(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Thursday, June 20, 2002
Warblogger watching is harder on the ocular faculties than I had imagined, though the stomach upset it often occasions is far less surprising. I can now understand why the wonderful Mr. Eric Blair posts so seldom to this forum - he's no longer up to the task. Repeated confrontation with the obnoxious bilge discharged by the warbloggers frays the nerves and withers the spirits. Warblogger watching is, at bottom, an auto-administration of the Ludovico Technique, though it has none of the associated ameliorative upshots on character.
Actually, it works the other way. Having realized the deleterious effects on my psyche and my person, I am forced to limit my output on these pages. Having to suffer through another of Lowell Ganz's Rosemary Kennedy-like embarrassment of a son's shameful fulminations would surely reduce me to David Brock levels.
Before I take my leave for the next few days, allow me to offer a few notes for that most objectionable of warblogging sissies. "The Franchise" puts forward the following this afternoon: "ISLAMIKAZES: How's that for a new name for suicide bombers? A reader suggested it." Quite an indication as to who is reading your running display of prejudices, Sully! Warbloggers have been tossing that one around since April, at least. The more scrupulous employing the term cited this Jerusalem Post article crediting the term to professor Rafi Israeli, himself as much a remorseless thief of verbiage as your "reader."
The piece in which Prof. Israeli is credited bears a December 20 dateline (he used the term again in a March 21, 2002 piece, the likely location of the warbloggers' initial encounter with the "neologism"). Sadly for the learned professor, the term appeared first in a New Statesman piece. Worse, the issue of the Statesman from which the term was lifted was current when the Post wrongly credited him. The coincidence in dates strongly suggests Israeli merely repeated something he had read first in the Statesman. That he appears to have not issued a letter correcting the misattribution, which, given his later use of the term - in scare quotes and again without assigning the term to James - seems to suggest deliberate theft. A perusal of the professor's "scholarship," furnished no reason to believe he regards prevailing standards in academic discourse with anything above contempt.
I mention all this merely to register a miniscule correction in the historical record. I know how big you warbloggers are on accurate attribution ("Yes, I invented the term Paleostinians." Good for you, sugar!). As some guy/girl wrote, "this is the something or other, and we can do something your whatsitcalled." Or something. posted by Anonymous2:25 PM
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The Watchers
WBW: Keeping track of the war exhortations of the warbloggers.
