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
July 30, 2009
Beer Time at the White House
By: Bernard Chazelle
Get that beer keg ready, Mr President. The guests are coming in large numbers.
Boston police officer Justin Barrett, 36, a two-year veteran assigned to District B-3, earned his invitation to the White House the hard way. He sent an e-mail to the Boston Globe and friends:
"If I were the officer he (Professor Gates) verbally assaulted like a banana eating jungle monkey I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (pepper spray)."
I love the smell of the post-racial society in the morning.
— Bernard Chazelle
Posted at July 30, 2009 01:08 AMI thought banana eating jungle monkeys were more inclined to fling faeces than verbal abuse, i.e. they'd resort to physical assault with whatever noxious irritant came to hand.
Posted by: me at July 30, 2009 05:06 AMAre banana-eating jungle monkeys similar to cheese-eating surrender monkeys, only with a diet higher in potassium and fibre? Or what?
Posted by: NomadUK at July 30, 2009 07:18 AMHow about the one who tasered a 72 year old woman?
Posted by: par4 at July 30, 2009 09:46 AMHow are these comparable? The Cambridge Multicultural Police Association supports Crowley. I haven't heard anything about them supporting this asshole, who got suspended.
Posted by: will shetterly at July 30, 2009 02:35 PMHow are these comparable?
You're not getting it, Will. From now on, any time a cop shoves his nightstick up someone's ass, Bernard is going to be right there with, "I bet Obama's gonna invite this guy to the White House for a beer, too! Har de har har!"
It's a joke, you see.
Posted by: SteveB at July 30, 2009 06:30 PMWell, if the cambridge multicultural police association condemns the use of the phrase banana eating jungle monkey to refer to black men, then I say the problem is almost solved.
SteveB: This is the Jimmy-Carterization of Obama. Let him play Oprah a little more and see the opposition pulverize him. I assume you disagree. Time will tell.
I assume you disagree.
No, not really, it's just that given the rate of racially-motivated police assaults in this country, I'm not really looking forward to the next hundred installments in this series.
Also, in general, I think the "Democrats are weak" line has done a great deal to confuse people who might otherwise figure out what the Dems are really about. Obama will deliver the health care bill the insurance industry wants him to deliver, with all the blame going to Max Baucus, the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats, because Obama let them "push him around." Kind of a neat trick, when you think about it.
Posted by: SteveB at July 31, 2009 10:56 AMThe Cambridge Multicultural Police Association supports Crowley.
So it's automatically not bigotry if your union (which have historically been hotbeds of bigotry) backs you. Of course, this awful fallacy was used to support will shetterly's irrelevant point, giving us a fail that would impress a contortionist.
Posted by: No One of Consequence at July 31, 2009 11:02 AMNo One of Consequence, the Cambridge Multicultural Police Association is not a union.
Also, let me make this very clear for people who think It's All About Race: the cops investigated two cops. They exonerated Crowley, and they suspended Barrett. This suggests one is racist and one is not.
Police abuse does not have to be racist to be abuse. Working class whites get abused by cops also.
Posted by: will shetterly at July 31, 2009 11:54 AMSteveB: There's a season for everything, including bad beer jokes, and thankfully we're reaching the end of it.
will, your generalization still serves to prove nothing. I know, first hand, that cops can and will brutalize working-class whites. That does nothing to prove that race was not a factor with Gates.
Posted by: No One of Consequence at August 1, 2009 11:29 AMHad we, as a society, a bit thicker skins, we would broadcast these lunacies far and wide, with an appropriate apology to the more sensitive among us, demonstrate a little Common Sense for our fellow man, and let the fringe element drown in the laughter and public ridicule generated by their own thinking or lack thereof. Along with the right to free speech comes the right to make a public fool of oneself; and like the naked, fools have little or no influence on society. We should "Never Underestimate the Power of Laughter."
