profanity

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Tennis player Serena Williams made more headlines with the tirade that caused her elimination from the recent U.S. Open than she would have if she had simply won the tournament. I’d post the video of the incident if it were more illuminating; unfortunately, what Serena said to the judge is not audible over the crowd noise.

It was a bad call—or at the very least, an inappropriately persnickety call at that critical point in the match.  Williams stalked toward the offending judge, pointing at her with the hand in which she was gripping the ball for her next serve. An anecdotal consensus has formed that she declared her intention to “shove this ball down your fucking throat.”

Not cool, to be sure. However, considered against the broader history of sports tirades it was small-fry stuff. The following are but two examples of what I mean.

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The following is text I composed for the “Additional message to President Obama” field, after I had signed my name to CredoAction.com’s petition “Tell Obama: The public option is not optional.” I urge all of you who read this while the health care reform issue is still current to do the same. Unless you don’t agree with me. No, fuck that — if you don’t agree I still want you to sign it.

Health care reform has been the issue of greatest concern to me for a long time. Therefore, in the following I will make every effort to temper my vehement language and trust that you will pardon me if a mild profanity or two do creep in.

If you punt on the public option, this whole initiative will have been in vain. All that would be left in the bill would be the window dressing. Window dressing, without a bloody *window*! Read the rest of this entry »

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How is it that I still occasionally think that I’ve seen it all? Specifically, with regard to the reflexive disingenuousness of partisan political idiocy? My hope for the reformation of our national miscourse keeps feeling more and more audacious.

At this point I feel compelled to alert you, my esteemed readers, that the remainder of this post will contain expressions garnished with no small amount of profanity. If this does not suit your taste, I hope that you will keep in mind that 1) you were alerted beforehand, and 2) it’s my fucking blog.

As I was saying… today’s attempt to make my head explode comes courtesy of Stephen Hayes and William Kristol at the Weekly Standard:
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George Carlin is gone. Damn it. I never got to meet him.

carlinPeople who know me well will attest that in a normal conversation, it’s quite common for me to quote George Carlin. It’s no accident: he was so prolifically funny and insightful for so long that he covered the majority of topics relevant to our lives at one time or another. More than any other individual source, George Carlin’s stand-up formed the basis of my comedic sensibility. He showed me what comedy could be—that its full effect extends well beyond what is merely funny. His wit was restless, impatient; it tugged persistently at the uneven corners of our society.

When I was about 11 or 12, his 1972 album Class Clown became the first comedy recording I ever owned. I brought that LP home, listened to it, and then listened to it again. And then again, a few more times. Soon his brilliant riffs were committed to my memory (where they remain), and I returned to Tower Records in Mountain View to repeat the process with another opus from the Carlin catalogue. LPs gave way to cassette tapes – easier to store, useful for my new, bitchin’ bright-yellow Walkman, and good for comedy recordings because the eventual decline in audio fidelity didn’t matter so much.

As I’ve mentioned, his penetratingly funny insights are too numerous and wide-ranging to recount. Here’s just a few, off the top of my head. George, forgive me if I paraphrase.

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