Tuesday, July 22, 2008

New Yorker Cover Insulting to Crustaceans, Jews, Humans, Hamptons, Porches


Cover Newyorker 190Once again in a failed attempt at satire, the staff at the New Yorker has managed to publish an incendiary cartoon cover. It seems like last week's Obama kerfluffle didn't teach them anything. This week's cover depicts a bunch of affluent whites carousing while their crustacean dinner escapes through the kitchen window with the aid of a red-and-white tablecloth. Clearly this is a veiled attack against the Jews. In this case, the humanoid character with the Semitic nose (on the right) is shown drinking some sort of red wine. Not only are lobsters a food no self-respecting Jew would eat (shellfish aren't kosher) but this diner is shown with a glass of red wine in front of him. Red wine does not go with lobster. Karen MacNeil, chair of the professional wine studies program at The Culinary Institute of America recommends an AlbariƱo from Galicia or a Oregon Pinot Gris. At any rate such an insulting depiction of American Jewry should not go unmentioned.


Then there is the issue of the lobsters, a noble and brave species, who have in the past, faced their fate with the sealy Stoic resolve of a true warrior. Like good Soviet soldiers, they would never retreat. Better to die nobly than live as a coward. This cover, in which the lobsters prefer ignoble escape, is an insult to homards worldwide.

The Princes of Google Image Search


John

How did John Paczkowsk, the senior editor at the website All Things Digital and a graduate of Brown University somehow rise to the primo spot in Google Image Search for "John," one of the most common male names? How did Josh Trentine, the CEO of Overload Personal Training, become the prince of all Josh's on Moderate Safe Search All Images? And Peter! Professor Peter Guttorp, a Swedish Professor of Statistics. These men have no right to crow from atop their perches. Especially John. Peter, I'm completely happy with. "He received a B.S. in mathematics, mathematical statistics, and musicology from the University of Lund, Sweden, in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley, in 1980. He joined the University of Washington faculty in September 1980." That's great. Also, the top three Peters all have full beards.


As for Josh, though I'm not entirely happy with an orange bodybuilder representing visually my namesake, it's slightly better than 2nd place:


Members Josh

Monday, July 21, 2008

Monday, July 07, 2008

Wall-E and the Fall of Man

I, like you and me and everyone we know, wrote about Wall-E and the Fall of Man [Huffington Post]

Thursday, July 03, 2008

American Blogged (Foreigners Dirty!)


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On a recent trip to Atlantic City, I escaped the Las Vegas colonial outpost for the seedier spectacular boardwalk. There was a light drizzle and the boardwalk was mostly empty. Crap souvenir shops faced the dunes beyond which the Atlantic Ocean stretched darkly. Cheek-to-jowl, stores sold t-shirts that read, "Atlantic Fucking City" or that pictured Tweetie Bird in baggy shorts. (I thought that trend disappeared in the nineties but perhaps it's resurgent.) One store proudly proclaimed, "American Owned" (right) which, yay! Hey! I'm American too. We all love our country right? Then I noticed a woman in a sari in the store next door (left). Ah, I thought. I get it. You, sir, are forming a dialectical pair! What you are really saying is "Don't Buy From the Dirty Foreigner/Terrorist!" Why didn't you just say so? I will buy my creepy clowny AC t-shirts from you, my fellow American because implied racism masked as patriotism is something all Americans share!