Welcome to the Tuesday edition of The Mark Steyn Show, with another update from the Summer of Stupid, including Democrats: the PBS pledge-drive types and the in-your-face guys, the Chinese advantage, mammy singers on the campaign trail, drinking champagne and feeling no pain, the vote that enfranchised half a nation, a fashionable cricketer, a murderous poetess, a China chum the Chinese killed, and a blizzard of F-words.
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Mark will return this evening with the latest episode of his current Tale for Our Time, The Prisoner of Windsor.
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I don't mean to sound macabre, but I keep waiting for a group of vets looking for the chance to dish out some of their own justice to go armed into one of these blm protests where the police have been marginalized and start enacting street justice for fun, or some laid off cops to try to deal with the situation outside of the official role. It sounds crazy, but these are crazy times.
I've also been wondering if there are any jihadists waiting for their moment, watching the self destruction of democrat run cities waiting until the time is right, and blowing up a bunch of huge buildings just to shake things up a little. Remember all the jihadist attacks during the obamam administration? It's refreshing that they stopped under the President Trump administration, but the same deep staters who are doing nothing to track and arrest the leftist fascist rioters may also turn a blind eye to individuals like the Tsarnaev brothers the same way they did for the Boston Marathon bombing.
Hi Kitty,
I guess you got your wish yesterday. Did you see the photo of the good guys crossing Portland's steel bridge looking ready and quite able to take on Antifa? It made the news and there were some headconkings but that's all I heard. If the mayor of Portland would get some sense conked into him he would get up in the morning and say ninety days of violent unrest is enough and anyone found causing any disturbance in the street will be picked up, arrested and put into an empty stadium until their day in court.
We've come a long way re swearing from Gone With the Wind. I remember the saying, and I'm paraphrasing, that swearing just indicates a poor vocabulary, not being able to use the correct word to express yourself.
I play golf with a good friend who substitutes words from SpongeBob SquarePants. Hooks a drive out of bounds and I hear "barnacles". Shanks a wedge shot and out comes "Tabasco sauce". Kinda cute and it works.
I like the words Captain Haddock uses in the Tintin books I read as a kid. He was always yelling such creative insults at the bad guys: "Iconoclasts! Bashibazooks! Pithicanthropists! Nitwitted nine pins!..."
Social justice mobs, Wu Flu mandates from power hungry liberals, and the never ending attacks on our liberties and then some, are all distractions from what we should all be concerned about: China. I wonder if the left is using our issues to deflect attention from the real external threat to this country. The more we talk about America's "issues" the more we seem to ignore the real issue with China.
Well said, Brian - or as Mark puts it, "Lockdown and Looting", while China forges ahead.
And as for China's domestic political scene, instead of a coup there are purges...
"President Xi Jinping seeks tighter control of agencies vital to maintaining social stability and upholding his personal authority, analysts say. Dozens of officials have been taken down in Mao-style rectification campaign: 'scrape the poison off the bone'." - The WSJ, August 18.
On top of that, we have the Dems who are telling us that the only votes or voices that matter are that of victims and everyone else be damned. They complain about blacks having their votes suppressed and that they're not allowed to vote. Felons can't vote. Are they implying that blacks can't vote because they are criminals?
Easy for China to focus on being number one when they make the decisions for the people for them and silence the critics. Can't say the same here but somehow we're the oppressors for allowing different points of views to exist that aren't endorsed by the state or establishment.
Great to hear some of the greatest cricket commentators of all time. The late Tony Grieg, Ian Chappell, and of course the great Bill Lawry! Thanks Mark, from lockdown and curfewed Melbourne!
I feel terrible given the circumstances, but hearing the names of those Indian cricketers immediately made me think of lines from Billy Birmingham's marvelous Twelfth Man parody:
"The two Indian openers Cutiz Arminaf and Sunil Havaskar were in trouble right from the start. And with the score at none for ten, Havaskar it was who was the first man to be dismissed when he went for a slash just outside off stump but he mistimed it completely and it just ended up dribbling down his leg side."
I'll have a Jarofvegemitefor Miandad!
"The cream, the bone, the white, the off-white, the ivory or the beige?"
I think he was Pakistani!
PS. We got away with "Coon", but if people find out about the 12th Man they'll *know* Australians are racist!
I believe the only way to swear today is to use a derogatory reference to someone's ancestry or the ancestry of someone with whom you associate. Words such as those being bleeped or asterisked have lost the ability to shock.
After the un-asterisked moments of yesterday, I am all in favour of resuming the asterisks. I swear, and we all need that release, but I can't see that chain cursing accomplishes much....although I was impressed by the UK fellow that used it on the coppers who illegally entered his home under the guise of checking for quarantine breaches.
According to an article on CNBC's website, Bank Of America research has found that the cost for European and United States companies to relocate their Chinese supply chains could be one trillion dollars over 5 years, or presumably, $200 million per year for 5 years. So why doesn't Uncle Sam simply pick up the tab for it? What's another trillion? Wouldn't that be a win-win-win? We eliminate our economic dependence on a hostile regime for not only ourselves but our so-called European allies, we presumably would bring some of those jobs home and Europe would have to pretend to like us for at least 5 years. Ironically we would have to borrow the trillion from the Chi-Coms themselves. I wonder if they would lend it to us.
Ooops. My math was incorrect. It's $200 BILLION (with a B) per year. I get light-headed when such large figures swirl around my brain. It's still chump change.
You did good, Robert! What's an extra zero here and there. You have a very good idea and I'm glad Mark mentioned it on his show. It almost sounds so perfect that as candidate Trump had said. "What do you have to lose?"
I guess it was high time Mark and the rest of us Steynies and Steynettes kissed our asterisks goodbye.
On the hypocritical leftist celebrity front - because who can get enough of it? - the Mansion section in the Friday Wall Street Journal often runs articles that send me into delightful frissons of loathing for the pampered leftist rich. There was a piece a few months back describing a mansion on the market designed by the architect who had designed Gwyneth Paltrow's house. It features a back staircase, so that - as the writer so tactfully put it - the domestic staff are not in the owners' "sightline." Out of sightline, out of mindline, to coin a phrase - because it's easy for the Michelle Obama's of this world to feel empathy for people they don't see.
I learned my cursing working construction as the kid on the crew. Even then there was an etiquette of not using foul language in front of women, children or the boss. Sure, we had our effin' wrenches but mu'fa was rarely said. The former nukie boat sailor lineman was a lot more creative with his cursing than what you heard in the audio recording. The cursing tirade on the clip is just so low class and really inarticulate.
I try to limit my cursing but occasionally when I am unpleasantly surprised, I will let out with a S#it! or BS, not unlike Mark's primal scream. Times have regressed to the point where Democrats have moved from being the GD'd Dems to the (self described) effin' Commies. When I used GD'd Democrats I meant it literally.
I remember the worst spanking of my life that I got as a kid. I was 5 years old. My sister came into my bedroom. I was playing with my toys and I told her "Get out of my f-ing room!". Then I looked up and my dad was standing right behind her. Ooops!!. :)
I was cracking up at Mark's f-bomb tirade when I listened to it last night. Living so close to Portland, I often find myself staying up into the wee smalls watching in horror the live feeds of what is going on 20 minutes from my house. I was just telling my husband the other day that you'd think they don't know any other word in the English language other than "F". It's just f, f, f, f, f and then some more fffff's. I'm no prude, but man...some variety would be nice.
On a bright note for some people - it's probably a bull market for body guards in the USA since the police either won't or are prohibited from protecting people from the mob.
F*****g awesome show, you brilliant c**t! You are one g*****n, m***********', c*********' n****r, if I ever heard one.
At least I didn't cry at the end of this one as I did with the last one, with Trini Lopez singing "Smile", while we wished ave atque vale to Chairman Xi's latest scalps. This time I cried Corey Booker's "tears of rage" much earlier in the show, at the plight of my hometown, Portland. I haven't lived there for 40 years, but even Gomorrah-on-Willamette, as it has become (it's not "weird", it's wicked), doesn't deserve the freaks that patrol its un-patroled street. If hellfire and brimstone are no longer available, Lord, how about a small asteroid? Please spare our friend Walt Trimmer, my sister and her cats, and the Steel Bridge, if You would be so beneficent, Almighty. I'm rather fond of them. Do with the rest what You will.
@Josh Passell - Oh my goodness "Gomorrah-on-Willamette" is perfection. Absolute perfection! I never thought I would want to move from my home here, but am really thinking we need to. So far, we've been spared any of this garbage, but we wonder how long it will stay in Portland proper? Eventually, it's going to migrate to the areas beyond downtown Portland. It's actually sad what's become of this area in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
But move where? A red town in a red county in a red state might be lovely, but how're you going to keep them in Coeur d'Alene after they've seen Portland? I sympathize because I live in Boston, and the thought of my Independent vote actually counting for something in New Hampshire (not to mention the absence of any personal income or sales tax up there) certainly appeals. We may not have nightly mayhem in our streets, but we do have a congresswoman, Ayanna Pressley, who calls for it. I'm inclined to stay, if only out of inertia, but being faced with choices like the detestable Ed Markey and the comically unserious Jo-Jo-Jo Kennedy is enough to drive me across the Merrimack. Only the certainty that one will lose makes it bearable.
You live in a town where mayor James Curley used the city admin to attempt to push out non-Irish. The Prog Left wants you to leave.... except for any money they can get from you. Political cleansing to rid the city of the Deplorables. Portland is a warm up to a Kristallnacht and seeing that picture above, one can easily make it black and white back in Berlin.... with an SA or Communist thug standing over their victim. in this case a real Antifa original. We are reprising "one hundred years ago".
Dear Mark-
Thank you for the impassioned response to the Black Lives Matter craziness.
As you have pointed out, we have seen the demise of Aunt Jemima, Eskimo pies, "master bedrooms" and the Disney production "Song of the South". What is wrong with a happy fellow marching around singing joyfully as cartoon animals swirl around him?. My mother fondly recalls seeing this movie at the Fox Theater in Atlanta when it first debuted.
If I didn't know better, I might think this "cancel culture" was all about money. I wonder when Disney last sold a copy of "Song of the South"? Will they miss the revenue? Probably not.
Funny though, that they haven't shut down another franchise. Think about it. A strong leader maintains order between two species. Both flourish....their cultures preserved ....separate but respectful of the other's existence. The strong leader is assassinated. The species merge and the landscape changes from a glorious, bountiful paradise to a barren wasteland. The heir to the throne returns to establish order and once again separates the species. The heavens open up, rains water the landscape and both species are happy and healthy. Disney actually made this movie? And an openly gay man actually wrote the sound track? And it became a long - running Broadway play? What the heck were they thinking? Maybe they were thinking about the bottom line. Maybe they were thinking that people actually like to see the truth on the big screen and will buy lots of expensive, plush Simba dolls and DVDs to remind them of this eternal truth. Or maybe they just got lucky.
We are being played. It's time for us to wake up and smell the coffee.
Todd. I believe it was only five years ago that Disney was still enthusiastically selling various formats of Song of the South in it's "Exit Through Store" at the exit of the sadly departed Splash Mountain ride in the not quite as magic as it used to be kingdom.
It feels slightly irresponsible to ignore the serious stuff but I thought the music from today's "100 years ago" segment was an absolute delight.
Mark replies:
That is the serious stuff, John. In the new America, there will be no "By the Beautiful Sea".
So very true.
After a little effort I think I have identified the song as the aptly named Peerless Quartet with their lovely rendition of Blue Jeans.
Mark replies:
You should just have asked, John. It was indeed the Peerless Quartet.
Wow! This tells me there's never been a better time to be a complete and utter nobody. At least, I can tell a fat ball of lies when I hear them and I've never heard such a fat ball of lies like I did when I started hearing clips of Gov. Cuomo and Michelle Obama speaking at the Democratic call-a-thon convention. They are the top two of the hundred biggest fakers destroying the country right now. The country is coming apart before our very eyes and they are boasting about the accomplishments of the Democratic Party and claiming they take the high road. They're high alright. High on hallucinogens, I guess.
The high road to hell is still a road to hell. My three-year olds had much more fluency with the English language than the cursing thugs in that clip. We're sliding into a civilizational abyss and it's hard to see how we put the brakes on now especially with half the leadership complicit on destroying us from within.
One marvels that they expect to get away with such whoppers, F.
One despairs when they do.
As to the thuggery, do you know, I'm somehow not amazed. Appalled, yes. Amazed, no. Criminals are criminals and do criminal things. Likewise, trash is trash. These won't be the first criminals and trash to blame their crimes on their victims.
It's the big balls of deception by the so-called leaders that are hard to break down. Kamala Harris talks about perceptions, Michelle Obama talks about her feelings. VDH mentioned this in a recent essay about the narrative. When you are framing everything around perceptions, feelings and narrative mantras, the truth becomes the hard nut to crack.
As Mark points out repeatedly about China, they know who they are, they can think and talk about how they'll advance while the West and the rest battle it out in the streets and courts amongst ourselves. That's where the elites want to keep the spotlight. Away from them because they're the ones driving all these spurious narratives and glittery mantras.
I often heard Rush talk on his show about how we're approaching the tipping point. I always thought of it in terms of the economy, as in, we reach the tipping point when the percentage of society who lives on handouts exceeds the percentage of those who earn a living and pay taxes for their government services to all.
Now I realize the tipping point includes that and much more: the educated vs. uneducated, the destructive vs. creative, the motivated vs. those lacking curiosity, the truth seekers vs. the liars, the contributors vs. the takers, the powerfully rich vs. the rest of us.
What propels the civilization on is going to have to be a stronger counter from the ones willing to face the fact that we've made miscalculations and work out how to undo it. But it won't be too easy. It'll require commitment. It will be painful. I get hope from listening to Mark Steyn, Tucker, Rush, Conrad, Victor Davis Hansen and people at The Heartland Institute and many more courageous and brilliant men and women and, not least, are the people who comment here at our club.
Not that I could possibly watch the Democratic self-love-fest in its entirety, but I couldn't fail to appreciate the irony of Michelle Obama speaking about Donald Trump's lack of empathy. After securing, I think, a $50 million contract from Netflix to develop "content," B&MO purchased a $17 million mansion on Martha's Vineyard. I found myself wondering how many low-income black (oh wait, that should be Black), Latinx, and for that matter White (oh wait, that should be white) people actually come into the presence of Mme. O to partake of her bountiful empathy - other than those engaged in, shall we say?, a service capacity.
The lies from that woman are purely vile. She is not a leader in any sense of the word. She is sheer phoniness. I have a hard time watching her speak just like I had a hard time watching Hillary, and both of their conceited and deceitful husbands. The word, treacherous,
comes to mind when I think of all four of them.
A true leader would've spoken up throughout this summer to the BLM movement as they destroyed city after city. She had the power to turn the heat down. Or did she? She has some balls to come on in the late summer of the most destructive summer in our country after the worst health crisis to hit our shores in a century and speak to taking the high road. What a load of poop this country got hit with this summer and I blame the root of it on eight division-seeding years of her husbands two terms in the White House.
Don't forget the $65 million advance they got for a pair of books, one from each of them. She has turned her book in a while ago. Barry? Not so much. Multiple deadlines have passed and still no book from him. It must be good to be a Lightworker.
To borrow from Dorothy Parker, these are not books to be tossed aside lightly, but to be thrown away with great force.
That's the truth, F. I can't see it any other way.
One thing I got wrong about my assessment of President Obama, S., was he did promise to fundamentally change the country. Well, he went a long way towards that, it's just that I didn't expect he was going to ditch black people along the way. But that's what seems to have happened.
The inner cities where many broken black families are neglected, a question I still have is, "are we there yet"? Is this Obama's end vision for the country who elected him twice? Total mayhem and the erasing of law and order? People truly deserve to know.
People of all colors want the best for their offspring. We all want to provide a safe place for our youth to play, grow up and develop into productive adults. To children in our biggest cities, Democrats get a big "F." You know the entire story.
The youth fail at basics in school and it's not for lack of funding. The cities are disintegrating since basic needs of the citizens are not being met. NYC is now being overrun with rats and the numbers of tents with homeless addicts and mentally ill have risen along with shootings, stabbings and corpses. The cities are clearly unlivable without solid leadership.
It's going to take a real uptick at the polls against the Democrats running for the big city offices by the blacks who are of voting age. Conditions won't ever improve for the poor black people because a thousand or more criminals organize a big bust up of shops with the aid of social media; looting and destroying private property along the shopping strips in upscale districts dramatically hurt the entire city's economy. Everyone pays steeply for their destructive behavior.
If those poor black people not caught up in the vandalism had an opportunity to feel good about where they live, if they could feel pride in their neighborhoods, if they could raise children who could ride bikes, skate and play on their front steps with other neighborhood children without the fear of them being shot in broad daylight, then you would see the prevalence of drugs, guns and truancy subside.
If I were black living in the inner city, I would be ready to blow a fuse, too, and be filled with rage. That rage has to go somewhere. I can empathize with that. Did Michelle Obama speak to these things? I think she spoke in a rehearsed and out of touch manner. She did not reach people about their deepest concerns. She did not get good reviews from any other than her sycophants in the media. It's because nobody knows who she addressed.
Good points all, F. I offer this view by way of supplement. My own rage goes nowhere, because it has nowhere to go. I chat with folk like you on this site, with my son in England once a week and with my beloved over morning tea, and I wait to vote. That's as far as it goes, and as far as most decent people allow it to go.
However, the BLM movement, like any nationalist movement in my experience, provides the outlet and cathexis which the rage which you describe so lucidly. It does so, regardless of how justified the rage in question is and whether it must feed that rage with a concocted "narrative" (as we now describe an agenda of grievance) to achieve the outcomes which I have experienced wherever rampant nationalism occurs, namely racial or ethnic hatred, the violence which comes with it, a willingness to act as a tool of others, and an entirely distorted sense of reality and morality. Make no mistake: it's a heady brew, and the BLM's brand of black nationalism has no difficulty in intoxicating members of the very groups which are the focus of its hatred and violence. So it was with every manifestation of rampant nationalism which I have had the misfortune to encounter.
So, just to be clear: a sense of grievance is in my experience crucial in mobilising the collective rage of which I speak. We've all met people who tut-tut about the role of the Versailles treaty in aggrieving the German peoples and driving them into the arms of the nazis, for instance. They're right, of course, but are mistaken in thinking that Versailles is an excuse for the nazis: it was a crucial tool of theirs. Slavery, ghettoes and poor schooling and policing are tools of the BLM in the same way, even when they can be shown to be as real as the injustices of Versailles.
Actually, so heady is the brew that the communists and trades unions, even as they decry nationalism, use its tools to good effect. They, like the nationalists, are not interested in repairing problems; their interest is in aggravating them until they can be exploited, and then expanding their power as they do so.
That is Mr Obama's legacy, from where I stand. He has let the genie of black nationalism out of the rather comfortable bottle to which it was previously confined. Regardless of the comfort of the bottle, the genie's not going back. Mr Obama has deserved his Nobel peace prize with the gift of nationalism - black nationalism, to be precise - and thrown away the cork. And his gift is to the entire West.
I see what you're saying, I think, S. The chaos, well, that's just baked into the recipe of achieving black nationalism?
Take all the grievances, add the unrest, if a few dozen more blacks die, they're collateral damage, like a couple broken bowls slipped off the counter and hit the stone tiles. No big deal. As long as the cake gets baked and the finishing touches, like getting their power grab, is the icing on the cake. Am I catching on yet?
I had rather supposed that you were there ahead of me, as ever, F., but yes, I really do think that's how these folk operate. It's not a new idea, but it's effective.
On a passing detail, I would have referred to what you call "collateral damage" as martyrdom, but then I say tomato and you say tomato and who can tell the difference? Of course, I can see why you wouldn't want to use the word martyr. It's not used these days as it once was. Martyrdom is not attributed to black schoolchildren who get plugged by black gangsters, but the drug-addicted repeat criminal George Floyd, well, now, he's definitely a martyr. Deceased IRA terrorists are martyrs to a man. That poor devil on the deck in the picture with the article ... nope. Doesn't cut it. We have standards, you know.
Martyrs have been about a while. Maybe the ploy of designating martyrdom on purely parochial grounds has been, too. Plus ça change and all that...? But as usual I digress.
Great observations here, Fran and SS.
And this caught my attention...
"She has some balls to come on in the late summer of the most destructive summer in our country after the worst health crisis to hit our shores in a century and speak to taking the high road."
Remember when she did her pouty #BringBackOurGirls pose as FLOTUS? Yet she has nothing to say when 'Woko Haram' terrorists are wreaking havoc domestically. The tipping point is the desired outcome for the Obamas and Co.
Thanks, K., and thanks for labouring through my ever-muddled expositions. Some balls, indeed. F. certainly has a way of cutting to the core of the matter.
Michelle and her significant other spent eight years dining "several times a week" with Bill (to heck with the black patron-frequented restaurant sharing that Detroit alley with the police station we're going to blow to smithereens, who will collaterally die too) Ayers and Bernardine (nail-bomb the faces/legs off those 21-year old San Francisco cops, then secure fake I.D.s for the Brinks murderers in Nyack) Dohrn.
I say that puts her distaff of the empathy plea.
Further to my last, F., didn't Ex-president Obama's speech at the DNC yesterday just let it all hang out? He didn't stop far short of intoning, "Burn, baby, burn." Surely nobody with functioning wit can now doubt that the great unifier image is just a thin veneer.
(Of course, the one person in the country - in the world - who needed to keep his trap shut just then didn't. I'm heartily sick of the sheer self-indulgent folly.)
by the way, I loved Mrs Clinton's performance. I was reminded of one of Schwarzenegger's heavy metal-type flicks in which he replied to the question of what should provide the greatest joy by woodenly intoning that a great part of it was to hear "de lamentation of de vomen". She never disappoints. Unlike Mr Obama's, her agenda still doesn't run to black nationalism, or indeed anything further from her person than her lipstick.
Michelle has balls and Barry is an effin' c**t! Just the opposite of what one would think.
Blistering stuff, F.: you go! I'll be right behind you.
I would have les mots du jour nastie fresh at my disposal, wouldn't you know, but ordinarily that's now how I speak about people. I guess hearing that low blow speech Obama gave the other night really had me unhinged. I've gathered myself now.
:D !!!
Actually the "now" was supposed to be "not." Not that anyone will believe me from now on. Where is that little squirrel with the dustpan and broom that used to clean up after Rocky and Bullwinkle in the credits. Or was it Yogi and Boo Boo? I need him now.
Even funnier now, F. On the need for an editor, I'm something of a case study.
I had completely forgotten about that lame tweet of hers, Kate. You've got a wonderful memory. I like to forget about what a wasteland of eight Obama years was for the country. I think one of President Trump's most biting remarks to them must be, "Obama's the reason the country got me."
(I kept meaning to ask you about how the flu season was this winter in Oz? I hadn't heard any reports. Were there deaths due to the yearly flu separate from the China virus?)
Charge me triple the customary dues at my next renewal.
Another cracking installment Mark! Loved it!
Oh, my! So much for "minced oaths"...
https://www.steynonline.com/9062/damn-zounds-and-odd-life
BLM and its most nauseating participants make me recall a few Eric Hoffer quotes:
"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life"
"The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick and that they are the surgeons to operate on it"
"People who are unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power"
Well, I had never heard of Eric Hoffer before. Thank you! Looking forward to reading his books.
Eli, you will not be disappointed! He lived a difficult life, but those experiences shaped his work. Even though his first book The True Believer was written seventy-some years ago, it's essentially a template for BLM participants
I was more than grateful for the opening diatribe. It has been my impression that my rage against people whom I don't know and events from which I have been distant to the point of being remote has been beyond the pale. It was a comfort to know that at least some people whom I respect have feelings very like my own.
I have some other thoughts than those expressed by the boss-man which are too dark to air, and I suppose that we'll all be careful about where and how we express views of this sort. Hopefully we'll be allowed to suggest that the BLM movement has yet to provide the best possible advertisement either for its members or for its putative beneficiaries.
I don't vote in American elections, so I hope also to be allowed to suggest that political parties, sporting bodies and businesses which harness themselves to the BLM bandwaggon do not present themselves in the best available light, either.
In my head, I try to remember that BLM has not been the first populist organisation to bring out the worst in everybody and to work towards the worst for everybody. In my heart, beside a growing sense of disappointment in the prospects of the social order which I have come to like, I can find only rage.
But, thanks to my membership of the MSC, I am at least more able to live with that.
There's nothing dark about self defense. The first four word's from Kurt Cobain's biggest hit come to mind whenever I hear more of this senseless violence.
Thanks, A. You're a pal.
No Mark - it can't be saved.
We have tried the middle, moderate, normal route and it has led us here.
That leaves us with "equal and opposite".
That can often open the door for extremists to run both sides - I don't say Right or Left, because the Extreme Left is the Extreme Right. They want power, we want freedom from their power.
Anyone not personally armed and willing is in danger of suffering the same end as the Jews under National and International Socialism.
The Mexican border is wide open.
People want to be protected from both "bad cops and bad citizens".
(I wish I had said that... but I have to credit Al Sharpton. Yes, that Al Sharpton... I'm still in shock.)
I just spat my breakfast out across the table.
F, that was funny.
You could be an A****e with a mouth like that.
Damien I did the same thing. I litterally spat my breakfast across the table. It was too perfect....
Definitely had the shock value coming from The Man Himself... And repeatedly! What a relief to get back to normal with the subsequent features!
Two columns of yours come to mind regarding the profanity-rich part of the show: The Riskies and Croquembouche Lie, People Die. In 2015, I was still a young college student who enjoyed some of the late-night programs before they descended further into self-congratulating clapter. It was nice to see you take John Oliver down a peg. "Thus the paradox of our times: to say anything other than 'f***' might offend someone. And it surely doesn't get much more pathetic than that. What a croque."
I saw the thumbnail but didn't know the context. Since the show is audio only, I found the video beforehand on NRO which shared the New York Post video. About 80% of it was bleeped which isn't very helpful; they might as well remove all audio to avoid the distraction. I imagine it would be nearly impossible for you to cover it censored with only audio, so thanks for your judgment to still be able to address it.
This episode was tailor made for my "laugh or cry" policy of always trying to laugh my way out of any occasion where crying may be appropriate, because surely Mark F-bombing his way through the first half of his show is a time to cry, no matter how appropriate those F-bombs may be. Thank you, Mark, for at least making it genuinely funny so that the laughing would be easy.
Mark, your fluent fanfaronade of four letter-words around the 7:23 mark reminds me of Colin Firth's King George VI letting it all out in that one particularly vivid speech therapy session with Geoffrey Rush's Lionel Logue in The King's Speech.
Firth won an Oscar. You deserve at least a medal for your send-up of the woke mob's potty-mouthed vocabulary. It's intellectually impoverished and, even worse, boring.
Thanks for yet another great show.
Brian W. - Thank you for the reference! I was thinking along the same lines when I was listening. If the whole of the thing wasn't so tragic, it would be funny. As it is, the situation can only call for a wry smile as civilization goes to hell.
Hi Mark,
The DNC presenter, name escapes me (tried jumping around the audio track to find her name kept landing on the MF parts and gave up) maybe what she is saying is "if you like what's happening in Portland and elsewhere we're bringing more of it to your neighborhood". The candidate track with all the MFing audio did say he was here now, at least that's what I thought I heard him say, could definitely make out the MF parts. "I'm here now to kick heads in in the name of Social Justice" or something like that. Hey, maybe the DNC convention could add it as a tag line real quick. Biden could use it as well, "When Corn Pop and I were kicking in heads all those years ago in the name of equality...."
Cheers,
Marc B.
I suppose, when it came to thespians getting involved in American politics, John Wilkes Booth did have Al Jolson beaten by several decades.
Brilliant, O. And of course one should be pleased that some demonstrably find time for nursery-school level politics in their lifelong search for a personality.
Welcome to the Peoples Republic of Oregon. Keep Portland Weird!
I'm not sure which is worse: Unpoliced Oregon, or the Police-State-of-Victoria.
You used to see a few "Weird Isn't Working" bumper stickers as a counterpoint to those reading "Keep Portland Weird", but I suspect they'll disappear altogether as they're now likely a source of "unwanted attention." Dissent from the prevailing insanity regime brings risks.