By CHRIS PACKHAM
Still Alive: As a kind of stunt, I thought I might try making jokes about every story on the index page of The Kansas City Star website this morning.
Unfortunately, they printed an unusually high number of stories about people who died, so I quickly Netscape-navigated away to inoccuous, unfunny list-generating node Cracked.com, a website so completely shitty that I will not provide them with a working link. Not only am I not allowed to make fun of freshly-dead people, the news stories themselves always inspire me to Max Von Sydow-like brooding about my own death, making me all sad and depressed, which I already wrote about several weeks ago.Netflix is down, so in lieu of watching The Wire episodes that have been at the top of my queue for the last week, I've been catching up with my old friends, Smirnoff vodka and juice. We actually used to spend a lot of time together watching The Wire, but now we just hang out and call old girlfriends until we're too drunk to press the flat little buttons on my Razr phone. After the jump, a brief analysis of a very special section of The Kansas City Star, and how it will save journalism. Plus: some other stuff. Click here, or, for our French-speaking readers, ici.
Maybe you can buy integrity: I've always been an avid reader of the Star's "Indulge" section — oh, you don't know about "Indulge?" It's a "monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine" cooperatively written by "the lifestyle staff of The Kansas City Star and The Star Co.'s Targeted Publication Department." Trust me: After a long afternoon of heavy differential calculus brain-curls and multiple reps of brainy trigonometry power-squats, Indulge will shut down your brain so completely that you may actually lose autonomic functions like bowel control. The magazine works like this: Actual Star lifestyle writers — your Jeneé Osterheldt, or your Ann Spivak — write a short paragraph on the theme of an article of clothing ("Spring is on the way, so it’s time to ditch those big bubble coats for something cooler, like a hoodie.") Then, advertorial staffers step in with paid ad copy about actual hoodies you can buy at J. Crew. Ad dollars come raining down like pork sandwiches from the sky, corporate coffers are engorged like R. Kelly at Chuck E. Cheese, fat little executives strut through the Star hallways flaunting their silken finery, and print journalism is saved.
When presidents of the United States collide: Batty old President John McCain whipped out his Presidential Diplomatic multi-tool, unfolded the Sens. Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham components, and started poking with them at Russia, or as McCain knows it, "the Grand Duchy of Moscow." All of which The Washington Post thinks is weird, because Other President George W. Bush has sent Secretary of Mushroom Clouds Condoleezza Rice to the region on a similar diplomatic journey of self-discovery. Foreign policy was simpler back when we only had one president, because jurisdictional disputes between diplomatic delegations in front of international dignitaries are always embarrassing, like when your mom used to get drunk in front of your friends, and then ask all of them to slow-dance. Here's a picture of her:
"Sheerioushly, c'mere 'n' put yer handsh on m'shouldersh... I LEAD, y'shtoopid dummy. Put Gordon Lightfoot on the shtereo..."
HAHA, that's your Republican mom.
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Look, luffa-boy, your O�Reilly tactics simply will not work around here because you cannot out shout me.
This is the Plog, bro, and it is provided at no charge by some of the best writers in Kansas City, and yes, this includes at least one of the personalities of Daily Briefs guy. So, for the most part, they have considered both sides. This is especially true within this Daily Briefs. How can you compare McCain sending emissaries to Obama and Pelosi actually BEING emissaries? Even if you discount that McCain is meddling in a current event that is very much unstable and Pelosi and Obama were acting well after there had been a set in period, there is still no �other side� to report. Obama and Pelosi�s actions are not comparable in any way.
Now, quit acting like it is acceptable for Congress to act like the President, especially under the whiny premise of, �but they did it first�.
Lastly, you need to be advised that I am an old school Republican, and one that is REALLY PISSED at you neo-Republicans who screwed up mah party!!!
I ask the author to present both sides of an issue; you both attack me personally and hit us all with your "Fox News" blasts. Talk about an original argument. I thought clowns like you were supposed to be "intellectual"?
Which version of "dumb young liberal doucehbag" are you?
1. The artsy white kids raised on Ward Parkway who feel so guilty about their upbringing later in life, they feel "social justice" entails tearing down those who had it as good as them?
OR
2. The reclusive artsy white kids raised in a broken home who are so enraged at the hand life has dealt them that they must tear down anyone that had it better than them? Nevermind bettering yourselves; just tear down those around you and drag them down to "your level".
For representatives of an ideology that claims to be "tolerant" and "understanding", neither of you can "tolerate" or "understand" anything besides your warped view of this world.
I ask the author to present both sides of an issue; you both attack me personally and hit us all with your "Fox News" blasts. Talk about an original argument. I thought clowns like you were supposed to be "intellectual"?
Which version of "dumb young liberal douchbag" are you?
1. The artsy white kids raised on Ward Parkway who feel so guilty about their upbringing later in life, they feel "social justice" entails tearing down those who had it as good as them?
OR
2. The reclusive artsy white kids raised in a broken home who are so enraged at the hand life has dealt them that they must tear down anyone that had it better than them? Nevermind bettering yourselves; just tear down those around you and drag them down to "your level".
For representatives of an ideology that claims to be "tolerant" and "understanding", neither of you can "tolerate" or "understand" anything besides your warped view of this world.
Actually, Chris, I would be happy if anyone had really done anything substantial to help the Georgians at least as much as they helped the Russians. I likely even would have begrudgingly had to acknowledge some foreign diplomacy ability for Obama if he even had emissaries with sufficient contacts to engage the Russians, the Georgians, or the UN.
While this certainly is a matter best ignored by those actually elected to disregard such events, and I do think McCain is stepping out of bounds with his actions, I also, in an odd way, think that folks may see it as a real time example of McCain�s foreign relation skills. I also think it can be further spun, granted incorrectly, to focus on the perceived cowardice and inability of the Democrats in dealing with such matters.
And wumble, come on, leave poor scdue alone. scdue was likely raised not by the charming woman depicted in the picture, nor the woman that served you Bisquik, but by the 72� television always tuned to Fox as stay-at-home-mommy-cougar worked on her looks while over-paid-under-talented-daddy-warbucks spent time dancing the middle-upper-associate-executive shuffle. I mean really, how whacked to you have to be to even acknowledge Nancy Pelosi or Obama have any foreign relation skills whatsoever? Surely, they have junket skills, but not foreign relation skills.
Yes, scdue. Let's demand even-handedness in satire. Let's demand credibility from humorists. Let's police the living shit out of every web-site until only your exact perspective is represented.
And, of course, let's cough up FOX talking points.
You mean like Obama going to Europe and Iraq to meet with their leaders... before he's even received his party's nomination?
You mean like Nancy Pelosi going to Axis-of-Evil Hall of Fame-inductee Syria in 2007 to play Secretary of State?
Both sides are guilty of circumventing Condi Rice and the State Department. Call them out equally, or lose credibility.
Due respect, Trevor, but if Barack Obama was actually sending "emissaries" from his campaign to Georgia, you'd be girly-singing a different fucking show-tune.
Mr. Briefs, that isn't my mom.
That's the mom I always wished mine was.
Mine always stubbed her cigarettes out in my cheap Bisquik flapjacks.
To keep me quiet during her "stories," mine always stuffed my mouth with the soggy cotton she kept wedged in the holes in our screen windows.
Mine never even taught me to read funny paragraphs R, Kelly at Chuckie Cheese.
Cry for poor Wumble.
You would think the McCain Plogment of Chris would get me going. Alas, after spending a few days finding that most folks (especially the UN and Plogland) do not care about Russia or Georgia, I contemplated how to make lemonade out of lemons. I think I have found the solution.
Russia�s invasion of a sovereign nation, and the subsequent laissez-faire approach of Democrats and UN alike, coupled with a Republican bark-no-bite response, opens a new era in expansionism. Thus is set precedent for a United States invasion of Canada. Who can argue that Quebec wants to be part of Canada? Certainly, it is our duty to help them gain their independence and gather the fruit to be had. Yes, Russia has established the next shot heard round the world and we need to get in on it while the getting is good!
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