Potty Mouth
Okay, you wanna know what’s weird? Fox News, natch. ‘Course, you already knew that. But the point was driven home again yesterday when one Fox News commentator reacted huffily to Barack Obama’s utterance of the word “nigger” on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.
The Prez & Marc Maron
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For the two of you on this planet who don’t know the backgrounder yet, Maron does this online interview show in his garage and somehow scored a date with the Most Powerful Person on Earth. If you want more detail about it, click over to Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with Maron [the first time, I dare say, that the act of fellatio was ever broadcast on NPR.]
Anyway, Obama, talking about race relations in this holy land, said to Maron during the podcast:
Racism, we are not cured of it. And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say “nigger” in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination.
Now, that’s the kind of statement we’ve come to expect from the Good Obama — nuanced, incisive, compelling. As opposed to those statements of the Bad Obama — mealy-mouthed, evasive, nebulous — you know, the kinds of things that we demand our presidents say.
Obama has violated countless cardinal rules of the presidency, first and foremost among them being brown-skinned. Remember when George W. Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card had apoplexy because BHO had the nerve to work in the Oval Office in his shirt sleeves? By uttering the South’s most famous gift to the American English vocabulary, Obama soiled the presidency once again, at least acc’d’g to a jimoke named Todd Starnes, who, apparently, says words for Fox on a regular basis.
Starnes, writing in his “Todd’s American Dispatch” online column, sez:
President Obama caused jaws to drop across the fruited plain when he uttered the N-word during the interview which was published on Monday. He mentioned the incredibly offensive racial epithet during a conversation over race in the aftermath of the church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina….
If he talks like that in public — I can only imagine what he says in private. [all sic]
Dig, this is from the “news” network that that for at least 36 hours tried to convince its senescent audience that the Charleston shooting was an attack on Christianity and not dark-skinned people. That Dylann Roof kid had to shriek that he did it because he wanted to start a race war before the Foxers finally came around to the truth of it all.
This, too, from the “news” network that champions and/or features the following people: Rudolph Giuliani, Jeb Bush, Nikki Haley — each of whom has been quoted as saying it’s impossible to know why Roof gunned down nine black people in a church, despite the facts that he told friends he wanted to kill black people, he explained to one of the black people at the church why he was killing black people, and then told the police he went to the church specifically to kill black people. Right, that Roof kid, he’s sure a puzzler.
So, Starnes positions Barack Obama as a foul-mouthed punk for merely saying the word that I’d guess a significant percentage of the Fox News audience uses in everyday language — and not in the abstract, illustrative sense that the President used it. Starnes shudders to think what maledictions Obama employs in private. One can only assume that in the Oval Office, women are “cunts,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who’ll visit Washington in September, is a “slant-eyed gook,” and a good weekend is chockfull of “bitches” and “whores” whose derrieres are covered with “animal trank.”
Because, isn’t that how black guys talk? And Obama’s a black guy, QED.
BTW: Starnes has written essays and/or posted videos at least five times regarding the Charleston terrorist act. Not once has he decried the odious racism that was at the heart of the massacre. In fact, he stuck with the attack-on-Christians trope much longer even than his Fox confreres.
The killing of nine black and brown human beings by a white supremacist, apparently, is far less serious than the president using the term “nigger” to make a point. Like I said, Fox News is weird.
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Haley’s Kudos
Let’s give credit where it’s due. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley yesterday called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds in Columbia. I never thought she’d come around but she has and she should be commended.
Down With The Flag
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If you want to split hairs and say she should have expressed herself in this manner long ago, go ahead. I agree. But she’s done it now; not every Republican has.
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Bloomingfoods’ Tomorrows
Parsing the statements of the National Co+Op Grocers reps who spoke at last night’s Bloomingfoods co-op owners open house meeting, I sense that they see the local food retailer’s future much as I do.
National Co+Op Grocers people have taken over Bloomingfoods‘ operations this spring and summer in order to find out why the operation was collapsing in a heap. The president of the board of directors and the general manager have resigned, scads of mid-level managers have been axed, and even before Nat Co+Op took over, B-foods closed its flagship Kirkwood Avenue store.
My recommendation is B-foods should shutter all locations except the Near West site. Nat Co+Op director C.E. Pugh told the crowd yesterday that one of the many actions to be taken in the near future includes the shedding of “unnecessary assets.” That sounds like code for more store closings. “We’re going to be in the period of downsizing for a few months,” Pugh added.
Pugh and Nat Co+Op’s Paula Gilbertson, who’s serving as acting GM, both spoke of two of the three remaining B-foods locations in terms that cannot be described as optimistic. On the other hand, when talking about the Near West store Gilbertson and Pugh spoke of spiffying up the place.
Maybe — just maybe — B-foods can escape from this morass leaner and in possession of a brighter future.
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She’s Got It
Day two of The Loved One’s birthday week. I’m posting songs dedicated to her Monday through Friday this week. Yesterday’s tune was Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend.” Today, let’s go with something from my fave blue-eyed soul brothers, the Average White Band.
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