So I'm reading the Boris Yeltsin piece at Rolling Stone, getting a chuckle at watching a writer wax so venomous in his efforts to describe just how nyekulturny ol' Absolut Boris was without stopping to think that it might be a little... well... uncultured to mock a dead man for his rural origins, when I'm suddenly overcome by a vast ennui. An emptiness. I suddenly realized that I missed the commies.
It has been said that a man can be judged by his enemies, and one would assume the same holds true for those agglomerations of men known as "nations". And, while they lacked the suave black-and-silver menace of the Nazis, the postwar Soviets were as worthy a foe as any to have played The Great Game. Fortified borders, huge military parades, drunken madmen who pounded shoes on lecterns while threatening to bury us; these things were the stuff of a generation of air raid drills and spy novels and military speculation. Of course, the tiger turned out to be paper in the end, and the oligarchy was replaced by a kleptocracy so inept as to have to sell off unfinished aircraft carriers to the Chinese to use as riverboat casinos in order to generate the hard currency needed to keep the secret police payroll out of the red.
They've been replaced by our new foes, as depressing a lot as one could imagine: self-immolating neolithic goatherds drunk on a theology that makes the most ignorant snake handler in the backwaters of the Ozarks look like a regular Thomas Aquinas by comparison. May Day parades and fleets of ICBMs have been replaced by a comic opera dictator in a Southwest Asian banana republic hilariously flaunting a Weapons of Mass Destruction program that could be wiped out by the Massachusetts Air National Guard as a weekend training exercise if push came to shove. In the 1980s, Tom Clancy became a gazillionaire by writing a novel about the theft of a submarine that the Soviets had managed to pack full of secret technology. It's hard to imagine getting excited reading a novel about the theft of a Camry that Achmed has managed to pack with an extra couple hundred rusty nails.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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107 comments:
Well written. Very well written and so true.
excellent point.
That said, you're not less dead if you're dropped by a drunk with a rusty ol' Lorcin than if by a trained expert with Cooper's very own 1911.
It's just more embarassing.
"..self-immolating neolithic goatherds.."
Great quote!
LOL!
Thanks Tam.
Well said, Tam.
Tamara,
Given my admiration for you, and the chorus of acclaim now developing in response to your essay, I am reluctant to be critical.
But...your extensive reading seems have equipped you with a gift for glibness that surpasses all others.
From other remarks you have made, I sense that this quality - so useful for attractive self-expression in a venue such as this - has come at the expense of any depth of insight beyond what has been pre-packaged (as an appealing but false pretense thereof) for your consumption.
In fact, come to think of it, you will have already consumed a pre-packaged rationalization of your rejection of this suggestion.
So, just think of this as a rapping, to get your attention, on the sealed bubble of the artfully-contrived Weltanschauung that has enclosed you and your company since intellectual infancy. [NN then waves affectionately to the captives therein enjoying a comforting moment of mutual grooming.]
Hopefully the dictionary NeoNietzsche has apparently swallowed will soon be passed; judging by the amount of waste he keeps spewing, it should be anytime now.
;-)
Seems like he apparently done slain the mighty theasaurus and is busily engaged in wringing every last bit of goodness out of the carcass.
Sorry to disappoint - it has been a residue-free assimilation.
One might note that the person(s) addressed by my remarks never seem to require clarification thereof.
Is there something with which I can help *you* in this regard, 1984c?
Or - what do you imagine the gifted Miss Tamara failed to grasp of what I wrote?
In any case, let me not fail to take advantage of your greater gift for economy of expression. If you would be so kind, please instruct me with what you think would be an appropriate re-writing of my comment.
Tam's a romantic.
NN,
ESAD
I am bewildered: having left the Ozarks for points Southwest, I thought it was a personal failing that I never developed the family snake handling skill.
Delightfully deployed insight, Tam.
Dang.. Talk about the very definition of "sophomoric." :)
Ya know, the whole ego-crutch "ooh lookie at me, I talk in big words so therefore I'm smart" schtick was tired by the ninth grade. Even the most mediocre minds I knew in school were over that nonsense by their junior year.
I hope for his sake NN just hasn't graduated high school yet. Otherwise he's runnin' kinda late.
Though I do not have, and never have had, a Thesaurus - I could be persuaded to purchase and mail a charity copy to any here who feel themselves ill-equipped otherwise to read what I write.
Kaylee,
Let's save time - and charitably grant your predictable and hackneyed imputations of motive.
What - then - did I write that you or anybody else failed to understand?
I will be happy to explain in my best attempt to accommodate your limitations.
Or do you wish to concede that your complaint is merely as to style - in which case I will avoid impolitely contributing to making my comments an issue in that respect.
How many people- Russians and others- were slaughtered to manifest Marx',Lenin's, and their successors' crazy dream? Eighty millions? A hundred?
Not such paper tigers.
hollyb,
I hope you will be charitable enough to allow me to defer following your instructions as long as possible.
You have written of your current personal concerns, and I hope that all will be well with you and yours.
The tigers have been let out of their cages to prowl amongst us as the so-called "Russian Mafia" under KGB/FSB direction.
See the work of Golitsyn, Lunev, and Senja, most notably.
Oh, you ain't talking over anybody's head. Trust me on that.
Heck, let me put it this way.. when I was in school, I [i]flattened[/i] the smarts-tests they gave... I can't remember one of those state standardized tests that didn't come back "at or above 99th percentile." Heck, one tester-guy looked flat amazed at one I took, off the scale into the genius range*. Dude never stopped gabbling that I needed to go off and do a PhD or something.
Now, having had the chance to talk with Tamara in real life, I can safely say she makes me look like a dummy. I only know the 'Dog online, but from his writing, I'd say it's a very good bet he's the same way.
So trust me.. the issue ain't that folk aren't bright enough to understand what you're saying. The issue is that the "I'm so smart" schtick makes you look like an emotionally retarted schoolkid trying to impress somebody.
It's kinda cute in a 14 year old in glasses on bad after-school TV specials. It's just plain tiresome in someone pretending to be a grownup.
And that's the last I'll say about that. Have a nice day. :)
* Which might be why I have such a low opinion of IQ tests. *heh*
"So trust me.. the issue ain't that folk aren't bright enough to understand what you're saying."
Since you amusingly and naively rely upon high-school test scores to affirm your merely presumptive comprehension of any sophisticated issue, I have reason to disagree.
"The issue is that the 'I'm so smart' schtick makes you look like an emotionally retarted schoolkid trying to impress somebody."
Which, since that is your primary impression, leaving you unprovoked to comment as to the *content* of the discussion, confirms my diagnosis as to the lesser capability and content of your intellect.
But, please surprise me to the contrary by contributing something of substance.
It takes a hellova lot more talent to clearly describe a complex concept than to describe a simple concept in the most convoluted and self-aggrandizing way possible.
Not naming names, just sayin'.
And yeah, the Commies were worthy adversaries. We're still hacking away at the intellectual shibboleths they and their useful idiots in the media and academy deployed against us. But the Jihadi presents a different challenge that we were structurally unsuited to fight. While we had to merely bankrupt Communism's chief sponsor, we're now faced with forcefully changing an entire culture.
I think we're up to it. We've been able to squash all the other little pissant challengers to civilization before. This one may take a while.
Yeah, what Kaylee said.
If you want to read someone that writes in an erudite way but still remains plain spoken, I recommend Col. Cooper. Truly an excellent wordsmith.
There is a difference between being diverse in your choice of words, and just being "wordy".
Flowery language is like spice in cooking, more is not better; a heavy hand with either makes your finished product unpalatable.
"We're still hacking away at the intellectual shibboleths they and their useful idiots in the media and academy deployed against us."
And what, after your prescribed fashion, are you contributing to the hacking at Frankfurt and the Gramscians?
(I hope that kaylee is not embarrassing herself by aligning you with her League of Gifted Tamarists when you naively write of "civilization" as you do.)
Nice analogy, ya Marlin cowboy. ;)
pdb... I agree about the scale of the problem, but I'm not certain we're up to it anymore. There's so much self-hatred and self-doubt bred into our culture now, I don't know as we have the capacity for a long-term struggle anymore. To win one of those, you have to actually believe you're on the right side.
I don't know as enough of us still believe that anymore.
"If you want to read someone that writes in an erudite way but still remains plain spoken, I recommend Col. Cooper. Truly an excellent wordsmith."
I admire Cooper when he confines himself to merely technical questions of armament.
He is neither "erudite" nor equipped to express himself as if he were in regard to issues that transcend the technical.
"I don't know as enough of us still believe that anymore."
Why not?
Well, damn. I guess I got served.
I would say that it was on, but lucky for me, Nazis can't dance. March in a straight line, sure. Dance? Not so much.
Please do your verbal jousting on your own blog. This article states Tam's opinion on the subject. Compliment the article's content, or provide an explanation for your disagreement with the subject matter, but criticizing the author is just plain rude.
"It takes a hellova lot more talent to clearly describe a complex concept than to describe a simple concept in the most convoluted and self-aggrandizing way possible."
I am a man of some means who might be interested in supplementing your income, upon demonstration of your own capability in this respect.
Please re-write some of my contributions after the fashion you prescribe. I'm prepared to requite (excuse me, I mean "pay for") the instruction I receive therefrom.
To win one of those, you have to actually believe you're on the right side.
There are days where I think that's true, but honestly, I'd prefer to believe that we've got what it takes to win plan A. Because plan B would get pretty damn ugly pretty damn quick.
Though I do not have, and never have had, a Thesaurus - I could be persuaded to purchase and mail a charity copy to any here who feel themselves ill-equipped otherwise to read what I write.
While it is not my place to offer advice to one who is neither kith nor kin, one might ask that instead of a hapless thesaurus, you be prevailed upon to purchase -- and peruse -- a copy of George Orwell's 1946 essay Politics and the English Language?
Failing that, any texts concerning logorrhoea, prolixity or pleonasm; to be read while bearing in mind some of your -- let us be kind -- florid prose.
I'd say "bombast", but it's obvious that one such as yourself would never stoop to using such a common, plebian word as "bombast".
"Well, damn. I guess I got served.
I would say that it was on, but lucky for me, Nazis can't dance. March in a straight line, sure. Dance? Not so much."
Almost worthy of little J. Stewart as a comedic retort. Since you raised an issue that does not fit into the Daily Show intellectual agenda, I thought that you might surprise me by rising to the level to which you seemed to have pretensions. My mistake.
*heh*
'Dog, have I ever told you I love you? :)
papaDB.. I dunno. I mean, I agree Plan B could well get real messy, if we actually got around to doing it. (Heck, I tend to wonder that perhaps the reason for Iraq was to try to avoid that "planB" down the line.. pity it's not working better.)
Anyhow, I still don't think we - or Europe - will roll over entirely. But I do wonder (and fear) we won't collectively grow a spine until it's too late for anything but drastic, frightful measures. As Tam has said, "over there they've a record of going from zero to jackboots pretty darn quick"... yech. Double Plus Ungood.
Lawdog,
LOL!
In the words of Taggart from "Blazing Saddles"
"you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore."
:-)
"While it is not my place to offer advice to one who is neither kith nor kin, one might ask that instead of a hapless thesaurus, you be prevailed upon to purchase -- and peruse -- a copy of George Orwell's 1946 essay Politics and the Englsih Language.?
Failing that, any texts concerning logorrhoea, prolixity or pleonasm; to be read while bearing in mind some of your -- let us be kind -- florid prose.
I'd say "bombast", but it's obvious that one such as yourself would never stoop to using such a common, plebian word as 'bombast'."
Very nicely expressed.
I will also reject any future employment of periphrastic, circumlocutory, and tautological redundancies, since you mention avoidance of pleonasms.
In the meantime, please re-word something of what I have written according to the criteria you endorse, avoiding the specified misdemeanors, that I might be encouraged in your judgment that I require the specified instruction.
Frankly, my expectation, at this point, is that *your* faculties will require refinement where the inclusion of matters of substance is required in the expression of ideas. All but little Ms. LabRat have quickly fallen silent when that consideration has interrupted the proceedings in which I have been involved, leading to my suspicion that the complaints about style conceal a dearth of content to be contributed.
"Please do your verbal jousting on your own blog. This article states Tam's opinion on the subject. Compliment the article's content, or provide an explanation for your disagreement with the subject matter, but criticizing the author is just plain rude."
Popcorn night for Tamara. Apologies to you.
In the meantime, please re-word something of what I have written according to the criteria you endorse, avoiding the specified misdemeanors, that I might be encouraged in your judgment that I require the specified instruction.
"Rewrite something of mine, but not as wordy and arrogant."
*shrug*
Done.
I'm sorry, but that involved a traumatic amputation of the point of the request as not merely a challenge but as motivation with a time constraint involved.
As I was saying about the refinement of your faculties...
So, LD, rewrite my message to Tamara as would a surgeon rather than as a butcher.
Or do I, rather and contrary to kaylee's boasts, enjoy the company of butchers here when any muscular flesh (i.e., ideas of substance) or any delicate structures (as in being critical of Tamara) is to be dealt with?
Yeah, we're just a bunch of morons here. Now go away.
Hell, Jorge Arbusto makes me miss Clinton, which is the more or less the same as missing the Commies.
As much as I hate to step into this muddy soup (I may lose my virtual boots), I have something to say.
Intellect is a wide and varied construct. It's fairly obvious that most of us responding are blessed with more than the average share.
That said, there are some who wield their intellect as a platform for others to step upon and raise themselves. There are others who wield their intellect like Balaam's rod.
Sit back and think about which you wish to be. One can either educate or they can whip ass, but you can guess which is the more noble cause.
"Yeah, we're just a bunch of morons here. Now go away."
Why? You're the most interesting bunch of morons I've yet to come across on the web. I love playing with you, after doing some serious work on my own blog.
And Tamara seems to have no complaint, as she generously allows me to poke and probe her good-natured associates, drawing a little blood here and there, but not doing any real significant damage to affronted egos.
So I think I'll stay as long as I'm allowed and as long as you "morons" continue to amuse and inform.
Gotta agree you with you Tam. At least we had something to focus on and goals to meet. Now we only seem to have ourselves to beat. In the last decade we haven't put much long term concentrated effort into solving any problems other then entertainment. A large percentage of innovation comes from military improvement, many of these innovations help industies not involved or connected in anyway to the military. Besides you only get better by playing with the best.
"Sit back and think about which you wish to be. One can either educate or they can whip ass, but you can guess which is the more noble cause."
Noble principles expressed with Olympian detachment.
If you would like to instructively attach that to some illustrative examples from the present engagement, I would be obliged.
Since the principles depend so heavily upon perspective (as in the lack of objectivity in judging whose ass is getting or is intended to be whipped) - you will need to commit yourself to such an assessment in order to avoid a charge (readily cast in these associated venues) of being a pretentious windbag.
I resist such an assessment as I await your kind clarification.
"Gotta agree you with you Tam. At least we had something to focus on and goals to meet. Now we only seem to have ourselves to beat."
And PDB managed to contribute an authentic insight:
"While we had to merely bankrupt Communism's chief sponsor, we're now faced with forcefully changing an entire culture."
-- by driving it in precisely the wrong direction (or hadn't you noticed) - thus forcing the extermination, rather than the modification ("democratization"), of its bearers.
Not that I mind a little genocide when it's called for - it's just that you morons are thus working your way toward global apocalypse amdst the belief that you are improving the world despite the world's lethal resistance.
Are we sure neonietzsche isn't just a bot?
In my opinion, the easiest way to freak a bombastic wannabe know-it-all is to edit his posts for him.
Improve them, so to speak. If he wants to seem witty and erudite, then surly he could not object to being helped.
"Are we sure neonietzsche isn't just a bot?"
Borg, actually.
steel ghost.. I see your point about new technologies, but to be honest, it's the use of those technologies after the threat has been met that bothers me.
I can think of a couple emminantly useful tools that can't be much more than a decade or two out - if that - that would stop the Jihadi thing in its tracks. The problem is they'd make the post-war bomb fears look like a day in the park.
Nukes are great for keeping a nation in check. But any technology that can successfully eradicate a cell-based jihadi network would also be ideal for keeping a people in check, and that's the scary part.
"Though I do not have, and never have had, a Thesaurus..."
Yeah, and I can bench press 450 lbs.
Hey Neo ~
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
http://www.takeninhand.com/node/734
I swore I wouldn't get involved, but I still haven't gotten the cream from the doctor to clear up those last traces of idealism.
The most prized skill in writing- or in any form of communication- is the ability to get across complex ideas in simple language. Mark Twain believed it, and he's revered as one of America's greatest writers. He put it as:
"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."
If you use many words where a few will do, or a long and esoteric one where a simpler one will do, that comes across as obfuscatory, not enlightening. (See also: post-modernist academics' favorite tactic to disguise a bad idea as a good one.) And if you seem to positively REVEL in it, that comes across as arrogance and immaturity, not erudition.
LawDog, for example, is widely respected around here because he has mastered that- no one who reads his stuff regularly doubts the depth and breadth of both his vocabulary and his intellect. Where he needs an obscure word or a lengthy sentence, they are used- when they are NOT necessary, they are dispensed with.
You also often tend to come across as humorless, which is another surefire way to win disdain rather than respect. Wit keeps the reader reading- and relaxed enough to see a point they might not have before. It dispels irritation over disagreement. And people HATE it when a relaxed atmosphere gets stepped on along with the joke.
Good writers can convey ideas as complex and expertise-intensive as quantum physics to a crowd of laymen. Bad ones just annoy them.
I figure after this point, if you still don't get it, you don't WANT it.
Over and OUT.
"Bore, actually."
Fixed it for ya.
(Actually NN reminds me more of Q than a Borg.)
But yes, sometimes I miss the old times. Things were much simpler when the CommBloc was still there. One had a clear Feindbild back then (just to introduce a new Germanism to the English language, in case it hasn't already found its way there) and all T-series tanks were valid targets.
But now? The bad guys are masters of the first Commandment of Operational Security (I guess it's the first) and practise the Art of Dispersion very well and you can't riddle every derelict car coming your way with a hail of bullets.
Damn, I'm running out of popcorn...
Kaylee Thank you, I should have been more clear as to what I was thinking. The statement about innovation should have been left out. The goal of the paragraph was to show that when we (the US) looked at the Communist as an enemy, we were focused on doing everything better, not just being the buttkicker. And yes it was that focus that I believe kept the self hatred and self doubt out of the hearts of americans.
As to be best technology to keep this current threat down, education. I knnow this is an oversimplifcation, but it should be better then just nuking the place. I was taught that most societies only revolt when life starts to get better, which I think holds true here. That being the case then teaching them how to make the nessecary improvements that "they want", not only the one we want them to have, is the only peaceful solution that this dumb hick can think of.
Neonietzsche, son, you can't win a pissin' contest when you squat to piss.
"As to be best technology to keep this current threat down, education."
Isn't that what the whole 'hearts and minds' thing is about? The main problem with it is they seem to enjoy dictatorships. Given the choice between freedom and some thug with military backing, they dig the thug. Not the first time a people have a chance for freedom come their way and they stand around picking wool from their navel, or fight for the status quo. Hell, look around at some of the people you know. Lots bitch about how bad their lives are, yet few do anything to change them because "things could get worse". Seems to be a flaw in some people's nature.
NN,
The ass in question was Balaam's, but that's beyond the scope.
From the very beginning here, you essentially walked up to Tam's back porch and proceeded to call her glib and of shallow insight.
Tam is Tam. We like it that way, obviously she does as well.
The major "beef", as it were, that most of the readers here have with you is not that we cannot understand your discourse. What is in question, sir, is the manner of application of the brobdingnagian vocabulary you apparently posess. To use a lowest common denominator, you seem to enjoy cracking eggs with a hammer. What's more, you seem to do it with such a flair of arrogance and superiority that would rival even the Capetian French.
Let's put that aside for a moment and ask some important questions. One that is already answered is "who are you trying to impress?" since you are, obviously, here. Why, praytell, are you trying to impress us? Assaulting this readership with unbridled verbosity is akin to trying to astonish a member of the House of Saud in a demonstation of worldliness, by pointing at them and offering a left-handed boy scout handshake.
In fairer words.... quit it. Your behaviour is not appreciated.
OK, first of all, comment # 59?? What the???...
I'm in the process of re-reading Clancy in story-chronological order. It does make me nostalgic for the simpler days of the Cold War, when both sides played by the same rules. Today, the rules are changed, but one of the major players hasn't quite figured that part out...
No matter what else Yeltsin was, he stood atop a tank and dared the commies to come and take him... He did have some brass ones.
"as long as you "morons" continue to amuse and inform."
Well, I've always felt that anything worth doing was worth doing right, so here goes:
It was August 1991 and I was working on a BA in Anthropology with a minor in Russian Studies. The language classes were taught by a elementary-school teacher. To this day I can still recite "this is the house that Jack built" in Russian. I was that dedicated, dammit!
I had enrolled in a course titled "The USSR Today" and I eagerly devoured the works of Suvorov and Gurdievsky. I was determined to find a job in Virginia.
Less than a week into "The USSR Today" all my plans fell apart. The joke in class was that the USSR today wasn't the USSR from yesterday. By the end of the class the USSR had ceased to exist!
The next semester I enrolled in a course on the history of espionage. The professor brought in a guest speaker from the CIA. At the end of the class I asked the guest speaker if there was any future in Russian studies. He replied that a better bet would be to study the various 'Stans.
Yeah, right. Like those places were ever going to be the center of important events! Whatever.
Well, damned if he wasn't right.
Me, I decided to go into Accounting.
But I still miss the old days. I had a severe pang of nostalgia last night while perusing onesourcetactical.com. They had the Cold Steel Spetsnas (sic) shovels for sale!
Those quasi-mythical, 50cm-long instruments of silent death that made John Rambo's knife look positively ridiculous. God, I miss the old days.
" 'Though I do not have, and never have had, a Thesaurus...' "
Yeah, and I can bench press 450 lbs."
I am complimented to be thought gifted to the equivalent of a 450 bench. Does that correlate with my perfect 800 on the GRE verbal (only got 730 on the math)?
What about correlating with my perfect score in Grenade (one of only two men in the battalion's 200-man Honor Company) during Basic on Tank Hill at Fort Jackson, SC? That makes me top 1% in strength applied to weapons handling. (Any pussy can score expert in M-16, so I won't speak further of that award, squad leadership, early promotion, ASA MOS.)
Keep hitting the weights.
I think we've got someone working off the "chicks dig an asshole" angle.
"What Americans missed during Yeltsin's presidency -- and they missed it because American reporters defiantly refused to report the truth of the matter..."
THIS is the problem: the media refuse to report the truth.
We're only a few pages away from Ragnarok if we merely accept what the media says/writes as Gospel.
Holy cow! Now I read the comments and see.... Looks like a troll got in your woods, Tam. ;)
... and we all know what trolls do in the woods.
>"From the very beginning here, you essentially walked up to Tam's back porch and proceeded to call her glib and of shallow insight."<
Thank you for reminding us that my remarks were addressed to Tamara, by name.
>The major "beef", as it were, that most of the readers here have with you is not that we cannot understand your discourse."<
I was addressing my remarks to Tamara - I await *her* complaints.
Meanwhile, I am content to be ignored by those who do not understand, if they do not ask for clarification and explanation - but I will not implicitly endorse insults with silence. Please note, as merely the first example, the remark immediately following my comment addressed to Tamara. This was not a request for clarification or explanation.
>"What is in question, sir, is the manner of application of the brobdingnagian vocabulary you apparently posess. To use a lowest common denominator, you seem to enjoy cracking eggs with a hammer. What's more, you seem to do it with such a flair of arrogance and superiority that would rival even the Capetian French."<
Re-write my comment to Tamara to please yourself and the gallery - please. Perhaps we can arrange a substitution of my own comment with your presumably more compact formulation of my thoughts. And I must admit that the churlish behavior around here (in which Tamara has not indulged) does make me feel like a prince by comparison. I note that your assessment of the "beef" boldly contradicts kaylee's claim that I am perfectly understood and am guilty only of stylistic offenses. So I again call for specifics subordinate to the general indictments.
>"Let's put that aside for a moment and ask some important questions. One that is already answered is "who are you trying to impress?" since you are, obviously, here. Why, praytell, are you trying to impress us?"<
You flatter yourself that I am interested in impressing you (in the plural). Are you persons whom I ought to be interested in to that end? Which of you are tall, beautiful and intelligent females? The only person here I once cared about impressing was Tamara. Please ignore me if you find me intolerably impressive or otherwise objectionable. I mean you no discomfort in other than deflecting and deterring insults directed at me.
>"In fairer words.... quit it. Your behaviour is not appreciated."<
Pray to the goddess, Tamara, for your relief, sir.
>"I think we've got someone working off the 'chicks dig an asshole' angle."<
The older you get the more amazing is the variety of women's taste you discover.
Fortunately for me, some very attractive ones dig arrogant assholes.
I well realize, however, that Tamara is not one of them - so I have no "angle" on her other than curiosity at the remarkable combination of her qualities. I have no reason to be other than straighforward - with her and with you other assholes.
"I am complimented to be thought gifted to the equivalent of a 450 bench. Does that correlate with my perfect 800 on the GRE verbal (only got 730 on the math)?"
Let's use your own words to respond to that:
"Since you amusingly and naively rely upon high-school test scores to affirm your merely presumptive comprehension of any sophisticated issue, I have reason to disagree."
Ah, high marks someone else earns are indicative only of their need for a pitiful crutch, but in your case, they indicate greatness. Thanks for clearing that up.
Tedious is as tedious does.
"Anonymous said...
Neonietzsche, son, you can't win a pissin' contest when you squat to piss."
You have your venues confused again, Dad. Let's get that Depends pulled up and readjusted - there are ladies present.
>"Ah, high marks someone else earns are indicative only of their need for a pitiful crutch, but in your case, they indicate greatness. Thanks for clearing that up."<
Regrettably, you have now confused the issue with a non sequitur.
But I will not spoil your moment of glory by explaining it to you.
oh anon, don't be encouraging. GREs and some shrink with an IQ test battery are different things, after all. Not that either one really makes the least bit of difference, other than being able to make fun of the darn things with a clear conscience. Ooh! Lookie! Me knows obscure words and can run rat mazes in me head! *heh*
And... Tams, you're a goddess now? Neat! I guess this means you're a real celebrity. Stalkerific!
>"Hey Neo ~
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"<
Yep - soon as she stopped complaining about letting you **** ** ****.
[Sorry, but you left yourself wide open for that one.]
"And... Tams, you're a goddess now?"
Maybe she shaves with one of those Venus razors.
>"If you use many words where a few will do, or a long and esoteric one where a simpler one will do, that comes across as obfuscatory, not enlightening. (See also: post-modernist academics' favorite tactic to disguise a bad idea as a good one.) And if you seem to positively REVEL in it, that comes across as arrogance and immaturity, not erudition."<
You write as if you had not read the message - please point to a word that a high-schooler of modest attainments would not understand other than, possibly, "Weltanschauung". You all seem to be confusing what I write here with my essays at *my* blog.
And what is with the constant flouncing off in a huff after speaking your mind and dismissing my reaction with your declaration of a preemptive withdrawal. Seems childish or effeminate to me.
Neo ~
No, it was a serious question.
Have you?
Or are you still working at "taming that feral female" and "performing the White Man’s task of returning her to her race"?
Neo ~
No, it was a serious question.
Have you?
Or are you still working at "taming that feral female" and "performing the White Man’s task of returning her to her race"?
It's effeminate to know when to stop talking when it's no longer productive?
This explains everything.
>"Neo ~
No, it was a serious question.
Have you?"<
I never did - nor does the message you referenced indicate my having done so - that's my serious answer.
>"Or are you still working at "taming that feral female" and "performing the White Man’s task of returning her to her race"?"<
The former is the way I sardonically express the gentle process - the latter is *her* earnest but slightly ludicrous way of describing her re-education.
>"LabRat said...
It's effeminate to know when to stop talking when it's no longer productive?
This explains everything."<
"Over and OUT" is as I characterized it. It is not a manifestation of innocently knowing when to stop. It is slamming the phone down. Childish.
And now the effeminate histrionics of "this explains *everything*".
I could go on - having just now deleted further patronizing remarks.
Over and *not* out.
Kaylee, Lawdog, et al,
It appears Tam's got herself a bona-fide blog stalker. That's just plain creepy!
I like the way you think. And write.
Sorry G98, but you're a little late to the meercat mobbing of the pit viper.
I'm convinced Tam just invented this character to pull in more traffic to the blog. I know I've checked in about a half-dozen times today to watch the fun.
Pit viper? How long have garter snakes been pit vipers?
Since the little meercats have been retiring to lick their wounds as if snakebit.
Ooops - sorry T. - they're on to us.
BTW, TD, what gave us away?
Damn, and just 12 short of another 100 on the comment register.
Cool! I feel like the kid that kicked the hornet's nest at the church picnic and then got to watch the fun from the screen porch.
NeoNietzsche,
Do you enjoy annoying people? I'm usually good at it by accident, but MAN! you seem to thrive on it.
Different strokes and all that I guess.
I'm surprised you write off our “double secret cold war” with China so easily. Exactly why are we training the Ethiopian army to invade Somalia? Why is China in Sudan, and why would they help out with the genocide? Would the extensive oil deposits in and around the south china sea have anything to do with the reason China's such a proponent of the "One China" policy, or is it just national pride?
You miss the cold war? It'll be back before you know it.
"Pray to the Goddess"
You rang? I'm here. Whenever one of my worshipful admirers calls out for the Bitch Goddess of Moot Points, Futile Arguments and Lost Causes, I heed their plaintive pleas for my Attention.
And if ever there was a futile arguement or a lost cause, Fellow Commentors, it is our fervent desire to see NN gone from this little corner of the blogosphere.
He revels in our insults, whether they be blatantly crude or carefully crafted {LawDog is my GOD, he really should offer tutorials in the art of the finely crafted insult.]
He is obviously enamoured with the sight of his own words in print. Perhaps someone could hook him up with one of those vanity book publishers. Then perhaps he would be occupied with creating a tome worthy of Miss Tamara's time, rather than spending all of his time aggravating US.
Because, near as I can figure, that's what he does when he's not working on HIS blogs. He comes over here and stirs up shite. And has a grand time doing so, because we are all getting pulled into his vortex of twisted ego. "The Vortex of No Return!" is what we should call it. Every day, he sucks us in and it goes on and on and on.
If we just ignore him, maybe he will just leave one, albeit annoying, comment. And we can just detour around this pile of written excrement, much like we would canine feces someone neglected to clean up off the sidewalk. Careful, don't want to get any on your shoes, might track that stinky stuff back into your house!
I for one, am through playing his pathetic little game.
No, NN, I am not going off to "lick my wounds". Contrary to your gargutuan ego, I have beter things to do with my time than spend any more of it trading comments with you, or even reading any of your drivel. It's a form of masturbation, and I refuse to watch you abuse yourself anymore.
>"NeoNietzsche,
Do you enjoy annoying people? I'm usually good at it by accident, but MAN! you seem to thrive on it."<
I do not enjoy annoying people - and I have spent the past several years contributing to online venues where the response to my contributions was quite the opposite of one of annoyance.
Ironically, it was my own annoyance at Tamara's tireless and tiresome resort to the "inside allusion" trope - that everyone imitates around here in order to appear au courant, sophisticated, and ripened with worldly cynicism - that prompted my first remark of the thread.
This would be less objectionable and more appropriate if the faux machismo were symptomatic of authentic insight into existential dilemmas. But Tamara occasionally betrays what otherwise would be a charming innocence of the full extent of the "abyss" while generally giving the impression of having dauntlessly explored it.
This combination of postures is to realize everyone's ambition to have one's cake and eat it too, philosophically - making Tamara's venue understandably popular. And perhaps she knows exactly what she's doing. I would like to know one way or the other, as I continue my creepy stalking of the Goddess of the Porch.
>"No, NN, I am not going off to "lick my wounds". Contrary to your gargutuan ego, I have beter things to do with my time than spend any more of it trading comments with you, or even reading any of your drivel. It's a form of masturbation, and I refuse to watch you abuse yourself anymore."<
Well then, could you help my ol' Dad get off by watching *him*? He likes to finish off a pissing contest with that *something extra* that the parlors offer and that he can't afford anymore.
And BTW, Holly, you're so obviously full of poison that even "snakebit" doesn't seem to cover it.
>"...we are all getting pulled into his vortex of twisted ego. "The Vortex of No Return!" is what we should call it. Every day, he sucks us in and it goes on and on and on...I for one, am through playing his pathetic little game."<
I woke up this morning thinking about this remarkable passage from Holly's manifesto.
Who are the "we" getting pulled into some "Vortex"?
Is Holly losing her mind under the strain of personal concerns?
What has been going on behind the scenes such that "it goes on and on and on"?
Does the issue perhaps involve some encounters with the advanced material over at *my* blog - where incomprehension by the unschooled is to be expected and where the reference to a "Brobdingnagian" vocabulary has some basis?
C'mon folks, we can hit 100 if we try.
Chris
NeoN ietzsche-
I started reading here-> I do not enjoy annoying people - and I have spent the past several years contributing to online venues where the response to my contributions was quite the opposite of one of annoyance.
Ironically, it was my own annoyance at Tamara's tireless and tiresome resort to the "inside allusion" trope - that everyone imitates...
I got bored and started playing with a stapler right about *here*
Though evidently there was "blahblahblah I'm so much smarter than Tamara, but even though she's so dumb, I still can't stop web-stalking her because I'm a creepy weirdo" for another two paragraphs.
neo, you said she was glib and an ape living in a bubble. You didn't address any of the points she made. Why don't you actually address where and why she's wrong?
(One more to 100! Woohoo!)
Hmm. There are basically two ways to use a large vocabulary. One is to ensure that you only say precisely what you mean.
The other is to wave it around like a flasher on the street, in hopes that this time someone will actually fail to fall over laughing.
Heh.
...and on that note, it's time for me to step in.
Mr. Nietzsche,
I have chosen not to engage you in socio-political debate because it would be pointless. Although it might surprise you, I am not completely innocent of the source material you have referenced here and elsewhere on the web. While our circles of literacy are obviously not completely congruous, they show a surprising degree of overlap. Where we differ is in what we have taken away from those data sets. You would see my worldview as that of a gullible naif. I see yours as that of an insecure paranoiac. 'East is East...' and all that.
I have friends, coworkers, and acquaintances in real life whose views differ greatly from my own, from anti-fluoridation Birchers to unreconstructed Wobblies, and we manage to socialize in meatspace by avoiding personal topics that might cause friction. This is understandably impossible here on my personal web journal.
Without consulting dates, I would say that it has been roughly a month since I commented, even indirectly, on one of your postings here, despite keeping up a lively chatter with other posters. I had, naively as it turns out, hoped that a self-proclaimed gentilhomme such as yourself would respond to the implied digital cut sublime and would seek life elsewhere. Unfortunately, I misjudged my audience. The cut sublime having failed, I am embarrassingly forced to resort to the digital equivalent of the cut direct: Sir, I am not deaf, I am ignoring you.
If you are the man of honor you proclaim yourself to be, you will leave us to our prattlings here, as promised, and take yourself back to your more normal haunts on the web. If you are a man with the courage of his convictions as well, you will allow your previous postings to stand, so as to preserve the integrity of the discussions already extant here.
If it is any consolation, I fancy you would make a fascinating guest for conversation over dinner, but then so would Lecter or Lestat.
Thank you in advance for your compliance with this request.
Yours,
Tamara K.
Ms. K.
Thank you for your gracious letter.
And be assured that this will be my last contribution to your venue, per your now-explicit request.
I trust that you will be gracious and equitable enough to extend me the courtesy of a few parting words of reciprocal explanation, given the extent of your remarks beyond merely instructing me to be gone.
In that event:
First, you speak of "data sets" as if you were epistemologically sophisticated. Yet you write of the pointlessness of debate. It is not evident that your reconciliation of these postures is more than merely comfortable, in any respect. In one regard, I speculate that your sense of security in excess of my own reflects a gift for treating "data sets" in other than the fashion and spirit that such terminology implies, if an unfortunate oversight in your acquisition of data does not account for your comfort and equanimity.
And, next, I offer excuses for failing to divine the point of your silence amidst the clamor of your defenders. Your message of the present instance does not reflect any version of the online persona, going by the title of "Tamara K.," that I encountered in any of my research. To the contrary, "Tamara K.," to most of what she reveals of herself, is a hardened biker-chick whose balls outweigh her boyfriend's resting behind her on the pillion (figuratively-speaking, I gather). Thus, I think I may be understood and forgiven for failing to suspect and respect your well-hidden delicacy of sensibility in regard to the implication of your silence. In fact, your complaint may well be nothing more than the sarcasm and mockery one would expect from your alter ego, the mistress of glib.
Penultimately, there is the matter of leaving postings to stand, in maintenance of the integrity of discussions and in evidence of my courage. And again, your silence amidst the clamor is my excuse, as I refer to Marko - presumably in loco Tamara - having evidenced his jealously, at an early date, with a supercilious complaint about my "pretentious" "litterings". Despite my sense of the basis of Marko's outburst, I nevertheless tried to accommodate what appeared to be the venue establishment by politely deleting an accumulation of casual remarks, leaving the extended exchange with LabRat completely intact, as I hope serves the confirmation of my imputed honor and courage, now seemingly on probation.
And finally, I regret that your faculties are yet to mature to the point, if ever they are to do so, of distinguishing between the ethical posture suggested by the figures of Lecter and Lestat, and what my life-long investigation of the ethical dilemmas confronting humankind in all dimensions represents in mine. Had you the courage of *your* convictions, as in placing them under examination and debate, this distinction would have been evident. Thus I suspect that my dinner chatter would pale by comparison with that of your favored monsters, if such is indeed your taste and not the expression of another bit of sarcasm. In any case, I am in your debt for thinking, pro forma, to my consolation.
For the last time,
NN
Let me be the first to say "Thank Jeebus."
Manners please, folks.
Thank you.
Wow, just wow, That was like getting talked to death by the inventor of Scrabble. Can we put Neonietzsche and the Chomskybot in a room together and watch them fight it out?
NN --
The bromdignagian nature of your grotesquely polysyllabic vocabulary illustrates an adolescent attempt to substitute eloquence for intellect in your rhetorical ramblings.
Obfuscatory elocution does not intelligent discourse make.
See, actual smart people I know use big words when no other word suits the situation, but don't generally feel the need to self-consciously inflate the convolution of their vocab. The point I and several otehrs are trying to make to you is that it really _doesn't_ make you look smart.
I used to know a woman who had a PhD in... whatever... and described _herself_ as part of "the intelligencia" -- she was the most boring person in the world to talk to, becuase she was constantly trying to show her intellect by taking 15 words to say what she could have said in 5.
Quit trying to be the "intelligencia" and just speak your mind.
Note: This thread continues at my blog.
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