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Mixed Metaphor Extremism

June 13th, 2009 · 6 Comments

Since when do New York Times op-ed writers sound like Parade rejects?

I would ask: What did you say or do as the shooters retreated into their xenophobic silo and consumed the bile slouching about the Internet? What did you say or do as the darkness in their hearts obscured the light of their reasoning, and the vacuum of hate consumed them?

My suspicion is that far too many do far too little.

So they’re in a silo consuming bile—which is, somehow, slouching—while their reasoning is “obscured” by dark hearts. And while consuming this bile, they’re being consumed in turn by a “vaccum of hate”—possibly located in the silo, on the Internet, or perhaps even in their dark hearts. I’m pretty sure this paragraph counts as a hate-crime against readers.

Tags: Journalism & the Media · Language and Literature


       

 

6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 daveheal // Jun 13, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    This reminds me of Matt Taibbi’s’s hysterical criticisms of Tom Friedman’s books, ‘The World Is Flat’ in particular. It’s starting to seem as if the columnists over at the Times are sapping off of a common brain, or maybe they’re restricted to using the contents of a giant office piñata full of metaphors on tiny slips of paper. This is just atrocious writing.

  • 2 Doug // Jun 13, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    The internet is a series of hateful vacuum tubes filled with ink, not from the end of a quill but from a squid’s dark ducts. O Jerusalem! O Fairbanks!

  • 3 stephen // Jun 14, 2009 at 8:50 am

    I love it:

    We were warned.

    About what? The 1 in 1 millionth of a percent chance that you might die in a “terrorist” attack?

    Hateful people are loud — to disguise their cowardice and shame.

    Political violence makes a more popular news story. And whats up with the false motives cliche? Can’t someone just be really passionate about their wrong beliefs?

    But good, decent people are by far the majority

    So, s’all good right?

    These confrontations won’t be easy, but doing the right thing rarely is.

    Since when did confrontation, in which you are in the vast majority, become a difficult challenge?

    There is someone reading this column who knows someone who could be the next shooter.

    Maybe you, dear reader, know sombody who knows sombody who knows….Maybe the shooter himself is reading this column! In that case, he will probably talk himself out of it.

  • 4 RickRussellTX // Jun 17, 2009 at 1:35 am

    “Maybe the shooter himself is reading this column! In that case, he will probably talk himself out of it.”

    Thanks, yeah. I’ve managed to talk myself down. Who’s up for some Pictionary?

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