Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Spew·mor (intang. n.)
Simply put, it is humor that isn’t funny.
There’s more to it than that. A joke that is supposed to be genuinely funny, and then fails, doesn’t qualify. This is a narrower definition applied to jokes that were never intended to be truly funny. It applies to tidbits of “humor” that are called “humor” simply to avoid criticism, to apply a thin veneer of plausible levity to what is intended to spew, and has the effect of so spewing, bile. Jokes that are intended more to ingratiate the person telling it with a desirable fellowship, than to elicit a good sincere belly-laugh. This type of joke inspires nothing more than courtesy chuckles, which may be artificially amplified into a booming obsequious horse laugh if the person laughing truly shares the venomous sentiments with the person telling the joke. But nobody really laughs at this kind of a joke.
The object of the exercise is to identify the common bond between the person telling the joke and the person hearing the joke, by defining a common target of hate. It offers a message of leading-by-example. It says “See, in my presence you do not need to treat this person with respect or decency; look at me; I don’t.”
As Greg Gutfield at The Daily Gut observes: “[I]deology clouds what you find funny. If you’re a lefty, then a Palin joke is priceless. If you’re a righty, it’s lame. That’s just the way it is.” That is at least halfway true. But what’s left out is, in the case of Letterman’s joke at the expense of Sarah Palin’s daughter, lefties don’t find it funny either.
If they’re extra-extra motivated by ideological spite, and extra-extra visceral in acting out on it, and exceptionally juvenile in their public antics — they visibly sympathize with it. That’s all. They don’t find it truly “funny” in the classic sense. They just feel good that someone is going after what they consider to be a morsel of low-hanging fruit, and a deserving target. That isn’t the same as finding something funny.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
It’s a hatchet-job joke!
- philmon | 06/14/2009 @ 22:39[…] HMMMMM– I Made a New Word XXIX …. […]
- Steynian 364 « Free Canuckistan! | 06/16/2009 @ 22:29