Assholes of the Month for September 2011, or...
Shitheads of the Month for September 2011, or...
People We Most Need to Deport to Bolivia of the Month for September 2011.
But, for now, let's just salute them here for being the jerks they are. Because, indeed, both of these schmucks can be addressed under a single umbrella designation.
"The Over-educated, Whining, Miserable Ultra-Liberal."
You know the type? Those folks who are so incredibly intolerant of your opinion and are so convinced that they are smarter than you. Whether it be politics or the weather or the Yankee pitching rotation for the playoffs, only their idea counts as fact. All others? Stand in line behind me. And wipe my shoes before you leave.
Smug, arrogant, and unrelenting. Espousing the rights of the downtrodden and the oppressed. Meanwhile, none of them would be caught dead being even remotely north of 59th Street in Manhattan. Hypocrisy on steroids that Roger Clemens wouldn't even take.
Our first candidate is...ta, da...Paul Krugman. Op-ed columnist of the New York Times, which is fast becoming a newspaper that you read only for recipes and Broadway theater listings.
Krugman's picture alone is enough to scare you. He reminds me of one of those snotty neighbors who sneers at you in the elevator of a luxury high rise on Sutton Place. Just because your sneakers are dirty.
Yep, Krugman is one of those over-educated louts who is allowed to flap his gums and type his vitriole simply because he's got a fancy university pedigree. B.A. from Yale. PhD from MIT. Taught at both those schools as well as Stanford. Glory be! He even has a Nobel Prize, but, given Barack Obama got one after just six weeks in office, that honor is really no more impressive than getting one of those Peoples' Choice Awards from the late Army Archerd.
Krugman is an unabashed defender of the welfare state, which means he doesn't live within fifty miles of anybody who actually resides in a welfare state. Supposedly a genius on economics, Krugman writes virtually unchecked dribble that is frequently disputed in circles where brainpower actually exists. Even Paul's second wife is over-educated as well and she's allegedly this renowned author of economic textbooks. The fact that her main job right now is that of a yoga instructor is a bit baffling. Nevertheless, you get the snapshot.
He's much more intelligent than anybody else on the planet. Mark his words.
But, it wasn't a matter of dollars and nonsense that gets Krugman this monthly honor from yours truly. Nope, it was his New York Times column of September 11 that really rankled the common folk. And deservedly so. Written under the banner of "The Conscience of a Liberal," Krugman chose the worst possible day and time (10th anniversary of that horror) to pick another one of his fights.
It wasn't a long piece, but it sure did pack a punch.
Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?
The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.
I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
Huh?
More specifically...are you fucking kidding me?????
Forget the fact that I have just sullied this blog permanently by including those vile and despicable words. They needed to be reprinted here to expose Paul Krugman as the bully that he is. Once again, we have somebody who has all the answers to what happened on that horrific day. Forget the almost 3,000 people that died. Ignore the millions of lives that changed. For Krugman, it's all about the opportunity to cash in one more time with an unabashed pounding of those he doesn't agree with politically.
Say and think what you want about folks like Guiliani and Bush and anybody else who was in charge that day, they did help us to get through it. And let's not discount the albeit brief period of patriotism that enveloped our nation for the days immediately after the tragedy. To say they "cashed in" is perhaps the most rephrensible words in print since Adolf Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf."
Meanwhile, Krugman's biggest dilemma on that day was that he might have had some difficulty getting a cab on the Upper East Side. Or maybe he had to delay his next trip out to the Hamptons.
Yes, we live in a democracy. Yes, we have freedom of speech. But, with folks like Paul Krugman, the power of the Constitution is a double-edged sword. Because he unfortunately has the right to write trash like this.
And, then, there's our second moron for September...
Filmmaker and professor Thom Andersen.
Who, you say?
This guy, I say.
Still have no clue who he is? Well, neither did I a few weeks back. And I barely lived to tell the tale.
It was an innocent Saturday night and some friends and I were looking for a cinematic diversion. Hmmm, there seems to be an interesting documentary at Santa Monica's terrific Aero Theater. "Los Angeles Plays Itself." A three-hour film that is not on DVD and rarely screened anywhere for that matter. All about Los Angeles and the part it has played in the history of movies. All brought to us by the guy in the photo above. The jerk with the bedhead.
Sounds great, doesn't it? That's what I thought, too.
I couldn't wait for it to be over.
The movie started off in a most innocuous way. Lots of movie clips of real-life Los Angeles locations. But, as the first half of the film unspooled, I noticed a little quirk about the clips being shown. Most were not mainstream productions. And, if they were, they focused on either the destruction of the city and/or some sinister underbelly. Was this really a homage to Hollywood history? Or was there another agenda at work here altogether?
After a fifteen-minute intermission, we got the sad answer.
The second half of Andersen's movie was nothing but a relentless bashing of the city. And, at its heart, was a socialistic theme that was two salamis short of Benito Mussolini. Any one in power in Los Angeles? Bad. Police Department? Really, really bad. Anybody rioting or stealing? Well, obviously, they had a good reason for doing so.
Frame after frame, we listened to Andersen yammer on about this terrible place he lives in. And, frame after frame, he came off more and more as somebody with an axe to grind. Perhaps, his bitterness comes from an inability to get film work himself in good ole mainstream Hollywood. As the saying goes, those that can't will teach. But, if these are the lessons you're getting in his classroom, it's time to dump his curriculum from the school.
And, let's not forget a raging double standard at play here for Mr. Andersen. His documentary is not available on DVD because he did not pay the rights fees to use many of the clips he shows. And those monies would go to some perhaps lowly filmmakers. Some of those same poverty-stricken people he wants us, his audience, to embrace unconditionally.
At the end of this borderline Communist indoctrination, the dummies in the Aero audience applauded. But, then again, in super-liberal and snooty Santa Monica, they always will. These are people whose idea of oppression is when their housekeeper asks for Saturdays off.
Meanwhile, I had been completely snookered by Andersen and I was irate. Here's another sterling example of somebody exploiting his education and intelligence under the guise of "freedom of speech."
I don't deny Thom Andersen's right to say what he wants. I don't deny Paul Krugman's right to write what he wants.
I do deny them the notion that all other opinions should be immediately dismissed simply because they were not conjured up in their over-stuffed heads. Especially when those notions they espouse can be easily riddled with damning double standards and fact checks.
Lots of diplomas on the wall do not necessarily mean you are solely right. They simply mean that you have much more wall space than the rest of us.
Dinner last night: Belgian waffle---breakfast for dinner---at Barney's Beanery.
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1 comment:
Andersen's failure means someone else can do a documentary on LA in the movies. It is a great idea. Just the film noirs from the 40's and 50's would make a complete film. Most of those locations don't exist now so it would also be a history of vanished LA, a shadow world.
And why not a tour of the homes used in movies, from Norma Desmond's to Baby Jane's? The house from "Father of The Bride" is in my neighborhood and tour vans stop there all day.
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