dowdytalk.com

Question: How many Western pig dogs does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: None! They’re all too busy eating stinky cheese!

We haven’t left here at Dowdytalk.com. In fact, most of the time we’re busy deleting SPAM generated from a server in Russia. But if, in these exciting but exhausting times, words fail us, then we will have to rely on pictures. Soon, Dowdytalk will feature images that were not lifted from someone else’s website. We will join the ranks of true content-generating free citizens. Until then, here’s an interesting exchange between Rush Limbo and an angry Republican veteran (courtesy of those far left propagandists! MediaMatters.org).

Burbo: (coinage: Dowdy): SUV-driving, fast food-craving, exurb-dwelling, Walmart-lovin’, TV-centric American creature of the late-20th and early-21st centuries; the Burbo distinguishes him- or herself by not distinguishing him- or herself: for, if nothing else, the Burbo is aggressively normal; her/his politics are usually center right, thought not necessarily rabidly conservative; the Burbo is also unlettered to such a degree that even Aesop’s Fables seem obscure and elitist, even obscurantist (though a he/she would never use that word); finally, the Burbo is the most sought after demographic in the American media landscape, as well as the chief prize of cony-catching politicians.

Now that we have got this crucial element of the Dowdy lexicon all cleared up, let’s break down a news story from Fox News’ web page. For this piece panders to the Burbo to an unprecedented degree — even by contemporary standards:

“Say you had a lapse of good judgment in your youth, hung out with some Communist Party members and shared some photos of you and your new pals with your Facebook friends.”

Lapse of judgement? Sounds to me like you were way cooler when you weren’t an indolent Burbo.

“Now say you’re older, and you choose to run for office, and you want to get rid of any incriminating photos or information out there about you — like maybe that online petition you signed advocating the legalization of marijuana. You delete everything from your Facebook page, and you should be good, right?”

Signing a petition advocating the legalization of marijuana is incriminating? Don’t even ask what this Burbo-pandering writer would think of the hella good times you had sharing bong rips with the world’s greatest athlete, Michael Phelps.

“Slight problem. That picture of you and the guys with the hammers and the sickles is probably still out there, somewhere. And it won’t go away.”

The horror!

“Share it once, share it for life. That’s the conundrum when it comes to people expecting privacy after they share photos or other information with hundreds of friends on Facebook — or any other social networking site, for that matter.”

Okay, sure. But I think the shot of darling little Cindy flashing Mickey Mouse during her visit to Disney World last summer is more incriminating than your Che Guevara phase (not to mention more entertaining). And what about the pictures of Brad the All-American Boy puking all over a stripper in Miami?

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe youthful flirtations with communism are far more offensive to Burbos than the boorish antics of their halfwit children.

Anyway, the rest of the article isn’t worth mentioning. Just a recap of the flap over Facebook’s attempt to own the rights to every banal status update ever posted on the site.

But I thought I’d share the opening moves of this article with you, since it provides a clear picture into the way Burbos think.

Ok. Maybe Rove’s porcine mug shouldn’t be the face of Dowdytalk anymore. How about we look at more pleasant images? Like this (cribbed from here):

or this (cribbed from here):

Or perhaps you’d like to read a little of Caesar’s Gallic Wars? Here ya go:

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt.

Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit.

Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important, proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt. Qua de causa Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt, quod fere cotidianis proeliis cum Germanis contendunt, cum aut suis finibus eos prohibent aut ipsi in eorum finibus bellum gerunt. (text and translation here)

Good stuff there. The Ernest Hemingway of Latin prose, he was, that Julius Caesar.

Line break!

Has the cherubic image of Nixon’s love child (by parthenogenesis, of course) been pushed far enough down the page?

If not, my apologies.

No, really, I’m sorry.

Because that’s inexcusable. Not even Rove’s mother (Nixon) would want to stare at that picture for two weeks straight. My bad. I screwed up.

No matter how busy we are here at Dowdytalk, we should always have time to, if nothing else, show pictures of kittens and puppies.

“Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it,” said House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. John Conyers (D Michigan). “After two years of stonewalling, it’s time for him to talk.”

Now that’s cooking with pig grease. Link here.

We here at Dowdytalk have a lot on our plate these days. There probably won’t be much time for blog writing for awhile, especially since our chief political reporter has yet to recover from the 2008 campaign. Yes, we can. Yes, we did. But don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin.

I can say that I’m happy to see Obama apparently making good on some of his promises. It looks like he’s going to shut down Gitmo and (hopefully) withdraw our troops from Iraq. But it also looks like his position regarding the Israeli invasion of Gaza will be no different than his predecessor’s. And what about the banks? I have hope that Obama will do the right thing, which is to let the larger banks that got themselves into this unprecedented mess sink with their losses. Are their shareholders more important than the American taxpayers? The CEOs of Bank of America, Citibank, etc. will no doubt protest: “Without us, no will be able to get a loan, and the economy will be devastated!” But since they’re treating the federal bailout like a windfall anyways — paying down bad debt instead of extending credit to businesses and individuals — that argument has become moot. What then? The only thing I can think of is nationalization, but perhaps there are other ways to generate liquidity whilst protecting taxpayers from legislated graft.

Who knows where these crazy times are a-going. Only time will tell. Dial a cliché. All I know is I’m happy to be on the other side, if you know what I mean. We’re in a post-Bush era, kinda. Wiser men are at the helm, but the mess W. wrought is still very much with us.

There will be time to sort through all that. There will be time. But, as we drove to Fang’s hideout on Christmas Island it was a joy to hear Obama be sworn in last Tuesday — even if it was a botched speech act. And it was an even greater joy to watch Fox News with Fang, as even they cut away from Bush’s homecoming speech in Midlands, TX, to return to their ongoing inaugural coverage. And to meet the man cub. And to spend time with Fang’s wife, and with other happy folks on this historical day. It felt like Christmas when you were ten x 10. I see Ewoks and ghostly apparitions of Yoda, Obi Wan, and Anakin. Fireworks, too.

And now there is much work to be done.

… I’ve ever been on.

Fang asked me to record the following song in celebration of Obama’s election as 44th President of the United States. “The House I Live In” was written in 1942 by Lewis Allan and Earl Robinson and made popular by Frank Sinatra. This is the best I can do, after multiple takes. After trying to sing it, I have gained a new appreciation of  the Chairman’s singing chops. I have also learned that, beneath the ponderous orchestration of the Sinatra arrangement and the many other ones that follow his example (including Tony Danza’s surprisingly impressive 2002 version) is a simple folk song in 6/8 time. And, with that, as we inaugurate the first African-American  president in U.S. history, I give you this song.

It’s an .aif file so give it time to download before it starts streaming.