Reasons to celebrate

Before Friday, I have to write a book review and a 5-page paper on Teotihuacan influence on the Classic Maya, give a Spanish presentation on Borges, and prepare for a Spanish as a Second Language exam. Even so, there are still reasons to celebrate being alive on this wacky planet, such that it is.

a) The video for Lady Gaga's new single. While not as good as that of "Paparazzi," it may or may not feature Lady Gaga being sold as a sex slave to Russians in a pristine white environment that looks like a mental hospital/the set of THX-1138. And that's enough for me, even if she is ripping off Madonna.

b) The beginning of "America's Next Great Pundit," the Washington Post's new plan to ruin their integrity after the salon scheme. It's like reality TV for people like me! I am disappointed by the lack of white supremacists on the cast, though. And I would be lying if I said I didn't wish I had applied, although I think being an Ivy Leaguer would not go nearly as far in a pundritry competition as it appears to do in America's Next Top Model.

c) Imogen Heap's cover of "Thriller". Possibly even more epic than the video of Filipino prisoners doing the dance to the aforementioned song.

I can't decide which is most epic. Back to talud-tablero architecture.

The One Meme that Must Never Die

Look, Pavement, I'm really happy for you, but the Pixies had one of the BEST reunion tours ever. The BEST.

Look, Joe Wilson and Glenn Beck, I'm really happy that you both think you can act like a doofus on national television, but Bill O'Reilley was doing that WAY before you both were. WAAY before.

Look, H1N1, I'm really impressed by the way you're scaring the crap out of everyone, but the 1918 pandemic was the most deadly influenza strain in modern history. THE MOST DEADLY.

Look, Kanye and Taylor, I'm really amazed by your little spat, but the ending of Lady Gaga's performance was the most amazing* thing about the VMAs. Seriously. She looked like a piece of meat.

*And by amazing, I mean terrifying.

Nutcase Spotlight: Cal Thomas

I've not been doing so well at this whole "posting on my blog" thing, and I apologize for that. It's mostly because my time has been taken up by other writing and editing endeavors at the newspaper I'm interning at over break (more to come on that).

Today, I'd like to share one of my most favorite nutcases of all time with you: Cal Thomas.



Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, the bent of whose opinion can be most kindly described as "far-right-wing." He speaks for the disenfranchised righteous conservatives of America. He used to have a fantastic moustache, which he shaved in 2006.

It takes a certain type of man to wear a caterpillar on his upper lip, and that man is the #1 syndicated columnist in America. But even that's not enough to pull off that shirt and tie combination. Sorry, Cal.

But enough fashion commentary from me, Goddess of the Mismatched Socks. There is much more to love to hate about Mr. Thomas than his sartorial choices.

Cal has two pet issues. The first is the plight of the religious right in America, which makes sense, considering he was the president of the Moral Majority from 1980 to 1985. Apparently, the religious right is on its way out... unless its members make drastic changes. Do something, concerned citizen, before it's too late!

Cal's other issue is Israel. He is the platonic ideal of the extremist, non-Jewish, pro-Israeli right-winger who has co-opted the pro-Israel stance in such a way that he paints anyone who proffers a different stance on how to solve the conflict as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. I have yet to read a more righteous, dogmatic opinion on the situation in the Middle East from any other source.

Take his recent column, "The Gaza Nazis." Cal asserts that Hamas is, essentially, the new Nazi party, because both groups share a genocidal bent against the Jews, and doesn't go much further than that:

Jews are vermin and less than human, Hamas says. Oh, wait. Wasn't the same said of the Jews by the Nazis? The only difference is that today's killers don't speak German.

Whoa whoa whoa. This is not the place for me to get into my views on the Holocaust or the Middle East or a long treatise on my views on making historical comparisons, but something needs to be said about this. I concede the existence of similarities between Hamas and National Socialism (and also every other group in the history of the world that has tried to wipe out the Jews), but it is downright stupid to argue for a near-identical historical comparison between two groups using one point of ideology. Both the Holocaust and the Gaza issue are too complex to be reduced to such a caricature.

Furthermore, a statement along the lines of:

Is there an Arabic equivalent of "Sieg Heil"?

serves no purpose than to fan the flames of the hatred-fueled fire of the Israel- Palestine issue.

Moving on...Cal is a hard-hitting journalist. He hosts Fox News Watch, a program that's dedicated to ferreting out the liberal media. And lest you think he's naught but another talking head of the vast right-wing conspiracy, check out this recent interview he did with President Bush. Talk about in-depth!

But really, there's more to Cal than I give him credit for. I was reminded of this with his December 31st column, entitled "Make Love, Not War!" My first thought on reading this was that Cal must be going senile, and decided to reconnect with his true hippie self as a New Year's resolution. My second instinct was that he had lost a bet.

But alas, both of my initial instincts were wrong. The article is about a supposed CIA plan to give Taliban warlords Viagra.

The column, which only contains information from anonymous sources, features such pithy remarks as:

Not many would describe consensual sex as torture.

I'd agree with that. Well, unless you lie back and think of Dick Cheney.

And:

Adolf Hitler was 5 feet 8 inches tall. Josef Stalin was short and variously reported to be between 5-4 and 5-6. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is 5-4. Mao Zedong was 5-11, possibly the tallest of the modern despots. We know that Hitler and Mao had sexual hang-ups. Could all dictators share the same problem? Would Viagra, or something similar, have lessened the possibility of forced famines, war, the Holocaust and other mass killings? Were these caused at least in part by pent-up feelings of sexual inadequacy?

Cal, you've rendered me speechless.

And that, dear friends, is why I keep reading Cal Thomas, mustache or no.