Clinton v. Obama v. Rancor: Not as Awesome as it Sounds
Q: What do you call a TV news anchorman who's made out of soap?
A: Dan Lather.
Yes! Another comedic triumph!
On Monday night, I was watching Hardball, starring Chris Matthews. During the show, he described Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama for president in these terms: "It was King Arthur coming back from the Crusades to endorse Robin Hood." Wow, that's some amazing insight, right there. Personally though, I'd say it was more like Beowulf returning from defeating Moby Dick at Waterloo only to then endorse Don Quixote for the position of Admiral of the Robotech Defense Force while farting the Star Spangled Banner, a song that he had recently co-written with Iggy Pop during their trip to Xanadu. But that's just me--I could be wrong in my assessment. I didn't major in English or Political Science.
Politics: it's what's on everyone's mind these days. Well that, and whether or not they should have taken a morning after pill before they came into work today. But mainly it's politics that people are thinking about. Sometimes, though, paying attention to politics can be very unrewarding. Take this, for example: I receive the Washington Post's "Politics Daily" email blast; sometimes it's worth reading, sometimes it's worth skipping, and other times, it makes you think that it's worth reading, only to then fuck around with your head by actually not being worth reading. Today's email was one of these. Check out this subject line: "Clinton, Obama Shelve Rancor in One-on-One Debate." Having not watched the debate, I must admit that I became very excited when I read this. Why? Because: I assumed that it meant that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had, at some point during the debate, been forced to battle the Rancor, the mighty monster that Luke Skywalker fought underneath Jabba the Hutt's throne room in Return of the Jedi (additionally, I assumed, in this context, that "shelved" was a slang word for an awesome tag-team wrestling move that Clinton/Obama executed on the fearsome beast). Alas, my excitement was short-lived. Apparently, the headline simply meant that Clinton and Obama "set aside personal hostilities" during the debate. No shirtless Obama battering a giant monster with his patented "BaracKarate" moves. No Hillary Clinton countering the Rancor's devastating talon attack with a blast from her mystical eye-rays. No nothing. Just two people "debating" "issues." What a rip-off. Why are the stories in my head always so much better than what's in the stupid real world? (Editor's Note: the Wikipedia link posted in this paragraph is proof of why Wikipedia is awesome. If you click on it, you will see that the Rancor's homeworld is "Dathomir." Wow. Seriously--if it weren't for Wikipedia, how long would it take you to find information like that? I didn't even know the Rancor had a homeworld! And now, back to our irregularly scheduled blog entry.)
This article is more than a little fucked up--it describes how, apparently, racists in the south have adopted the word "Canadian" as a euphemism for "black." Maybe this story is apocryphal, I'm not sure--it has the air of truth, that's all I know. As such, I'm kind of worried about it, because anyone who knows me knows that I regularly denounce "smelly Greenlandians"--it's just how I roll. But, when I do this, I'm actually denouncing "smelly Greenlandians"; I'm worried that if the article is correct, it might catch on, and then the code words will encompass other countries, and then people will think that when I'm talking about "smelly Greenlandians" that I'm talking about something else. Look, all I want to do is condemn people from Greenland and not be misunderstood when doing so--is that so wrong?
