Busy as a B Minus

Busy as a B Minus

Are we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” the only people who have realized that this “I’m so darn busy” business is irksome? We mean, come on: Most people work at jobs so witless that they can be replaced by a heavy paperweight. So why must everyone constantly natter on about the hectic pace of their dull lives?

Although the “I’m so darn busy” routine always rankles, it is particularly nettlesome when coming from the mouth of the college undergraduate. According to most sophomores, it seems, life doesn’t get any harder than the 15 pages they are supposed to read for Wednesday—and invariably don’t read.

Oh, you poor dears: You’re taking four undergraduate classes! Gosh, how will you have time in your busy schedule to miss half the lectures, skip all the reading, and cultivate a rip-roaring case of dipsomania? How will you keep up with your rigorous acquaintance rape schedule? Life is tough, Mr. Tyro.

From all of their carrying on, you’d think that the typical university student were secretary of state, for crying out loud. You’d think that sundry factory workers were thanking their lucky stars that they aren’t college freshmen. Sure, it’s tough putting toothpaste caps on toothpaste tubes for 10-hour shifts, but at least you don’t have to sleep through “Feminism and Pornography” class.

To be sure, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” must admit that there is one exception to our We Hate College Students Who Whine About How Busy They Are Rule: College students who work full time. Naturally, those young ones taking in a full load of courses and slaving away at CVS deserve nothing but praise.

But everyone else? They’re a passel of obnoxious crybabies, if you ask us. And don’t have the audacity to play the “What About Athletes” card. As everyone in these here United States of America knows full well, big-time college athletes aren’t students. Unless you count “Screwing Women” as a major.

Scholar-athletes? Please.

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A Gay Star Is Born?

A Gay Star Is Born?

Recently a new media-created story has come to the fore. Perhaps, like us, you’ve heard of it. Apparently, some woman named Sheryl Swoopes, an African-American “star” of the Women’s National Basketball Association has “come out” as a lesbian.

The New York Times, which hardly mentioned odious George Galloway’s knavish pocketing of money intended for poor Iraqis, spilt much ink over this fact. Apparently, a prominent British politician getting caught taking bribes from Saddam isn’t as important as the private life of one of the Houston Comets—whoever they are.

Are we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” the only people on God’s green earth who don’t give a hoot about this at all? We mean, come on: A “star” of the WNBA isn’t exactly a star, now is she? According to the Gray Lady, she is the “first high-profile African-American basketball player to come out as gay.”

Um, excuse us, but no one in the WNBA is “high-profile.” The only people who recognize female basketball players are yokels living in Connecticut, who are forced to root for such nonsense, because they inhabit a state without nice cities. That’s what you get for Bridgeport, folks.

In addition, may we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” humbly suggest that a lesbian basketball player isn’t exactly a shocking scandal? It’s like a gay interior decorator. Who would have thunk it?

Now, dear reader, don’t get us wrong: We haven’t any problems with Ms. Swoopes’ personal choices. If she’s here, and she’s queer, we’re used to it. After all, it’s not as if the male members of the crack young staff had much of a shot with her to begin with. And the ladies? Please: They are all graduate students, and too ugly to bag Ms. Swoopes. Q.E.D.

So we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” say a hearty, Oprah-esque “You Go, Girl” to Ms. Swoopes. May she be happy for the rest of her days. But don’t feed us this nonsense about her being “prominent.”

There are janitors with higher profiles than Ms. Swoopes—and some of them are straight.

Further, we have reason to doubt the accuracy of the Times’s reporting: Is Ms. Swoopes really the first African-American basketball player to exit the closet? What about “Magic” Johnson? If you ask us—and we know you didn’t—he’s a bit of a switch hitter. If you catch our sports metaphor.

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Conspiracy Theories For well over

Conspiracy Theories

In today’s humble “post,” however, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” aim at focusing on a more nebulous—though equally nettlesome—topic. For the benefit of those of you strangely incapable of reading the title of this humble “post,” allow us to inform you that we mean conspiracy theories.

Indeed, there is much to detest about conspiracy theories—regardless of the origin of the theory in question and the politics behind it. The very first thing to loathe, of course, is the fact that Oliver Stone likes conspiracy theories. If you ask us, dear reader, anything Oliver Stone likes—Tom Cruise, anti-American nutters, ugly sunglasses—is worthy of opprobrium in civilized circles.

As if Mr. Stone’s fascination with conspiracy theories weren’t enough to prove their lunacy, we must mention the fact that the Muslim world appears positively enraptured by them. Other than oil, conspiracy theories are pretty much the only products that the Islamic world produces these days.

Moreover, these Islamofascist conspiracies are all the same: Each one of them boils down to the notion that America and Israel are secretly behind all bad things. If this isn’t pathological, we collectively don’t know what is.

But we must add that there is a more fundamental reason to distrust any conspiracy theory—even one as superficially plausible as the notion that the cast of “Full House” is responsible for all the world’s evils.

In order to believe in conspiracy theories, one has to believe that people are sufficiently smart to be capable of conspiring. Even more, one has to believe that said smart people were sufficiently smart to get away with their conspiring, and that only the ersatz Oliver Stone types detected the brilliant plot.

Need we even discuss why this is a ridiculous view? Need we even mention the fact that, in general, people are too stupid to get away with massive, secretive conspiracies? We collectively think not.

So, dear reader, the next time someone fills you in on a juicy conspiracy theory, we recommend you hit him with a hammer. When he gets angry—and believe us, he will get angry—just blame Israel. And then ask him: How do you like that conspiracy theory, you dolt?

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Business Associates Over the course

Business Associates

Yet, in sharing such reader mail with you, dear reader, we may have given you the mistaken impression that darn near every one of our correspondents aims at figuratively tearing us a figurative new one. In today’s humble “post,” we want to inform you that this is simply not so.

In fact, curiously enough, a goodly number of the e-mails we receive each day don’t even appear to be specifically addressed to us. Yes, yes—they arrive in our e-mailbox, and thus they clearly were sent to the crack young staff. And yet the contents of these e-mails seem so strange that they simply couldn’t have been sent with us in mind.

After a cursory search around the Internet, our Official Technical Department has discovered that these e-epistles may be what are called “spam.” Either way, they’re supremely irksome.

Sure, every once in a while an example of “spam” winds up being useful. For example, did you know that one can lay one’s hand on all manner of drugs without recourse to a prescription? Sounds odd, but it’s true.

In addition, it appears to have been the result of “spam” messages that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have discovered that we are sufficiently fortunate to have won the Canadian lottery at least a dozen times. This is good news.

Unfortunately, though, Canadian money isn’t worth anything, so we never troubled ourselves to respond to the selfless individuals at Canada Lottery Headquarters in Moose Jaw. We know, we know: We’re a bunch of hosers, eh.

We should also mention the large number of business offers we have received from down-on-their luck types who inhabit sundry failed states. Frankly, we aren’t quite sure what it is about our “weblog” that attracts so many intriguing opportunities: Do we seem like natural born tycoons?

It would appear so. Nary a day goes by, it seems, when some plucky fellow from Dubai doesn’t send us an urgent message. This character has all kinds of cash in his possession, and merely needs our bank account information in order to send it to us.

Sounds like a good deal, eh? But our deep-pocketed financial backers do not allow us access to a bank account. We suppose it’s our loss, and someone else’s gain.

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Fan Mail We, the crack

Fan Mail

Accordingly, dear reader, you will not be surprised by an e-missive we received from one Pam Kulig. A little while back, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” made some critical comments about Ms. Kulig’s letter to The New York Times. In her letter, Ms. Kulig asserted that taking in a savage murder and failing to cry for help or even tell anyone about the crime was routine behavior for a 14-year-old. We un-respectfully disagreed.

We must add, dear reader, that Ms. Kulig’s missive to the Gray Lady was written in the spirit of contempt for American law-enforcement and American jurisprudence. The larger point of Ms. Kulig’s missive—to the degree that it had a larger point—was that a man was unjustly behind bars thanks to the cruelty and stupidity of the American (in)justice system. As such, in our humble retort to Ms. Kulig’s letter, we proved a mite vehement. If memory serves (and it always seems to), we labeled Ms. Kulig’s letter the work of a dribbling ignoramus, or some such.

If you ask us, most youths in their early teen years are not greatly entertained by gruesome murders; we would label such a response to killing pathological. And thus we took it upon ourselves to cast aspersions on Ms. Kulig’s casting of aspersions on the American judicial system.

A few days ago, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” received Ms. Kulig’s impassioned reply to our criticism:

Hi Hatemongers,

Pam Kulig

To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” sent the following response:

Dear Mrs. Kulig,

Cordially,
The Crack Young Staff of THMQ

Now, we know what some of you are thinking: We let Ms. Kulig go a bit too easily. After all, this was a woman who considered the joyful witnessing of a murder to be entirely excusable behavior, but clearly found our criticism of her to be simply beyond the pale.

To be honest, though, we had little interest in responding in kind to an insecure housewife who was drudging up the nastiest things she could envision in her seemingly limited arsenal. So, hey, we treated her with kid gloves. And, quite frankly, she had a point: We were more than a tad overzealous in our original remarks.

Why don’t we learn something from Pam Kulig? Remember this lesson, dear reader: Children who don’t aid murder victims are peachy keen, but the crack young staff is evil. Put that one in your moral compass.

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When Is a Question Not

When Is a Question Not a Question?

In addition, we often find ourselves at various think-tank colloquies, taking in the latest raving lunacy from the Cato Institute, for example. We consider it all part of our preparation for keeping up with the latest in the intellectual world. And academia.

We mention all of this, dear reader, because it offers the requisite background for the question that serves as the heart of today’s humble “post.” After literally decades of taking in umpteen lectures and sundry question-and-answer periods, we find ourselves obsessing about the same query: When is a question not a question?

Let us explain what we mean. As bad as academic and think-tank talks often are (and they’re mostly plenty bad, believe us), the question-and-answer sessions that follow are almost always more excruciating.

This appears to be the case for a very specific reason, which we have labeled the Irritatingly Ostentatious Question Syndrome, or IOQS for short. Although we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are not experts in public health, we have the sneaking suspicion that this particular disease infects graduate students like STDs infect undergraduates. That is to say, a lot.

Accordingly, the questions posed after a dry, impenetrable lecture are ineluctably tangential and moronic—and consciously so. The academic type, having been compelled to listen for an hour, simply must blather on about something, and must show off his unimpressive learning posthaste.

Thus the academic crafts an idiotic question, which is really a thinly veiled attempt at intellectual preening. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have long wondered why these questioners don’t simply say “I know a lot of stuff,” instead of troubling us with their insipid pseudo-queries.

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A Half-Assed Maureen Dowd Parody

A Half-Assed Maureen Dowd Parody

Take, for example, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, whose unfathomably awful career as an inept journalist appears to be dedicated to demonstrating the evils of Affirmative Action for women. No matter how much things change in the world, you can be darn sure that Ms. Dowd will pen an utterly moronic essay about them.

For a long time now, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have earnestly wondered whether Ms. Dowd is attempting to be a humorist. And we aren’t asking this coyly; we earnestly do not understand if she means to be funny.

We mean, come on: Does she really believe that humor is as simple as changing the names of government officials to ridiculous sobriquets? Ah, so you call Donald Rumsfeld “Rummy.” And you label Harriet Miers “Harry.” Well, gee: Alert the media; we’ve got a new Don Rickles on our hands. She’s a veritable comic genius. We haven’t laughed this time since we read a Paul Krugman column.

In fact, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have become so perplexed by the columns of this un-sassy pseudo-humorist that we have dedicated today’s humble “post” to poking fun at her. If she can mercilessly rip on Republicans in her own pathetic manner twice weekly, we figured that she could handle a couple of rips of our own.

To this end, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have endeavored to write a parody of a typical Maureen Dowd column. If you don’t find it in any way clever, insightful, or funny, then clearly we have done an expert job.

Poor Little Dowdy by the Crack Young Staff of THMQ, Posing as Maureen Dowd in a Brilliant Attempt at Parody

Poor little Dowdy felt all dowdy.

She felt as if, again, her moral authority was absolute.

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It Doesn’t Cut Like a

It Doesn’t Cut Like a Knife

It is surprising, then, that a country with such an impressive list of breakthroughs seems utterly incapable of producing a good electric shaver. Yet this is undoubtedly the case. To make matter’s worse, our friends in sundry other countries appear equally unable to inventing such a shaver.

And, given the previous brilliant cultural achievements of the Saudis, we wouldn’t hold our breath for a wondrous Arab electric razor. (Though God knows they could use it.)

We mention this, dear reader, because we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have all tried our hands—and faces—at electric razors. We must report that we have all wasted our money.

And when we say “all,” we mean “all” (no Clinton-esque parsing of words here). The female members of the crack young staff—who make up around 47 percent of our team—are graduate students, and therefore need to shave their faces. Q.E.D.

Accordingly, we can all report that electric razors are completely useless. That is unless you aim to irritate your skin whilst plucking exactly three hairs from your chin.

In fact, electric razors are so awful that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” have long wondered what their respective inventors have been thinking. Have they pondered questions such as “How can I make a razor that will cut off one-third of a man’s beard, so that he looks like some kind of disoriented derelict?”

Naturally, this is all in distinct contrast to the geniuses behind old-fashioned hand-held razors. As we noted long, long ago, the folks at Gillette are ultra-irksome: We don’t want to be told that a plastic razor is “the best a man can get,” no matter how many blades you put on it.

All the same, the hawkers of these old standbys have at least had the decency to augment their razors with more and more blades. This may not be the greatest example of technological progress the world has ever seen, but, hey, it’s better than Yemen.

It is all strikingly superior to the pathetic non-improvements of the electric razor. Whilst hairstyles come and go, whilst Communism came and went, the same old electric razors keep on coming. In electric razor land, the only notable advance of the last three decades has been the addition of some sort of goop to a few models.

Boy, what an advance. Don’t overwhelm us. In fact, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have become so infuriated with electric razors that we aim to alter the quasi-famous slogan of one of their producers: “Shaves as close as the Los Angeles Clippers are to first place, or your money back.”

It’s not particularly catchy, but it has the bonus of being accurate.

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It Isn’t Easy Being Green

It Isn’t Easy Being Green

For well over a month, dear reader, “Chip” has been a dutiful practitioner of this “hot yoga,” attending class with astonishing regularity. And he has done so even though the entire undertaking has struck him as more than faintly ridiculous.

After all, Bikram yoga—founded by Bikram Choudray, who has maintained his deep connection to the ancient mysteries of the East by moving to Beverly Hills—compels its followers to assume an assortment of embarrassingly bizarre positions. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” can’t quite figure out why any heterosexual male would want to excel at some of these stretches.

As far as can be gleaned from the attendees at “Chip’s” Bikram studio, all heterosexual males are similarly confused. In fact, they are so confused that they don’t show up, leaving “Chip” amongst a sea of women and homosexualists.

Even so, “Chip” has become a mainstay at the local Bikram studio. This hasn’t actually made him any friends: The ladies tend to run out of the building as soon as possible, likely as a result of their fear of men seeing them perspire like pigs. And the men in attendance…well, let’s just say that they don’t strike “Chip” as his kind of fellahs.

A few days ago, however, “Chip” had a particularly interesting conversation with one of the women in his yoga class. Whilst “Chip,” after a challenging class of stretching like a chick, sat on a Bikram yoga bench, a gal came up to him and asked: “Is that your green yoga mat?”

“Chip,” somewhat stunned by the question, answered, “Yes it is. Why do you ask?”

To which this woman replied—and we quote: “Bikram doesn’t like green.”

There was a Harold Pinter-esque pause. And then “Chip” said: “Huh? What do you mean?”

This woman answered: “Well, I used to have a green yoga mat, but one of the instructors told me that Bikram doesn’t like green. He thinks it is a color that should be left to nature. And so I got a new yoga mat.”

“Chip” found himself perturbed. “Well,” he said, “Bikram probably drinks his own urine, so I’d take what he says with a grain of salt. If Bikram hates my yoga mat so much, since he lives it up in Beverly Hills, he can buy me a new one. If not, I will continue to bring my green one.”

How ridiculous! This woman—who at least smiled at “Chip’s” urine line—appears to have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the ridiculous pronouncements of this guru-cum-fraud. We mean, come on: Leaving one color to nature is an entirely arbitrary command. Why not leave blue to the sky, or yellow to the urine that Bikram drinks?

Frankly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” find this all a bit sad. Although Bikram yoga may provide a good opportunity for physical fitness, it strikes us as a bit insufficient as a Guide to Life. Yet many Bikramites seem to latch on to this yoga as if it can cure cancer and solve all moral dilemmas.

This appears to have made Bikram rich—the bastard. If we had lots of cash, we’d send him thousands of green yoga mats.

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We Really Didn’t See This

We Really Didn’t See This One Coming

Accordingly, dear reader, one has to get up awfully early in the morning (say, around 3:16 am EST) in order to put one past us. We positively live and breathe the news, and very seldom will a report come across our desks that surprises us.

Want proof? We had a collective hunch that President Bush was going to select Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. Okay, so we didn’t say so before the actual nomination was announced. But we didn’t want to brag. It’s so unbecoming.

As a result, dear reader, we would like to think of ourselves as a passel of media experts who fully understand the ways of the world. Kind of like Judith Miller, only not self-obsessed, lying morons.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we took a gander at sundry news reports that mentioned the lawless chaos breaking out in the newly Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. Who would have seen this Palestinian violence coming? Certainly not us.

Ever since we were even younger crack young staffers, we had learned from countless opinion-makers that the so-called Israeli occupation was entirely responsible for Palestinian violence. It was hard to argue with this brand of impeccable logic. Sure, the 1948 and 1967 wars predated the so-called occupation, but, hey, maybe those were just Zionist plots, or something.

Once Israel left the Gaza Strip not so long ago, we, like countless European toadies, fully expected the area to become a paragon of peace and tranquility. After all, the evil Zionist oppressors were now gone.

Sure, they were still responsible for the world’s evils: Hollywood; the WTO; the fifth season of “Full House”; &c. But at least these Zionist dogs had finally left the peaceable Palestinians in Gaza on their own. Democracy, peace, order, and civility were sure to return to the de-Judaized Gaza. May Allah be praised.

Well, what happened? We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have determined that those peaceable Palestinians are now busy killing one another. To be sure, this is something of a break from the usual suicide bombings. But it still ain’t great.

Like everyone else, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” can’t wait to read Palestinian apologists’ tortured rationales blaming the Israelis for this violence as well.

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The October Academic of the

The October Academic of the Month

It is with great aplomb, then, that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” announce the winner of our October Academic of the Month: Elizabeth Gorman, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia.

From an examination of her curriculum vitae, one may think that Ms. Gorman is a fairly ho-hum choice. Her academic work appears chiefly to pertain to gender and the workplace. Not, we daresay, a novel subject, but pretty much par for the course amongst female practitioners of the intellectual slum known as sociology.

Apparently, Ms. Gorman cares a great deal about “the impact of gender stereotypes on hiring.” If such is truly the case, perhaps she may want to examine how she immediately snatched up a tenure-track gig at a fancy university without spending any time in purgatory as a sabbatical replacement. Perhaps that had something to do with this nasty little thing called “Affirmative Action” (a.k.a. Preferential Treatment for Rich White Women)?

To be honest, though, Ms. Gorman’s research may seem banal, but does not appear to be stridently ideological. So why, you may be asking yourself, does this paragon of academic dullness deserve our prestigious title?

The Good Professor’s feculent missive in the October 14 number of The New York Times should answer that question. In response to David Brooks’ critique of Harriet Miers, Ms. Gorman wrote the following:

To the Editor:

Thus, Ms. Miers was actually expressing the central “big idea” of political conservatism.

Oh, dear. Now, we realize that Ms. Gorman does not claim political sociology as one of her specialties, but we were taken aback by this pathetic and snide attempt to misrepresent conservative philosophy. In fact, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” feel as if this moronic professor of sociology (if we may be redundant) has offered us a perfect example of the kind of noxious animus to conservative thought that animates the academy.

First, we should point out that Brook's parsing of Ms. Miers’ sentiments does not speak to government’s role in society at all. The connection between the statement and the basics of American conservatism is, then, Ms. Gorman’s own. Why couldn’t “people of good will come together to eliminate” rape by joining a rape awareness group? We hope that a hatred for rape is not only confined to self-professed conservatives.

But to offer this retort is to treat this Affirmative-Action Baby’s obnoxious rant as if it were actually an argument. Rather, it is a childish taunt.

Just look at how she ridiculously denigrates conservatives. For some reason, Ms. Gorman believes that a concern for individual responsibility puts the world in the hands of “corporate executives,” “gun owners,” and those who believe in—horror of horrors!—“capitalism” and “certain forms of Christianity.” Why she would offer such an argument to David Brooks isn’t entirely clear: Doesn’t she realize that he’s Jewish and not exactly a gun-toting NRA member?

One could easily turn the tables on the producer of such sneering drivel. Does Ms. Gorman believe that the “big idea” of political liberalism is state control of everything, because Americans are too stupid to think for themselves, and require the services of right-thinking people (atheists, Marxists, college professors)? We certainly hope not, but we’re willing to admit that this is a snide caricature of American liberalism.

That this chucklehead does not seem to realize that her portrait of conservatism is equally obtuse demonstrates her self-advertised idiocy, blanketed in intolerance for those with whom she disagrees. Who would have thought that a sociology professor would be such a bad example of “respect for diversity”?

For this reason, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are pleased as petulant pigs to name the idiotic, bigoted Elizabeth Gorman our Official October Academic of the Month.

Do you, dear reader, know of a particularly obnoxious professor? If so, send us a tip by clicking on the “Contact Us” link at the top right-hand corner of your computer screen. There are so many academic chuckleheads, and we’re taking them on one month at a time.

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Chick-fil-A It is only with

Chick-fil-A

Naturally, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are beacons of physical fitness. We don’t take Bikram yoga classes for nothing—other than for picking up chicks, that is. (And then putting them down.) Given our rigorous physical fitness regimen, it should come as no surprise that our unofficial physical fitness regimen motto is “They’re Our Hot Bodies, and We’ll Do What We Want.”

And what we want, dear reader, at least on occasion, is some fast food. To this end, we head down to the local Chick-fil-A establishment. For those of you blissfully unaware of this feculent franchise (likely because it hasn’t invaded your area yet), Chick-fil-A is a slightly less healthful version of Kentucky Fried Chicken. In short, in order to work there, you need to be deep-fried.

For some unknown reason, we have a hankering for this lousy cuisine every once in a great while. We regret it afterwards, of course, but we have a hankering all the same.

Even so, we must admit that the Chick-fil-A franchise is extremely irksome. Even by Taco Bell standards—which as you well know, is saying something.

For instance, the dutiful workers at this eatery ineluctably fill up our drinks with so much ice that there’s essentially no room for any liquid in the cups. It’s as if we cared more about having a cold drink than having a drink, if you catch our collective drift. It’s as if we asked “Can we have some ice with a small splash of root beer?” And we didn’t.

As if this weren’t bothersome enough, we find the drive-thru window at the local Chick-fil-A simply unbearable. Inevitably, we are caught behind a giant SUV, whose driver appears to be ordering nasty fried food for the entire state of Missouri. Or the Russian army. Accordingly, we must wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait whilst the chuckleheads working the ole’ window grab umpteen deep-fried nuggets for this moron.

But nothing should bother us about Chick-fil-A as much as the food itself. A mere glance at the containers in which the food is served should present ample evidence that this food is slightly more dangerous than arsenic. It’d be better to eat a third rail. You’d be better off having sex with “Magic” Johnson.

You might not enjoy it as much, but you’d be better off.

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Computers and the Culture of

Computers and the Culture of Victimology

There seems to be little reason why this should not apply to computers as well; with human beings reveling in their supposed victimhood, why shouldn’t inanimate objects also claim some sort of martyrdom?

Or at least the staff computers at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Headquarters would lead you to believe that these little gadgets are getting in on the victimology sweepstakes.

As you might well imagine, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” possess a treasure trove of computer wizardry. After all, we need to produce one of the World-Wide Web’s least-read “weblogs” in history, and this jolly well takes all kinds of impressive hardware.

Accordingly, dear reader, we own a veritable army of the latest models. In addition, we also have some computers: TRS-80s, Commodore Vic-20s, &c. We’re classy like that.

Pretty much nothing irks us quite as much as the (numerous) times when the computers “freeze.” This occurs with such regularity, in fact, that you would think our laptops were actually Popsicles. Whenever we’re in the midst of typing an important, unsaved document, our computers freeze like Paris Hilton in a Kant seminar.

What’s worse, dear reader, is the fact that our computers—ever hoping to cling to the status of victims—blame us for their sub-par performance. “The computer was not shut down properly,” read their screens after we turn their frozen butts off.

To which, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: Um, come on, now; we only shut you down “improperly” because you froze like Sean “Diddy” Combs at a talent competition. We didn’t want to shut you down improperly; we were compelled to do so. Hint, hint: It’s because you froze, you stupid bitch!

Frankly, dear reader, the whole Foisting-the-Blame routine is pathetic. It’s as if we mischievously planned to turn the computers off at inappropriate points because this is such naughty, illicit fun. Boy, oh, boy: Nothing beats the high of switching the ole’ IBM off without authorization! We haven’t had that much fun since they cancelled “Night Court.”

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The Anatomy of a Brilliant

The Anatomy of a Brilliant Marketing Campaign

Accordingly, in order to look simply splendid in the cubicles at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Headquarters, a sliver of the crack young staff was dutifully playing the part of capitalist pig, engaging in a festive bout of conspicuous consumption.

Naturally, they checked out their favorite clothiers: Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Baby Gap, &c. No trip would be complete, however, without the obligatory trip to Saks Fifth Avenue—the upscale version of Neiman Marcus (a.k.a. Needless Mark-Ups). Everyone who’s anyone goes there to peruse the shelves, and, it seems, to prattle on endlessly on a cellular telephone.

The store, for those of you lucky enough to be unacquainted with it, hawks overpriced clothing and furnishings, likely assembled by eight-year-old Indian girls in the course of a delightful 872-hour workweek. The salespersons at Saks are only slightly less snooty than those found at Barney’s. (Frankly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” always found the uppity staff at Barney’s a mite hilarious: We mean, come on, we’re not the ones who work at Barney’s!)

During the course of the staff’s Saks Fifth Avenue wending and weaving, “Chip” took in something particularly curious. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quartelry,” have never worked a day in clothing retail. All of the men on staff are colorblind, and the women are graduate students, and therefore too ugly to sell clothes. Q.E.D.

All the same, we feel quite certain that we understand a sufficient amount about the whims of the American shopper to declare without reservation that the most recent marketing decision of Saks Fifth Avenue may not work terribly well.

It seems, dear reader, that the advertising whizzes behind Saks think that a good way to compel people to purchase expensive clothing is through the use of goats. No, you did not read that sentence incorrectly. It did end with the word “goats.”

As shoppers at our local Saks will discover, some of the floor-space at the upscale redoubt has been handed over to plastic and plaster statues of goats. A couple of these odd animal sculptures are even clad in cravats, as if they fully accentuate the wares to be found at Saks.

Are we the only ones who find goat models a bit unsatisfying? What kind of fashion sense does the average billy-goat possess?

Well, given the habits of typical supermodels, maybe goat models aren’t such a bad idea. Surely eating tin-cans is less of a nuisance than snorting tons of cocaine.

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The Stars Play an Away

The Stars Play an Away Game, or Matt Damon in Detroit

Whilst we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” took in some Major League Baseball with slices of apple pie in hand, we had a somewhat interesting thought. Not, we daresay, a great thought, or a life-altering cogitation. We didn’t suddenly realize that we were truly born women, or that we secretly liked Starship. No, this was a more quotidian rumination, but an interesting rumination all the same.

Baseball players, we collectively mused, must spend a goodly part of their careers performing in front of essentially hostile audiences. Not only must they attempt to hit a 95-mile-per-hour fastball, they must do so far from the comforts of their home cities, away from their local hookers.

This strikes us as a mite difficult. To be sure, we won’t waste our emotions crying over the hardships that professional athletes must face. Last we checked, there were some nice perquisites to be had as a pro ball player. It appears as if they make a lot of money, and this may help their chances with women. Or so we’re told.

Still, we noted—and here we get to our vaguely interesting thought—that this was all vastly different from the lives of movie and television actors. Whereas athletes who represent cities must face hostile crowds, film and TV stars never do. Even if they’re on a real clunker show like “Full House.” The television audience doesn’t threaten to beat up Bob Saget for his abysmal career—even though it obviously should.

So, we wondered, why not make life more difficult for those pampered actors? They, like athletes, receive all kinds of perks, and yet they don’t have to put up with the booing and hectoring of hostile crowds. The paparazzi can’t hold a candle to two overweight clods shouting obscenities.

Frankly, dear reader, we’d love to see, say, Susan Sarandon get hissed and jeered by a stadium full of ardent detractors. Let’s see if she can act when they’re throwing beer cans at her. Sue, she can deliver a line under the best of circumstances, but can she deliver it when fans are accusing her of “being Tim Robbins’ bitch”? We collectively think not.

The problem is, dear reader, that Americans are so star-struck with celebrities that it would actually prove difficult to find a stadium full of people to yell at the likes of Tony Danza, Angelina Jolie, and Ben Afleck. As silly as that seems, it’s true.

Still, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” think we have a good solution for this vexing problem. Send all the actors to Philadelphia. The fans there are mean. And we don’t mean “normal mean.” We mean “boo and hiss little retarded children mean.”

We’re sure that inebriated Philadelphians would have no qualms with heckling Brad Pitt. And we’d love to see them do it.

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Criminally Stupid We, the crack

Criminally Stupid

Anyway, whilst strolling that chuckle-fest known as The New York Times the other day, one of the senior editors here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—came upon another batch of stupid letters to the editor. Since this was the umpteenth time that such missives were appallingly obtuse, an uncomfortable truth hit “Chip” like the knuckles on a pig’s fist: The New York Times is read by idiots. In fact, “Chip” would go so far as to suggest that the majority of the Gray Lady’s audience is imbecilic.

Strong words, those. And, we might add, completely uncorroborated by masses of data. But, hey, if it’s good enough for postmodernist professors, it’s good enough for us. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” on the basis of our perusal of the Times’s op-ed page, herewith declare that the self-proclaimed Paper of Record is read by un-self-proclaimed drooling dipsticks.

Allow us to offer some anecdotal evidence that should prove our point lock, stock, and barrel. On October 2nd, the Times offered a longish piece entitled “To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars.” In addition to the typical ridiculous musings of an “Oh, You Poor Brute of a Killer Without a Conscience” variety, the piece presented a few interesting arguments.

Given the topic at hand, it should come as no surprise that the Gray Lady’s minions sent oodles of insipid letters to the editor. Take, for instance, the start of an epistle from one Pam Kulig, who resides in St. Charles, Illinois:

To the Editor:
If I read your article correctly, Timothy Kane was given a life sentence for watching a murder happen when he was 14, for not running away with the other kids, for not participating in the murder and for being curious. This sounds like fairly normal 14-year-old behavior.

To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: Um, we seem to have met a different caliber of 14-year-olds. Now, disregarding the apparent harshness of the sentence involved—for we certainly wouldn’t put it past Pam Kulig to read an article incorrectly—we must heartily disagree with the notion that eagerly taking in a murder is typical early teen behavior.

In fact, informal polling—and poling—around the office water-cooler suggests that not one of the crack young staff has witnessed a murder at the tender age of 14 without offering a cry for help. Perhaps we’re a passel of good Samaritans whose conduct is utterly at odds with the brutal world that surrounds us. But, quite frankly, we doubt it.

We’re glad, though, that the moronic Ms. Kulig fully expects her own 14-year-olds to enjoy a murder without attempting to aid the victim in any way. That’s the kind of good parenting we expect of dribbling ignoramuses such as herself.

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Teaching Peace or Teaching a

Teaching Peace or Teaching a Piece of Garbage?

And this made us collectively wonder: Why do so-called peace advocates get us so darn riled up? Perhaps it’s the fact that said “peace advocates” only want one side to cease and desist: The United States, Israel, the West. For some reason, the pugnacity of an Osama bin Laden or a Hamas doesn’t appear to get their dander up. They can fight all they want; we, on the other hand, must stop our warmongering ways.

Anyway, below we have reproduced the aforementioned book proposal, to which we have affixed our own humble commentary. See if this document bothers you half as much as it irked us.

EDUCATORS AS PEACE MAKERS:
TRANSFORMING EDUCATION FOR GLOBAL PEACE

A Book proposal
By

We invite you to send in an abstract of 200-250 words for your chapter. We are looking to have 15-20 chapters ranging from 10-20 pages each.

Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. We have so much to say about this rancid effort at indoctrinating our children into mindless capitulation that we hardly know where to begin.

But we suppose we’ll start with the obvious: Why is it that every jackass who desires the destruction of Western civilization is so quick to proffer a Martin Luther King quotation? We always thought Dr. King’s struggle was a great part of Western civilization, rather than a clarion call for its ruin. Nowadays, it seems any two-bit academic chucklehead uses Dr. King as an opportunity to give his thoughts a sense of moral righteousness. Frankly, we find this disgusting.

But let’s turn to the heart of the matter: These two morons—one of whom, it seems, is a professor at the University of Maryland although without a PhD—earnestly pine to use their classrooms as bully pulpits. As their idiotic book proposal suggests, they want American universities to become propaganda outlets for their own views.

Now, never mind for a moment the fact that these views—cleverly hidden by the rubric of “peace studies”—are foolish and dangerous. This shouldn’t matter much in comparison with the main point: It is destructive to use education as a means to force feed students specific viewpoints, instead of allowing them to think for themselves. In this sense, these two academic buffoons are deeply pernicious characters: They aim at nothing less than the degradation of a liberal arts education.

And then there’s the matter of the specific cause espoused. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” humbly submit that stalwart “peace studies” advocates lack a thoroughgoing knowledge of foreign policy. Our proof? Why, savor Jing Lin’s utterly rebartative description of her contribution to Educators as Peacemakers:

How can we as human beings learn to live together? For decades, with the dominance of a rational positivistic paradigm, we have relegated moral education and peace education to the margin, and have not reflected profoundly on what kind of global ethic we need to develop that would enable us to train future generations to work for and enjoy lasting peace. In this paper, Jing Lin will examine the current discussions on the formation of a global ethic and argue that we need to push the current baseline further. We need a global ethic of universal love, unconditional forgiveness and reconciliation as the basis for honest dialogues and reconnection. Our oneness is an essential concept for envisioning a new world. Peace education, if it is to be exciting and inspiring, needs to elevate us to see what we can become; it has to be an education for wisdom and universal love.

Oh, you have got to be kidding us! A “global ethic of universal love”? We’re sure the thugocracies of North Korea and Iran will really go for that. Gee, world peace sure is simple. Thanks, academia.

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The US Post Office As

The US Post Office

Until, that is to say, now. In today’s humble “post,” we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have returned to our roots. It’s kind of like John Cougar Mellencamp going “unplugged,” though hopefully not as irksome.

No effete navel-gazing today. No vapid self-reflection. No sir. On the contrary: We are psyching ourselves up for an old-fashioned beat-down.

To this end, we have picked a perfect subject of contumely—the US Post Office. Well nigh every American citizen has reason to hate this feculent organ of our federal government. It’s enough to make a Communist a tried-and-true free-marketer. Let’s just say that the editorial board at the International Socialist Review, their love for government waste notwithstanding, would prefer to use Fed Ex.

Standing in line at the Post Office must be one of the most vertiginous experiences in modern America. It’s not as bad as listening to rap “music,” but it comes close. Ineluctably the line at the Post Office is suitably long to make a Russian peasant woman despair. And no wonder: It’s tough to get to lots of customers when your one employee is a narcoleptic boob who works in slow motion.

Soon before we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” make our way to the front of the Post Office line, there is always some sort of disaster. Some errant chucklehead wants to mail his pet iguana to Alaska, and this causes great consternation among the Post Office crew. Should he check the “reptile” box on the form, or will “mammal” suffice? These are the quotidian irritants that make a trip to the Post Office unbearable.

And then there’s the little matter of mail delivery. As a staff of over 250 people, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have lived at our fair share of residences. Yet informal polling—and informal poling—around the office water cooler suggests that none of us has ever received his mail earlier than 12:00 pm.

Think about this for a minute: Not one single solitary one of us has ever inhabited an establishment that gets morning mail. Not a one.

What the heck are those lazy mail carriers doing all morning? As far as we can determine, they start sorting the mail at around 5:30 am. So what gives?

At the current headquarters of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” our literacy-challenged mailwoman delivers our packages around 6:00 pm. Since when do government employees work that late? This incompetent dipstick makes Slowpoke Rodriguez seem fast by comparison.

In fact, as a result of her bothersome sluggishness, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” may be the only people in history to go postal on a postman.

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Figure Skating Before we, the

Figure Skating

It goes without saying, then, that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” utterly detest figure skating, but not for any of the myriad reasons that could be termed “homophobic.” Of course by “homophobic,” we mean “any idea regarding homosexuality not in complete accordance with the views of the radical Left, which aims at the ultimate destruction of the nuclear family.” As far as we can tell, that’s the standard definition these days.

Let it be known, then, that our collective distaste for figure skating has nothing to do with its potential appeal to those whom Gore Vidal calls “homosexualists.” Similarly, let it be known that we bear no animosity or ill will toward the practitioners of figure skating, all of whom strike us as remarkably talented, dedicated individuals.

And we are in no way troubled by the fact that Scott Hamilton appears to be the most masculine amongst the bunch. Good for him, we say. He’s a strappingly straight lad.

No, sir: We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” contemn figure skating for entirely upright reasons—it’s simply ghastly.

It’s as if the creators of figure skating consciously aimed at creating the world’s most horrific sport. Having taken in the boredom that is curling, they realized that they had to fashion something galactically atrocious. And succeed they did.

Every potential athletic irritant is magically wrapped up in the figure skating package. Whiny divas on the ice? Check. Atrocious spandex costumes? Yep. Mawkish soft rock? Oh, yeah. The words “triple sow-cow”? Uh huh. Eerie Russian women with too much makeup and monobrows? But of course.

Yes, figure skating is so abysmal that if you catch yourself watching it on the tube one day, you should realize that your life has gone seriously awry. We don’t know about you, dear reader, but the day we get excited about an ambiguously sexed fellow in a skin-tight flamenco shirt skating to a Gypsy Kings tune is the day we officially put ourselves out of commission.

And don’t get us started on speed skating. At least that particular moronathon comes but once every four years.

We don’t mean to sound gruff, but can’t all these people simply take up a sensible sport, such as hockey?

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Warning: Sexy Female “Webloggers” As

Warning: Sexy Female “Webloggers”

Throughout our long tenure on Al Gore’s Internet, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have learned a thing or two. Possibly three. For instance, did you know that a goodly number of “websites” are actually devoted to pornography? We know: It sounds strange, but it’s true.

In today’s humble “post,” dear reader, we plan on offering you yet another fun fact, which we collectively happened upon as the result of our abundant e-strolling. It’s a curious datum, but it’s a datum all the same.

A tour of numerous of numerous “weblogs” has left us with the distinct impression that there are striking differences in the manner of self-presentation among the male and female communities of “webloggers.” As far as we can determine, female “webloggers” seem much more taken with the idea of offering sexy, coquettish pictures on their “weblogs,” ostensibly of themselves—or, perchance, cartoon versions of themselves.

Take, for instance, a representative sample of some of our favorite female “webloggers”: Cathy the Cakeeater, Sadie the Fist, Ms. Feisty Repartee, the Common Sense Lady, et al. Overall, male “webloggers” tend to eschew self-portraits. When they offer them, they are often charmingly matter-of-fact: E.g., the Rabbi-Philosopher who is neither a rabbi nor a philosopher, the Point-to-Point Man, et al. Or they favor the over-the-top countenance: Enoch Soames, Esq., Stephen Baldwin, et al.

There are, we hasten to add, exceptions to this rule. Savor, for example, the striking visage of the Maximum Leader. But, quite frankly, when you look that good, you ought to show off. In addition, the Llamas are certainly on the exhibitionist side of the coin.

All the same, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” find this all a bit weird. What does it mean? We would love to offer portraits of the female members of the crack young staff, but, unfortunately, they are all graduate students, and therefore ugly. Q.E.D.

So maybe we’re just jealous. And, as noted above, there are plenty of exceptions to our general rule. For instance, we’ve always wanted to get a peek at Lynn Sislo, but we’ve never been suitably fortunate. Still, we think we have discovered something that our Women’s Studies friends would call a “gendered response.” Or whatever.

We’re not entirely sure, but we believe there’s some kind of a doctoral dissertation in this somewhere.

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This Date in History (According

This Date in History (According to a College Sophomore)

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” find ourselves resolutely opposed to the machinations of the self-esteemers. As far as we’re concerned, school children shouldn’t have a great sense of self-worth; after all, they’re stupid.

Some may think that we are overdoing things, being a mite hyperbolic. Sure, they’d say, many American pupils are in fact dumb, but that doesn’t mean they all are. Furthermore, they can’t be that imbecilic.

As American students would say—if they knew any French—au contraire. It appears as if a steady diet of semi-pornographic video games and MTV doesn’t do wondrous things for your intellect. Odd, isn’t it?

In today’s humble “post,” we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” aim to prove our humble point. In short, we shall demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that American students are more moronic than a Cheech & Chong movie. They make a Journey reunion concert seem smart. To put it in the form of an analogy, they are to smart what Steven Hawking is to mobility.

To this end, we have asked a strapping young American college sophomore named Ted Pendergast to present a short essay on this very “website.” Through consultation with Ted, we have compelled him to contribute a product of his scholarly work intriguingly entitled “October 3rd: This Date in History.”

Ted, a fraternity boy at Pennsylvania State University, has assured us that he would spend the better part of the week preparing this essay. We reproduce his impressive lucubration below:

October 3rd: This Date in History by Ted Pendergast, Sophomore at Pennsylvania State University and Product of American Public Schools

Okay, first off, I totally have to apologize for putting less time into this thing than I had originally planned. I wish I had a good excuse, but I really don’t. I just totally spaced. Basically. To be honest, I didn’t even get a chance to study. So I’m gonna have to wing it. Also, I’m a bit hung over from last night, if you know what I mean. Nothing beats Milwaukee’s Beast, baby.

On a lighter note, on this same date in 1973, Elizabeth Taylor was born. Man, is she old. And to think, people used to call her pretty. I totally wouldn’t do her. Not at all.

We collectively rest our case.

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