Do they care it's Christmas?

Say y’all heard of this jolly bearded dude named Santa Claus?  Megyn Kelly over at Fox News has caused all kinds of creatures to stir by insisting that Santa Claus is white.  I think maybe she got Santa confused with Frosty the Snowman.  Everyone knows that Santa Claus is just a metaphor for the year-end orgy of commerce and consumption facilitated by global capitalism.  Whether that makes Santa white or black, American or other, no one can really say.  But one thing's for sure: the elves are Chinese.  

Can't we compromise with Obgyn Kelly and just say that Santa Claus is half white and half black, like Obama?  Oh wait.  I can see how that might be a problem to certain someones.  Back to the white board, I mean the blackboard, I mean the drawing board. 

Duck duck oops

Aww sheez y'all heard of this crazy bearded dude down in Louisiana who hunts ducks on TV and hates gays in his spare time?  What am I saying, of course you have.  Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame is in big trouble after making blatantly homophobic comments in an interview with GQ magazine.  

The homophobic comments were no doubt outrageously offensive, but I'm surprised that some of his racist comments have flown under the radar.  I found his claim that the black people he grew up with in Jim Crow-era Louisiana were never mistreated to be astoundingly ignorant.  He paints a picture of black people singing in the cotton fields, happily working for the white man without a care in the world, until the twin plagues of "entitlement" and "welfare" rode into town and turned that idyllic world into hell.  It's a hard sell.  I'm definitely not buying it, and I think you'd have to be racist, or at least really fucking clueless, to do so.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's just willfully ignorant.  Although this picture of him in blackface is a bit suspicious...

For shame.

Anyway, like pretty much everything that happens on Earth these days, people’s reactions to the event are far more interesting than the event itself.  Sides were immediately taken, with Team Duck receiving kind words and support from none other than the governor of Louisiana, Jobby Bindle (I especially like the Spoonerized version of his name because the imagery wonderfully captures his transformation from sitting Governor to itinerant Presidential hopeful, traversing the country with one hand grasping the polka-dotted bindlestick slung over his shoulder while the other hand sheepishly rocks a tin can back and forth as he ingratiates himself with GOP power brokers).  Jindal/Robertson 2016.  You heard it here first.  And hopefully last. 

I don't know how I feel about A&E indefinitely suspending Robertson.  It's certainly their right to do so, but it seems like an empty gesture that won't make anything better.  It's also leading to quite the backlash, and I'm not so sure A&E wants the spotlight shined on it instead of on Phil Robertson.  After all, this is the network that once aired such highbrow fare as Beethoven's Fidelio and Agatha Cristie's Poirot, but has now resorted to airing Duck Dynasty, Criss Angel Mindfreak, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and about 38 different reality shows with the word "war" in the title e.g. Parking Wars, Storage Wars, Dancing With The Wars, Shipping Wars, Shopping Wars, Puppy Wars, Curb Your Warthusiasm, Pawn Shop Wars, Wars & Recreation, etc. etc. etc.  It's not too difficult to imagine tons of people of boycotting A&E and discovering that they're really not missing out on anything.  It would be in A&E's best interest to let all this be water under the bridge, or I guess water off a duck's back. 

It's not like Phil Robertson would have a hard time getting a new TV gig if he wanted one.  His life story just screams cable TV: he grew up dirt poor in northern Louisiana, got a football scholarship to Louisiana Tech (an oxymoron on par with 'Kansas City'), turned into a violent alcoholic who kicked his wife and kids out of the home, and finally, as sure as the sockeye salmon will swim hundreds of miles upstream to spawn before dying, completed the life cycle of the angry young Southern male by renouncing his sinful ways and accepting Jesus Christ as his savior.  Jesus tests really well in focus groups across all key demographics in America, which is pretty much unheard of for a Middle Easterner.  If I were in charge of programming over at Fox News, I'd just hand the entire weekend over to Phil Robertson.  He could have a cooking show where he grills up some shrimp while Sean Hannity accuses the remoulade of being communist.  

Obviously I'm not a fan of Phil Robertson's screwy socially conservative beliefs, but I also have a problem with the duck call he invented.  It just doesn't seem fair.  As if a human brain, camouflage, opposable thumbs, and hunting rifles weren’t enough unfair advantages, we had to go and introduce duck calls into the mix?  I just hope when the aliens come to take over Earth they have really weird voices and are incapable of mimicking human speech, to at least give us a fighting chance.  Wouldn’t it be something if aliens from, say, the seventh moon of Alpha Rigel DQX-17 show up here in a few years with a machine that precisely mimics human speech and use said machine to assist in their invasion and then later admit they got the idea while watching reruns of Duck Dynasty?  I bet y’all Duck Dynasty fans would sure feel stupid then.   

In conclusion, here is a list of things that I, as a heterosexual man, find more desirable than a man’s anus: 1) female anus; 2) ducks; 3) squirrels; 4) killing things including but not limited to items two and three; 5) our new alien overlords from Alpha Rigel DQX-17, provided they are not into male-on-male butt stuff.  Seriously, those gay Rigelians gross me out.  God created Zurmplek and Borp, NOT Zurmplek and Glorp!!!   

Pay no attention to the phallic object in my mouth.

Children of a lesser fraud

Aww man y'all heard that Nelson Mandela died last week?  I don't know much about world history but I heard he was this dude who got put in prison on some island for like 27 years before finally busting out and heading to Mexico.  I think they made a movie about it and Morgan Freeman played him.  But yeah, it's really sad that he's dead.  I just hope his son Howie is holding up okay.  

Anyway the big news now is how crazy Mandela's memorial service was.  Apparently President Obama was invited to it but he spent the whole time taking selfies with the Danish Prime Minister and making out with Raul Castro.  Such bad manners.  I was really excited when I heard that Elton John was going to be there to perform a retooled version of one of his classics, but I was expecting something along the lines of "Mandela in the Wind" rather than "Funeral for a Friend".    

But all those things pale in comparison to the utterly unfathomable weirdness of the service's sign language interpreter.  Thamsanqa Jamtjie, the ANC-approved interpreter, was actually a fraud.  Somehow he was allowed to take the stage and remain there for hours, basically doing the Macarena or whatever else cheremic gibberish he could dream up while dignitaries from all over the world gave heartfelt speeches unaware of the troll standing 3 feet away from them flashing baseball signs.  So if any of y'all were wondering why David Cameron stole home at the end of Obama's speech, now you know.  

That Jamtjie's meaningless "self-invented" gestures could command a place onstage at such a major global event is emblematic of a world in which delusional self-confidence and bluster have superseded actual competency.  And for that, he deserves to be rewarded.  Move over, Pope Francis.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Thamsanqa Jamjtie, TIME magazine's 2013 Person of the Year!

 

Upon hearing of his unexpected accolade, Thamsanqa Jantjie released this statement: “Many thanks, [right hand forms claw for five seconds while left hand extends pinkie finger] squeeze be informed how is why [sign of letter C five times in rapid succession] such governor of essence [uninterrupted jazz hands for thirteen minutes] and forbid suffer of correspondence marble future.  Again, [right hand forms fist and moves in alternating clockwise and counterclockwise circles for ten seconds] silent walnut [rocking motion of left hand for twelve seconds] much victorious marble future.  Marble future [conducts imaginary symphony in D flat minor for thirty seven minutes] enjoy always.”

 They also made a movie about him.

This will be my testimony

“We have a severe baby problem here in Hawai'i.  Every time I see a baby, it makes me angry.  So I just take its stroller, emptying out the contents first, of course (I'm no monster), and smash it with a sledgehammer until it’s inoperable.  I destroy them so they can’t be pushed on the streets.  And if I see a baby asleep at the bus stop or park during the night, I’m fine with that.  I won't do anything.  But if I see a baby asleep during the day, nuh-uh, that’s unacceptable.  I wake that lazy baby right up and bark at them, ‘get your ass moving!’  When you are walking down the street carrying a sledgehammer and wearing a garland of tiny baby skulls around your neck, people get out of your way. "

cf. some evil piece of shit state legislator from Hawai'i (who's a Democrat by the way, so can't no one accuse Shaq of being partisan anymore).