This week's Carnival of the Vanities is written by a European blogger named Dr. Zen who seems to dislike conservatives and libertarians, and who doesn't have a terribly high opinion of Americans in general. He's entitled to his opinion, of course, but he spends most of his time, well, fisking the posts. Odd, because he says this:
I've never been a great fan of "fisking" because I'm a great fan of Robert Fisk, whose intellect and acuity dwarf those of most, if not all, of his detractors.
I think he's being modest. He does a great job of fisking. Just because I disagree with him doesn't mean he shouldn't have his fun.
And fun it is! Dr. Zen thinks this 64 year old man should spend his life in prison for defending himself against a brutal attack. Har!
Despite this slapstick sense of humor, Dr. Zen seems to have inexplicably missed the tongue in cheek satire inherent in this blog since its inception. Why else would he go out of his way to say he's "guessing" that Classical Values "doesn't include a frank enjoyment of pederasty." Golly Gee....
Why the need to guess about things like that? As I've said before, I'm actually, resolutely, opposed to adults having sex with minors!
How shockingly modern of me!
But why did he stop with child sex? Why not speculate over whether I might be against slavery? Or torture? (Might I have been serious when I suggested crucifixion for spammers?)
Lots of fun if you don't look too hard.
MORE: This same "Dr. Zen" was rude enough to call Carnival founder Silflay Hraka a racist at his own blog! And even after that, Bigwig let him do the Carnival. (Another example of how Americans cleverly conceal their bigotry and selfishness....)
AND MORE: The same (I think) Dr Zen seems to have been involved in some sort of dispute with Wikipedia over the removal of pictures here:
Dr Zen is an intractable edit warrior who's sense of consensus appears to be that he is right and everybody else is wrong. This manifests most clearly at Clitoris, where he has persistantly waged an edit war to remove an illustrative picture of a clitoris from the page. He has made it clear that he has no intention of listening to consensus, and that he will revert until the cows come home. The page quieted down late January when he left for a while. Upon his return two days ago, the page has been the subject of an edit war once again. He has also attacked admins who have suggested that this act might be vandalism as "bullyboys" as in [1], where he also declares his intention to keep reverting. Needless to say, this sterile edit warring and aggression towards anyone who dares disagree is problematic.
In fairness to Dr Zen, here's his view of Wikipedia:
I need a new forum. I'm tired of the uselessnet, which is for knobheads. I'm tired of wikipedia, which is a c*nt magnet with its own c*nt gestapo, with more fuckheads than my pantry has moths. I need a solution for moths in the pantry. I have become willing to exterminate them, so long as I don't have to see it or remove the carcasses.
Sheesh! There I go censoring words -- despite the fact that I don't believe in censorship!
At this rate my blog will be content filtered again..... I had to delete a comment last night for its graphic language describing sex acts performed upon Jesse Helms -- and yet I claim to be against censorship! Next I'll be deleting pictures!
Does my hypocrisy know no bounds?
UPDATE:
HABEMUS PAPAM!
The Anti-Carnival has arrived! Read the Cardinal of the Vanities #134 - Avignon Edition! This week's Carnival so irritated Laurence Simon, that he's declared Dr Zen a "blogheretic", made himself the anti-Pope, and nailed the 95 feces (including my execrable post on Walter Cronkite) to the wall.
BRAVO!
Plus, there's some interesting dialogue at the Carnival comments. A gem from Dr Zen:
That man is a crank. And he's colorblind to boot given what passes for design on that site. Yeech, it had my eyes swimming before I reached the end of his post.
Or maybe he was passing a kidneystone while writing it.
I guess so. What disappoints me is that I thought the Carnival was supposed to be good natured. I'm all for free speech, but if I did the Carnival I wouldn't insult bloggers who sent me entries -- no matter how much I disagreed with them.
Just goes to show you...not all bloggers (and Carnival hosts) are equal.
Created equal they may be, but some of them grow up to be (gasp) assholes!
The one good thing I will say for Dr. "Ranting Limey" Zen is that, unlike last week's host, he didn't shut me out by putting the Carnival up two days early. Big deal.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Jaysus, Eric
That man is a crank. And he's colorblind to boot given what passes for design on that site. Yeech, it had my eyes swimming before I reached the end of his post.
Or maybe he was passing a kidneystone while writing it.
whatever ;-)