Browsing PBH By Articles

The Top 10 PBH Posts

It’s official: PBH is well over 1000 posts! And to celebrate, here is the Top 10 PBH Posts for all you Prose Before Hos newcomers and veterans alike (click here for the top 10 of the first 400 posts).

1. The definitive and most popular PBH entry to this day — Hurry up and Kill Yourself For 10 Emo Points — Anonymous Banker examines an amazing local news report on the problem of ’emo’ (short for emotions, the investigative report tells us), concluding with the use of a sarcastic, humorous online quiz about how emo you are with a point system based on self-mutilation and how many sweaters one owns.

2. A few days after the Virginia Tech shootings, it became clear that the media was going to make a cult celebrity out of the shooter, rather than focus on the victims or other significant events in the world. The two posts that came of this — 33 Dead Americans is a Tragedy, 33 Dead Iraqi’s is a Statistic, and 1 Crazy Gunman is a Tragedy, 200 Dead Iraqi’s is a Statistic — were followed enough to spawn a Facebook group.

3. Ever hated Americans, even if you are one? Then you’ve come to the right place. Even though these posts haven’t become the most popular, they’re a personal favorite of mine. Check out Thoughts of the Average American, Part 1 and Part 2, followed by Soliloquy from Anonymous Middle American.

4. The infamous Travel to the Land of Sheep, which landed us on local radio for an expose in Part one on a Christian rap remix of Baby Got Back (cleverly entitled Baby got Bible). Parts two and three and worthwhile but not nearly as wonderful as Part 1.

5. Continuing on the theme of those cwazy Christians, Peanut Butter, The Atheists Nightmare, is a video produced that thought to dispel Evolution. How, you may ask? Well, by showing that since peanut butter doesn’t evolve, evolution doesn’t exist! I mean, how stupid can you be not to see that?

6. Of course, talking about Christians without talking about their shepherds wouldn’t be fun. Enter Rush Limbaugh, the perpetual foot in mouth fatso who somehow outlived Imus on the airwaves. In Rush the Magic Racist, the unending chronicles of Rush’s perpetual racism are exhibited, including his latest ‘gaffe’, a song called ‘Obama the Magic Negro’.

7. Loose Post 911 Lips: Donald Rumsfeld says in discussing 9/11 that the plane was ‘shot down’ in Pennsylvania. Oops.

8. What is PBH and the consequential mandatory argument with anonymous internet liberal vampires. For years, people have wondered, what is PBH, and why is it so god damn great? But still others wonder, why do you hate women? Well, we don’t necessarily HATE women, we just find it amusing when they get hit in the butt with newspapers by superhero’s. Read Kit’s and Alec’s interpretation of PBH, and read the insuing BLOG MELEE.

9. One of the better serious writings on PBH since the 400 post mark, Filling the Void: Saudi Diplomacy in a Realigned Middle East evaluates the new role of Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Mecca agreements, increased Sunni/Shiite violence in Iraq, and the rise of Iran as a regional power.

10. My definitive prank in high school: I tore down a Valentine’s Day poster in front of a lunch room of 1000 plus and was lucky enough to capture it on video.

Hey, free internet idiocy

You want to know why the internet is cool? Because everyone’s a fucking expert. Get a domain, post some flim flam, and you are officially source material for some poor college students thesis paper.

Take this rant on thelastpsychiatrist.com, leading you to believe that a legitimate psychiatrist is informing the general public with his or her BLOG. WRONG. Check out this fabulous piece, which descends into the nether regions of porn viewing, leading into grand yim yammering that concludes that the prevalence of porn and thus masturbation are leading to decreasing birth rates. Well guess what, rookie bi-yatch, the highest correlated variable for declining birth rates is EDUCATION. Specifically female education, and not the kind where there teacher penetrates them with a ruler. If you’re looking for more pontifications on subjects unknown by various anonymous electronic idiots, I suggest America’s Next Top Model Controversy: Glamorizing Violence Against Women? — because nothing says intelligence like charging around, fighting a battle already waged in the 60’s.

If you’re actually looking something interesting / intelligent to read on a blog (I know, it’s possible??), I suggest America Has Become “Politically Radioactive” on Atlantic Review or if you feel like contributing to a lost cause, poke Nancy Pelosi with calls for impeachment.

Washington Post or the Onion?

The Article: An article in today’s Washington Post by Sam Ghattas entitled “Hezbollah Praises Israeli Report on War”. Oh, really, Mr. Washington Post, what other obvious factoids do you have to report on? Sky is blue, life is hard, and Dick Cheney gets a massive erection every time a brown person dies?

The Text: Hezbollah’s leader praised an Israeli government report that said Israel’s summer war against the guerrillas was a failure. But the Lebanese government criticized the findings, saying the report did not address the massive destruction wrought on this country.

The conflicting comments Wednesday from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Prime Minister Fuad Saniora underlined Lebanon’s own internal political struggle between the militant group and the U.S.-backed government.

Nasrallah, who also criticized his own government’s handling of the war, said the Israeli commission reviewing the Lebanon war vindicated his claim that Israel had been defeated.

“The first important outcome of this commission is that it has finally and officially decided the issue of victory and defeat,” Nasrallah said.

But he also gave his enemy unprecedented praise.

“It is worthy of respect that an investigative commission appointed by (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert condemns him,” Nasrallah told a crowd at the opening of a book fair in a south Beirut neighborhood complex that was rebuilt after being leveled by Israeli warplanes during the summer fighting.

“Even though they’re our enemies, it is worthy of respect that the political forces and the Israeli public act quickly to save their state, entity, army and their existence from the crisis,” the Shiite Muslim cleric added.

The 34-day war against Hezbollah guerrillas, during which more than 1,000 Lebanese and nearly 160 Israelis died, has been widely perceived in Israel as a failure. The report said Olmert bore ultimate responsibility, accusing him of poor judgment, hasty decision-making and lack of vision, fueling reports that he may be forced to step down.

In a tough blow to Olmert, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on him to resign. Livni, who enjoys wide public support, also said she would challenge Olmert for leadership of the governing Kadima Party.

Olmert said he intended to stay on to remedy the severe flaws in decision-making and crisis management that a government war probe identified the report.

Nasrallah’s remarks may have been attempt to steer attention away from the dramatic political events unfolding in Israel. Any inflammatory remarks by the Hezbollah leader could buoy Olmert, who faces calls to step down from within his own coalition and has been working feverishly to retain his hold on power since the report’s release earlier this week.

Saniora, meanwhile, did not offer any praise for Israel and instead called on the deeply divided Lebanon to unite. He warned that Israel could be planning future attacks to restore its credibility.

“I call on my Lebanese brothers to unite in the face of what Israel might be seeking to launch against Lebanon,” Saniora said.

Saniora’s government has been facing a campaign by the Hezbollah-led opposition to force it to resign. Hezbollah officials accused the majority of conniving with the Israelis to destroy the pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian guerrillas.

The U.S.-backed Saniora has refused to step down and has demanded that the state should have the sole monopoly on weapons _ a tacit allusion to the ultimate need for Hezbollah to disarm.

Saniora criticized the Israeli report for failing to address the destruction, estimated at more than $5 billion, inflicted on Lebanon by the Israeli air and naval bombardment as well as the ground incursion during the war.

The report on the “unjust war … did not make a single mention of the massive material, human losses and destruction Israel inflicted on Lebanon,” Saniora said.

Nasrallah also took issue with the Lebanese government, which he claims has not taken the steps to investigate its side of conflict.

“When the enemy entity acts honestly and sincerely even if its cause is unjust we cannot but respect it, especially when we look at the other (Lebanese) side which does not investigate, does not study and does not hold (anyone) accountable and does not form investigative commissions as if nothing has happened,” he said.

The militant Hezbollah leader, whose group came under criticism by some Arab governments early on in the fight for triggering the war when it kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12, also lamented the divisions within his country and the region.

“It is regretful that we the Arab world and Lebanon are waiting for an Israeli commission to settle for us this dispute and to tell us ‘seriously you have won and we (Israelis) were defeated,'” Nasrallah said.

Analysis: Wow, do we all feel a little bit stupider for having read that? What’s next, an expose by the Iraqi Information Minister of the Saddam Era with a report on how Muhammed is going to drop magic rain on the American Zionist European Colonizers while Olmert bathes himself in the blood of Lebanese children and negative popularity? Though I’m thoroughly impressed that Sam Ghattas could get an article published in the Washington Post to that effect. Next time you want to write if the Red Sox like beating the Yankees, give me a call, I got plenty of fill in the blank answers for your future columns.

And if you’re actually interested in an interesting exploration of this topic, check out On the Face on local reaction, A Blog For All on the Israeli protests, and an extensive post on the crisis faced at the Olmert government. Because god knows you won’t get it from the Post.

ive lost my ability to converse with original thought, its all blog roundup for me

In one of the more hilarious blogs I’ve read in a while is a ‘4/29 Truth’ website (referring to the bridge in California that was supposedly melted and destroyed on April 29th). Check out this choice quote:

Unlike the World Trade Center, the 580/980/880/80 overpass was reinforced against earthquakes and was not under the enormous compressive load that the towers were when they fell. The overpass was designed to support gridlocked traffic in an earthquake, but it collapsed without even a single car on it. The fire consumed only 8,600 gallons of fuel, whereas the WTC was allegedly brought down by 24,000 gallons of fuel. Does Governor Schwarzenegger really expect us to believe a story even more preposterous than the already-discredited official story about 9/11?To answer the question “Who is responsible for this terrible tragedy?” we must ask who stood to gain the most. George Soros? The California Department of Transportation? The Jews?

Of course, I’m not that silly — I blame a whole contingent of amorphous, ambiguous shadow groups from the liberal jew atheist media to the conservative oil corporate tycoons. Speaking of anti-Semitism, check out this wonderful clip of teflan racist/opportunist Al Sharpton talking about ‘jewing up numbers’ (what the hell does that even mean and who listens to Al Sharpton in the first place?).

Time for good news/bad news. Good news: there is a delicious Asian rip-off of Starbucks that will soon saturate the market and hopefully poison your pets. Bad News: Mitt Romney’s favorite novel is a Ron L. Hubbard book (Scientology and Mormonism combined?!?!). Good news: of 500 terrorist attacks in Europe in 2006, only 1 was carried out by Islamists. Bad News: Cops Admit To Planting Marijuana on 92 Year Old Woman Killed in Botched Drug Raid. Good News: there are plenty of rich women around that you can marry if you’re too much of a slob to make your own wealth. Bad News: trying to bomb an abortion clinic isn’t terrorism, it’s just a political movement.

Ultra-best good news: we got in our first blog scuffle with a bunch of uptight and unruly Democrats (because supporting Dennis Kucinich makes sense, RIGHT?).

PS. I still hate Bill O’Reilly (ignorant fans included), from Think Progress: A new study by Indiana University media researchers finds that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly calls “a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.” I wonder if they’re guilty of quoting him accurately?

Don’t Judge A Blog By Its Logo

This is effectively the third part of a series on ‘What is PBH’. See Alec and Kit’s entries for more discussion on the topic.

Recently, we at PBH have come under fire for our name and our logo. After Liberally Mirth cross-posted my post from Peace Tree (it was here, but has since been removed), the owner of the site sent me an email regarding her hesitations with our site, particularly our title and logo:

Alec,
I want to feature your blog at LM, but its title and, especially, its logo of a woman being spanked make me hesitant. I’m sure I simply don’t understand their meaning. When you have time and nothing better to do, could you tell me your thinking about them?
Thanks,
mirth/Elizabeth

Which was interesting because Kit and I had discussed clarifying what PBH was about as we anticipated as we became more popular, people would be more speculative about the site. We both fired off essays regarding our positions and why PBH was not intended to offend. I sent the following back to Mirth:

Elizabeth:

No problem, you actually sparked something that needed to happen for a long time — which is an explanation of our site, its name, and its purpose. There are two extensive entries dealing with both of your questions:

http://www.prosebeforehos.com/alec/04/30/what-is-pbh-part-1/
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/kit/04/30/what-is-pbh-part-2/

Thanks again, and if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,
Alec

This was followed by a quick response from Mirth:

Alec,
Thanks for the reply. I read your posts. Ok here it is, straightup. I have a couple of friends who are into the deconstructionist thing. They express, much as you, wanting to avoid a bleak future as if they have no choice in how they will live their lives! I find their talk sorta interesting but obscure and a little fuzzy and, thus, I don’t get much from it.
In the case of your blog logo, why would would choose to go back to a 50s stereotypical and degrading image? You seem to reject one set of standards, yet choose another even more oppressive.

I’m not going to link pbh because 1) I find a woman being spanked by a man offensive and 2) my readers will find a woman being spanked by a man offensive. I don’t mean to be insulting, but it’s just a little too frat boy for us.

But, judging by the one poem of yours that I have read, I dig your work and I’ll be looking for more at The Peace Tree.

Best,
m/E

To which I replied:

Elizabeth:

Best addressed by a paragraph in Kit’s post — “The sharpest tool for rendering the sacred ordinary is humor and wit. The image of the superhero spanking the woman attacks both traditional and Modern sensibilities. It mocks the idea that a woman could be treated as a petulant child while also mocking the idea that these images are verboten. While the traditional interpretation may be that the superhero represents all men and the woman all women, in a postmodern world couldn’t the superhero represent the abstract ideal of the written word, and the woman represent all mankind?”

Thanks again for the link and I enjoy your blog as well! Keep up the good work.

Always,
Alec

Followed by the last email communication.

Alec,
Here’s what a nearly 20-year age difference will do to opinions:
I don’t think your logo mocks anything. I think it perpetuates stereotype and oppression and isn’t females alone that are degraded by it. And I’m guessing Kit is not female, so add in gender to the difference thing. I also think the logo cheapens what I’ve seen of your work. But that just me, being all blunt & stuff.
m/E

Fair enough — I wouldn’t agree with any of her assertions, but it was a normal, clean conversation. Frankly, her point of ‘I don’t think your logo mocks anything’ is wrong — we created this image and this blog, and we know the reasoning behind it. We didn’t come up with convenient excuses because we are secretly misogynists in waiting, we sincerely created a logo with a superhero hitting a woman in the butt with a newspaper because it is nonsensical, non-traditional, and funny (because superheros don’t exist, and if they did, I presume they wouldn’t spend time hitting woman in the rear with newspapers). Though the irony of bringing up the sex of the author as a means to attack the idea as sexist was apparently lost on her, I would like to point out that two of our five regular contributors are females, and I don’t think any of our viewership had yet to explicitly find issue with our content.

Then I decided to comment on one of her blog posts dealing with a woman who thought she got sick from electrical appliances — nothing too controversial, just a typical comment spewing from me — “Mirth: Nice find. I need that headgear so I can finally get a full nights sleep without having to worry Dick Cheney will swoop through my window and suck my blood”, which included my avatar (the same image as the logo) and a link to my WordPress blog. And that’s when the floodgates opened (for a PDF with the whole transcripts of the thread, click here:

She wants a public debate on my ideas about PBH. Not a problem, someone already elicits support for our “everything goes” mentality. This is when the debate turns into a disagreement before I’m even given a chance to respond with Mirth beating the drum for our supposed misogyny (and by the way, before we even could get to this point, there were ten comments by the blog frequenters relating to hitting each other in the ass and who would like what):

And here you have it, we are of a 1950’s attitude and secret Republicans, and if you don’t see what’s terribly wrong with PBH, you probably are too. And, I’m not comfortable with women having power, or comfortable with women in general. All of this easily assumed by looking at the logo for our website. This is when I enter with a nice bit of sarcasm that pervades on PBH in attempt to get others to understand our brand of humor:

So, in a free and permissive society, we are free and permissive to do what we want as long as my expression doesn’t step on your sensibilities. Yet, everyone’s evidence of our supposed ignorance and offense is my avatar and our website name. Not once do they find any posts on our site that propose or encourage violence against women (or anyone else for that matter as we are all pacifists).

And now, we are down the full path of enlightened discourse. You see, it’s only taken a little bit of bullying and eye-opening to jump to the conclusion that YES, PBH is in fact secret women-hating Republicans who harken back to their grandfathers days when a woman would be perpetually making dinner. And from the preacher comes the final gospel:

So in one thread, we went to a reasoned discussion on the merits of having a SUPERHERO hit a woman in 50’s get up as a logo to discussions about how we were frat boys making light of child abuse and posting jokes about 9/11. In fact, the only post that came after mine was from Kit, who wrote an excellent rebuttal to the arguments presented by the LM crew:

The fact of the matter is that it is a superhero hitting a woman in the behind with a newspaper. Let me repeat that just because I think that is hilarious, maybe if you say it out loud you will hear it. It’s a superhero hitting a woman in the behind with a newspaper.

Why do you relate to the woman being hit with the newspaper? Has a superhero hit you in the behind with a newspaper? Because if I ever saw that, that would be hilarious to me. Also hilarious to me:

* Men being hit in the behind by superheros
* Dogs being hit in the behind by superheros
* Inanimate objects being hit in the behind by superheros

Basically any cartoon which involves a superhero paddling something with a newspaper, I would find funny. Honestly, a superhero hitting something with a newspaper?

Now to the point. Obviously domestic abuse is not funny. No one should live in fear of someone who supposedly loves them. That’s bullshit.

But really, if my dad were wearing a superhero costume and paddling my mom (dressed in a 1950s dress) with a newspaper, domestic abuse is not the first thing that would come to mind.

This comic is pure patriarchal kitsch, just like Soviet kitsch. Unless they hate Jews, nobody really wants to live under Stalin. But Soviet stuff is just a funny reminder of a bygone era of false ideals and failed dreams.

The white picket fence. The home cooked meal waiting for the man returning home from a long day at the office. The Ozzie and Harriet spotlessly clean and modern home.

“What did you do at work today honey?”

“I oppressed you and millions of other women dear, simply by conforming to our traditional way of life.”

“That’s nice, the kids are playing baseball down at the field.”

This is as false of a past as the glorious triumph of global Communism. People don’t really want that shit. People want true equality, the ability to make a life of their own. But what does that mean?

Where is the women’s right movement today? Burning bras? Struggling to escape the kitchen? The truth is that the clear cut discrimination of the past is over with. No one should disrespect a woman for any choice she makes. And for the most part, no one will.

As I mentioned in my post on PBH, in order to properly understand the present and coming future, we must reexamine the baggage of the past. Why does the superhero represent all men? Why does the woman represent all women?

So the question Prose Before Hos asks is, are you a prose writin pro? or a ho-baggin ho? I identify with prose, and I hope you do to. The answer has nothing to do with sex.

A wise man once said do not trust anyone over 30, and with reason. But a wiser man would say, don’t trust anyone to laugh at something when they are consumed with taking out their personal problems on others, because a superhero hitting a woman with a newspaper is fucking funny.