Fire Away

As many of you have already noticed, comments are again appearing on this blog, and we have now fixed enough stuff to say that the problem is, inshallah, resolved. Thanks to our IT guy Ray Ng for enduring the torments of the damned in getting things sorted out. I hope you all enjoyed your unplanned vacation, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Comments

[Akira MacKenzie]

"...say that the problem is, inshallah, resolved."

SEE! SEE! That thar is moose-lim talk! I knew those loonie-tarians with their gay-lovin' and dope-smokin' were in league witha Terrorists who wanna destroy America and our Christian ways!

[Jim Walsh]

Woah, for a minute I thought that was Lonewacko Blog there...

[Memnon]

Whatever. Do destroy. Fuck Yeah!

[Toxic]

Is there any other group that it's still PC to mock besides Southerners? That thar woud be small minded race-ist bigotree with any other group.

Not to mention stupid and unfunny.

Just a hint: spelling people's dialogue phonetically probably ain't the wisest idea in the world. Besides being condescending (by implying that they don't speak REAL english), I frigging gaurantee you that you've got an accent that would look pretty damned stupid when spelled (and exaggerated) phonetically by someone who dislikes your ethnic/regional origins.

As for the "chill out it was a just a joke" messages I'll be getting, well, eat me. I'm sick of tin eared assclowns that think that they're the only ones who don't have an accent.

[Bonar Law]

"Is there any other group that it's still PC to mock besides Southerners?"

Sure, there are a few, although Southerners get it more often. There's also evangelical Protestants, Michael Jackson (though he's not really a "group," I admit), good old bumbling Dad ("d'oh!"), men in general, Germans/Austrians (Arnold's accent is hilarious, ja!), postal workers ("going postal"), and citizens of the Netherlands ("Dutch uncle," "Dutch treat").

[aaa]

[e-mail]

[Memnon]

I frigging gaurantee you that you've got an accent that would look pretty damned stupid when spelled

Howso? U Really shuearh theah a tru annahs ta gaw sense oh meenin in th langwah wee youse?

[Akira MacKenzie]

"Is there any other group that it's still PC to mock besides Southerners? That thar woud be small minded race-ist bigotree with any other group."

Oh boo-hoo. Cry me a fucking river. I'm sick of hearing the "You're the bigot for pointing out our bigotry" bullshit.

When the South stops voting for Fuhrer Bush and his War On Imaginary Terrorism, stops sending money and support to Mullahs Robertson and Falwell, and stops trying to put "creation science" into public school biology classes, then I'll condemn "bigotry" against Southerners.

Until then, it's open season on the Bible-thumping, Toby-Keith-listening, red-neck, white-trash fucks. Stop trying to pose as an oppressed minority when the "good-ole' boys" are kicking around REAL minorities (Blacks, gays, Latinos, Jews, atheists, etc.) one way or another.

If you don't want to be stereotyped, stop acting like one.

[Pavel]

we have now fixed enough stuff to say that the problem is, inshallah, resolved.

We've heard that before haven't we. But...

everybody knows that the blog is sinking,
everybody knows the webadmin lied,
everybody got this broken feeling,
like their father or their dog just died.

[dead_elvis]

A peek at next month's economic report:

"The economy expanded sharply yet briefly in February as readers of Reason Magazine Online saw their productivity increase 300% due to the inability to waste time posting or reading comments on Reason's blog."

[Toxic]

Yes, because every single on of those motherfuckers beneath the Mason-Dixon Line is a mouth-breathing inbreed bible-thumping Nazi.

Wow. You sure got me. You, sir, are no assclown. You?re just a prick.

Mocking the South has been a national pastime for a lot longer than the current Bush administration. It can be done, and done well. Hell, it?s a fucking comedy goldmine. But using pseudo-phonetic renderings of the Dixie accent is reminiscent of the ole? timey depictions of the black southern accent that so subtly denigrated its subjects. It?s a distancing mechanism, one that pushes the people subjected to it away from the impliedly correct group, the one that speaks ?real? English, or is at least worthy of having their accent rendered in Standard English spelling. It?s not very funny, especially out of the blue and out of context. It is particularly unfunny when it?s done with no actual understanding of the accent, so it?s about as subtle as a sledgehammer and as elegant as hippo playing dodge ball. Mocking the way people speak in the way you do it is both rude and ignorant. From your latter comment, I don?t expect you to get it, but that fact is that everybody, everywhere, has an accent that is eminently mockable. It?s a sign of boorishness to mock other people?s accents in a mean spirited manner, regardless of their personal politics, regional origin, ethnicity, or any other reason. Obviously I was not wrong when I concluded that you were being mean spirited in your first comment; the second one bears that out in spades.

P.S. I'm not a Southerner. And if you could explain to me how my post in any way resembled a stereotype, please let me know.

[Ken Shultz]

"If you don't want to be stereotyped, stop acting like one."

I kinda am a Southerner, though I've relocated. ...and I want to say that one of the hardest battles I have to fight is getting my Southern brethren to listen to folks who seem to take so much pleasure in ridiculing them.

That is to say, I suspect that part of the reason some portions of the Southern Population are so public about their support for people like "Dubya" is because they know it drives people who ridicule them crazy. So if you could find it in your heart to refrain from ridiculing people in the South, and tell a friend to do the same, you might actually help the situation a little rather than throwing kerosene on the fire.

...I think that strategy might work as well for people in the Midwest too although it's hard to say because, for the most part, people in the Midwest are all a bunch of stupid hicks.

P.S. Texas isn't part of the South.

[David T]

The one group that it has long been politically, socially, and in every other way correct for anyone from English-speaking countries to ridicule has been the French. (It is true that most recent ridicule of them has been mainly from the Right for political reasons--the "freedom fries" idiocy being a notable example--but this is only since the Late Unpleasantness about Iraq. Recall all the anti-French jokes on The Simpsons--hardly a right-wing program--in the 1990s, for example.)

[David T]

"Texas isn't part of the South"?

Last I heard it did have a star on the Confederate flag...

[tongueingroove]

In Europe, particularly Great Britain, the general consensis is that ALL Americans are red necks.

It's all relative, (stereotyping) but some take theirselves more seriously than others.

[Ken Shultz]

"Last I heard it did have a star on the Confederate flag..."

...For about two hours.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"Texas isn't part of the South"?

Been a long time since I've been there but it seemed to me that eastern Texas isn't a whole lot different from western Arkansas.

[Dynamist]

Humor, like dialect, has a strong regional component. Although Toxic may be correct in assessing the effects of certain humorous techniques, to some that shit's still funny. Seems a bit pompous to declare which things are amusing, but maybe there's some law of amusement beyond the grasp of southerners.

I put Texas in it's own classification. East Texas is southern in many ways, but Texans seem to be Texans before anything else.

And for all the trouble, Akira's dialect seems more western than southern anyway. "Thar" is straight from the mouth of Yosemite Sam. Or Captain Ahab.

[curious]

Thanks to our IT guy Ray Ng for enduring the torments of the damned in getting things sorted out.

Is Mr. Ng a citizen IT guy or a poor outsourcing techie in southeast asia?

[Jennifer]

Y'all need to realize that, having been raised in Virginia, Ah can mock Southerners with impunity, just lak Chris Rock can get away with sayin' "niggah" in his stand-up routines. Folks like Toxic need to lighten up, and stop gnashin' his tooth in fury.

In all seriousness, Reason staffers, the next time you have one of your regular monthly blog failures, can you stop posting new stuff until the problem is fixed? There were a couple of posts of yours where I was looking forward to seeing what other folks would have to say about it, but said posts disappeared below the bottom of the page before the comment-board came back up.

[Ken Shultz]

"Y'all need to realize that, having been raised in Virginia, Ah can mock Southerners with impunity..."

...All that, and she was raised in Virginia too!

The tell tale sign for the Virginia accent always seems to be the way people say "ayce" in reference to frozen water.

[Jason Ligon]

Hello?

[Twba]

Do you wersh your car and change a flat tar?

[SPD]

...anyway, as I was saying before the site went down: Kerry still has a chance! They haven't counted Ohio yet.

[dead_elvis]

"Is Mr. Ng a citizen IT guy or a poor outsourcing techie in southeast asia?"

Mr. Ng must be the... BOFH!

http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard1.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/

[Rick Barton]

Thanks Ray Ng. Good job. I hope you're doing well after "enduring the torments of the damned." 🙂

dead elvis at 12:27 AM, LOL!

[Poustman]

Thanks, Ray Ng. 🙂

[joe]

Y'all remember the debate where President Bush made an arcane reference to Congressional budget rules, and Kerry responded by making fun of people from Texas, right? Oh wait, that never happened.

[thoreau]

Jennifer, just be glad you didn't grow up in a blue state. Otherwise you would have become an atheist, smoked pot, and shacked up with some guy without marrying him.

[joe]

thoreau,

...which is far less moral than the red state tradition of marrying the guy first, squeezing out a couple kids, then getting divored before she's thirty.

[Mr. X]

Toxic, it's still PC to make fun of libertarians and big bad polluting corporations that go bump in the night.

[joe]

Mr. X,

Corporations are people, too, with feelings just like you and me.

[thoreau]

Yeah, but joe, at least the red state gals who get divorced by 30 aren't lesbians.

And if we allow lesbians to marry, then the divorce rate in red states will surge even higher because....um, well, actually, I'm not sure why it will surge. But my alter ego (good ol' Rick Santorum!) assures us that it will.

And if you can't trust a Senator, whom can you trust?

[Live Bookmarker]

While we sing the praises of the Reason IT staff, can I put in a request to increase the number of items in the RSS feed? Fifteen items doesn't cover a 24 hour period. No way, no how. This makes using the various Firefox readers difficult. Please bump the number to 25 or 30.

Thanx.

[Ken Shultz]

"...which is far less moral than the red state tradition of marrying the guy first, squeezing out a couple kids, then getting divored before she's thirty"

...I'd just like to go on the record as saying that that isn't really a full fledged, recognized red state tradition.

[dlc]

"Just a hint: spelling people's dialogue phonetically probably ain't the wisest idea in the world."

Just finished reading Robert Penn Warren's "All the Kings Men." He spells out a lot of the dialouge phonetically, and his book is damn well considered one of the greatest examples of southern literature. So, take that for what you may.

[Ken Shultz]

"He spells out a lot of the dialouge phonetically, and his book is damn well considered one of the greatest examples of southern literature. So, take that for what you may."

Actually, much of the great canon of Southern literature contains dialogue spelled phonetically.

...I understand there is some Northern literature too. Can anyone recommend something that doesn't require a person to read a whole lot about a customhouse or the process of turning blubber into...I dunno...whatever? Some of the those guys write like nobody ever says anything!

...I already read the one about the guy they named after the virus.

[dlc]

Yeah, southerners are rightly proud of their literary tradition. As a Yankee, I am ashamed when fellow Northerners are so damn ignorant about the culture of the south. Racist, slack-jawed yokels? Sure, but they're everywhere. But northern literature can never match up to the fact that in the cannon of great American literature, nearly every great author was from the south.

[SM]

Hurray ! Comments are back, I was beginning to worry that the terrorists had won !

[joe]

"But northern literature can never match up to the fact that in the cannon of great American literature, nearly every great author was from the south."

A grain of truth here, but vastly overstated.

Virtually none of the canon produced in the 17th and 18th centuries came from the South.

The Harlem Renaissance wasn't southern.

[joe]

Oh, and the great works of literature from colonial times were no more likely to come from the South than the artillery pieces. Heh.

[Pavel]

northern literature can never match up to the fact that in the cannon of great American literature, nearly every great author was from the south.

Heh. Hemingway was so far south he gave up his estate to Castro.

And let's not forget those beacons of red-stateness, Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote.

Honestly, outside the shadow of Twain and Faulkner, y'all ain't got much t'showfer 200 years.

[Ruthless]

Hit & Run deprivation has evidently caused some of you to talk "ugly" about each other.

"Ugly" is a southern word with so many cute definitions, eh? ("eh" is Canadian)

But, more importantly, can't we all get along?
We are family!

If we can't stick together, then we just stink together.
Hey! Stink ain't all that bad. I'm just sayin'...

[grylliade]

Hurray ! Comments are back, I was beginning to worry that the terrorists had won !

Some Commie actually had the gall to run against the Commander-in-Chief during the last election. During a time of war, no less! The terrorists have long since won. Maybe we can push them back before 2008, though, so that Bush's hand-picked successor won't even have to campaign; he'll be the only choice on the ballot! Then we'll know that the war against terror is going well.

[kwais]

"Is there any other group that it's still PC to mock besides Southerners?"

Dude, on an anonymous blog like this you can make fun of whoever the hell you want. No racial group is off limits. All you got to do is change your pen name and maybe your email addrss.

The most OK group to attack is the French, but you will be criticized by Gary Gunnels if you do. But if you really feel the words you write, you can say whatever you want to.

[Ruthless]

Doesn't "inshallah" mean "Lord willing, and the creeks don't rise"?

When and where will we have some all-day preachin' and dinner on the ground?

(clothing optional)

[kwais]

Ruthless,

Your email or website was down during the same time Reason H&R had technology drama.

"inshallah" means 'Godwilling'. Depending where you are, it can also mean a sarcastic "I'll get right on it". Or it can mean "it is supposed to happen, but with my work ethic who knows?"

Originally you were supposed to say it to acknowledge that only God can know the future. So it was supposed to mean, "I will do everything in my power to make it happen, but theoretically God could strike me down at any moment, so I can't promise what is out of my power".

So basically it started out as an acknowlegement of the possibility of unforseen events, and that God is all powerfull and man is not. And has come to be an excuse for inefficiency and poor performance.

[David T]

"But northern literature can never match up to the fact that in the cannon of great American literature, nearly every great author was from the south."

Hawthorne? Whitman? Melville? Emily Dickinson? Henry James? Hemingway? Eliot? (Well, OK he was from St. Louis, but that's stretching the definition of "South" and anyway his family was from New England.) Wallace Stevens?

And what is this "Cannon of Literature", anyway? Some kind of howitzer?

[Rick Barton]

kwais:

Ruthless, Your email or website was down during the same time Reason H&R had technology drama.

I think we have the germination of a Ruthless = Reason theory-some Reason personage, that is. If true, my initial conjecture is Tim Cavanaugh. thoreau, will you join the case?

Ruthless and Tim and any Reason editors: If this light hearted speculation troubles any of you, I for one, will desist forthwith.

[kevrob]

Mebbe some of out Surn freinds might want to try J. F. Cooper. That Natty Bumpo fella likes to track, hunt and shoot a bit.

Kevin

[Jennifer]

Are the Reason staffers ever disturbed by the fact that their much-vaunted Unregulated Free Market blog goes down more often than Monica Lewinsky? I mean, Christ, even the Democrats can keep their blogs working for more than a week at a time.

[dlc]

David T-

Of course it was bound to happen. I write an overstated comment to provoke a response and ... in return, I get a snide remark about a misspelling of "cannon." Oh gee, I added an extra "n." I must be really stupid. Oh, you are truly a master of the anonymous blog! I bow down to your superior intelligence and spelling abilities. I am not worthy to post here!

I also think James, Hemmingway, and especially Melville were boring gits. Anybody had to endure "Bartleby the Scrivener"? Of course, I am an idiot and probably do not get its deeper meaning, seeing as I can't spell and all...

[Stevo Darkly]

I frigging gaurantee you that you've got an accent that would look pretty damned stupid when spelled (and exaggerated) phonetically by someone who dislikes your ethnic/regional origins.

This does not apply to the Midwest. As a lifelong St. Louisan, I have no accent whatsoever.

...I think that strategy might work as well for people in the Midwest too although it's hard to say because, for the most part, people in the Midwest are all a bunch of stupid hicks.

Ken, you'd better warsh your mouth out with soap, or I'll hit you farty-far times with a frozen park steak.

[thoreau]

This does not apply to the Midwest. As a lifelong St. Louisan, I have no accent whatsoever.

As a proud Miwaukee native, let me say yah, hey! Dose udder people in da rest a da country have accents but not us.

(What, you didn't notice the "l" in Miwaukee or the "f" in of? They're right there, I tell you! The "l" just forms in the back of the throat instead of on the tongue, and the "f" is exhaled rather than sharply enunciated.)

[Stevo Darkly]

Actually, Thoreau, after seeing Fargo and acquring some clients in Sheboygan and Minneapolis, I have to say that some of you do talk funny Up There.

[kevrob]

thoreau:

As a native New Yorker, I hear the name of the city I've lived in for ~30 years as M'waukee. It's got 2.5 vowel sounds, ayna, hey?

I think I'm following the perfect path for washing away an accent, by spending my formative years in a small town outside a large Eastern city, then moving to the Midwest. My "dese, dem and dose" usually only surface when I get angry.

Kevin