a-block with discussions of holistic medicine, stress, and touchy-feely politics. As a free publication, moreover, “Spirit of Change” is replete with advertising, some of it rather fetching indeed.

Naturally, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” carefully hunted through the magazine, hoping to come upon an advertisement that claimed to heal our inner children.

No such luck. But we did find a few choice bits of New Age mysticism: On page five of said publication, we encountered an advert headed “Reading the Signs of Destiny.” Wow: Reading the signs of destiny! Will that help us with our gambling habit? It turns out, however, that this five-day introduction to the “art” of divination costs $950, and takes place in Connecticut, of all places. If you live in Bridgeport, Connecticut, we already know what your destiny is going to be, and it ain’t good.

Accordingly, we moved on to page 31, which featured another intriguing advertisement. The top of it reads: “Exploring Your Life Mission: Bringing Greater Clarity to Your Life and Work,” and is run under the auspices of Marcia Goldberg and Richard Michaels, two “certified life coaches.”

This made us wonder: What sort of training must one undergo to become a “certified life coach”? Can you get this degree from the School of Hard Knocks? (Or the School of Hard Knox, Tennesee?)

But we digress. Ms. Goldberg’s and Mr. Michaels’ advertisement sports eight goals that “Exploring Your Life Mission” can accomplish. Naturally, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” were intrigued. Still, as it appears to be our “life mission” to be poor, we decided to skip the seminar, and to reach these eight goals on our own.

The following, then, is our unofficial version of “Exploring Your Life Mission.” We must inform our readers that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are untrained professionals; don’t try this at home.

Goal One: “Inquire into who you are and your contribution to the world”

The first part of Goal One is really easy: We are the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” of course. Accordingly, we may move on to discuss our “contribution to the world.” Well, we suppose that we spread mirth, joy, and hatred to the world—although “the world” is a bit of an overstatement, given the number of hits we receive each day. Still, that’s our goal, and, like duct tape, we’re sticking to it.

Goal Two: “Increase receptivity to the messages of body-mind-spirit”

Okay, you’ve totally lost us. Although Goal One was written in straightforward prose, the ghosts of New Age appear to be haunting Goal Two. In fact, we feel as if we should respond to this goal with our own barrage of New Age tomfoolery: We hope the herbal essence of our spirit voice will increase our Shiatsu polarity. (Not bad, eh?)

Goal Three: “Deepen connection to your core self”

Alright. Done.

Goal Four: “Identify your Building Blocks of Fulfillment”

Hmmm. So Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Michaels want us to point to our Building Blocks of Fulfillment? Not our building blocks of fulfillment, mind you, but our Building Blocks of Fulfillment. Well, we don’t want to get too big for our britches, but may we humbly identify missing all future Andrew Lloyd-Webber musicals as one of our sacred Building Blocks? Also, we would be pleased as peaches if we never heard another teenager use the word “like.”

Goal Five: “Create a personal mission statement”

“We, the crack young staff of ‘The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,’ endeavor to expose New Age charlatans wherever we may find them. We hope that Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Michaels will help us with this daunting undertaking.”

Goal Six: “Expand your perspectives beyond habitual thinking”

Gee. Our first impression would be to write this off as a bunch of pseudo-intellectual bunk, but that would be rather habitual for us. So, let us instead refer to it as rebarbative persiflage. There: That ought to expand our perspectives.

Goal Seven: “Bring your mission into your personal and business life”

Done.

Goal Eight: “Create steps to keep your inspiration alive”

Currently, the junior editors at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let's just call them “Chip”—are mixing up some concrete, with which we shall construct some steps, per order of Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Michaels. Frankly, though, this building project hasn’t exactly kept our collective “inspiration alive.” But, heck, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Or something.

Well, dear reader, there you have it: The crack young staff has explored its “life mission” free of charge. As a reward for our hard work, we think we’ll pop over to the local health food store and treat ourselves to a shot of wheat-grass.

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"She Hate [sic] Me" The

"She Hate [sic] Me"

According to Ty Burr, the author of this article on the half-pint director, Mr. Lee’s new film is entitled “She Hate [sic] Me.”

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” must admit that we have long grown tired of Mr. Lee’s antics. He’s spent so much time pushing his toxic and conspiratorial vision of America that we’ve stopped taking notice of him.

As a result, we were dismayed—though not surprised—to see the following leader sitting atop the Globe article on Mr. Lee’s new movie: “What happens when a man of ideas tries to pack them all into one movie?”

Spike Lee, a man of ideas? We guess so. Surely one of those ideas is “Jews are bloodsuckers.” Another idea is “White people are horrid.” We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” figure that those are the kinds of brainstorms that establish one as a serious intellectual in the New York Review of Books crowd.

Unfortunately, Ty Burr, the hack assigned to cover Mr. Lee’s new flick for the Globe, can’t quite veer away from a hagiographical vision of the filmmaker. Indeed, Mr. Burr is so interested in Doing the Right Thing and offering the reader a Mo’ Better Lee that he is incapable of seeing the blatant hypocrisy of his subject.

What, you may be asking yourself, do you mean? How is Spike Lee, that paragon of goodness, hypocritical?

Well, dear reader, we’re glad that you asked. Apparently, Mr. Lee’s new film concerns the evils of corporate America. Regarding the business world, he opines:

If you pray at the altar of money, you will do anything. You’ll sell your mother. I understand this is a capitalist country, but the people at Adelphia and HealthSouth, it’s blatant. I just think that’s the culture.

Why, how very deep. Spike Lee realizes that the USA is “a capitalist country”; he is a man of ideas, isn’t he?

Where, you may ask, did the filmmaker offer his pronouncements on the horrors of greed? From a “comfy chair in a suite at the Four Seasons” hotel, of course. Pretty nice digs for a guy blathering on about the rapaciousness of others. Naturally, Mr. Lee, who has spent much of his time shilling for such respectable companies as Nike and managing a lucrative lecturing schedule, is above the sordid world of money-grubbing.

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are happy that at least someone isn’t so disgracefully avaricious.

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A “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Weekend Special:

A “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Weekend Special: The Crack Young Staff Gives Back to the People

As such, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” wanted to offer our readers an official—and highly unorthodox—weekend posting. It’s our little way of saying thank you to those (literally) dozens of people who check up on our publication from time to time. To misquote a beer commercial: This post’s for you.

And, to be sure, there are many to thank. In fact, we would like to take this opportunity to applaud one of our readers at random: Jason Hilton of Lexington (KY). We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have never met Jason, and we have no idea what he’s like. Still, our Official Random Plaudits Department would like to laud Jason for his logging on to our humble “website.” Jason, think of this as “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” version of winning the lottery. Only there’s no money involved. Bully for you.

We would be remiss, however, if we merely praised this Jason character. In fact, a number of “websites” have helped make “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” the vibrant e-community that it is.

First, we must extend our gratitude to the maestro known as the Vodkapundit. His link to one of our posts was the Internet equivalent of the American liberation of Grenada. On second thought, that parallel doesn’t quite work out, but it makes us look mighty learned. We would urge all of our readers to check out Vodkapundit daily, but it seems as if everyone in the Western hemisphere already does.

We must also thank the kind folks at Reason magazine. They somehow deigned to link to a humble post of ours, and they made our hit counter higher than a Grateful Dead groupie. Naturally, we exhort the (few) readers of our “weblog” who don’t already know of Reason to check them out: Any periodical that stoops low enough to mention us is mighty fine in our book. In addition, Reason’s readers can savor the reasonable reasonings of the inherently reasonable Nick Gillespie and the preternaturally reasonable Cathy Young. What more could you ask for?

We must also, as the kids say, give “props” to some stalwart e-supporters of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.” You know: The regulars. First, we must mention the proprietor of A Misspent Life, whose downtrodden musings can enlighten anyone’s day. Also, we simply must include the masterful Stephen Baldwin, whose clever prose is a daily joy. And let us not forget Enoch Soames, the only man who makes us feel disgracefully lowbrow. Nor should we leave out those delicately named Llamabutchers: They’re wooly; they’re meaty; they’re snippy. And they’re darned funny, too.

So, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” hope that we have communicated just how important you are to us. We pray that we can mean something to everyone we touch—and everyone else, who won’t let us touch them.

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Milli Vanilli is a Weapon

Milli Vanilli is a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Hmmm. Clearly, we thought to ourselves, this flyer—which also directs you toward this “website”—amounts to some kind of advertisement for far-Left political causes. Indeed, we can already imagine the feckless nonsense touted on the “website” right now:

President George W. Bush, a man who is both dumber than a post and an evil genius, has parlayed our fear into deadly political goals. Like allowing Israel to exist and attempting to save American lives. You know: That hegemonic, imperialistic sort of stuff.

Our next meeting will take place this Friday, at 4:30 pm, at the Starbucks on the corner of Main Street. We hope you aren’t too afraid to be there.

To us, that’s the kind of arrant palaver that a flyer reading “Fear is a Weapon of Mass Destruction” invokes.

But then we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” turned over the flyer, and realized that some writing was visible on the other side. It reads: “Faithless. The New Album, No Roots. In Stores July 20th, 2004. Featuring the single ‘Mass Destruction’ As seen on MTV.”

Oh, come on, we thought to ourselves. “Fear is a Weapon of Mass Destruction” is simply some dippy refrain to a ditty played by a band of “rock musicians” (savor that oxymoron, dear reader)! How pathetic!

To make matters worse, the record company responsible for this “band”—and for the advertisement, no doubt—is Arista Records. For those of you who have expunged this memory from your mind, Arista is the passel of geniuses that gave us such virtuosos as “Milli Vanilli.” You, dear reader, remember them: The dread-locked duo that lip-synced their already intolerably wretched songs.

And Arista has the gall to inform us that “Fear is a Weapon of Mass Destruction”? Since about 1984, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have lived in fear of Arista.

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Fine, Don’t Make Us Your

Fine, Don’t Make Us Your Homepage

Are we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” the only people who find these “Make Us Your Homepage” features irksome? We aren’t quite sure what bothers us so much; perhaps we collectively detest the notion that we can’t decide for ourselves what our “homepage” is going to be. We mean, come on: If you can’t trust us with that niggling decision, how are you going to trust us with anything?

Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have decided to spend today’s edition of our humble “weblog” browbeating readers with:

The First Official Passive-Aggressive Exhortation Not To Make Us Your “Homepage”:

Do you, dear reader, delight in the mercilessly mirthful animadversions of the crack young staff? Sure you do. We all do. Even Robert Reich. But that doesn’t mean that you should make us your “homepage,” now does it? Heck no.

Just because we spend (literally) hours of our lives slaving away at dime-store computers in order to provide you with a daily dose of humor doesn’t mean that you should reward us by making us your “homepage.” After all, there’s plenty of pornography and other salubrious “webbery” that deserves your copious free time.

Sure, we have helpfully offered a bevy of links for our readers—everything from the delightfully named Llamabutchers to the American Tarantula Society. But that doesn’t mean you owe us anything.

So, if you want to make us cry like red-headed step-children, don’t bother making us your “homepage.” We’re sure that The New York Times will really appreciate you making it your “homepage” instead: After all, it’s not as if they get lots of readers.

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Bush-Bashing with the Best of

Bush-Bashing with the Best of 'Em

To be sure, the current President of these here United States of America is not the only target of recently released screeds. If one detests, say, Jimmy Carter or, say, Bill Clinton, there are plenty of polemics from which to choose. (If you utterly despise President Van Buren, however, you just may be out of luck.)

But even those who only casually peruse their local bookshop will note that there is a kind of Bush-bashing cottage industry. The stores are literally littered with them.

And this led us to wonder: How does an author of yet another Bush-bashing tome market his book? How can one grab the reader’s attention in an over-saturated market?

Naturally, if one is, say, Hillary Clinton, it isn’t too difficult to garner some attention for your Bush-bashing oeuvre. And this is the case for minor celebrities, too—like Joe Conason. But what if you have just polished off a monograph that dilates on the many malapropisms of President Bush and you have very little clout in the publishing business? How are you going to compel potential customers to drop the other squillion books that expatiate on the evils of “W,” and purchase your book instead?

Good questions, those. And we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” think we have an answer: It’s the title, stupid. Indeed, a clever title for your orgy of Bush-bashing should land you a few readers. Unfortunately, pretty much every catchy title has been explored by the 5,248 authors who penned their scabrous attacks on President Bush before you.

As a result, you, the author of yet another dilapidated I-Hate-Bush screed, are left with only one option: A ridiculously overwrought title. That ought to draw ‘em in. After all, a tepid title like “Boy, George Bush Really Has Me Steamed” is never going to do the trick. In order to help our prospective polemicists, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” recommend the following (free of charge, no less):

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Official List of Overwrought Titles for Bush-Bashing Books:

1. “Worse than Hitler?: A Chronicle of Bush’s Evil”
2. “Worse than Hitler: A Chronicle of Bush’s Evil”
3. “Killing Babies: A Day in the Life of Our Current President”
4. “George Bush: He Has Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds”
5. “George Bush is the Most Odious Dictator of All Times, Even Though Other Odious Dictators Would Never Allow Me to Publish This Book If it Were about Them”
6. “Bush the Jew-Lover: A Moderate Muslim Speaks Out”
7. “Somehow Bush is Worse than Bin Laden, Though I’m Not Sure How This Can Be True”
8. “Bring Peace Unto the World: Kill Bush”

Well, these ought to be useful to those few irate Bush-haters who are literate. If only President Bush were fat—like, say, Michael Moore; then we could have a real field day with him.

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The Crack Young Staff Says:

The Crack Young Staff Says: “Thank You, Mayor Menino”

This full-page ad sports a small picture of a middle-aged fellow and the headline “Mayor Thomas M. Menino Says: ‘Thank You, Boston.’” For those of you uninformed about the vicissitudes of Bostonian politics—and utterly oblivious to the obvious—we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” can let you know that Thomas Menino (who is oft given the sobriquet “Mumbles”) is the mayor of Beantown.

The advertisement makes clear that the right honorable Mayor endeavors to thank Bostonians for making the Democratic Convention such a tremendous success. (How he knew it was a tremendous success before it even ended is another matter. We assume he’s clairvoyant.)

But “Mumbles” Menino does not simply offer thanks to the residents of Boston; he is armed with a series of “discounts and free events.” These presents, thinks Mayor “Mumbles,” will help the locals enjoy “a great weekend.”

So, what kind of goodies is the Mayor tossing to the masses? Well, Bostonians can enjoy $5 off admission on a Boston Duck Tour on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This struck us as an odd gift: Why would the locals want to take a tour of the city they already inhabit? We don’t mean to come across as a bunch of conspiracy-mongers, but we have the sneaking suspicion that Mayor Menino’s “gifts” have a lot more to do with business than, well, gifts.

As peculiar as this may seem, dear reader, it pales in comparison to another generous offering the right honorable Mayor delivered to the Beantown masses. For Sunday, August 1, the Mayor bestowed free on-street parking to all the residents of the city!

Free parking on Sunday? Wow. This Menino fellow, you are probably thinking to yourself, is surely the most prodigal Mayor in American history.

But before you wax hagiographic on the goodness of Mayor Thomas Menino, dear reader, we must offer one inconvenient fact: On-street parking is always free on Sundays. The good Mayor has given a gift that we have already received.

We know what you are thinking, dear reader: “Mumbles” Menino, Prince of Parsimony that he is, needs a good whipping. Or, failing that, a fairly brisk finger-wagging. That ought to show him.

But may we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” suggest that there’s a better way to get back at Mr. Frugality? Why not outshine his Indian Giving by presenting the citizens of Boston with an even more impressive non-gift? It is this spirit that we announce:

“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” September On-Street Parking Give-Away:

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” would like to thank the levelheaded inhabitants of Boston for making it through the Democratic National Convention without induce vomiting…often. As a token of our esteem, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have a present for you all: On each Sunday in September, 2004, on-street parking will be entirely free of charge! It’s all part of our “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Offering You the Things You Already Had Promotion. So, citizens of Boston, enjoy four days of free parking on us. Tell ‘em the crack young staff sent you.

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The Complete Idiot’s Guide to

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to “Weblogs”

First, the neighborhood Barnes & Noble seems to have an affinity for those over-lauded Beatniks, as if William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg would have really dug the antiseptic ambience of this un-thinking man’s Borders. We all know that nothing screams antinomian counterculture quite like a $45 cup of Starbucks at the ole’ B & N.

And if this pseudo-radicalism weren’t enough to rankle us, the magazine section of this Barnes & Noble sure is. Looking for The New Criterion? You’re out of luck. Modern Painters? Not a chance. The (London) Spectator? Oh, come on: Of course not. But, if you have a hankering for such highbrow journals as Maxim, Details, and Black Hair Care, you’re in luck: B & N carries all three of these. Gee, those magazines would really hit the spot—provided we hate reading.

But the literate person need not head to the magazine rack to feel alienated from his fellow man. A perusal of the “Best Sellers” section serves this function too. Are we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” the only people in the United States who don’t own copies of “The Da Vinci Code?” We aren’t even sure what this code is; perhaps it’s a way of figuring out Victoria’s Secret?

But there is one series of books that really irritates us. This, dear reader, is the “Complete Idiot’s Guide” series, which offers potential readers helpful tips on a wide variety of subjects, from computers to dating. (Well, for some of us, those two subjects aren’t all that different.)

What, you may be asking yourself, bothers you so much about these “Idiot’s Guide” books? Why do these tomes offend, whereas “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” doesn’t irritate at all?

Frankly, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have never even ventured to read one of these dubious books. We simply can’t bring ourselves to it. And, to misquote one of Bill Shakespeare’s characters, here’s the rub. The title of the series—“The Complete Idiot’s Guide”—is so patently offensive that we can’t fathom why anyone would purchase a book with such a title.

To be sure, plenty of people--and we mean plenty--are inveterate morons. But you have to be a complete chucklehead not to realize that clutching a monograph that reads “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Autism” makes you look rather foolish indeed.

It seems, in fact, as if purchasing such books serves as a kind of literary masochism: You are announcing to the general public that, not only do you need to polish up your French, you are a complete dunce.

Still, it appears as if there’s quite a market for “The Complete Idiot’s Guide” series. And this led us to wonder: Could a series with an even more offensive title, which is even more patronizing, somehow sell like hotcakes? We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are certainly willing to team up with some swashbuckling venture capitalist and give it a try. How do the following titles grab you?

1. “The Pertinacious Tyro’s Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”
2. “Spanish for the Drooling Moron”
3. “The Dim Bulb’s Guide to Cooking”
4. “Look, Stupid, Buy This Book on Politics”
5. “The Knuckle-Dragging Buffoon’s Guide to Rocket Science”
6. “Stupid White Men”

Oh, wait a minute. Michael Moore already penned a book with the same title as number six. And, boy, you’d have to be a real idiot to buy that one, cracker.

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