The Cautious Optimism Roving Correspondent for Affairs (and Stuff) – CORCA – has a potent combination of gratitude and mockery to start your week.
The danger of writing almost non-stop sarcasm and mockery is that when you want to be serious and non-ironic, people don’t know how to take it. But I start today by running that risk, because I want to thank you all. After my last column on Friday, some members of CO nation followed CO’s lead, and hit my tip jar, and said some very complimentary things about my writing. I was very touched by that.
Not in a creepy way, like if I were a young woman at a Biden presser, locked in a Greco-Roman clinch while he massaged my shoulders and sniffed my hair.
HA! I am incorrigible, and cannot resist a low-hanging joke.
Which, if my Mandarin is not too rusty, is what I believe was Fang Fang’s nickname for Eric Swallwell. I don’t want to know why.
Anyway, though I’ve now botched this moment of sincerity, I really do appreciate the kind words from so many of you over the last 4 years. Reading and writing for this site has been great fun, and it is immensely gratifying to receive responses, likes and shares from so many of you. And to get actual contributions in the tip jar is – honest to God – humbling.
So John, Jamie, Ed, Daniel, Roger, Amarayah, Gail and many others who have been so generous: thanks! Really. And only because several people have asked, I do have a Venmo account (@MartinSimpson), and I know the Paypal (Msimpson528) Tip Jar is hard to see on my site. But since my tech support department is off kicking academic butt in her freshman year of college… my tech savvy is on par with AOC’s understanding of basic economics.
Having said that, please don’t ever feel any compunction to hit the tip jar, because your reading and responding and being part of the community on this website is reward enough for me. You’ve helped me turn a sharp tongue and snarky attitude from an eccentric social deficit into a rewarding way to blow off steam, and I can’t thank you enough for that!
Okay, now I’m starting to feel like some infomercial weirdo, so let’s get to a few news stories.
Shakespeare is hated by morons. Unfortunately, many of those morons are alleged educators.
Sidebar: I find it a troublesome red flag when teachers insist on being called “educators.” That’s almost as much of a poker tell that people are too full of themselves as when they get a ludicrous Ed D degree and insist on being called “doctor.”
(By the way, if you read my column on Friday, you won’t be surprised to know what appears beside Reza Aslan’s pic on his Twitter posts. That’s right: “Dr. Reza Aslan.” Ugh.)
On a totally unrelated note, I would rather take a class from – or undergo thoracic surgery at the hands of – Dr. Suess, Dr. Octopus, or Dr. Evil, rather than from “Dr.” Jill Biden. (She didn’t spend several grueling months in fake doctor school and write a term paper, in crayon, on the JUCO’s crucial role in the American economy to be called, “Ms. Biden!”)
Where was I? Oh, yeah.
Morons hate Shakespeare, and they hate him for moronic reasons. Like because he was an icky white male, so his politics must have been wrong. According to one article, “For the new breed of teachers [Martacus’ editor’s note: I’m going to guess that breed is either Angus or Hereford] Shakespeare is seen… as a tool of imperial oppression, an author who should be dissected in class or banished from the curriculum entirely.”
A group who founded “#DisruptTexts” say that the Bard is all about “white supremacy and colonization.”
I wish I could have been in the board room where this brain trust came up with their fancy hashtag name. I’m guessing early contenders were, “#DisruptLogic,” “#DownwithThought,” and #BooGreatThings!Boo!”
The story goes on: “The anti-Shakespeare teachers say fans of the plays ignore the author’s problematic worldview. They say readers of Shakespeare should be required to address the “whiteness” of their thinking.”
First, “anti-Shakespeare teachers?!” You might as well say “anti-empiricism scientists,” or “anti-cheesecake Pritzkers” or “anti-violence Antifa.”
Second, “Shakespeare’s world view was ‘problematic?!’” This from a crowd who believes that thinking has a color, logic is oppressive, math is racist, and Joe Biden has just the kind of youthful energy and fresh thinking that our country needs.
Even when they are compelled to teach Shakespeare, these numbskulls have to dilute his genius by paired it with leftist claptrap. One Minnesota teacher “gives her students Marxist theory when reading ‘Coriolanus’.” NJ high school teacher Sarah Mulhern Gross [I’m pretty sure that there’s an understood “is” in that name] bragged about adding “toxic masculinity analysis” to lessons on “Romeo and Juliet.”
That’s what you want to do: add something terrible to something great, because how could that ever go wrong? “You’ve got to try my filet mignon! I sprinkle it with toxic mold, and serve it with caramelized dog droppings on a bed of fresh poison ivy. And you can wash it down with an exquisite glass of Château Lafite Rothschild. I urinate in every bottle!”
Someone named Lorena German, who came up with “#DisruptingShakespeare” claims that, “He is not ‘universal’ in a way that other authors are not. He is not more ‘timeless’ than anyone else.” Says Lorena German, who you’ve never heard of before the previous sentence, and never will again, after you read the following paragraph.
Would it be cruel to note that four centuries after his death, Shakespeare’s works are being read, discussed and performed all over the world, while Lorena German won’t be remembered 17 hours after she dies alone in her rent-controlled apartment, even by her put-upon students or her between four and nine cats?
But hey, in case you think that England’s greatest problem is the seismic tremors they are experiencing due to all of their great writers spinning violently in their graves, check out this Breitbart story headline: “’We Have Been Treated Like Criminals’ Complain Migrants Who Entered Britain Illegally.”
You don’t say.
What’s next?
“’Everyone Keeps Ogling Us,’ say Gorgeous Women Wearing Almost Nothing.” Or
“New Yorkers keep looking at me like I killed their grandparents,’ says Andrew Cuomo.” Or
“’Everyone keeps laughing at my witty columns” says #Hilarious Genius.”
The Breitbart article is worth reading for all Americans, if only because they’ll find the stunning ingratitude and whining by entitled d-bags to be sadly familiar. We’ve seen people sneaking into the US, only to immediately begin screaming about how the home country they fled is so much better, and Somalians we rescued from their dangerous, unstable country, only to get elected to Congress and offer taxpayer-funded speeches about the horrors of the US.
In the UK, the ingrates are outraged that they’ve been put up in military barracks. Because how could they be expected to suffer the kind of low standard of living that British soldiers deal with every day?
They’re also not happy that the barracks don’t always accommodate enough social distancing to guarantee they won’t get covid.
They really said that. After they broke into England by cramming onto boats, where they sailed cheek-to-jowl for hours or days.
I’m here to reassure you that you’re not crazy. The world has turned upside down, and we’ve just got to hang on to our sanity.
On the bright side, after having made it through three and a half tortuous years of the Biden administration, at least our suffering is almost o—
What’s that? It’s only been a month?!
Oy.
Avenatti/Lorena what’s-her-name, 2024!
Martin Simpson 