I’m reluctant to use the word “fail” as a noun, just like I don’t like using “ramp” as a verb, or “Democrat” as an adjective. But I do appreciate the sensibilities of the likes of FAIL Blog (even though I’m not generally a fan of the ad-overloaded family of the “lol” sites it belongs to), and I’ve just come upon a great “fail” of my own, in the iTunes Store (or, as Apple would have it, “on” the iTunes Store):
Even though I’m only a part-time resident of Colbert Nation, I am a huge fan of Stephen Colbert’s mock right-wing blowhard persona, and I love it when he fires up his “Nation” to engage in such acts of defiance as stuffing the ballot box in NASA’s space station node naming contest.
Colbert won the contest, but NASA demurred, instead choosing the more typical and spineless “Tranquility” as the node’s name. They did extend an olive branch to Colbert though, in naming the node’s treadmill after him.
Which would be lame, if they hadn’t made it an acronym. Sweet.
Seriously, does one really need a recording of 4’33”?
And with the three movements broken up as separate tracks? Really?
Not literally, of course.
I have never watched Glenn Beck, although I’ve seen clips of his tearful, logically incoherent rantings enough times on shows I do watch that I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what he’s all about. (I’ve also seen a few clips on YouTube of Shepard Smith — probably the only person on Fox News who doesn’t bring me to the bring of nausea — jabbing Glenn Beck for his antics.)
Perhaps seeing Glenn Beck’s insanity concentrated down to a highlight reel gives me a misguided impression of just how crazy he is, but… well, based on what I’ve seen I’m unlikely to give him a chance to prove me wrong.
Now, it’s all well and good for me to try to sound clever with my little rips on Glenn Beck in this insignificant little blog of mine, but there’s a genuine concern that the things he’s saying may be inciting the crazier element of his audience to go out and do terrible things. That’s no joke. And it’s worth paying attention to. To that end, I’d like to direct you over to Bob Cesca’s commentary on the Huffington Post.
(T)he most dangerous aspect of Beck’s show isn’t necessarily what he says, it’s that he appears to be inclined to say anything while enouraging his viewers to believe anything “even if it’s wrong.” Fine, if he’s going that far out on a limb, then he needs to seriously consider taking responsibility for his nonsensical, inflammatory statements. And perhaps once he accepts the potential consequences of his words, he’ll reconsider some of the more incendiary ones.
And this is the logical conclusion.
(Thanks to affirmed Twitter hater and anti-douche Joshua Wentz for this link.)