Kind of like one of those songs with a call response format: here is the sexism, here is the smackdown! tra lalalala.

Jezebel's a really weird site.

What reader do you use?

I use Newsgator Outlook. It sorts feeds by author name and they both have authors named "Jessica".

I don't use a reader, but guess I should. Would someone care to lead an old man with negative geek cred by the nore through the process? Offline via encoded email.

I'm just getting me feet wet in NewsGator FeedDemon... Pretty handy so far, but I'm sure there are all kinds of slick little tricks I'm not using. Plus, the occasional blog (Ezra comes to mind) that doesn't give full feeds, but there doesn't seem to be anything that indicated which posts are showing in full, and which I need to go through a jump for. Oh well.

Imagine saying "Newsgator FeedDemon" 20 years ago.

Napi try Google Reader; it's dirt easy. Search for blog, add blog, read blog.

I don't use a reader either. Does this make me a bad person?

I hate Google Reader, and, like a total tool, I use Bloglines. I've tried FeedDemon, and several other desktop aggregators, as well as a few other online ones, and Bloglines is the only one I can stand. The beta version is especially nice.

This.

Sharkey: which Ezra are you referring to? If Klein, I'm pretty sure I have a feed URL that includes full entries (although I don't have it handy ATM).

Also, this seems like a decent-enough opportunity for me to pimp this thing yet again.

10: Google Reader is k-spiffy on the APPLEIPHONE, which is why I use it.

how very strange responses to this news of this trio
http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/first_indian_american_governor?utm_source=onion_rss_daily
so so racist and disgusting
and so matter of fact,
perhaps i'll never understand this country

You do realize The Onion is not a news source, right, read? That it's a joke? About stupid racist Americans?

Read, dear, sometimes I think you really are Borating us.

The Onion is satire. Those aren't real people. They same pictures appear every week under different names. Their "responses to the news" are a parody of a common feature in local newspapers, the "man in the street" voices. Rest easy, it's all a joke.

even as a joke
it's so mainstream and accepted, why should i rest knowing it's a joke

The Beijing Evening News has also been fooled by an Onion spoof.

i did not know it's a parody
sure my poor english is laughable
but why do you think this kind of jokes are funny and acceptable, that it's a laughing matter
even you, progressive people, you all do this kind of jokes all the time, i mean racist jokes, why it's so an element of culture here
i never encountered so much racism anywhere except here i mean in the US

why should i rest knowing it's a joke

I have heard it said that Japanese don't "get" satire, so maybe the same is true of Mongolians. Satire is a genre that uses irony, exaggeration and humor to illustrate a point. American schoolchildren learn about satire by reading Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, in which the author "proposes" infanticide and cannibalism as a remedy for famine.

Satire of the type that appears in The Onion is a window on certain aspects of our society. The authors are not condoning racism any more than Swift condoned cannibalism.

The authors are not condoning racism
may be, i do not get satire, yes
just making racist jokes i think makes it, racism more and more acceptable, everyday like, not shocking, even innocent and just a cultural thing
so they endorse racism in a way in my opinion

21: Many readers have said the same about Swift and violence against the poor. You're not wrong about satire; it's a dangerous genre, and its effects are not easily traceable.

i read people cite onion here and there, it's like a trendsetter, opinion former or what
may be for trained minds their satire is easily recognizable and witty, but how one knows who laughs at the direct or hidden meaning?

oft the truth is said in jest.

The Onion tends to be known for doing a sort of sad-funny. That is, they'll take some "type" of person who has some deep character flaw or incongruity and write articles in their persona, as earnest as possible. Or they'll take some real news headline, and imagine, as you saw, the most pathetic response possible to that headline (in part making fun of the way the news in the US interviews people who know nothing about the subject for their feelings about it, which are usually racist or misogynistic). Or they'll see a "trend" piece from the real news and exaggerate that trend as much as possible.

What's weird is, this used to be a hilarious joke. Now it's true. The distance between Onion parody and truth is often narrower than we'd like to imagine.

Satire is supposed to stop the depicted exaggeration from happening by making it embarrassing or obviously wrong. But it usually fails.

Satire is supposed to stop the depicted exaggeration from happening by making it embarrassing or obviously wrong

Or it's responding to the absurdity of bleak (and obviously wrong) reality on its own terms and doing it one better; many Russians were masters at this.

Satire is supposed to stop the depicted exaggeration from happening by making it embarrassing or obviously wrong.

+
but how one knows who laughs at the direct or hidden meaning?

I must concede that you both have a point, here. A great example is in Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker, where he recounts how the bond traders at Salomon Brothers unironically called themselves "Masters of the Universe", after a description coined in Tom Wolfe's novel Bonfire of the Vanities, where the phrase was intended to convey a sense of pathetic vainglory, but was appropriated by Wall Streeters who missed the satire.

Nevertheless, I will stick up for The Onion, because their heart is usually in the right place, and because their technical mastery of the genre (the pitch-perfect imitation of newspaper and show business tropes, for example) is just so bloody impressive.

And read, it's not poor command of English that would lead you to miss the satire: there aren't any textual clues, really, that this isn't real. It's deadpan. We can tell it's a joke from the source, and from the fact that it's just a step to far to be real.

i never encountered so much racism anywhere except here i mean in the US

Just out of curiosity, read, besides Mongolia, where else have you travelled? I've never been to Mongolia, but I certainly have encountered widespread and virulent racism in China and Japan and Korea, and have read and been told about serious problems with racism in Russia. America has serious problems with racism too, but I don't think it leads the pack in that category.

And in the Onion piece you linked to, the point is to laugh at racists and racism, not to condone or normalize it.

even you, progressive people, you all do this kind of jokes all the time, i mean racist jokes, why it's so an element of culture here

There's no denying that there's a long history of many kinds of racism in the US, and racism is still sadly all too prevalent here, but laughing at racism, showing it to be stupid and ridiculous, can be a powerful means of fighting against it.

how very strange responses to this news of this trio

Troll troll troll troll trolly troll troll mctroll

The Onion tends to be known for doing a sort of sad-funny.

The Onion article with the "sad" cranked up to max.

i've been to Russia, Korea, Japan and now the USA
may be because those countries were not as multinational as the US or i was not at the receiving end, i don't know
i personally never encountered this much daily pressure of racism before
well, it was a pretty educational for me discussion, not intentional trolling
thanks for the honest responses
good night

12: Hmmmm. Perhaps I am just a bit dim. I'll dig around his blog a bit.

Whether or not read is a troll, the discussion led me to this, which is flawless.

34 and why should you cite the piece in connection with me
oh, i got it, to point out my illiterateness, how witty
i'm still not convinced about usefulness or powers or any other merits of satire used this way
there's always a way left for one to say something outrageous and when confronted just lightheartedly say it was a satire, you fool do not understand the beauty of the hidden meaning etc

35: For Chrissakes, read, Nworb wasn't insulting you. He just thought it was a good example of satire. Which it is.

there's always a way left for one to say something outrageous and when confronted just lightheartedly say it was a satire, you fool do not understand the beauty of the hidden meaning etc

I acknowledge that you have a point there. Bad satire is like that. And a lot of it depends on the inclinations of the audience. This forum has previously discussed this problem in connection with some of Chris Rock's comedy.

In my judgement, The Onion usually falls safely on the "good" side of the line, because the underlying sentiments are usually humane. (There are exceptions: I think the Jean Teasdale columns, for example, are just an exercise in making fun of white trash in dead end jobs; it's hard to detect any sympathy or humane impulse there. That doesn't make them not funny, but it does make them cruel-funny.)

Stop feeding the Read, people. God, when did this site get so infuriatingly earnest? I expect to see long, painstakingly civil discussions on the theories of the Troll of Sorrow next.

Stras:

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." [Hebrews 13:2].

Now that football is over, this can be revealed. It won't be funny for a while yet, though.

Is SJ suggesting that read is Unfogged's own Jessica Simpson? As George Bailey put it, maybe read is just the sort of Jessica Simpson Unfogged would get.

38: Fuck the writer of Hebrews. Read is no stranger; he/she is an extremely transparent and apparently not-easily-bored troll who's laughing hysterically at the fact that s/he's been getting a bunch of American liberals to patiently and condescendingly explain blindingly obvious facets of American culture by jumping into random threads and acting offended at the slightest provocation.

39: Or Jessica Simpson is just the kind of read that the Dallas Cowboys would get.

In all earnestness, "Now that football is over" is what trolling looks like, stras.

Stras, Read has posted quite a few interesting posts on various topics, a certain proportion (but not most) of which people have found annoying. People can think what they want about her posting style, but "transparent troll" is way off. You're also wrong about her not being Mongolian.

42: Emerson, see my reply on the other thread. You don't know that Read is Mongolian; at best you know that he/she knows some Russian and currently resides in - or knows someone who currently resides in - Mongolia.

Read's supposedly fake Mongolian-Russian identity is very elaborate, well-developed, and plausible. She doesn't currently reside in Mongolia, but the US. I've found her Mongolian media very interesting. I can't disprove the fake theory, of course. Her posting style is indeed odd.

As for her fake identities, I didn't notice that at all.

She doesn't currently reside in Mongolia, but the US.

Dude, you mean you don't even have a Mongolian IP/snail-mail address to go by? You're basing your statement that "You're also wrong about her not being Mongolian" on the fact that Anonymous Internet Person knows some Russian and sent you a CD with some Mongolian media on it - because no one but an actual, bona fide Mongolian could get their hands on music or video from Mongolia?

oh, you liked the CD, good
i wish i could translate all the lyrics, but it's beyond my abilities though it's all fine poetry
my identity is purely mongolian i assure you a 100%, though why do you need to know it for sure
and
why russian id, i like russian literature,sure, not all, up to say 1940ies, after that it's all socrealism or bitter dissident, after 90ies it's all dark chernukha, mafiozi, and now it's all plagiat, they plagiarize themselves with a few exceptions
russian music i like too, not it's rock pop variety though some individual songs are good, russian folk music i never could get though
russian poetry is just great, i adore russian old animation, and that's it, my supposedly russian identity, why i can't like things russian without being a russian
i like many things japanese too, all things for example crafty, but can't stand japanese anime except chibi maruko chan

Yes, stras, I have a U.S. return address for her, under a Mongol name.

The various comments she's made about Mongolia are all about right, indicating quite considerable knowledge.

You could consider the possibility that even if Read is fucking with your head, that she's an actual Mongol fucking with your head. It's not as if only Americans have that level of malice.

Yes, stras, I have a U.S. return address for her, under a Mongol name.

Right: because nobody but a Mongol could put a Mongol name on the front of an envelope.

The various comments she's made about Mongolia are all about right, indicating quite considerable knowledge.

Emerson: you know enough about Mongolia to recognize stuff about Mongolia, and yet you are not Mongolian. I suggest to you that it's possible for other non-Mongolian people who are not you to know stuff about Mongolia.

As far as I can tell, Read posts on US time, not on Gaijin Biker time. There's a 10 hour difference.

This is getting hopeless, though. Unless Read confesses her guilt we're not going to know the truth unless she shows up in person somewhere with her passport and lets us examine it.

-'
i wish i could attend your meetups, but the thing is i don't speak english

Emerson, read 48 again. There's no real reason to think Read is actually from Mongolia, as opposed to someone with a decent smattering of knowledge about Mongolia (like, for example, you). There's plenty of reason to think Read isn't who he says he is.

Unless Read confesses her guilt we're not going to know the truth unless she shows up in person somewhere with her passport

I doubt her passport is issued for "read", whatever her nationality.

50:
Okay, read is totally fake, and I agree that the need to patiently explain concepts like "democracy" and "satire" to a foreigner are tedious, but as in 50, she totally makes me laugh every time.

Stras, there's no reason to think that read is not from Mongolia. There's reason to think that her English is fluent and perfect, and that she's faking her unfamiliarity with the norms of American society, but she could very well be a Mongolian American person taking the piss.

54: Okay, then: there's no reason to think he/she isn't a troll. And as long as Read is trolling us, don't feed the troll.

50 was pretty funny.

Then again, everytime I look at the sentence "nobody but a Mongol could put a Mongol name on the front of an envelope" I start giggling again.

Anyway, the Mongolian question is irrelevant. Mongolian, Mongolian-American, or American, read IS A TROLL.

taking the piss.

Ah HA!!! jms is not actually a natural born US citizen!!!

read IS A TROLL

Does she float??

You people have it all wrong. Read is a man.

Stras, I'd have no difficulty at this point choosing between you and read. This isn't the first time you've gone batshit.

59: Emerson & read, sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G...

Don't worry, Emerson, I'm not going to come between you and your imaginary Mongoloid love.

Stras, the only time you're memorable is when you're being an asshole. Your latest Obama thing was pure silliness, and you went on and on and on with that. I've forgotten the specifics of the other times, but there were several of them.

Whoever this person read was, she translated Tsvetaeva, which is more interesting t me than 90% of the celebrity-gossip stuff we specialize in here.

Keep digging, Emerson.

Speaking of, there are primaries today! That's exciting!

62: I thought that was bob.

64: This superdelegate thing really makes the primaries kind of bullshit, doesn't it?

65: Yes, it was Bob.

64, 66: Yeah, superdelegates! WTF? They're just wildly undemocratic, aren't they? I've never really understood it.

There's no real reason to think Read is actually from Mongolia,

Yes, there is.

read IS A TROLL.

How so?

Yeah, superdelegates! WTF? They're just wildly undemocratic, aren't they? I've never really understood it.

The point is for them to be undemocratic. What's the point of having a party establishment if it can't totally dominate the party?

Can superdelegates change their minds? Seems like they made their decisions way too early.

yeah, those are weird. Do all states have superdelegates? And but you still have momentum generated for one candidate or another, feeding into super-duper-tuesday. Making the case that today is exciting, not that the system isn't ass backwards.

68: And all of the primaries and caucuses have different rules about what delegates count, and some of them are open! It's really just a mess.

71: I think they can do whatever they want. Or, as stras sorta says, whatever their party overlords tell them to do.

Stras's craziness is in his obsession with the fake-Mongol angle. Part of Stras's craziness, anyway. If Read is a troll or no fun or inappropraite, she / he could still be a Mongol. But he has to deny every single point.

It just seems absurd that, in a race that's this neck-and-neck, the superdelegates have vowed to support Clinton by such a gigantic and unreasonable majority.

That is, if the primaries turn out to have clearly nominated Obama, but the superdelegates' votes make it a Clinton victory, will we, indeed, burn shit down?

I'll be contrarian and say that I don't particularly mind the superdelegates. I'm not sure that they have been particularly effective at accomplishing their stated mission (viz, ensuring "electable" nominees; the first nominee under the system was Walter Mondale), but they are no more undemocratic than many other features of presidential elections (caucuses, the IA-NH leadoff, winner-takes-all primaries, the electoral college).

I am a fan of parliamentary democracy, myself, and the superdelegate system is a way of grafting a little bit of parliamentary influence onto the selection of the president. It's not necessarily a bad thing for the candidate to have to win over a majority of the congressional representatives to get the nomination. (Recall that, with a handfull of exceptions, the superdelegates are accountable to the electorate.)

I thought we were only burning shit down in the event of an assassination.

I'm curious to find out which faction of the Republican Party will end up winning.

Huh. According to Wikipedia, in 2004, a majority of superdelegates were pledged to Howard Dean before the primaries even started. Do they tend to pick the frontrunner straight off?

Do I get a superdelagate for successfully changing the topic of conversation?

I think that you should proclaim the permanent and celestial revolution of your It-Girldom.

81. I should think you get everybody's eternal gratitude and devotion at least for that. But you only get a superdelegate if you spell it right (unless you're Becks-style).

75: What obsession? All I've said is that your "evidence" of Read's Mongol-ness is ludicrously flimsy. As I've maintained from the start, the objectionable thing about Read is his trolling, and the response to said trolling, which utterly derails these threads in predictable and uninteresting ways.

I apologize in advance for responding to Read stuff again; I preemptively bow out of responding to whatever Emerson's going to say in response.

81: You get a hyperdelegate!

ok, 84, i'm an anglosaxon
are you satisfied ?
please, discuss your primaries

the apology is accepted.

86: When the powers of the hyperdelegates combine, we will become Captain Delegate!

Stras isn't here any more, thank God!

I still wonder why he can't even believe that Read is a woman, as she says she is. Does he believe that women can't be trolls, because they're all sugar and spice? Inquiring minds want to know.

who's laughing hysterically at the fact that s/he's been getting a bunch of American liberals to patiently and condescendingly explain blindingly obvious facets of American culture

Some facets of American culture might not be so blatantly obvious as someone steeped in said culture might think.

Even with the overwhelming dominance of American cultural imperialism in the Netherlands I've had trouble sometimes understanding what people mean (e.g. "calling a spade a spade" and what's the big deal with that); I can imagine somebody more insulated from said cultural imperialism will have more trouble.

I'm sure that stras is now laughing hysterically at the fact that he's gotten a Dutch liberal to patiently explain that some facets of American culture might not be so blatantly obvious as someone steeped in said culture might think. Don't feed the troll, Martin.