Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Who Is The Biggest "Horse's Ass"?

My loyal readers (all four of you) know why I haven’t blogged in a while: for those who don’t--we had a family tragedy. Robyn’s Dad died recently and we have been dealing wht that. Still--I need to get back on the wagon so here it goes. Today’s post begins with a fractal called Is It Me? I chose that title because when I made the image I said “is it me or does that look like a butt?” A fractal that looks like a butt seems appropriate for a post about who might be the biggest horses ass in the latest Obama Trauma. It’s getting a little old but the controversy--WILL-NOT-DIE and I had to put in my two cents.
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Some of you may remember the furor that was raised when Linda Fedele President of the Chaffey Community Republican Women Federated printed a fake “food stamp” featuring a drawing of Barack Obama surrounded by chicken, ribs, watermelon and Kool Aid. When the controversy bubbled up someone from her family claimed it wasn’t at all racist and had no idea why anyone would be upset by this. The whole family seemed utterly clueless that this might cause upset.
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When I heard this I was literally screaming at the TV set: I was frankly dumbfounded (not literally but you get the point) that anyone in this day and age could be so completely insensitive or totally out of the loop. Still, it took this woman nearly a week to issue (IMHO) a half-hearted apology and resign her position as President of the Chaffey Community. She found the image on the Internet and claims she had “no idea” it would cause anyone upset.
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A few days later the self-proclaimed “creator” of the “Obama Bucks” image came forward to our local paper the Press Enterprise--long may they reign in typographical error glory! Tim (he wouldn’t give his last name) runs a website called “PleaseGodNo.com (love then name, BTW) but when I went to check it out I was re-directed to the main Obama donations site. Tim says he’s a proud Democrat and he created the image as a satirical take on how right-wing types thought would happen if Obama was elected.
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Honestly, I get Tim’s point. That being said--I think any Satirist worth their salt has to realize what a difficult art it is: you have to be obvious enough to make your point yet let the audience know you are doing it with a wink and a nudge. Otherwise you risk being taken seriously! (Think the recent New Yorker cover depicting Barak Obama as a terrorist and his wife as an African militant.) You can also look back at Jonathan Swift who’s A Modest Proposal shocked a nation when he suggested that Englishmen should use Irish babies as food!
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Obviously there was a lapse in good judgment--not to mention taste--on both sides here. Still, there’s one more player in the Who Is The Biggest Horse’s Ass Sweepstakes… Now we have a bunch of authors in the photosphere trashing the Inland Empire. They classify the region as a land of Redneck-filled trailer parks full of uneducated rubes. Yes, some parts of the IE are like that--but I venture to say you could find similar areas wherever you go (even in highly-cultured places like San Francisco and New York City.) But there are also plenty of educated people and reasonable people on both sides of the aisle. Trashing a whole region just because you don’t agree with one person really isn’t cool.
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So--who is the biggest “horse’s ass”? We have three excellent candidates but I’ll leave it to you to pick your favorite. All I can say is that you do your best NEVER to be the horse’s hiney.
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Think about it.

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