Suzi Parker's Thin Skin

There is a 'Sarah Palin joining al Jazeera' spoof story which is making the rounds. The story originated in Onion manqué The Daily Currant. It's just truthy enough to pass a first glance. It did take in Suzi Parker, a freelance writer who contributes to WaPo's 'She The People' blog (and the patronizing sexism of that catchall is a rant for a different day). She wrote a whole article on Palin on that premise only to have to retract it. The defanged story with the embarrassing correction is still live but Parker has not contributed any new articles to the blog since that one.

This was back on February 12th, so I went to find out what and where she has been writing since. A google search for her is just flooded with results mocking her error so I went to her twitter feed which is at the bottom of her articles only to find out that I've been blocked by her. Now I understand her anger at some like Michelle Malkin who took this gaffe and ran with it with a hashtag game called #SuziParkerScoops. Even Sarah Palin got in on the mocking and that has got to hurt. As tempting as that was, here was the totality of all my tweeting on the issue:

@suziparker falls for a parody news story about Sarah Palin. washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-… In her defense, all stories about Palin read like satire.
— Yellojkt (@yellojkt) February 12, 2013

I set up the item, give a link, and then make a joke at Palin's expense. So why am I being blocked? Is Suzi Parker really that thin-skinned? I'm a nice guy. Honest. But when someone makes a gaffe that big they need to own up to and shake it off. And not block everybody who calls attention to it. That is no way to build a following.

Perhaps she needs to talk to Gene Weingarten about what a sweetheart I am in real life. I called him an 'asshat' and we buried the hatchet.

Gene Weingarten and his bête noire.

So what gives, Suzi? Give me another chance.

Incivil Order

As a Psuedonym-American I get nervous anytime that people start calling for Real Names as the catch-all answer for online incivility. For some reason people think that if people had to sign their names to online comments all will be sunlight and rainbows. Now as anyone who has waded into a Facebook political discussion, this is risible. And this assumes that people think that everybody on Facebook is a real person. Facebook has one billion users. And I'm three of them.

The latest person to wade into this morass in a attempt to drain the swamp only to find himself up to his ass in alligators is Patrick Pexton, the outgoing and final ombudsman for the Washington Post. In his valedictory he says this:

I think The Post should move, as the Miami Herald did recently, away from anonymous responses to a system that requires commenters to use their real names and to sign in via Facebook. It would reduce the volume of comments but raise the level of discussion and help preserve The Post’s brand.

This caught the attention of Hardball guest host Michael Smerconish who used that as a jumping off point for this piece:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you didn't blink you may have caught a pithy comment by yours truly. Here is the full unedited tirade of mine: 

 It's not the anonymity that creates the bile. It's the inadequate and ineffective moderation. Where standards are fairly and uniformly enforced people behave themselves.

Requiring 'real' identities (and many of us have long traceable histories under our online identities) of people only enables cyberstalkers and other malicious elements. 

 And since I just got quoted on MSNBC, I'm a little glad I do use an online alias. I have been a member of several online communities over the years and the key is engagement and reinforcement. When people genuinely talk to each other rather than at each other, hostility tends to evaporate. And it works whether people use their 'real' name or not.

As for how to eliminate the rancor on WaPo, there is little a massive purge wouldn't solve. I'm talking Biblical deluge. The system is broken and I am actually looking forward to the cleansing effect a paywall might have even though I am likely to lose a lot of good imaginary friends in the flood.

I am reminded of a saying that goes: 

If you take a barrel of sewage and add a teaspoon of wine, you get a barrel of sewage; if you take a barrel of wine and add a teaspoon of sewage, you get a barrel of sewage. 

And there is no shortage of sewage in the series of pipes that form the internet. It takes a lot of work to keep the wine unsullied. But it can be done without infringing on people's privacy and anonymity.

The Women Of Weiner

There are many angles to the latest news scandal about how Congressman Andrew Weiner allegedly sent a college co-ed a photo of his semi-turgid member underneath his underwear. Now the actual origin and vector of that photo will be Zaprudered for weeks to come, but one interesting point was made by recent college co-ed and Washington Post humor blogger Alexandra Petri about the composition of Rep. Weiner's twitter followees.

And of the 200 people @RepWeiner follows on Twitter, a surprising number (well, more than zero, at any rate) do seem to be what might be termed nubile out-of-state houris.

Deciding to not take her word for it, I conducted my own independent investigation. Here is a smorgasbord of the people Weiner finds interesting.


Representative Capps is a coworker and colleague. Nothing out of line here.


Another fellow congresscritter. Arguably cuter. And single.


A CNN anchor. A guy has to stay informed. Who cares if she's a newsbabe? It's the quality of the reporting that counts, right?


An up-and-coming journalist. Makes sense to have some friends in the Fourth Estate.


A New Yorker. Possibly a constituent. You have to keep up with the common people.


I gotta dispute the 'body of a trucker' description. She seems pretty cute and at least she's a New Yorker.


Another New Yorker. Who cares if she's in the fashion industry and blazing hott?


A woman with a strong opinion on an important issue.


Another political junkie. One who wears really cute hats.


A lot of enthusiasm, but it seems to be mostly for the internet start-up she's associated with as evidence by this tweet elliptically referencing the current kerfuffle:

I'm pretty sure I only have room for one Brooklyn Weiner in my life...@DoSomething CTO George Weiner. Follow him @GeorgecaWeiner #15minutes

Now we are moving into some dangerous territory. There is no obvious connection to politics or New York but she does rock the brainy glasses.


At least we are back to politics. Incidentally, Lady Fox Fyre's twitter feed is invite-only and she only has 30 followers, so our congressman is in pretty select company.


A college student from Pennsylvania. Tsk, tsk, these are the sort of follows that get you a reputation, Andrew. Ms DeVinney does have this to say:

I normally TRY not to generalize but anyone who thinks Weiner sent a picture from his TWITTER is an idiot. GOP care about something real.

At least she is a college professor but there is a little bit of a come hither tone in the profile.


A cutie with this to say as well:

Poverty, education, healthcare, corporate greed, & Snooki's car accident. Seriously, there are way more important things to report about.

Another invite-only feed, but once you have 'kitten' and 'X' in your handle, there some innuendo going on.


An anonymous woman with no profile photo but a twitter handle that is brainy and sexy.


When it comes to suggestive handles and profile photos, it doesn't get more risque that this.


And once you have hearts and a call-out to Anaïs Nin in your profile description, a line has been crossed.

Perhaps I'm following the wrong track. Maybe the issue shouldn't be who Weiner would like to tweet his wiener to, but who would appreciate such a tweet.


Weiner and Stewart are actual friends so it seems odd that he follows the gay parody twitter feed rather than the real thing.


Not sayin' a thing.


If you are tweeting crotch shots as a constituent service, this would be the place to send it.


Only because when you are discussing Weiner, there is a legal obligation to make a Boehner joke as well.

From this rather prejudiced and selectively organized sub-list feel free to draw your own conclusions. But, please, please, please, do not stalk these otherwise innocent bystanders and by all means don't try to frame any outspoken congressmen by faking a junk shot and framing them as the recipient.

The Weingarten Effect

or Asshat, No More

In order to belie the impression that I am unhealthily obsessed with the career of Gene Weingarten, I try to only blog about him once a year or so. That's been tough lately because he has been ubiquitous in promoting his new comic strip Barney and Clyde (and the allusion to the Beatty-Dunaway codgerflick is intentional). In a Washington Post feature story he tells how the five year gestation of the strip started as a bonding opportunity with his grown son Dan who he feels had been neglected growing up in favor of his daughter and future veterinarian Molly.

The high concept of the strip is "a billionaire befriends a bum". Presumably, hilarity ensues. The Weingartens enlisted the artistic support of David Clark for the actually drawing part of the comic. As part of the media blitz Gene interviewed himself for the Miami Herald which was full of softballs. So the online Washington Post chat he recently held was my opportunity to interview him, albeit stealthily. Since he knows of my blog and my opinions about him, by having twittered about me, mentioning me in his chat, and once suspiciously asking if I had anything to do with his Facebook posts being flagged as being inappropriate (I helpfully suggested that he check with the WaPo webmonkeys if their ill-fated Facebook Direct feature was incorrectly marking him as a spammer), I used a variety of aliases to submit a dozen questions to the chat. He ended up answering seven of them. Here they are with running commentary:

Peanut Gallery: Enough with the stage setting. When does the funny start?

Gene Weingarten: We thought we'd wait a few more months.

The first three weeks of the strip have been a lot of backstory, building to the meeting of the titular odd couple. A nice self-deprecating response to start off the chat.

Kar, MA: What has been the reaction of fellow comic artists, particularly the ones you have abused and ridiculed over the years? Does becoming a published cartoonist make you more sympathetic or less towards the demands of producing a daily strip?

Gene Weingarten: DEFINITELY more sympathetic.

Haven't had any piling on by the cartoonist establishment yet, after a brief, spirited salvo before the strip debuted. I expect some, though. It's not impossible some of the anonymous Commentariat to this story comes from those guys. We'll never know.

When the comic was first announced, the comments on The Daily Cartoonist were fairly rough on both the concept and the execution. Some of the more over the top ridicule may have been tongue-in-cheek, but then again, maybe not. The comments on the above-linked feature article split pretty evenly between fawning and vicious. But with less than fifty comments, by WaPo standards, that counts as complete indifference.

Buggy Whip, PA: With newspapers dying, why are you starting a newspaper comic? Why not do a webcomic where the barriers of entry are so much lower?

Gene Weingarten: Very good question. Dan and I are very bad businessmen: It was either start a newspaper comic or become commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico.

Another nice faux-deprecating comment. Well played, but not a real answer. The more daring choice would be to develop the strip under a pseudonym to see if it would sink or swim without whatever minor cachet the Weingarten name gives it.

yelloj, KT: What rules have you established for the aging rate of your characters? Is that adorable smart-alecked daughter going to stay 13 forever?

Gene Weingarten: Dan and I and David have yet to solidify out strategy here. My vote would probably be to freeze them forever. I'm not sure I want to see Cynthia with breasts.

Gene Weingarten: This reminds me. For years I have had a question that I have never gotten a cartoonist to give me a straight answer to. When they draw something sexy, do they turn themselves on?

Even DAVID CLARK wouldn't give me a straight answer to this. I think there is something dark and disturbing under the surface here.

Gene Weingarten: Oh, and Cynthia is 11, not 13. At 13, she'd probably already have breasts.

This question, which could possibly tip my hand as to who asked it, is a callback to my post two years ago where I call Gene an asshat for his completely illogical theories of Comic Strip Temporal Dynamics. Clearly he has rethought this and backpedaled some.

As for his hypothetical about comics artists in lust with their characters, I have two words: Greg Evans. And let's not even mention the rather fan servicey Brooke McEldowney.

SPP: In two weeks, you have managed to use the Silent Penultimate Panel trope three times. What other comic strip cliches do you intend to repeatedly use in a post-modern ironic manner?

Gene Weingarten: Oh, we are adherents of the SPP. We make no apologies for it.

This poster, possibly a toonist, is referring to the conceit in which the next-to-last panel of a strip is essentially a silent freeze frame. It's a timing thing: a setup has occurred, and this delivers a drawn-out moment of tension -- or a dawning realization -- before the punch.

It's effective. A cliche, but effective. Cliches become cliches because they are effective.

I like that Gene hypothesizes that I may be a cartoonist because I know all the insidery lingo. Nevermind that there was an entire blog dedicated to penultimate panels. And speaking of which, he goes to that well in today's Sunday strip as well.

Tralfamad, Ore.: Gene, When Dave Barry 'retired' (he has a new book out) and you tried to take his place as syndicated columnist of choice, it kind of flopped. How is syndication of Barney and Clyde going vis-a-vis your previous effort?

Gene Weingarten: I like your place name.

No one took Dave's place. Essentially, when he retired his column, 450 newspapers retired their decision to have a humor columnist. I suppose if I had been as funny as Dave, I could have persuaded them not to. But, as I have said often in the past, I don't consider it an insult to be told I am not as funny as Dave Barry.

As far as Barney & Clyde, we'll revisit whether it's a flop in six months.

Didn't think I'd answer this one, did you, Jocko?

This was one of my more caustic questions, so Gene does get points for answering it. Despite having won two Pulitzer Prizes, Weingarten's lasting contribution to newspaper history is 'discovering' and editing Dave Barry while at the Miami Tropic. So there is really no shame in not being able to fill those shoes.

Fo, MA: It's very traditional in the comics industry for sons to take over from their fathers, e.g. anything originally drawn by Mort Walker and/or Dik Browne. Are you two the first case you know of where a father and son have started a strip together?

Gene Weingarten: I believe so. If anyone knows any different, please tell us.

This was just me showing off. From there the chat kind of petered out. Two or three of the questions I asked were answered by similar questions from other readers. You can peruse the whole chat here.

So after three weeks, my verdict is a resounding "meh". Barney and Clyde is hardly the worst strip on the comics page but there is no way it could be. On the other hand, after five years of self-promotion and endless bloviating about the inadequacies of other comics, he has labored mightily and brought forward a mouse.

There are some cute post-modern touches, but there is a decidedly retro feel that reeks of fuddy-duddyness rather than cutting edge. The dense dialog and overtly sloppy hand-lettering is deliberately defying the ever shrinking funny-pages trend. Perhaps evoking nostalgia is the way to go when the age of the average newspaper reader is Dead. Or perhaps the joke is on us and the strip is trying to be as mundane as possible.

There is a phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect where people are incapable of recognizing their inadequacies and they have an excessively high opinion of their capabilities, often to tragic effect. I propose the Weingarten Corollary where one is very successful in one field (because nobody with two unprecedented Pulitzers can be called a failure) but blind to the fact that their talents don't always translate to other areas. It could also be called the Michael Jordan Baseball Effect. The slew of actors who have tried to become singers and vice versa are all victims of it.

Barney and Clyde is a result of a lethal brew of hubris and naïveté mixed with dollops of armchair quarterbacking and topped with a patina of father-son bonding. Much of the hostility towards it stems from the fact that Gene clearly has pull in the newspaper world that the average comic strip writer breaking into the business does not have. Two of the four newspapers carrying it have direct Weingarten connections. And what artist is having his circulation cut or his strip turned down so that Gene can indulge in this retirement-time nepotistic bucket listing?

One thing for sure, the strip does seem to be teaching Gene some small measure of humility. But as the Waitresses sang a couple of decades ago, "I don't want to be somebody's learning experience. Some rich kids way of spending his allowance."

I really wish the strip the best, mostly because Dan Weingarten seems genuinely funny. But keeping his dad from using 'Gerald Ford falls down' jokes and recycling all his old humor columns is probably too big a task to attempt. Let's hope the strip develops and shows some character, not just a bunch of characters.