A Magic Buttplug

By Al Schumann on Saturday July 28, 2012 08:38 AM

George Lakoff has a new book. It's the same book he's always writing, which is based on the same article he's always writing, which is based on the same premise he's always flogging. How do I know? I know because it has the same blurb that introduces all of his articles and books. As a public service, I'm going to "reframe" the thesis—without any gratuitous capitalization

Essentially, there's a conservative buttplug afflicting the body politic. It's a magic, programmable buttplug and it beams messages into the moral colon of society. What progressives need is their own buttplug. A nurturing one, as opposed to the strict one favored by conservatives. Now, some might cavil at this and suggest that progressives already have an embarrassment of riches in this... department, if you will. But if that were true, then the progressive agenda wouldn't be subject to spasms of reverse rectal peristalsis.

There you have it. You can thank me in the comments section.

Comments (23)

Chomskyzinn:

Lakoff was on Brian Lehrer (wnyc radio) pitching his buttplug. Lehrer played the clip of Nobama going on about who built this or that. Lakof huffily said Nobama got the message all wrong. Lehrer asked Lakoff what No should've said. Lak proceeded to say pretty much the same thing than No said, in even less inspiring, more didactic ways. These people have no idea how they come across. And yes, the benighted masses are just their little monkeys waiting for a shock of the right "framing."

I totally get what you're saying here, Al, but... a nurturing buttplug?

Sorry, man, but you're getting into a whole weird area, here...

Al Schumann:

Mike, as CZ observes, we're just waiting for better framing. These things take on another meaning when they're framed properly.

On the other hand, I did have doubts about that particular frame. And yet, it does capture the essence.

op:


thank u weird Al i needed that ...

thank u
from the depths of my cork screwed
sugary pink colon

---------------------------------

shy about a nuturing butt plugs iron mike ?

hell man
thats just a french meat whistle
set to light stun


if a boy's life missed that moment
of soul-less penetration
then the poor little chap
missed a key station
of the great mittel amerikan
he-male gauntlet

--------------------------

i was lucky
i went to boarding school
at age not quite yet 10
we gained a gentleman's sophistication
in these areas at the proper age

i recall the up tight craziness
of my peers at choate

"too bad you day schooled fellahs ...
ya missed some serious
pre adolesecent magic "

Chomskyzinn:

I've known plenty of people who found buttplugs quite nurturing.

sk:

At least the blurb list is of some value (Notice how the 3rd bluber does not have any achievements next to his name):


  • Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Beyond Outrage

  • Van Jones, author of Rebuild the Dream

  • George Soros

  • Joan Blades, founder of Moveon.org

  • Bob Edgar, President of Common Cause

  • Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club

  • Don Hazen, Executive Editor, AlterNet.org

  • Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group


Al Schumann:

I see a bright future for Lakoffian additions to management coaching and managerial strategy. If his rhetorical techniques are paired with the behavioral psychology insights of the monkey molesters and the sociobiology of the gene reductionists, workplace productivity is bound to respond. Kind of.

What can you expect from a guy whose last name rhymes with rake-off?

Mike, it's O.K. It's a programmable nurturing buttplug -- an iplug.

Al Schumann:

Lakoff does lend unintentional heft to the argument that credentialed expertise is inversely proportionate to good judgment. There's always a tension between the two and with celebrity they're almost always mutually exclusive. He comes off as a nice enough fellow, but if he really is a nice fellow he's also ingenuous to the point where he should be wearing a consumer warning label: believe at your own risk, no warranty expressed or implied.

Where his much-flogged "framing" program is concerned, his writing is much less insightful and useful than simply reading through the The Forest of Rhetoric.

I'm guessing his appeal lies in the gaudy allusions to science. That's sucker bait for book supplement liberals and, also, in dire need of a consumer warning label.

Al Schumann:

The iPlug, incidentally, can be proudly displayed next to the iBrator (YouTube video link).

diane:

I’m with Mike on this one, AL. Further, as a female (though I won't pretend to speak for all females), actually a bit confused and disappointed by the suggestion.

Al Schumann:

Diane, I can understand and immediately sympathize with any disappointment caused by, and directly attributable to, my horrible suggestion(s).

I'm not doing myself any favors, but I'd hoped that the reverse peristalsis would cause even more dismay. But maybe it's so appalling, so unforgivably lurid, that everyone is ignoring it in the hopes I find my way back to sensible commentary.

diane:

playing doctor doctor with others (after becoming an adult), is not really a healthy thing to do - if not, actually, a cruel thing to do - in my wee opinion. You certainly did receive a ton of inner dismay and horror from at least me, and likely, many others (hope you're satisfied now?); but, I was trying to take the high road, in the event I just didn't get the bleak joke and that maybe I just needed to mull on it, do see my comment on the leaks and dribbles post below though.

Al Schumann:

Diane, I'm not sure how playing doctor is applicable. There appears to be a map-territory problem in this thread, and now in the previous thread as well. I'm tempted to try to straighten things out, but I'm offended by your reaction in both.

diane:

Well Al, my 'offensive' reaction was due to feeling played with, and I thought I clarified why I felt played with on the leaks and dribbles post, which, last I read seemed to totally go off the point of the initial text, and focus totally on the photo and butt plugs instead; being followed up with the also butt plug related above post, and the response but I'd hoped that the reverse peristalsis would cause even more dismay. which I took to mean you had intended to create dismay in those who read both posts.

Perhaps I should have focused on your focus and intention in using the word "progressives," versus those reading, in the above post; instead I focused on what I thought was the leaks/dribbles post taking a totally different turn and then connecting to this one. But even still, the concept disturbed, the only knowledge I have of the "plug" was via a reading of a vicious rape of a teenage girl by a psychiatrist in the three Girl With the Dragon Tatoo books.

Lastly, I don't understand what you mean by There appears to be a map territory problem.

Al Schumann:

Well, now I'm completely lost. I write as straightforwardly as I can in almost every post and comment and hope for the best. There's nothing I can do about selective literalism, the interpretative as opposed to the communicative style and imputations of a malicious agenda. Nor can I dictate what elements of a comment or post are going to capture anyone's fancy. I'm not even going to try. Life is too short.

Sean:

You might face less confusion asking for one of these from your local nurturing dembo donkey show theater than an auto parts store.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/plugs

op:

diane


notice i felt this going
up my louche lower hole
i think Al's playfulness
"goes both ways "
with the emphasis on playfulness

humor like much else
is always darkest
before the dawn

---------------
its presumtuous of me to ad this

-- but i'm absolutely nothing
if not presumptuous ---

Al is not a sock but he wears a mask or three

while reading his word strings
literalism
even in the cause of comprehension
is not a virtue
in fact its hazrdous to your sympatico

anne shew:

al, not on the choke pear, but could you say more on what you meant with this down on the admittance ..post " Anne? That was lyrical and easy on the ears when I read it aloud. "

diane:

Al, I don't know how to respond, though I'm feeling I should. I had not wanted to hurt your feelings and certainly I do not want to tar brush you, I had felt what I said on the Joker Thread, shortly before you posted the leaks&dribbles post. ..... Maybe I should just leave it at one person's joke is another's hideous nightmare, and how awful that that problem can not be resolved with ease, short of not saying anything. I will say, the problem, for me, started with the continuation of the photo theme to a separate, more detailed post of its own.

welllll, Owen, yeah I did see your note, and it was thoughtful of you. ..... Although .... you didn't have the sensitivity (sp?) to respond to my recent notes to you (I do hold the suspicion that lack of sensititity,may be a combination of having ‘good looks’and raised to be careless gender privledge (or privi hedge? ... I thought that was cute, though it was really due to having blanked on the spelling of privilege ...is it? ...Fuckin Brits) which, if I'm logical, isn't even the fault of the male gender, as they can not help (with any ease at all) how they were raised, nor how society generally regards them as far wiser, better and far more valuable .....than females (Perhaps Al can assist you on that sensistivity end, in the daylight hours, of course). I’m still waiting for the reponse on the Joker Thread and the Water Issues.

(By the way, Owen, I don't care for the Vzshinsky ref at all, though I do love the idea of sending Thiel Zell Feinstein and Hub Dick ‘Namaste’ Blum, to their own tiny, shark infested island .... with those of their ilk ...let them diet on coconut milk ...who knows ..it may cure them ...though they would likely just dine on each other.)

diane:

(hmmm, I can’t help myself about that Island Scenario (shoot me!): ........ and Al DARPA Gore: Tennessee Plantation; Humangous, South Cali (finely ‘trimmed’ with power sucking ‘lawn’ mowers perhaps larger than the dimensions of the new sustainable living apartments being forcefully promoted in NYC and SF) Estate; and fabulous, North Cali, San Francisco Penthouse(?) resider (talk about Big Foot) .....would be on that island ..... and all would be green! ..... waste not! ....want not! ...... and that, ....End of Season! Survivor!!! Episode , would end in that last island carnivore, taking a deadly, delusionary, power inflated dip, ....in those shark infested waters.)

If I weren't busy backpacking and camping all over the magnificent PNW these last couple of weeks I'd take the time out to comment further on this post, but your commentary is really all that's needed Al. Bless you. I'm off tomorrow for further adventures.

By the way, the Siskiyou Mountains are a botanist's dream. The wild flowers (and a bit of mind altering chemicals) blew my mind.

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