That's Not Sylly - That's Stupid!

Can you smell it? There's a foul and horrid odor in the air, and those with sensitive noses had better hold their yaps. Because the emperor has neither clothes, nose, taste or editorial ability and you, hapless subscriber to the Star/Tribune, are expected to read the semi-literate tripe their columnists dish out to you without complaint, lest your hive-minded neighbors consider you a wingnut.

Huh? Oh. Syl Jones has another column in the Strib. And every column of his is a lesson anew; whatever horrors of language that Laura Billings and Glenda Holste and Kim Ode and even the master himself, Nick Coleman, inflict on us, they are mere acolytes sitting at the feet of the mighty (awful) Syl Jones.

He's upset.

Can you smell it? There's a deep and abiding stench in the air and those with sensitive olfactory organs had better keep quiet. Because the emperor has no nose and you, loyal subject, are expected to inhale without frowning or mouthing off. There's a war going on. People are dying. Somewhere in a cave, shady people are planning to end civilization as we know it. So shut up, you anti-American pig.

It's almost a cliche, now, barely worth mentioning - the alleged "persecuted iconoclastic protester" operating on the payroll of the biggest news outlet in the state, while that same paper's editorial pages squelch dissenting commentary and attack those who would dare to fact check the Most Holy Strib, while claiming to worry about censorship.

I said "almost".

That's the implicit message nearly everywhere we turn. Still, it's hard to ignore the horrible stench of world leadership putrefaction. Not just political leadership, although the moral decay at work in international centers from Afghanistan to Niger to the United States is stunning. [Niger and Afghanistan are "international centers"? - Ed.] Everywhere the paradigm of leadership is breaking down, including the corporate world, where many with authority refuse to accept responsibility.

You see it at the state level, where the people's business has taken a backseat to an ideological imperative expressed by a "no more taxes" mantra. Good leaders would long ago have explained that when a people refuse to pay for what they need, they inevitably get what we're getting: bad schools, inadequate infrastructure, increased crime and generalized despair.

Except that for a generation, we paid and paid and paid, under the successive generations of Humphreys and Mondales and Carlsons. And paid some more under Ventura.

By the way, Syl - does the teacher's union know you're criticizing the schools?

It's obvious too at the very top, when a president of the United States can give the finger to the media without apologizing and the media allow him to get away with it.

Er...Syl?

While you and Nick Coleman are apparently dim and querulous enough to fall for that, the general consensus for the last week or two has been that it was his thumb. The vulgarity of this administration has always been clear to me. Using American kids as cannon fodder to prove that Donald Rumsfeld's theory of limited war is right strikes me as criminal, right up there with the glib pronouncement that, "You go to war with the Army you have and not the Army you want."Uh...

...Syl?

You prefer to be stuck with unlimited wars?

And how is Rumsfeld's statement wrong?

Can you answer that, Syl?

SYL?

What's most intriguing about this new brand of vulgar conservativism -- from Vice President Dick Cheney's use of the F word to skanky Ann Coulter's diatribes

Skanky?

Feminists, would you care to take this one? I mean, Ann Coulter is a woman who should be model for all feminists - unabashedly forthright, unafraid of the patriarchy, and brazenly feminine, no different than feminist icons like Madonna or Courtney Love or Helen Thomas.

And while we're at it, feminists, Jones' term "skanky" imposes a derogatory patriarchal slur on being unabashedly feminine and sexual. That's just wrong - isn't it, feminists?

Feminists?

FEMINISTS?

Lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it turns out, was just the beginning. They also want you to swallow the story that Karl Rove, aka Turd Blossom, didn't violate federal law by leaking Valerie Plame's name to the press.

Turd Blossom?

Syl Jones is a Professional Writer, don't you know.

And what are we to make of excuses now on offer for the self-described prince of darkness, Bob Novak, who not only wrote the original story about the leak but ended up swearing on national television?In one sentence, "turd blossom". In the next, a case of the vapors over Bob Novak's outburst?

This is family values spelled with a BS, the sort of hypocritical hooliganism reminiscent of Dick Nixon's gang.

My head reels with my inability to even get my arms around the disingenuousness of an obscenely inept "writer" and "playwrite" like Syl Jones playing at outrage over "hypocrisy" over "family values" - as if adults don't make mistakes.

Both Rove and Novak ought to go to prison where they and Tom DeLay could presumably employ their conservative credentials to avoid emasculation. But they won't do time because there is no leadership, no justice, no shame -- and it stinks.

And because neither of them committed a crime.

But we'll get back to that.

Because there's a bigger question here; why does the Strib employ Syl Jones? Indeed, in a community with plenty of completely qualified black writers, why is it that the only two writing for the Star/Tribune (a paper that is so knotted up about PC that for years it wouldn't mention the full names of the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians) are the vacuous CJ and the...words fail...cartoonishly, dismally, mind-warpingly dim Syl Jones?

If I were a Black writer, I'd be pissed.

Posted by Mitch at August 15, 2005 06:53 AM | TrackBack