"So many people here, people that I otherwise respect, have written so much cloaked or naked vituperation about gay people..."

"... and our effect on civilization, that what little sympathy I had for your 'feelings' has long evaporated."

At this point in my life I'm finished with the lot of you, the plantation master so-called "liberals" who are less distinguishable from Fascists every day, and the so-called small-government "conservatives", who have such little faith in their God and the eternal and sacred institution of marriage that they bray for the State to enshrine their doctrine in secular law, and scream "Apocalypse!" when it doesn't happen.

Writes Palladian, in last night's café, where the whimpers of the losers of the DOMA case continued, along with slurpy wound-licking over my calling them losers — which is what they were, having lost in that case — and advising them not to whine over the more-or-less false perception that they'd been called bigots.

Sometimes, I get discouraged about the way people can't or won't read. It's not just the skimming and leaping to assumptions that you know what is being said, it's normal-speed reading of concision, and the failure to stop and see humor and wordplay. The post that people continued to get outraged over — which explained the extent to which the Supreme Court called gay-marriage opponents "bigots" — ended:

You took the opportunity to oppress when it was there, and now that it's gone, you want to say you are oppressed. Man up, losers. You lost. And you deserved to lose. Now, stop acting like losers. If you can. (I bet you can't!)

The losing was the losing of the case. I gave advice not to cry about it. You're a former victor, since you won when DOMA was passed into law. Many years later, those oppressed by DOMA ousted the oppressor. You need to get some perspective on how laughable your sadness over your loss looks to those who were saddened by the oppression you enjoyed all those years. But I've interacted with you and communicated with you over this issue since 2004, when this blog started. I didn't intend to write a legal or a political blog at all, but this issue had intrigued me for a long time. I have been patient in these conversations — over 400 of them. And now, what is obviously to me the good side has won in Windsor. I refrained from gloating over this important victory. But I saw all this whining and crying about being called a "bigot," and I wanted to tell you that this did not look good, that you needed to find a way to a positive, productive future that would contain this right going forward.

I said "stop acting like losers." I didn't say that you were losers in every aspect of your being. "Man up, losers," referred to losing this case, and "man up" is a sarcastic allusion to homophobia — on the off chance that some of you might think gay men are unmanly — and to the fact that we are in a turnabout in which the former losers have become the victors. There were winners and losers in that case, and the losers need to decide how they want to deal with it. I said "stop acting like losers." That implies that there is a sort of person who is an all-around loser. I didn't say you were one of them. My locution was: Don't be like them.

That was good advice, and it was intended to be a slap in the face. Wake up!



I had a premonition as soon as I wrote that line that you wouldn't snap out of it, that you would continue the crying that I find laughable. That's why I said "If you can. (I bet you can't!)"

I was right.

And I anticipate another round of crying over how terribly mean I have been to you.

Paula Deen's apology... why didn't it work?

I had guessed — when we first talked about Paula Deen, here — that Paula Deen would be okay. In the comments:

Rumpletweezer said...
I just hope she turns out to be a Democrat.

Ann Althouse said...
Paula Deen is a Democrat, so she'll probably be okay.

But Paula Deen was fired from the Food Network, even after making this apology:



That had elements of a sincere apology. None of the typical "I apologize to anyone who was offended." Why didn't it work? 4 ideas:

1. She opted out of "Today" show Matt Lauer interview, supposedly because she was in so much pain, but she admits that she caused pain, so she should have gone through the pain to expiate the pain caused. And, really, avoiding Lauer wasn't about pain, it was about the fear of probing questions.

2. The video isn't good enough. She's very poorly lit. There's distracting stuff in the background: a creepy painting, a roll of paper towels, a large display of makeup, wires on the floor. The first quarter of the video presents excuses for not going on the "Today" show that sound untrue. She was "physically unable" to go on the show? She wrecks her own credibility at the outset. She moves on to "the pain that I have caused to myself" pause "and to others." She put herself first there. That's revealing.

3. The Food Network had its polls and its ratings. These are cold, grim economic calculations. Perhaps the time for Paula Deen has ended. I see she'd just come out with a new commercial product called "Finishing Butters," which sounds like the title of a "South Park" episode. The whole Paula Deen thing seems based on a joke. The joke is over.

4. Racism is the unforgivable sin in America. Once it's stuck to you, you can't pull it off. Everyone else must act quickly to keep any of you getting stuck to them.

What do you think? All of the above?

"An X-ray image shows how far inside the man's body the eel was able to get."

A gruesome image, but it's not like it was the eel's decision to enter the man's body:

A man in China's southeastern Guangdong province admitted himself to a local hospital after he reportedly got a live eel stuck inside him. According to British tabloid The Sun, the man inserted the 20-inch-long Asian swamp eel into his anus after seeing it done in a porn movie, and he had to endure all-night surgery to have it extracted.

So it was a Lemmiwinks situation!  

Hurry onward Eeliwinks, or you will soon be dead.