or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
October 30, 2006
Back To Analogy School For Paul Burgess
Something I've noticed consistently over the past five years is that America's conservatives either cannot or will not construct accurate analogies. As far as I've seen, this is true quite literally without exception. Some people thought 9/11 spelled the Death of Irony. That didn't work out (on the contrary), but at least for conservatives it sure spelled the Death of Accurate Analogies.
I say this as someone with a longtime interest in analogies. Exact analogies are perhaps the number one tool in the comic writing toolbox, and I've spent decades learning how to produce them. Thus I find it excruciating to witness conservatives give birth every day to hideously misshapen and deformed analogies. "Stop taking the analogy thalidomide!" I want to shout. But it is no use.
This brings us back to former Bush speechwriter Paul Burgess:
Most detestable are the lies these rogues craft to turn grief into votes by convincing the families of our war dead that their loved ones died in vain. First, knowing what every intelligence agency was sure it knew by early 2003, it would have been criminal negligence had the president not enforced the U.N.'s resolutions and led the coalition into Iraq. Firemen sometimes die in burning buildings looking for victims who are not there. Their deaths are not in vain, either.
OH MY GOD THAT IS A BAD ANALOGY. Let's try to make it a little more accurate:
1. Firemen looking for victims who are not there sometimes die in buildings that have been set on fire by the mayor.
2. Firemen looking for victims who are not there sometimes die in buildings that have been set on fire by the mayor, and stay there and continue dying for several years after the town spent $1 billion determining there are no victims.
I invite you to add your own 3, 4, etc.
(Thanks to Stinky Flamingo and hibiscus for getting the ball rolling in comments.)
Posted at October 30, 2006 03:07 PM | TrackBack3. Firemen looking for victims who are not there sometimes die in buildings that have been set on fire by the mayor, and stay there and continue dying for several years after the town spent $1 billion determining there are no victims, fighting the arsonists there so that they don't have to fight them here in our own homes, refusing to cut and run and helping people who live in the building construct a new building, which is almost as fireproof as the old building, until they can stand up while the firefighters stand down.
Posted by: Jon Swift at October 30, 2006 03:48 PM3. Firemen looking for victims who are not there sometimes die in buildings that have been set on fire by the Mayor as part of his "War on Arson", because someone told him it contained lighter fluid.
Posted by: John Angliss at October 30, 2006 05:56 PMFiremen sent by their mayor from distant town B sometimes die looking for victims - originally citizens moved to town A by town B's firemarshall, but now long ago deceased - in town A's buildings set on fire by town B's mayor.
Posted by: n8nyc at October 30, 2006 08:44 PMFiremen looking for victims who are not there sometimes die in buildings that have been set on fire by the mayor, and stay there and continue dying for several years after the town spent $1 billion determining there are no victims, and are equipped with flame throwers instead of water hoses in order to fight the "War on Fire," because, as the mayor explains, it is necessary to fight fire with fire, otherwise fire will set up a totalitarian Lake of Fire acros the entire planet.
Posted by: Rojo at October 30, 2006 09:49 PMFiremen looking for victims who are not there sometimes die in buildings that have been set on fire by the mayor, who of course was never a fireman himself - although he likes dressing up as one.
It's all part of a generational struggle for the presevation of civilisation called Fighting Fire with Fire.
Posted by: floopmeister at October 30, 2006 10:43 PM... and the mayor, who has recently learned speech and nearly upright walking, warms his hands at the thought of fire and the profit it will bring to his friends and fambly in the reconstructioning bidness; says, "Fire good."
Posted by: cavjam at October 31, 2006 12:05 AMWhat victims, what firemen?
It's more like if cops firebombed a city because they suspected some people might be using drugs there. Actually, I think something like that did happen in Philadelphia.
Posted by: abb1 at October 31, 2006 03:43 AMfiremen sometimes die looking for victims who are not there and in the process roast over a half million victims alive and the mayor paints a few schools to soothe the tensions.
Posted by: almostinfamous at October 31, 2006 04:44 AMIf we don't send additional firemen into the inferno the firemen who have died thus far will have died in vain.
Support Our Firemen.
3. Firemen who will die, then be resurrected and sent back into the inferno, then die again, be resurrected again, etc.
4. Firemen who will die and not be resurrected because they aren't true believers, but will burn in hell, according to the beliefs of our good Christian leader.
In reality, they attained true enlightenment after discovering that none of the government's conspiracy theories have ever been true in the first place and they were merely being used as political pawns at election time.
But at least they didn't die in vain. They died in burning buildings!
Posted by: JLaR at October 31, 2006 07:27 AMAs a resident of Philadelphia, I can tell you the story of the mayor's fire is even better than "because they suspected some people might be using drugs there". The mayor firebombed the building because he wanted to save the children inside from their politically weird parents.
Posted by: at October 31, 2006 08:05 AMKilling weirdos is always a crowd-pleaser. Witness: Waco.
Posted by: Lloyd at October 31, 2006 09:26 AMThe best way to stop a large fire is to do a controlled burn at the edges to rob it of fuel... only the controlled burns got out of control, and the original fire wasn't actually there just a little bit of smoke (which may have been blown by the mayor)
Posted by: at October 31, 2006 09:32 AMFireman goes into a burning building looking for innocent people that did not ask to be there and also the building tenant had susipicous activities in wanting to burn down the building and all information supported that idea that the mayor,bulding inspector and the fireman chief agreed on. So they go in to help these people that are not there in the first room or second room so thet decide not to look over the rest of the building because we must be wrong and they pack up and go home as the building that is on fire spreads to over buildings and burns down the whole city. And have people that hate firemans for doing there job because they like helping people.
Posted by: Larry at November 1, 2006 02:26 PM
