On "Dancing With the Stars," they really try to get Bristol Palin to smile...

... but even with an ape mask over her head part of the time, we see far too much of the poor girl's sad face:



Even when the judges come up with some nice things to say about her dancing, she can't smile. Please, let the girl go home! If you can bear — or ape — to watch the whole clip, you'll hear her, toward the end, say "I hate the jive." She means, presumably, the dance they were doing, "the jive." But wouldn't it be awesome if she were awake enough to mean all this bullshit I've been put through since as long as I can remember?

"Florence Henderson and Corky Ballas find out they're safe and hug after Florence says something weird about locking hips with some guy. It sounds lude."

The Daily News reports on "Dancing With the Star" and sounds stoopid. Got some ludes?

"I was a corn-packer. And I know that term is offensive. To some people. Because corn-packer is a derogatory term for a gay Iowan."

Colbert responds to Iowa Republican Steve King.



IN THE COMMENTS: Quaestor said...

Some impression[s] I've formed on this matter:

1) A disgusting and puerile corruption of the legislative process. Thank you Colbert, the Comedy Channel, and the Democratic Party (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Comedy Channel) for your efforts to uplift the cultural milieu of our heretofore tawdry government.

2) Colbert has been jealous of Jon Stewert's bottom line for years. Being a witness before a Congressional committee adds product recognition at taxpayer's expense.

3) A "Punch 'n Judy" show aimed to distract the MSM from Christopher Coates testimony before the Civil Rights Commission.

4) Witnesses before Congressional committees are typically sworn. Is Colbert liable to perjury charges?

"[F]or Axelrod to plead with liberal bloggers for their help turning out the base, only to get accused of 'hippie punching,' is an iconic moment in Campaign 2010."

Interesting... but what the hell is "hippie punching"?

That tension burst out into the open when [Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars] directly asked Axelrod: "Have you ever heard of hippie punching?" That prompted a long silence from Axelrod.

"You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching," Madrak added. "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day."

Ha ha. Long silence. Axelrod did exactly what I think I'd do. Keep silent, because I don't know what it means, and I don't want to be embarrassed by admitting it. But now that I've worked a bit Googling and searching Urban Dictionary, I'm not embarrassed to say I don't know what it means. And I don't know what it has to do with under-bleacher sex, but that's a creepy metaphor to throw at Axelrod. I don't much like the man myself, but when you get access, ask some good questions in plain English. Don't be weird.

"The aesthetics of Men in Shorts is a little different when it is carbon fiber and aluminum on display, don't you think?"

The Elder tweaks me on a subject I did not raise in my post about the MWAGA tournament. He also says:

Thank you, Ann, for your kind words and for the two of you spending the weekend at the tournament. 

Thanks for the kind words from other Commenters. By this age, we have all encountered some pain and loss in our lives. It's just more visible for some of us.

And more visible in shorts for "the leg guys." That term in quotes is used by The Elder, who presumably considers himself himself one of "the arm guys." (Yesterday, I heard the terms "amps" and "normies.")

My "Men in Shorts" opinion always contained exceptions. My original post made "a small exception for certain sports, or if you are staying at home or in your own yard." I've made some other exceptions over the years — such as "winter vigor" and "hot enough" (either in temperature — over 85° — or what this guy is). So, sure, an exception for "the leg guys." And an exception for "the arm guys" who golfed with them, who had great legs of the fleshly variety.

***

"By this age, we have all encountered some pain and loss in our lives. It's just more visible for some of us." Yes, there are those of us who've lost parts of our character, our honesty, our respect and love for others, and our joy in living. That shows too, but it is harder to see. And there's no skimpy garment that makes it any easier.

"The bogusity of the New York Times' story about how technology leads more park visitors into trouble."

Nice takedown by Jack Shafer. (But isn't the correct spelling "bogosity"? Try saying it. I know the adjective is "bogus," but people don't say "bogusity." They might say "bogusness," but not "bogusity.")

Anyway, the problem is something that's common to journalism about trends (including that ridiculous Daily Caller piece about blog payola). A headline declaring a trend gets readers' attention, but then you need a lot of examples of the things that constitute the trend. The writer has some things that look like a trend, but he's got to beef up the article with more examples or it's not a trend. But he's itching to get to trend!!!! so he includes things that don't really fit, and then the whole thing looks stupid.

It's really annoying for the reader, because the trend!!!! declaration worked, and you've already read it and rewarded the website with traffic before you realize it's not quite a trend. What can you do? Resolve not to read trend pieces anymore? But then you still see the headline and it makes the impression that there is a trend!!!! and now you're been deprived of the evidence that there isn't a trend.

Now, I'm reading the comments at the Shafer piece and see that some of his readers are pouncing on the "bogusity/bogosity" spelling issue. I'm glad to see that others share my priorities. There's also this from one "nerdnam":

Well, what's her name's plastic surgeon just died after driving off a cliff immediately after twittering a picture of his dog at the beach. The dog survived, luckily. So I see a trend here.

Oh?! "Heidi Montag Mourns Death of Her Plastic Surgeon." Oh, lord, look at the expression on her face! Isn't it ironic? You plastic-surgerize — what's the verb for "surgery"? — somebody's face and then you die and her face is incapable of looking convincingly sad. Her gigantic breasts don't look sad either, but they make it into the People Magazine photograph, and because they stand as monuments to your work, that's not ironic at all.

Hmm. That People article no longer contains the information about tweeting that is referred to here:

According to People, Dr. Frank Ryan's jeep Wrangler careened off of the Pacific Coast Highway on Monday....

People later reported that Ryan's former girlfriend confirmed that his accident was caused by texting and driving. He had posted a Twitter message about hiking with his dog just before the accident. The dog survived the crash.

One more dubiously technology-related death. Maybe confirmations from former girlfriends don't cut it anymore.

"Andre Jones and Richard Wise have a 700-gallon trank suspended from the ceiling of their West Village town house apartment."

"The filled tank weighs more than 6,000 pounds and has cost the couple some $200,000 in equipment and service."

How much would it cost to get rid of it? Because that's the calculation I'd do if I were buying that place.

Oh, here's the next picture. Caption:

Mr. Jones, left, and Mr. Wise sitting next to their suspended fish tank. "At night, we sit in the living room and sort of get lost in it, instead of the television set," Mr. Jones said of the tank.

I love the tagged-on  phrase "of the tank." Like there was ambiguity before. You might have thought they got lost in their living room. And I love the implication that this home Sea World makes them superior to peons who watch actual television. Because... why would that be? You can get a big flat screen TV and play a DVD of fish swimming. It looks pretty much like that fish tank these guys have. And you'll have at least $180,000 left to buy 60+ years of cable service.

Then there's this couple, the Wilzigs, who have an aquarium with a lighting device that allows them to choose any of 64 colors to reflect off the colorless fish inside. Posing with his wife on a white settee, Mr. Wilzig said:

"The whole essence of the house was to be push-button color-changing. The apotheosis of that was to take the fish themselves and have them be swimming in whatever color you want."

I was going to say this article should be blogged over at Stuff White People Like, and then I thought about how the Wilzigs, when they had their white friends over, could use their push buttons to make them any color they want. Come on! That would be the apotheosis.

(By the way, Mr. Wilzig looks like a character in one of Eric Bogosian's performance pieces.)

ADDED: "Trank"?

IN THE COMMENTS: Sixty Grit said, "There was a line in BttF2 about 'tranks' and other drug users. Or maybe they spelled it 'tranqs.' Do not know. But I think it is a city thing." Found!

(The police car arrives. The signs outside say "Hilldale - The Address Of Success" but have been altered to say "The Address Of Suckers". The car lands outside a house and the officers open the door.)

Reese: Hilldale. Nothing but a breeding ground for tranqs, lobos and zipheads.

Foley: Yeah, they ought to tear this whole place down.

(The officers press Jennifer's thumb to a panel next to the front door, and it opens.)

Voice: (v.o) Welcome home Jennifer.

(Jennifer is beginning to wake up.)

Jennifer: What?

Reese: You got a little tranked, but I think you can walk.

Well, it makes sense. The fish are presented as tranquilizers. So get a fish tank and get tanked. But that's so lowly. In NYC now, you can get a fish trank and get tranked!

The Emily's List "Mama Grizzlies" ad — is it funny/good/accurate?

Ace hates it, but Ace is not in the category of people/bears the ad is trying to win over. I thought the ad was charming and well done. Ace does a "Top 10" list of problems the ad, and the #1 thing wrong with the ad is: "Wicket just emailed me to say only one was worth 'nutting on.'" Nutting on, i.e., ejaculating on. Yeah? That's how you criticize women? They aren't good enough for you to ejaculate on? Despicable.

ADDED: Ace participates in the comments and is very gracious about it:

I can't say the Wicket joke was *funny.* It was obligatory, and it had a funny set of elements behind it, but in the end it was... not a good joke. Best I could do. (I had to do the whole list in 10 minutes ....)

So I concede it wasn't a strong joke....

But despicable?

At some point I think the objection here is something that can't even be expressed without sounding lunatic -- the idea that men cannot take notice of women as sexually desirable, at least not publicly, even as a joke, even as an *Ewok* commenting upon another *Ewok's* sexual desirability.

And because that idea is so transparently absurd as to dissolve upon first contact with sunlight, it's hidden within the conclusory word "despicable."

Lots of commenters seemed to think I didn't get the Ewok joke, but did they get my Daffy Duck joke? I'm kidding, but really: Guys, when women don't get you and your explanation has "Star Wars" in it, you probably should think again about making wisecracks about women not being sexy enough.

"Dating Market Value Test For Women."

This test might make you feel bad, but not me... because it kicked me out at question #1... which taught me the meaning of the acronym "waysa."

Dr. Helen took the test, which told her she was a "classic beta." Among her minuses: cursing. Fuck that test.

The NYT has an article about Mickey Kaus and his Senate campaign, but...

... it's in the "Fashion & Style" section.

Getting to a peek at his living conditions seems to be a big point of the piece:

...his two-bedroom apartment in the Venice neighborhood.... Ikea furniture buried under a flurry of political tomes, magazines, printouts, cellphone manuals, and two-year-old Christmas card photos starring his friends’ children. A red laptop balances on a stool. 

A stool or a DAVE?

A small TV sits on a table. In the kitchen, spilled coffee grounds share counter space with a spread of vitamins and nonalcoholic beer....

He offers his guest water in a disposable plastic cup (“I hate doing dishes,” he apologizes). 

There's stuff about his background — jumping from a law career into mainstream journalism and then to political blogging. But the campaign itself, per the NYT, is "quixotic" and "insane" with "grim" prospects. The writer, Janelle Brown, catches him complaining "I’m completely allergic to Washington, D.C. I was literally developing asthma." (He worked at The New Republic and lived in Washington before retreating to his homeland, California.) She needles him by pointing out that the Senate meets in Washington. He "grimaces" and backfills with "I’ll invest in a lot of air-purifying technology."

Then Brown makes one of the funniest gaffes ever in the NYT:

For a solitary blogger, Mickey Kaus is astonishingly social and well connected: It’s difficult to find a writer or politico in Los Angeles who hasn’t knocked boots (or opinions) with Mr. Kaus at a party....

That's a lot of sexual intercourse! (Glenn Reynolds has already pointed out this gaffe.)

We eventually get to his positions on the issues, and really, Mickey can't complain about this. When does a candidate with no chance at winning get written up in the NYT? They can't be covering the political positions of everyone who qualifies to be on the ballot, even in a big state. You have to go in by the "Style & Fashion" door.

Kos writes: "Brown has been caught in a vice. His support from teabaggers was critical to becoming competitive...."

Does Kos think teabagging is a vice? I can't see what it has to do with (the admittedly handsome) Scott Brown, but it certainly is a reflection on Kos! Shouldn't a liberal be more accepting of various sexual practices? Why is he being so puritanical? Really, I am surprised that he's so judgmental about teabagging that he would call it a vice — as if it were depraved, wicked, and sinful.

Now, maybe if you put my head in a vise and screwed it in far enough, I'd admit that I knew what Kos was trying to say, but for now, my view is that he is an reactionary prig.

The answer: The NYT doesn't get pop culture references.

All the front-page promotion of this article about Roger Ailes finally got me to read it — mainly in search of the answer why the NYT thought it had such an important article.

At a time when the broadcast networks are struggling with diminishing audiences and profits in news, [Ailes] has built Fox News into the profit engine of the News Corporation. Fox News is believed to make more money than CNN, MSNBC and the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC and CBS combined...

Yes, yes, how galling it must be, for liberal media to have a market share that corresponds to the actual proportion of liberals in the population. There is one news network that leans conservative, at it has an audience proportionate to the conservatives in the population. All you need is to observe that the presentation of news and opinion is going to have a slant, and it all makes sense. Presumably, the Times would like to rile its readers up about what a terrible, horrible man Roger Ailes is. They lob this quote from his Rupert Murdock's son-in-law Matthew Freud (who is the great grandson of Sigmund Freud):

"I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to."

Aspires to, eh? But do they reach it? And if they don't, do they have self-awareness about their failure? I've got to think that this article itself is far from those aspirational standards.

Anyway, here's what caught my eye:

As powerful as he is within the News Corporation, Mr. Ailes remains a spectral presence outside the Fox News offices. National security had long been a preoccupation of Fox News, and it was clear in the interview that the 9/11 attacks had a profound effect on Mr. Ailes. They convinced him that he and his network could be terrorist targets.

On the day of the attacks, Mr. Ailes asked his chief engineer the minimum number of workers needed to keep the channel on the air. The answer: 42. “I am one of them,” he said. “I’ve got a bad leg, I’m a little overweight, so I can’t run fast, but I will fight.

“We had 3,000 dead people a couple miles from here. I knew that any communications company could be a target.”

The answer is 42?! What wag fed them that story? And who decided to pull the NYT's (bad) leg over the subject of 9/11? The NYT is still such a lamestain. It's a harsh realm indeed for the square old paper that wants so much to be hip.

Of course, the answer is 42! The answer to everything is 42. It's an old reference, a joke that is supposed to be so easily recognizable that you are really kind of a cob nobbler to resort to it these days. Ah, well. Rock on!

The "drifter" and the "bug man."

The Daily News reports, in straightforward prose:

The straphanger killed by an exterminator gone mad was a mentally ill germophobe who used his bag to keep people at a safe distance, friends said Sunday.

"He didn't like people to sit next to him," said Phenix Hall, a volunteer who befriended Dwight Johnson at a Manhattan soup kitchen years ago. "Dwight was famous for placing his bag on the seat beside him."

The 36-year-old drifter was knifed in the neck early Saturday after arguing with bug man Gerardo Sanchez, 37, who wanted to sit next to Johnson on the half-empty D train....

A passenger pulled the emergency brake, which meant that the train stopped between stations, with 20 or 30 people trapped with the killer and the dead/dying man. When the train reached the station, the horrible confinement continued, as the doors were kept shut until the police got the killer.

The Daily News has a poll: "Do you believe the authorities did the right thing by instructing the motorman to keep the doors closed when the train stopped, moments after a homeless man was stabbed to death?" Right now, the police are losing, but not by all that much.

The story is interesting for a number of reasons, including — in the text but not the poll — the retro term "drifter" instead of the usual PC "homeless man." Homeless suggests that if only this individual had a shelter of his own, there would be no problem. Drifter implies that there is something inherent in the man's nature that keeps him from putting down roots.

Drifter imputes some romance and mystery to a man's story:

"Oh, help me in my weakness,"
I heard the drifter say,
As they carried him from the courtroom
And were taking him away.
"My trip hasn't been a pleasant one
And my time it isn't long,
And I still do not know
What it was that I've done wrong."

Homeless sounds empty and needy:

I am homeless, come and take me
Into reach of your rattling drums.

But Dwight Johnson's problems are not embodied in either word. The man was mentally ill and terrified of germs. We slangily call germs "bugs," and Gerardo Sanchez made his living killing insects, which are also slangily called "bugs." Now, the Daily News calls Sanchez "bug man." "Bug" can also mean to bother and it can mean to freak out. There is a lot of bug in the story of the drifter and the bug man. Johnson and Sanchez were each concerned with bugs, they bugged each other, and they bugged out.

And now, poor Johnson is dead and Sanchez's life is ruined.

Deliberate eggcorns.

Hey, I got linked by Language Log! I wish I could produce what has been identified as a variation on an eggcorn to celebrate the occasion.

IN THE COMMENTS: XWL fulfilled my wish:

Congratulations, you got Lincoln Logged!

(an eggcorn for "linked on log")

(it's a stretch, but I used to like those things)

Proposal for a new kind of slang following the pattern "metal fork" for "metaphor."

The idea is to replace boring abstract words with very specific concrete things that sound pretty close to the original word. I'd like to build on the single example of "metal fork" for "metaphor."

This idea is based on a recent mishearing. Did I hear "metaphor" and think I heard "metal fork" or was it the other way around? If you want the answer to that question, imagine the breakfast table conversations chez Meadhouse and cull through all the many things that have been discussed on this blog since last January.

What's your favorite slang expression for sexual intercourse?

Mine is in this performance:



It's not as clear there as on the original record, which I think he's lip-syncing to here. But I'm not embedding that video because it's really blurry... and because Al Green is has been seriously abused by his fashion stylist. Or do you think 1973 was such a crazy time that a man would get up in the morning and put that on? I know men like their shorts... but...

Sorry. I don't believe it was *ever* cool/hip to call something/someone "Obama" to mean it/he was cool/hip.

But the NYT nevertheless has this style piece:

LAST week, if you wanted to use the latest slang to tell a friend he was cool, you could have called him “Obama,” as in: “Dude, you’re rocking the new Pre phone? You are so Obama.”

This week? Best not to risk it.

Yeesh. If you risked it before, go ahead: risk it! You seem pretty un-risk-averse. Chez Althouse, we've been thinking it's amusing to say, whenever anything's not quite right: Why did Obama let that happen? Or just — with a tone of sad disappointment: Obama.

But anyway, "Obama" as an adjective for cool/hip? The point is that it didn't last:

The life of slang is now shorter than ever, say linguists, and what was once a reliable code for identifying members of an in-group or subculture is losing some of its magic.

The Internet “is robbing slang of a lot of its sociolinguistic exclusionary power,” said Robert A. Leonard, a linguistics professor at Hofstra in Hempstead, N.Y., whose slang credentials include being a founding member of the doo-wop group Sha Na Na, formed in the late 1960s. “If you are in a real inside group, you are manufacturing slang so that you can exclude the wannabes.”

And that becomes harder, he added, as the whole world has access to your language.

... whose slang credentials include being a founding member of the doo-wop group Sha Na Na... Ha ha. I like to think his linguistics scholarship focuses on the meaning of nonsense syllables in doo wop songs. (Because, really, WHO put the bomp?)

Nowadays, everyone can check Urban Dictionary. The exclusionary game is up.

And what's the #1 entry over at Urban Dictionary for "Obama"? With 7468 up votes and 2099 down:

No real definition for this word is possible at this time. Check back in 4 years by then a consensus by have formed. Each person projects his personal beliefs and values onto this word, and a standard meaning isn't possible at this time.

Hey, did it suddenly become hip and cool to be all clear-headed and rational?!

"Man cave."

It's the July 23, 2009 Urban Word of the Day. Here's definition #1, with 831 up, 51 down votes:

A room, space, corner or area of a dwelling that is specifically reserved for a male person to be in a solitary condition, away from the rest of the household in order to work, play, involve himself in certain hobbies, activities without interuption. This area is usually decorated by the male that uses it without interferance from any female influence.

Definition #2 is similar. But watch out for Definitions #3 and 4, which have been strongly disapproved of by Urban Dictionary voters.

So do you have a man cave? Tell us about it. And I mean that in the Definition #1/2 sense. I know you've got one in the Definitions #3/4 sense, and you probably haven't got anything entertaining to say about it (unless you are Titus).

IN THE COMMENTS: Howard said:

Another depressing example of the continued sissification of America. Giving a special cute name to normal quiet behavior and/or a garage screams of estrogen.

If you have a garage band in that garage, you can call it Screams of Estrogen. And write a song called "Normal Quiet Behavior."

Goofballsiness.

Word suggested, just now, by me, upon reading the draft of an email that contained the world "goofballery." Google turns up nothing on a search for "goofballsiness," whereas there are close to 3,000 hits on "goofballery." But, clearly, "goofballsiness" is the better word. Please, everyone. Start using the useful word "goofballsiness." And remember: Althouse coined it.

Bo, the Portuguese water dog.

"... a gift by that Portuguese water dog-lovin' senator himself, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The girls named it Bo -- and let it be noted that you learned that here first. Malia and Sasha chose the name, because their cousins have a cat named Bo and because first lady Michelle Obama's father was nicknamed Diddley, a source said. (Get it? Bo . . . Diddley?)"

So, fine, nice, he really did get the dog. A promise kept. Good.

But the interesting issue here is: How did Barrack Obama Michelle's dad get the nickname Diddley? The Urban Dictionary says:

1. diddley...

1) Word used in place of general explicit language in order to soften the emotion of the language.
2) A person acting in a silly manor
3) An endearing way to address a friend
4) An omen of good fashion
5) One's genitalia

1) "What the diddley?"
2) "She's quite the diddley."
3) "Diddley, I love you."
4) "May the diddley be with you."
5) *pokes you in the diddley*

I'm thinking An endearing way to address a friend, aren't you?

ADDED: I need to read more carefully!