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You undoubtedly know “Coach” Dave Daubenmire, either from Sadly, No!, or perhaps as the guy who screamed at you to take a lap, then sneered and called you a “lady” until you successfully climbed the rope in the gym.  And for your own sake I certainly hope you got the lead out, because the coach will brook no excuses, whether it be athlete’s foot, menstrual cramps, lazy eye, or psychosomatic Blackness.

Afro-Chondria

Hypochondria—extreme depression of mind or spirits often centered on imaginary physical ailments.

Afro-chondria—extreme depression of mind or spirits often centered on imaginary social ailments

Dichondra–leafy perennial that was a popular substitute for Bermuda grass in Southern California, until homeowners began to notice that their lazy, shiftless lawn was just laying around, collecting welfare.

So, because he is black all of the white people hate him. Is that we are supposed to believe?

Dave sort of leaped into the middle of his diatribe here, but I assume by “he,” the Coach means Obama, or possibly Ruben Studdard.

Even though millions of white Americans voted for Obama we are now fed media reports that white folks are against him because of his skin color.

Well, there were millions of white folks who didn’t vote for Obama in 2008, and it seems likely that any white people who are now “against him because of his skin color” are probably members of the latter group.  At least, that’s what Obama would deduce, if only because he, like Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown, has Occam’s Razor in his shoe.

I actually dislike the “white” side of him even more…

Because people are born black, they can’t help it.  But like homosexuality, turning race traitor is a choice.

and you won’t “you racist” me into an apology. I am sick and tired of seeing race used as an excuse for incompetence.

I understand Coach Dave’s irritation.  It’s unfair that we white people can’t pardon our incompetence with trendy rationalizations like “race,” and have to fall back on threadbare old excuses like “alcoholism,” or, “my dad was president, and I’m a legacy.”

(I suppose it is right about here that I need to throw out the I-am-not-a-racist-disclaimer that the race-hustlers have made part of any discussion about Negroes in America…

I liked Negroes in America, Tony Kushner’s 1975 blaxploitation film, but I just didn’t buy Roy Cohen as the Mack Daddy pimp.

you do remember when they used to call them Negroes, don’t you?

Yes, I believe it was 30 years ago in the United States, and 30 seconds ago in the Daubenmire household.

Well, I refuse to do it…even though the President is one of the few to whom the phrase “Afro” actually applies. It is the “American” part that I am having trouble with.)

“I’m not giving up another word that starts with N!  These people are insatiable!”

I am sure some of you are very uncomfortable right now.

No, I’m good, actually; but then, I planned ahead.  I always said to myself, “if I’m ever invited to a Klan meeting, I’m wearing my 300 count percales.”

That’s ok. You see, I am one of the few dinosaurs remaining in America who have not given over the use of the English language to the thought police. As any good umpire would tell you, I call them as I see them.

…through a glass, darky.

It is time to stop making excuses for “oppressed” blacks. The President of the United States is black.

Which means that no black people are oppressed, and all black people are technically President of the United States, which explains why so many of them drive nice cars.

There are more posters of black athletes hanging on the walls of suburban white kids in America than there are pictures of white guys adorning the walls of black kids in the ghettos.

And despite Mattel’s efforts to meet ghetto-dwellers halfway, only a handful of little Negro girls can be seen playing with new Drop of Blood Barbie.  Sales figures for her sidekick, Stockholm Syndrome Skipper have also been disappointing in inner city areas.

Upwards of ninety percent of blacks voted for a black man for President.

When they could have voted for this guy!

Doesn’t that have a tinge of racism?

And more than a touch of irony, considering McCain’s teeth are “high yellow.”  Joke’s on you, ghetto-denizens!

If ninety percent of white voters had voted for the white guy the African wouldn’t be president. Somebody explain to me how racism has held Obama back.

More importantly, someone explain to the Coach how racism, which has been so effective in holding black people back since the Colonial era, suddenly dropped the ball in 2008.  Was it just a one time case of leaving it in the locker room; racism was having a bad night; it was the kind of thing that could happen to any ism?  Or was cheating involved?  Did racism take a dive because it was in to the Mob for fifty large?  Or were the officials bribed to look the other way, allowing the opposing team to bring in this ringer from Africa?

Isn’t labeling the Tea Party as “racist” stereotyping? I thought that was a bad thing. Heck, we can’t even call the terrorists “Muslim” anymore. Well this is one guy who has had enough of it.

It’s good to see the Coach has finally hit on an effective method of civil disobedience.  Previously, when denied the language of mid-century typology, this one guy threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue.  But nobody cared, and he wound up holding it until he turned navy blue, which in a certain light can be confused with black, and makes it hard to match your socks.  Instead, he will simply refer to himself in the third person until everyone agrees to refer to them as “Negroes,” “Coloreds,” or “decorative blackamoors.”

So, I would like to introduce a new phrase into the American lexicon today.

AFRO-CHONDRIA–the belief that anything bad that happens to a black American is a result of the color of the skin.

I see the Coach has adopted Michael Savage Weiner’s “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” theory, but refined and expanded it by adding “melanin” to the DSM IV.  This looks like fun, so I hope no one minds if I also toss a neologism into the pot:

LYNCH-PHOBIA–the irrational belief, most often experienced while undergoing an extra-judicial hanging by a group of white men, that you have somehow been singled out for persecution.

I love sports. It is the one place where the law of the jungle truly holds sway. Survival of the fittest is the honor code on the athletic field. In fact, if we will be honest, ALL races believe that Negroes are better athletes. The sheer statistical numbers bear that out.

Coach Daubenmire: Creationist in daily life, but a Darwinist on the playing fields of Eatin’.

Where is white affirmative action in sports? I’d love to be raking in all of that NBA money. But I can’t…not because of my skin color…but because I can’t jump.

..because of your skin color.

Performance is expected on the athletic field, while “special favors” are expected off of it. One makes it in the NFL BECAUSE of his race, while race is somehow a handicap off of the field.

So it all works out even.  Racial discrimination off the field is just nature’s way of making poor black kids financially compensate white people for all the money they’re paying Kobe Bryant, thereby restoring balance to the Force.

Obama’s performance stinks. Who cares what color he is, unless of course, you are an Afro-Chondriac who would argue that his performance is great but our perception of it is influenced because we are racists. Poor guy. It is obvious that black guys can’t make it in America. (You listening LeBron?)

Coach Daubenmire isn’t against Obama because he’s Black.  He’s against him because all the Blacks are for him!  It’s a subtle difference.

Wake up folks. Racism is dead.

Well, it’s dead in the way Jason is always dead in the penultimate scene of a Friday the 13th movie, so it’s sort of an affirmative action death.

Oh, there are little pockets of it here and there, but the greatest wave of racism can be found in the black community.

That’s why it’s best to keep them penned up in ghettos.  It’s not segregation, it’s a quarantine.

Being a racist is socially acceptable in the black community. Can you even imagine the ridicule that would ensue if John McCain had blamed his defeat on his race? “I lost because my white heritage has conditioned me to compromise my beliefs so that others will accept me.”

Well, it would be far from the craziest thing McCain has ever said.  But I give credit to Coach Dave — when he lost a Republican Congressional primary in Ohio, he didn’t even consider putting the blame on his fondness for late 19th century eugenics.

Euro-Chondria is not accepted as a legitimate disorder. Only blacks can blame their difficulties on their skin color.

So all you White screw-ups, also-rans, and ne’er-do-wells: drop your Coppertone and start slathering on the mahogany wood stain!

(Isn’t it refreshing to hear some speak the Truth?)

I haven’t felt this refreshed since the last time I used a Fleet enema.

I love black people…oops…I love people…even black ones.

Well.  That truth-speaking thing didn’t last long, did it?  Back to the drug store…

I have coached some remarkable young black men in my life. Not one of the great one’s ever made an excuse. They accepted the fact that most blacks liked blacks better than whites and that most whites liked whites better than blacks.

Coach Daubenmire leads his team with the same approach he takes to doing the laundry.  Sure, like most men he would prefer to simply throw it all in one load and start the machine, but he takes that extra time to first separate the whites and the colors.

Afro-Chondria is one of the greatest obstacles that black-Americans face. Playing along with their imaginary illness may make one seem more compassionate, but it still leaves the patient feeling sick and dependant.

Those four Sunday School students at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham would have been fine after the bomb went off if they’d just gotten up and walked it off.

It is time to stop perpetuating the big lie. Blaming the Boogie Man of white racism never forces one to deal with the real problem.

Which is Black racism.  And it’s a serious problem that’s only getting worse, because while White people have most of the guns, one of their guys has access to nuclear weapons.  If we don’t get some Dirk Nowitski posters up in ghetto bedrooms soon, we’re screwed.

47 Responses to “Coach Dave: Do You Hear The Jungle Drums, Fernando?”

There goes Coach D again, Breaking (wind in) the Huddle.

How not surprised I would be to see the good Coach pointing at one of his players and yelling, Yo, muthafukka, bring me some iced tea!

I actually dislike the “white” side of him even more…

Because people are born black, they can’t help it. But like homosexuality, turning race traitor is a choice.

“You’re bein’ colored–you had no cherce in that. But why did ya have to go and turn Jew?” –Archie Bunker to Sammy Davis, Jr.

I actually dislike the “white” side of him even more…

Because people are born black, they can’t help it. But like homosexuality, turning race traitor is a choice.

“Your bein’ colored–well, I know you had no cherce in that. But whatever made you turn Jew?” –Archie Bunker to Sammy Davis, Jr.

Oh good lord…

“I haven’t felt this refreshed since the last time I used a Fleet enema.”

Every article of yours has that moment where I snort coffee through my nose, and this was it.

Where is white affirmative action in sports?

Oh, I’d say, management.

Coach’s wife needs to stop using his Occam’s razor to shave her legs !

And here I thought sport wasn’t about winning or losing, but about how you play the game. If Coachie really loves sports because the law of the jungle rules, why doesn’t he want Nature to take its course so that the black guys can eliminate, as in eliminate, all the other guys? Eh?

I suppose the fact that the hideous wave of lynchings that swept the nation between the World Wars is **within living memory** cuts no mustard with this preening bully.

I actually dislike the “white” side of him even more…

Because nothing is less racist than thinking you can cut someone in half and determine what parts of his personality are due to him being black and which to him being white.

For some reason, I believe “I’m not a racist” a lot more when the person saying it has demonstrated any understanding of what racism is. That a black man has become president is no more proof that racism no longer exists than the existence of hypochondria is proof that the germ theory of disease is a hoax.

And, really, when you’re attempting to coin a neologism based on a word, you might want to look the word up to begin with. Because hypochondria doesn’t mean the physical symptoms are imaginary. It means you’ve subconsciously convinced your body to feel pain despite not having a disease. This is neither better nor worse than “imaginary physical ailments”, but does suggest a fundamental misunderstanding on Coach’s part of his attempted analogy. Aside from which, that black people were for decades post-slavery wholesale denied opportunities for a normal–much less privileged–life the rest of us took for granted, the fact that many have become widely admired, powerful, or materially successful speaks far better of those individuals than it does of society. (If a single blind person can climb a mountain, the Coach surely wonders, why are we coddling the rest of them with this “government documents in braille” and “allowing guide dogs into stores” crap?)

Even if the pervasive oppression of Segregation (and post-Segregation tacit redlining) weren’t enough to explain outcome disparities, consider the fact that after the Civil War, black men were routinely arrested on trumped up charges and selectively-enforced laws and essentially sold to labor camps for the highly-flexible “duration” of their “sentences”. It’s a system that continues unchanged in all but the niceties by the way we selectively pass and enforce laws and sentences. A white suburban father may get rehab for a first drug offense, a black urban father is likely to do real time, often in for-profit prisons.

Don’t tell me racism is a thing of the past. Black people still have all the same problems they did in 2007, but now they also have assholes standing around whining that “We GAVE you a president, can you just GET OVER IT already?”

For the record, nearly all black people have always–well, for as long as they’ve been allowed to vote, anyway, which, really, hasn’t been that long–voted for white people for president. That’s probably racism too, under the coach’s simplistic definition, but it’s probably the kind he thinks he’s too colorblind to see.

And Scott:

“I’m not giving up another word that starts with N! These people are insatiable!”

Thanks for the laugh, you have no idea.

Whenever a person feels a need to announce, “I am not a racist” what follows next will invariable prove he IS.

“I’m not a racist but…” translates to “I’m incredibly racist and…” every single time. You can’t bank on it. Also:

I suppose it is right about here that I need to throw out the I-am-not-a-racist-disclaimer that the race-hustlers have made part of any discussion about Negroes in America…

Self-refuting statement is self-refuting.

In fact, you CAN bank on it. The publication regrets the error.

If I have my etymology correct, “hypochondria” refers to an illness having no discernable cause, and is so named because it was colorfully believed to be hiding, the little scamp, under (hypo) the surface of the body (chondros, cartilage or breastplate).

So Coach Cracker’s Big Neologism “Afrochondria” might be more accurately assumed to mean “African on the surface” (oreo).

[sigh] Back in the early 21st century, Jonah Goldberg similarly fucked up his clever attempt to make a super neologism all by himself: “frankenfreude”, which he intended to refer to the feeling of joy at seeing harm come to Al Franken. In doing so, of course, he discarded the half of the word that meant harm and replaced it with Franken, resulting in a word which could only be presumed to mean “joy at experiencing Al Franken”, the dope.

Merriam-Webster provides a secondary, and I think apt, sense for neologism: a meaningless word coined by a psychotic.

What is it with these clowns and the language, anyway?

I dunno, Chris. I was gonna say “They’re probably just morons,” but then I realized that’s selling them short. They’re also assholes.

His hypochondria thing is a stupid analogy, anyway. This is like a cluster of pollutant-caused cancer cases, with the doctors going “Well, have you tried ignoring it? Because I’m pretty sure that huge lump is just an air bubble, and I don’t think we should waste my time and your insurer’s money on this, plus shouldn’t you be at work anyway?” And the government is standing around saying “Well, we think maybe it’s a statistical accident, assuming it’s anything at all, which we suspect it’s not. Maybe these people are all thirty pounds underweight because they’re buying Play-Doh instead of real food.” And the polluters are saying, “Well, look. It’s perfectly legal to dump all this crap in your drinking water, the courts say it’s fine since you guys can’t prove it’s causing you any harm, and the fact that our lawyers can stall these lawsuits in court until you die just means the plaintiffs lack persistence. Also, our lawyers say we can sue you because you keep accusing us of dumping pollution in your water. That’s slander, and we have mental anguish!”

I grant you my analogy is more wordy. But it has the advantage of being closer to accurate.

A quick search for “no such thing as race” led me to a clip from this video:

The ability to grasp the idea that there is no such thing (scientifically/biologically speaking) as race, although socio-economic conditions and prejudice do combine to perpetuate certain class distinctions, is a good test. Of something. I can see that to some, particularly those suffering from the racism, that might seem a fine distinction, but I think it is a good place to start.

Sports = Law of the Jungle?

So, in Football, Baseball & Basketball it’s all “kill or be killed”, and the loosing team dies?

Only “the strong” can win? Brains and talent don’t count? Makes sense; otherwise who wold hire “teh Coach”, a bigot with an IQ of 37?

I am, because I am fucking useless and my computer is doing eighteen other things, going to respond without watching the helpful link. So, Murfyn, don’t feel I’m responding to you, it’s just an argument with a couple of the voices in my head prompted by something you said.

I don’t really get the concept of race, in that genetics can be pretty unpredictable based on what little we know so far, and people tend to fall in love, or at least lust, in ways that produce a spectrum of phenotypes rather than distinct categories. So I don’t know if there is such a thing as “race” anymore than I would say I know if there’s such a thing as gendered personality or distinct sexual orientations.

Regardless, I’m pretty sure there *is* such a thing as “racism”. Just as people who don’t consider themselves gay can be victims of anti-gay bias crimes, racism seems to be a reaction we can have based on stereotypes we have of how someone is, triggered by what race we think they are.

If we think people who look a certain way *are* a certain way, we will treat them a certain way.

(People who argue that Obama is only half black and therefore is somehow protected from racism just stagger me. Because if the cops had spotted him out late when he was twenty, you suppose they’d have apologized and sent him on his way when they realized he “wasn’t really black”?)

So, okay, is there race? I don’t know. But do people, a lot of people, react negatively to people with darker skin? That seems inarguable, and I see pretty much no evidence that it’s stopped since we elected a guy with darker skin.

And all of this may seem extremely self-evident and in no need of explanation, but I have it on some authority that there are fuckwits out there. You know, like the Coach.

On the other hand, he’s not as revolting a person as Dr Mike, so he’s got that going for him.

(My partner, btw, has sanctioned my plan of summoning a demon and offering to trade Dr Mike’s soul for that of my dead boycat. There’s maybe just the one flaw there, but maybe I can find a demon as stupid as the Coach is.)

It’s the latest fall back position to join a long line of denials of racism, “love your Lena Horne”, “some of my best friends are”, “I’d vote for Condaleeza Rice”. The new one is “the blacks and liberals are the real racists”.

I’ve encountered a number of these clowns on message boards and they are incredibly transparent. They wear their rhapsodic admiration for this or that token person of color as evidence of enlightenment. They never can wrap their heads around the distinction between bigotry and racism. Anyone can be a bigot, but racism has an economic and social component, which requires being part of the dominant culture. Sure blacks can hate whites, but they aren’t able to relegate them to ghettos and systemic poverty, railroad them into prisons, deny them education, jobs and housing and then put the blame on them for their oppressed condition. I’d suggest this fellow read some Belle Hooks or Tim Wise, but I doubt he could even begin to fathom any kind of nuanced argument. Maybe when whites become the minority we can begin to talk about anti-white racism, but until then it’s an oxymoron.

I remember reading a comment somewhere about the tea parties desire to take the country back to an illusory golden age. This fellow wrote they should be careful about that, lest they end up taking the country back to a time when the Irish, Poles and Italians weren’t considered to be white either.

I loved this, and my snort-out-loud line was “through the glass, darky.” Excellent typo.

(But please watch out with the McCain teeth thing. Kos caused a s***storm making fun of his teeth – the Viet Cong really messed him up, including the teeth.)

Wow, you people are wordy today!
All I can come up with for dear “Coach Dave” is “fuckin’ retard.”

Sorry, portioned my eloquence out along other channels today…

Afro-Chondria

He probably thinks mitochondria is a feara of lifting weights.

So, because he is black all of the white people hate him. Is that we are supposed to believe?

Especially the ones who refer to the President as “he”.

At least, that’s what Obama would deduce, if only because he, like Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown, has Occam’s Razor in his shoe.

I. Really. Hate you.

I actually dislike the “white” side of him even more…

That album of Obama’s sucked, it’s true. He should stick to Negro spirituals and post-war jazz stylins.

and you won’t “you racist” me into an apology. I am sick and tired of seeing race used as an excuse for incompetence.

Um, well, at least he’s admitting his racism is due to his own character flaw. That’s a start.

I am sure some of you are very uncomfortable right now.

Well, my hip hurts a little, but that’s more because I rode my bike this morning.

I am one of the few dinosaurs remaining in America who have not given over the use of the English language to the thought police.

I wondered what happened to the Bigotdon…

There are more posters of black athletes hanging on the walls of suburban white kids in America than there are pictures of white guys adorning the walls of black kids in the ghettos.

Um, let me throw a thought out to Da Coach here…Jesus? Ring a bell?

In other words, I’ll take that bet, and even spot you a million posters.

Isn’t labeling the Tea Party as “racist” stereotyping?

Lemme see…98% white, carrying pictures of Obama wearing native African tribesmen outfits…I’m just surprised they haven’t stooped to pointing out that Obama practically spells “Sambo”!

Coach Daubenmire: Creationist in daily life, but a Darwinist on the playing fields of Eatin’.

I. Really. Fucking. Hate you.

But I can’t…not because of my skin color…but because I can’t jump.

If Conclusions ever becomes an Olympic event, whoa nelly!

By the way, just out of curiousity…where has anyone claimed that Obama’s performance has suffered because of his race?

We’ve all claimed it’s suffered because of the Republicans. Led by, you know, a black man?

like most RW “writers” the Coach reminds me of those studies that showed that the truly incompetent are hampered by the fact that they’re too incompetent to realize that they’re incompetent! In his case, he’s too stupid to realize he’s an idiot!

Euro-Chondria is not accepted as a legitimate disorder. Only blacks can blame their difficulties on their skin color.

Does this mean all the idiots complaining how affirmative action is the only reason they haven’t been promoted/advanced in life are going to stop now?
Because I could get behind that.

Following up on Woodrowfan, and continuing the razor theme, I think Coach is perhaps just a real good example of Hanlon’s Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t be both stupid AND malicious.

Y’know, I’m so old I now have ties which have gone out, in, out, in, and back out of style. But I never thought I’d hear the “Hey, look at Sammy Davis, Jr.” argument again.

BTW, professional athletes pull down big salaries because of teevee revenues, not America’s Exceptional Multiculturalism. The two biggest earners in American sports are Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, and it’s not their athleticism but their attractiveness to advertisers that account for most of the pile. The “sport” they play is rumored to be mostly popular among Caucasians. Of the four NBA players who make the top ten, only one–Shaq–earns any real endorsement money pushing product at anyone other than young urban males. Floyd Mayweather made the 2010 list only because half a handful of boxers per generation can earn huge paydays for marquee bouts. The only NFL player in the top ten is Peyton Manning. There are five other NFL players in the Top 20. Two of them are African-Americans, and they come in 19th and 20th, and make it on the strength of $23 million bonus payoffs. The only other person, after Woods and Mickelson, in the Top 20 who’s there strictly on the basis of what advertisers pay him is Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who, for the uninitiated, drives a stock car part-time.

bidziliba : Thanks for pointing out the difference between bigotry/prejudice and racism.
The powerless cannot beget or foster racism, sexism, ageism etc. It is a oneway hatred. Also, and here I speak from personal observation,changing the government, or the Constitution does not do away with it. It is remarkably persistent – see anti-Semitism, popular for centuries.

He does make one good point. If suburban basketball-loving white teenagers aren’t racist, then the Tea Partiers (most of whom are suburban basketball-loving white teenagers) can’t possibly be racists.

Murfyn writes: (quoting the video): The ability to grasp the idea that there is no such thing (scientifically/biologically speaking) as race, although socio-economic conditions and prejudice do combine to perpetuate certain class distinctions, is a good test.

Speaking as an Anthropologist, I respectfully scream out loud at the video’s attempt to remedy racist proclivities by simply wishing the concept into the cornfield.

Yes, there is such a thing as race. I could say more, but, well, just look it up, dammit: You will find it doesn’t mean what you and the makers of the video– whose motives I found deeply suspect– think it does.

D Sidhe writes: Regardless, I’m pretty sure there *is* such a thing as “racism”.

It’s pretty simple really. Merriam-Webster to the rescue again, with the primary sense of racism:

1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

There are secondary senses of course, but these reflect the fact that dictionaries do not dictate usage– they record it.

D Sidhe channels Coach Cracker: (If a single blind person can climb a mountain, the Coach surely wonders, why are we coddling the rest of them with this “government documents in braille” and “allowing guide dogs into stores” crap?)

Back in the seventies, a common TV Movie of the Week theme was the disabled fella who overcame all the odds, baffled the doctors, and rose above his disability to win the prize, tournament, trophy, whatever.

My pal Lynn (blind) had a single word for it: Supercrip, and pointed out, quite rightly I think, that it did more harm than good to the cause of accepting into society the disabled, for obvious reasons.

Lynn, incidentally, is Playwright and ace Judo Champion Lynn Manning, who overcame all the odds, etc.

Coach Cracker writes: I love sports. It is the one place where the law of the jungle truly holds sway.

If that were true, Coach’d be out of a job.

[sigh] Al Campanis, the nicest old duck you’d ever want to meet, best friend of Jackie Robinson and Godfather to his children, nevertheless responded to a question about the dearth of minorities in the front office with the suggestion that perhaps it was because blacks innately lacked the ability to do whatever the hell it is they do in the front office.

This illustrates, I hope, the insidious nature of racism: it’s not malice necessarily, although it often is accompanied by it, but poor Al would tell you he hadn’t a racist bone in his body, and I felt sorry for the guy: grew up in Texas in the 30s, what’s a cracker gonna do.

One of the things the election of Obama teaches us is just how insidious racism is– among other things, it has exposed a number of professed liberals with supposedly enlightened views of race who suddenly find themselves uncomfortable with the idea of a negro being the boss of them.

D Sidhe writes: People who argue that Obama is only half black and therefore is somehow protected from racism just stagger me.

Same here, same reason. Dave Chapelle probably agrees, but nevertheless couldn’t resist .

Chris, there was also a brief trend in crippled detectives, starting with Ironsides…

The Kids in the Hall did a Oscars bit once where they had a series of Disabled Person Triumphs Over The Odds movies up for a prize, the winner was a guy in a wheelchair who Triumphed over some politician who declared he was “tired of lining up on ramps” and demanded “big bumps” everywhere instead.

It’s possible I hallucinated that because I’m too lazy to look up details, if I have anyone who does manage to google that out can feel free to run with it as their own idea. But it’s been a longstanding hallucination if so, and I’ve thought of that frequently since, notably a few years back when one of the libertarian pinheads complained about some mandate that there be braille on emergency exit doors. Because, you know, he hated looking at it or something stupid.

What were we talking about?

(In my defense, the sister of the cat who died last week is going in to a NEW vet in an hour or so to see if they can figure out why she has weakened leg syndrome, apparently it’s a cat-specific symptom of a lot of stuff starting with diabetes and brain tumors, man, the stuff they don’t tell you. So I’m distracted. But if my cat manages to Triumph over her WLS and finds herself in one of those wheely contraptions, I promise to help one of you industry people write the Movie Of The Week.)

Amoronsezwhat: There are more posters of black athletes hanging on the walls of suburban white kids in America than there are pictures of white guys adorning the walls of black kids in the ghettos.

And actor raises an eyebrow to note:
Um, let me throw a thought out to Da Coach here…Jesus? Ring a bell?

What I love about this is that that’s even a white guy who’s really a black guy!

Woody writes: Chris, there was also a brief trend in crippled detectives, starting with Ironsides…

Who promptly hired a negro to push his wheelchair around and bitchslap when he felt cranky.

In one sense, this was groundbreaking stuff at the time– it transcended racism, sort of, because Ironside was a shithead to everyone, although the racial varietal was still largely tiptoed around.

I’m betting Raymond Burr is largely responsible for this aspect and won many arguments with his writers over what he could and could not say to Mark.

add Ironside:

The Mark Sanger character was, of course, a criminal, albeit reformed by the guidance of Chief Ironside.

Oh well, baby steps…

D. Sidhe, no hallucination. Check KITHfan.org. Sketch from 1991 called Awards Show.

The nominees:
“Tyler Winston, for his portrayal of a deaf man fighting injustice in ‘Hear the Light’.”

“Todd Langdon for his portrayal of a handicapable man fighting corruption in ‘Rolling Tall’.” (Yes, there are large bumps involved.)

“Tom Wax for his portrayal of a man with a spike in his head in the movie ‘Spike’.”

“Sir Lawrence Reynolds in Hamlet for Hamlet.”

And the winner is….

“O my god it’s a three-way tie!”
“Everybody but the Hamlet guy!”

Rolling Tall! That was it.

Okay, two hours at the vet. (My partner: “Wow, it takes a lot longer here.” Me: “Yeah, that’s because they’re actually doing tests and figuring out what’s wrong instead of just making guesses and selling us supplements.”) Turns out my two year old cat has a disease of eight month old toy dogs and six year old children.

It seems the blood supply to the ball-and-socket joints of her hips never developed properly, and the bones never formed right and/or that it stopped developing at some point and the bone started eroding away, something like that. They took an x-ray and went “Oh my God, it’s like there’s no neck on that joint at all.” And, hell, even I could see that didn’t look right. She’s got part of a bone looks like a pipe cleaner in there.

The good news is, dogs get this a lot, well, that’s not the good news, the good news is the new vets do this surgery a lot, on dogs. What they will do, we are told, is cut the head of the bone off and reattach the muscles. The joint will fill with fluid on its own, and after physical therapy Nagi should be able to go back to doing with that fluid and the muscles what she used to do with bone, or nearly so. Enough for her to jump on counters and sleep in sinks and climb bookcases, even if not all the way to the top.

It means anesthesia, though, but they say there’s no real evidence that littermates have the same reactions to anesthesia, and they don’t use that kind anyway, and they will be extremely careful, and without the surgery she will spend the rest of her life in agony every time she takes a step and runs a good risk of breaking her hips.

So, crossed fingers and all that. She’s currently doped up on a fentanyl patch, and will be going in on Tuesday. They expect she might come home Wednesday or Thursday, and the prognosis is good considering her age and overall health, but they admit they’ve never seen this in a cat before.

The estimate for all of this is somewhere in the four thousand dollars range. My partner looked at me. “Well, I guess she’s not going to grad school.” I shrugged. “You haven’t even taught her to read yet.” “Look, she’s only two. And you haven’t even taught her to say anything other than ‘meow’.” Me, proudly: “I didn’t even teach her that, she came knowing that one.”

The vet looked up at this point. “You mean the cat?”

Me, shrugging again. “Well, she probably wasn’t Ivy League material anyway.”

Nagi isn’t insured, we spent nearly twice that on Cypress a few years back, who was insured, and we were ultimately reimbursed for almost three hundred dollars after twelve years of premiums.

Hopefully this will be a permanent fix, and I feel like we failed her brother, so maybe we can do better by her.

Anyway, I’m threadjacking again, but I’m too superstitious to put this at my place since I think my last post there is still the one about Cypress dying. I’ll try to knock that off.

Is anyone interested in a review of Sharktopus from someone who will have seen only the Syfy-telecast version? I can maybe offer guesses at where they censor the obligatory T&A. The current budget makes me think we won’t be buying the DVD anytime soon.

D: I think this crowd desperately needs a review of Sharktopus.

I know I do.

Oh, good luck go with you and your partner and Nagi, D. And a big YES on Sharktopus.

I understand its cinematic values transcend those of “Mansquito”? Was it you who said that back during the Piranha-review threads?

It ought to’ve been Mizsquito, anyway, for biological reasons.

Good luck with the cat, D, guess that you won’t be feeding him any more eight-month-old toy poodles and six-year-old children.

And I for one would welcome a review of Sharktopus (man, I would give anything to have heard the pitch for that one).

Incidentally, “Queen of Outer Space (Well, Venus Anyway)” (1958), released a couple years ago to DVD in a clean and garish candy colored widescreen print, recently graced the home screen, and a more blithely sexist movie is difficult to imagine. As with “Devil Girl From Mars” (1954), a war between the sexes went nuclear and men got the shit kicked out of them, and were all killed off except for a few kept for guy stuff like science and math– no I’m not kidding– and the four visiting Earthmen (in their adorable powder blue peaked caps and matching gloves) usually refer to them, often to their faces, as “babes,” “broads” or “dolls,” and wonder out loud how women could possibly have built something as awesome as the Queen’s Big Ass Death Ray, or aim it, women being notoriously poor drivers and all.

Screenwriter Charles Beaumont says he wrote it as a spoof, but somebody forgot to tell the director and cast, with the result that it’s that much more dumb fun to watch. Cardboard sets, goofy science (Venus has a breathable atmosphere because it has gravity similar to Earth, the “scientist” patiently explains)– boy, nothing beats a really crappy fifties sci-fi movie for my dough, and here’s the best part: They made thousands of them!

Scott and Sheri, did you cover this one in BLTBM?

Chris, we didn’t cover >i>Queen of Outer Space in the book (I’m not sure it was available on DVD at the time), but thanks for the reminder — it’s going onto the list of films which are currently slugging it out in the primaries for a spot in the sequel.

Is anyone interested in a review of Sharktopus from someone who will have seen only the Syfy-telecast version?

I thought it was a SyFy original movie?

Or is that “original” as in, “there was a theatrical release in some other country where you can see the nipples, but here, we got it and bowdlerized it”?

More as in, “We bought it from a company that will put it out on DVD in about a month, where you’ll be able to see tits and hear people say ‘fuck’. In the meantime, there’s this. Still, loads of fake blood, hey?”

I hesitate to review the non-DVD version, but you’d have to wait anyway, and the plot should be the same, for whatever that may be worth. Often it is released under a slightly different name on DVD, I don’t know if Siffy gets cash out of that or not.

“Speaking as an Anthropologist”
Perhaps you could link to a peer-reviewed journal that supports your point, instead of a Wikipedia article?

Murfyn writes: Perhaps you could link to a peer-reviewed journal that supports your point, instead of a Wikipedia article?

Don’t be silly. The Wikipedia article bibliography contains some hundred-odd such links.

“Wikipedia article bibliography”
Not the same thing at all, you know.

Something to say?