Poor Mojo's Two Minute Hate

I don't know why we make such a big deal out of just another night. We don't throw big parties every time January turns into February (Happy Birthday to our dead Presidents!) and we don't celebrate when October turns into November (even though November is MY birthday month). So what is the big deal with New Years Eve? It's only December turning into January ... Aren't we inflating the unnecessarily large ego of our holiday month? Like December needs ANOTHER reason to brag....

I've had mediocre New Years Eves and I've had bad ones. I've even had some New Years Eves that I barely remember the next morning, which might mean they were good but might instead just mean that I had a drinking problem. Invariably, though, the night ends up a giant disappointment. We spend days -- nay, weeks -- planning what we're going to do, (for the ladies) what we're going to wear, and with whom we're planning to spend the evening (which usually means which lucky guy is going to be on the receiving end of the always-special New Years Eve kiss). And after all the planning, talking, planning, discussing, and planning, we wake up the next morning wondering why we spent so much time worrying about one night.

Someone, please -- STOP THE MADNESS!

The Hate I Don't Get You List: Dreadlocks Edition

1) Uneccessary Comments | 2) White Folks With Dreads | 3) Dreadlocked Brothas

Simply put - I hate being sick.

“I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking,” the letter said....

“Dear faithful people,” Mr. Hussein added, “I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any honest believer.”...

Some Iraqis said Mr. Hussein should be hanged immediately, but others feared Iraq's bloodletting could escalate if the former dictator is executed at a time when sectarian attacks are already on the rise.

“Executing him now is dangerous. The situation is very bad. Things need to be calmer,” said Saadia Mohamed Majed, a 60-year-old Shiite in Baghdad who wants the penalty to be postponed for at least three years. Shiites endured persecution under Mr. Hussein and his fellow Sunni Arab leaders, and many are eager to remove a symbol of the old regime....

An expert on war crimes speculated the sentence might be carried out very quickly.

“I won't be surprised if there's just an announcement in several days saying the sentence has been carried out. The ruling says the sentence has to be carried out within 30 days, but it doesn't say you need to wait,” said Michael Scharf, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

I think I have a fair sense of what both halves amount to: the perfectly tasteful canonization of a select group of mostly incontrovertible American comics artists: Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, and other names familiar to anyone with a cursory history of the art form. Their work — original, full-sized comic pages in their rough, unabashed glory — is all exquisitely and gorgeously hung, perfectly fitting to such a hallowed group of names. These folks are all giants in their field, influential and inspiring.

A. I hate Nicole Richie
B. Nicole Richie hates me
C. Nicole Richie is an anorexic skank who deserves her fame as much as I deserve to be named the kindest man in America.

Conservatives are often accused of hating immigrants. Not true. Conservatives believe immigration is good for America and whether you're talking about someone who's white, black, Hispanic, Asian, you name it, it makes no difference. What conservatives do get concerned about is people coming to this country illegally....

Conservatives are often accused of hating Muslims. Not true. Although you may find a few people at the fringes who can't tell the difference between moderates and terrorists, that's not true of most conservatives....

Conservatives are often accused of hating Jews. Not true. As a general rule, conservatives are much more supportive of Israel than liberals and some of the most prominent conservatives are Jewish.

Conservatives are often accused of hating poor people. Not true. In fact, many conservatives, myself included, are poor people or have been poor. What conservatives believe is that except in a few limited cases, it's not the job of the government to do things for people, it's the job of the government to make it easier for people to do things for themselves....

Conservatives are often accused of hating liberals. Not true....despite their flaws, liberals are just misguided, not bad people.

3. Bill O’Reily going nuts about a politically correct Christmas.

6. Flash e-Christmas cards

7. When you have to buy someone’s Christmas present from 7-Eleven on the way to their house because you forgot about them.

8. When everyone ignores your online Amazon wish list (and buys you something that looks like it came from 7-Eleven).

When you play online (or live, but most of you whom I'm addressing do this online because you are small dicked little men that like your noses free of blood) and you berate someone for making a play saying things like "oh, I forgot, nobody folds at this level" you sound like an idiot, especially when you lose the pot. You look really dumb, when in retrospect the person had legit reason for 1.) calling down your bluff, 2.) moving in on you and showing air, 3.) make you look like an idiot by exposing your poor play, etc. This is especially unnerving when you call out a fellow WPBT'er. If you mess with the bull you get the horns.

Who are you people that berate anonymous player (you think they are donkeys) in chat? Are you trying to tilt the donkey that just "stole" your pot? What is your game plan? First and foremost DON'T TAP ON THE GLASS YOU DUMB SONOFABITCH! Secondly why would you tell someone that they just tilted you? Thirdly when you make dumb comments to people you don't know, you don't know who you are commenting too. You could be calling a very good player and fellow WPBT'er and idiot.

Then we all heard the price- gouging changer-guy tell the clerk that it was a shame about all the drive-aways because that was one reason the prices were going up.

I know that people who drive-away at a gas station are far too stupid to be bloggers, but if any of you have a wuthless bum neighbor or relative who might do such a thing, please tell him or her that everybody in the universe despises them. Use small words so that kind of person will be sure to understand.

Thanks a lot, bums. $2.06 when I went in, $2.18 when I came out. And it's partly YOUR FAULT, and I hate you and your ASS FACE.

There, I said it. I should have learned my lesson much earlier but I was seduced this morning by a first class seat from Rome on the Eurostar. Everyone was classy and smooth-looking, so it didn’t hit me that I should take advantage of the amenities that were being offered. You know, things like a fully functioning bathroom. Instead I waited until our arrival, and by then it mean hovering over a seatless toilet, and realizing that a lack of toilet paper would make the entire experience end badly....

Boarding the Circumvesuviana commuter train that connects Naples and Sorrento (with 34 stops between them), it was a different world than any other train or subway that I’d visited in Italy. On the ride down I’d snapped numerous pictures of the countryside, marveling at the various sights. Here, I was afraid to take my camera out of my pocket for fear of exposure as a tourist....

Now I know that it is perhaps not fair to judge an entire city based on one neighborhood. That said? Yuck. What I saw of Naples was run down, filthy, infested with dubious-looking businesses, and—this is the kicker—populated by unhappy-looking Italians. No one wants to be here, it seems. Everyone seems sad about their lot in life, which involves being in Naples. How depressing must it be to be perpetually surrounded by over a million people who hate where they are?

The answers that appear in the responses, though, are alternately predictable and thoughtful.

But that may be changing.

Increasingly, I'm hearing discontent from the masses about Windows, and it doesn't have much to do monopoly practices, ripping off ideas or a lack of innovation.

It's malware.

I hear this refrain from my readers, Technology Bytes callers, friends and even co-workers again and again:

I've got my own theory about why all these WW II movies went down in flames like Zeros in the Marianas Turkey Shoot: because WW II is way overrated. Next to the guy who directed Pearl Harbor, the men who set that war in motion and made all the decisions from 1939-1945 were the biggest idiots in history. And that's why all the lessons of WW II, everything it's supposed to teach us, is either dead wrong or as obvious as a ballpeen hammer in your face, so obvious that even Barney could teach it to his diaper demographic between commercial breaks.

The biggest lie about WW II is that it was a war between good and evil. Bullshit, because there were no good European countries....

Fact No1: They Were ALL Fascists. At a military level, let's face a nasty fact: WW II was Stalin vs. Hitler. The rest was window dressing. Stalin won because--because what, he was a nicer guy? Nope, he won because his brand of fascism was actually way more ruthless and bloody and effective than Hitler's smalltime snobbery, and because Stalin had the whole US industrial machine backing him. There's no moral lesson in that that I can see.Europe before Stalingrad was an alien planet, as crazy and bloodthirsty as any Aztec priest. Nobody realizes the complete flip-flop Europe did in 1945. Before that, it was a continent full of insane fascists. Some were braver, better soldiers, or smarter; those are the only real differences.

And when I say "smarter," I don't want to overdo it, because the Greatest Generation was a bunch of morons.

And what a career it was: Thanks for Iraq and Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and 3,300 dead U.S. troops and however many hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and the return of Taliban and Bird Flu and Enemy Combatants and whatever other evil shenanigans over 50 years of “public service.”

In a better world, Rumsfeld would’ve been dropped in a dumpster and buried in a mountain of filthy diapers and broken glass. But we’re stuck with the world we have, not the world we might want or wish to have at a later time.

I'm just happy to see someone else wondering about this. The above comments make some good points, but what it boils down to for me is this - It's the onion, so it's likely very dry sarcasm... but I just don't really get it. That's not to say it's not funny or poignant, but I feel like if it's over my head it's probably over most peoples... I don't mean to sound like a jerk, just saying I usually understand the rest of the Onion stuff. The cartoon kind of mystifies me...

Posted by: Pete | December 5, 2006 10:49 PM

Ah the cartoons are meant to be ironic, but they're just too clumsy to work. Reminds me of amateur cartoons that show up in college newspapers, usually by some campus communist that believes him/herself to be so clever, but in reality produces dreadful cartoons that spit, sputter, and fall way short of their mark. In short these cartoons are hammy, unimaginative dribble for pinheads with delusions of being clever.

Posted by: G | December 8, 2006 03:35 PM

Sorry, but are you people serious? You're actually wondering if the Onion's "Kelly" cartoons are sincerely right-wing hate-doodles? I'll have to look around on Poormojo.org to find the threads where you debate how someone as stupid and stoned as faux-columnist Jim Anchower could possibly get such a high profile job at the Onion.

I mean, really. The entire publication is, and always has been, a piss take on mainstream media. The Kelly cartoons have executed this idea more effectively than any other method offered by the paper in years.

And thanks to the person above who used the Rumsfeld cartoon as a case in point. The OJ Simpson one should also be noted, although really, all of them are pretty damn obvious in terms of poking fun at mainstream right-wing political cartoons. (If anyone knows the name of the political cartoonist who actually does draw himself in the bottom corner, please post... I can't remember his name or the paper he draws for.)

Posted by: Brett | December 10, 2006 10:37 PM

I'm not really sure what they're satirizing. I doubt it's really aimed at actual, right-wing editorial cartoonists. It's too over the top, uncharactaristically so for the Onion. Granted, there are probably cartoonists who are every bit as hateful, jingoistic and artless as this guy, but they'd make too easy a target.

Mainly I think this is just the Onion making fun of itself. Remember Herman T. Zweibel? Featuring an ignorant, reactionary cartoonist is the same sort of humour as casting a nutty old crank as their editor.

Posted by: Dan | December 11, 2006 12:36 AM

Now, Gigi is one of the few people left in my peer group who, when presented with the name “Jesus,” still thinks of our Lord and Savior... so you can imagine my shock at her choice of words regarding these perennial chestnuts of network broadcasting.

“I fucking hate those goddamned things,” she spat. “All those Rankin/Bass cartoons and claymation things — I hate them.”... “Oh god, I hate Charlie Brown worst of all. He’s a total pussy, and Lucy is a little bitch who needs to get slapped.”

I took a strong quaff of my holiday porter and struggled to get my bearings. My whole universe had been upended. But her reasoning was rather compelling – she pointed out that each and every one of these specials was fucked up in its own way, and depressing as hell.

• A Charlie Brown Christmas – Charlie is ...crucified like The Big J himself for bringing back a tree not to their liking. ...

• Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – ...A little bit more realism and Rudolph would have ended up a gay street hustler on Santa Monica Blvd. ...

• Frosty the Snowman –...it’s worthy of note simply because they manage to snuff out the main character. Of a Christmas special. Ouch.

I hate the way you talk to me,

and the way you cut your hair.

I hate the way you drive my car,

I hate it when you stare.

I hate your big dumb combat boots

and the way you read my mind.

I hate you so much it makes me sick,

it even makes me rhyme.

I hate the way you're always right,

I hate it when you lie.

I hate it when you make me laugh,

even worse when you make me cry.

I hate it when youre not around,

and the fact that you didnt call.

But mostly I hate the way I dont hate you,

not even close

not even a little bit

not even at all.

At least there was a hole until comedian-actor Damon Wayans took the stage.

"Give yourselves a big round of applause for coming down and supporting ' … Night,' " Wayans said, using the word itself, to gasps and laughs. The producers "tried to prep me backstage — 'Don't say the N-word.' They're going to fine me." Wayans sprinkled folded bills across the stage floor, green confetti at his feet. "How much you want?" he asked, looking at club owner Jamie Masada, who sat with his head in his hands at his table in a back corner of the intimate room's main floor.

Anger bubbled just beneath the surface.

"I'll be damned if the white man uses that word last," Wayans said,

With the Litvinenko saga continuing to dominate the weekend papers (tons of coverage in Saturday’s Guardian, for example, trying to satisfy a vacuous need for dime store mystery and suspense) it’s possible to forget that nothing very much can be said conclusively. But it’s interesting that in the absence of fact there’s plenty that is known being ignored or sidelined.

2. The over-enthusiastic bathroom attendents: You go to take a piss, and while you are peeing, they bring you a piece of tissue, and place it on the divider between you and the next urinal, so, you know, you can wipe your hand after you, well, shake it off. Dude, I am gonna wash my hands anyway, so why are you handing me a tissue?

3. The West-el-Balad followers:Knowing that they can't come up with new good stuff, they refuse to release an album, opting instead to only play live-venues, thus ensuring that you get to hear those 3 [good] songs you like only at their concerts.... Dear West-el-Balad fan, you are getting milked dry by a bunch of washed-up musicians and you are loving it. Congratu-fuckin-lations, kid. You are a fuckin Moron.

4. The Nile FM DJ's: Hi, I am a no-body DJ from London. I suck so much, I couldn't find any other job other than being a DJ for Nile FM, where it doesn;t matter that I suck.... I usually boast to my friends back home of how I am working the peak houres in Cairo's #1 english-radio music station, but I forget to mention that we are Cairo's only english-radio music station...

5. The rabid non-fans: Last but not least, ladies and gentlemen, i present to you the Sandmonkey non-fans. Now, the fact that you care so much about what yours truly writes warms my heart, but it also pisses me off, because I hate delusional people, and if you read me every day, then you know you like me.

There were two canaries inside the cage and two on top. I was keeping a close eye on them, and because it had just got dark enough, I was busy bringing them inside. When I went back outside after Tseep, there was only one canary on top. I shone my torch around the aviary, knowing already… and there was the little body, with its head torn off, just like Jack’s. The %$#&*\ rodent murderer. What is this idiotic charade people so reverently refer to as “Mother Nature”?

See, CDG is a big airport - second busiest in Europe (Heathrow is #1, Frankfurt is #3). But unlike all other international airports, CDG - for some unknown reason - rarely uses jetways for their flights, no matter how big the airplane. Instead they use stairs to load/unload planes. For instance, when I landed in CDG from Vienna, we were on a midsize jet - a MD88 I think, or something similar. When we landed the flight crew informed us that the airport had forgotten to send anyone out to drive the stairs up to the plane. Of course there are multiple individuals all standing around the plane - but none of them could drive the stairs. We were delayed for 30 minutes while waiting for the stair driver. When we got off the plane there was a guy at the bottom of the stairs there was a guy telling the people who had short connections to get on a special bus. They drove us for about 15 minutes ( ! ) to a little building that contained 3 gates only (WTF?). We went through security again, and they held the plane so we could get on. It was a a Boeing 747 - the big jumbo jet with two levels and stairs inside. We still had to walk up stairs (LONG stairs), however, to board the plane.

I love looking out at the snow.
I hate driving in the snow.

I love giving fun toys and games to my kids.
I hate that nobody ever gives ME fun toys and games anymore.

I love listening to Christmas music.
I hate listening to Christmas music, 'round about midnight of December 25th.

I love the looks on my kids' faces when they open their presents.
I hate having to figure out where to put all this new stuff they're getting.

I love the cookies and treats.
I hate that my clothes won’t fit right for weeks after.

I love watching A Christmas Story, Home Alone, and Polar Express with my kids. And, after they go to bed, watching Christmas Vacation with my wife.
I hate that there are so many horrible Christmas movies out there, like Deck The Halls and Jingle All The Way.

I love egg nog ice cream.
I hate peppermint ice cream.

I love forgetting about the world's troubles for just a few days.
I hate that the troubles seem to always return in a worse way.

I hate the sheer unremitting tackiness of the street decorations and window displays. Tatty tinsel, gurning Santas, irregularly twinkling lights and nasally irradiated reindeer do not spell taste and refinement. They do not even spell cheerily ramshackle seasonal goodwill. They spell cynical and unimaginative consumerism packaged to appeal to the spoilt brat lurking in all of us. And don't get me started on the "Best Xmas Album Ever" which tinnily assails ones eardrums regardless of which emporium you are reluctantly venturing into....

I hate shop assistants who will insist on engaging one with promotional platitudes when it is blindingly obvious to all concerned that you are, in fact, a wild-eyed misanthropist with zero tolerance for such flummery. I hate their grating persistence almost as much as the Scroogish tendencies of the retail industry, which drives them to these irritating lengths in the first place.

I hate choosing appropriate presents for people. My imagination always fails me and I fall back on the tried and tested confectionary/toiletries/book/cd combo which I invariably receive myself and regard with absurdly unfair disdain.

Every year I promise myself that I will shop early, maintain a positive frame of mind and actually enjoy the whole festive experience. Who am I kidding? Not even myself any more...

3. “I think we’ve screwed the pooch.”

5. “Irregardless” Not a real word, dipshit.

7. "Beware of Internet predators” As if we have rabid jackals lurking in our computers.

Now I need to go get my hair cut. I hate getting my hair cut. Last time was in the summer and Imbi did it at the cottage. At least I got to stare at the lake and listen to good music. Now I need to walk down the street and try out a barber I've never used before. I hate this. And then I have to get pictures taken. I hate that to - I always end up looking like some foreign criminal (I'm not, really I'm not).

According to sources, the hopped-up comedian hopped onstage Saturday at L.A.'s Improv comedy club and dropped the n-bomb on a room full of stunned clubgoers....

As Dick exited the stage, he suddenly grabbed the mic and shouted at the crowd, "You're all a bunch of niggers!"

The stunned crowd gasped and stared at each other.

It's probably very comforting to these Virginian Episcopalians that Nigerian Archbishop Peter J. Akinola is pretty tough on homosexuals in Africa:

Um. What? That's some Taliban-esque shit right there. Actually, to be fair, the Parable where all the gays are incarcerated has always been my favorite. Fuck the Prodigal Son. Many Biblical historians believe that Jesus himself went door-to-door in Galilee to speak of the homosexual threat.

"They're in our schools and in our churches and they will convert your children," spoke Jesus of Galilee on the Sabbath.

I hate Black people.... No Mr. and Ms. Black, you are not owed anything in life. What happened in the past was tragic and wrong, but guess what, YOU were never a slave. ...

I guess I hate Navajos, Apache, Seminole, Potawatami, Lakota, Iriquois and other Tribes of North America. Why do people look at these distinct and separate tribes and lump them together? ...

I guess I hate women also. Just because I am against women in combat MOSs and Ratings, I have the nerve to believe that the most noble thing a woman can do is be a good wife and mother, and I don’t think a woman has the right to end the life of the human being living inside her....

I suppose I hate Christians too. I mean, Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I’m just a heathen cultist who worships some dead guy named Brigham Smith and burn Bibles in satanic rituals while mesmerizing young women to become my polygamist wives. ...

And of course, I guess I hate all homosexuals. ... I guess being disgusted that gay men knowingly have sex with HIV+ men to purposefully get the disease (Bug Chasing) and I’m even more disgusted with the idea that there are people who organize parties called “Conversion Parties” for the sole purpose of helping people acquire HIV/AIDS. ...

The next group I must hate is Liberals in general. Apparently to disagree with a liberal is to hate them.... I must hate conservatives for the same reasons....

I Must Hate my brothers and sisters in arms in the US military, since I voted for “Dubya”… TWICE!...

I Must Hate anti war activists ... because I remind them that much of modern warfare is the propaganda front and “you don’t defeat the U.S. Military on the battlefield, you defeat them on the floor of the House and Senate”....

I must hate mothers, since I openly disagree with (and yes, even openly mock) the tactics and rhetoric of Cindy Whatsername for lying about her son’s stance on the war in Iraq...

I guess I hate all Asians because I don’t like their food, and think that the Kyoto treaty is biased towards them.

I guess I hate all animals because I think they taste good…

I guess I hate all life on the planet because I don’t think that global warming on earth (and other planets) is caused by man…

Did I miss anyone, or anything? If I missed your particular group or cause celeb, I guess it’s because I just hate it.

Also, the main culture prefers focusing on the kind of racism that doesn't call the system into question. Instead, we examine a particular person caught in an awkward or compromised position, as if they are some archiac exception to our wonderful, people-loving democracy. This is especially the case with Richards, whose racist outburst at LA's Laugh Factory is still being talked about and denounced, with Richards assuming the role of the country's main bigot, or at least the present symbol of white contempt for The Other....

Thanks to Richards, there is a renewed drive to get everyone, white and black, to cease saying "nigger," regardless of context. The Laugh Factory has banned the word, which is not surprising, given the bad publicity the club has received. But how does a ban on that or any other racial or sexual epithet change matters? Easy -- it doesn't. It does, however, give many people a false sense of comfort, for if one does not hear or read "nigger," then racism is on the run, yes?

Uh, no....