Whither The Fool?

Exurban League Blog has picked up on the story of one Earl Simmons, who goes by the hip-hop moniker DMX.

Seems that Mr. Simmons has been puttin’ on the dog - in fact, quite a few of them.

Friday’s search was prompted by reports that pit bulls kept by the rapper at the home in rural north Phoenix were not being given enough food or water. A dozen pit bulls were seized, the bodies of three dogs were dug up in the yard and a variety of assault-style weapons were taken from the home, [Maricopa County, AZ] Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.

The authorities also found quite a lot of illegal drugs. The cops aren’t saying what led them to move on the rapper’s digs, but Exurban League observes that DMX, who has 8 albums of “music” to his credit during his career, may have dropped a few hints along the way:

Apparently, the guy had quite the obsession with canis lupus familiaris.

Here are a few song titles: “Get at Me Dog”, “For My Dogs”, “Dogs for Life”, “The Kennel”, “Dog Love” (wha?), “Walk These Dogs” and “Dogs Out”. He also has a album titled Year of the Dog… Again and the album Grand Champ featuring what looks like a dog-fighting champion.

Simmons’ attorney has said that the rapper “hasn’t been there [at the home] for two months.” Haven’t we heard something like that before?

It’s important to note that authorities haven’t yet charged Simmons with any wrongdoing, but you have to wonder: Why would anyone actually admit through their “songs” that they have this “thing” for dogs, particularly the fighting breeds? (The dog shown on the cover of DMX’s 2003 album Grand Champ is most definitely not a Pomeranian).

Oh, but wait a minute. This guy is an “artist” in a genre that glorifies pimping, ‘ho’ing, cop-killing and criminality of all sorts. Dogfighting’s pretty mild in comparison.

If this story begins to expand into something more significant, along the lines of what we’ve seen with Mike Vick, it makes me wonder if we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Either way, this is Foolishness by design.

N.B. Word on the street is that Snoop Dog has a real problem with this guy.

(And it does beg the timeless question: Who DID Let The Dogs Out?)

My, how Ed Bott of ZDNet gushes over the nifty features of his *new* Microsoft Vista Media Center PC:

Vista Media Center takes over the living room by ZDNet’s Ed Bott — In June, I recounted my out-of-the-box experience with a new Dell PC running Windows Vista. In July, I took the plunge and moved this system out of the office and into the living room. With a few extra bits of hardware, everything is working together perfectly. If you’ve considered doing the same thing, read my advice and check out the accompanying image gallery.

Something struck me as not quite logical about all the gushing. Reading further in the original article, Bott further explains:

My goal with this system was to consolidate all of our digital media - photos, music, and home videos - into a single location accessible over the network. I want to be able to play back any album or song, create playlists on the fly, launch slide shows, and view home movies, all using a remote control.

Sounds neat, right? I mean, we should all go significantly upgrade our computer systems - or buy new - so that we can set up a state-of-the-art Vista Media Center and have all these nifty capabilities! Hey, I’m a gadget-freak, why not?

Well, my first thought was “Jiminy Christmas, I been doing this for the last two years with my WINDOWS XP Media Center PC System!” I mean, EXACTLY this, not a single feature missing in my two-year-old system that Bott describes in his Vista setup.

But wait, there’s more! Bott then casually mentions:

I had no doubt that the Media Center interface would work, because we’ve been happily using Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 for the past two years,…

So Bott wasted my precious time (that coulda been spent blogging) just to tell me that, yessir, the *NEW* Microsoft Vista Media Center OS can sho’ ’nuff do the exact same things as the old XP Media Center?

Well, let’s be a bit circumspect, here. It’s not *exactly* the same “out of the box experience.” After all, with Vista, it being all new and up-to-date and shiny and everything, I’d have to have a faster processor, more memory, up-to-date video subsystem, etc.

So really, what Bott means to say is that I can pay over a thousand bucks so that I can have a Vista system that does the same thing my old XP system can do. Nothing added except that “Vista experience” (you know, with Aero and all that).

No wonder Microsoft’s having a tough time moving this product.

No, Redmond, I’m sorry.

“Won’t get Fooled again.”

Esposito (Jacobo Morales): From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. [Crowd begins to murmur] Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now… 16 years old!

Fielding Mellish (Woody Allen): What’s the Spanish word for straitjacket?

[From the Woody Allen film Bananas (1971)]

Okay, at the time we thought it was absurdity. But life imitates art, no matter how absurd.

From Simon Romero, NYT:

Moved by claims that it will help the metabolism and productivity of his fellow citizens, [Venezuela's] President Hugo Chávez said clocks would be moved forward by half an hour at the start of 2008. He announced the change on his Sunday television program, accompanied by his highest-ranking science adviser, Héctor Navarro, the minister of science and technology. “This is about the metabolic effect, where the human brain is conditioned by sunlight,” Mr. Navarro said in comments reported by Venezuela’s official news agency. Mr. Chávez said he was “certain” that the time change, which would be accompanied by a move to a six-hour workday, would be accepted.

Our man Hugo has been a busy boy of late. Given his reelection to an illegal third term as president to thuggish threats against Paraguay to his self-appointed role as exorcist to the United Nations, I don’t see how he has time to study the “metabolic effect” of sunlight.

But feats of super-human prowess appears to be a hallmark of enlightened autocratic rule.

[Ed. Note: Frank Zappa tried to warn us.]

From al-Reuters UK comes this rather disturbing article.

I can only assume that alcohol was thoroughly involved. I also suspect that the word “acrimonious” as used in the al-Reuters article is an example of the well-known British understatement.

What a fragile, defenseless thing a naked, drunken ex-husband is.

Not to mention Foolish beyond my ability to express.

I thought I would add boxer Roy Jones, Jr. to the list of Fools represented on this blog. However, in searching for his comments regarding Mike Vick and his pit bull dogfighting operation, I came across this blog instead.

Now, here’s a guy who agrees with Jones, Jr. that “pit bulls are bred to fight–they’ve got ‘lock jaws’ after all–and therefore there’s nothing wrong with letting them fight.” Foolish enough.

Then he goes on with a sad obituary to the passing of former NBA player Eddie Griffin (who is famous, here in Houston, for costing the Rockets an arm and a leg while contributing nothing except some lines in the police blotter while he was with the team). Now, I do think Griffin, who is also known for driving, not only DRUNK, but during an act of self-stimulation while watching a porn DVD, is sad story indeed. But this guy makes it sound like we just witnessed the passing of one of the greats, like Marlon Brando’s character in On The Waterfront instead of just another punk thug with too much money and too little character.

Finally, “RDM” spouts the typical all-morals-are-relative take on Vick’s conviction, exclaiming (without even knowing Vick’s actual sentence, which as of this writing hasn’t been determined) that Vick is probably going to get more time than the preacher’s wife who murdered her husband and got off with a preposterously light sentence by using the “Burning Bed” defense (that is still potent after all these years, apparently - who says that Oprah is losing her influence?) I think the guy got confused during his spiel, by the way, because he spends so much time trying to remain politically-correct about the “poor, abused woman” that he forgets that he’s undercutting his own argument.

But what can you expect from a Fool?

Henceforth I vow to return to the original premise of this blog: to document at least one case, daily, of abject FOOL-ness in the news. Some may be obscure, some may be well-known, but all will be without a shred of evidence that the person or persons involved used their higher faculties in proceeding with their words or actions.

Why do you think the Left is drawn so paradoxically to kinship with radical Islamism?

I don’t think it’s really that difficult to explain.

It’s because, as Mel Brooks’ “Indian Chief” character puts it in the film Blazing Saddles:

“They’re darker than us.”

“The Dark Peoples” always get a free pass at the White-Guilt Checkout Line.