Entry tags:

books/authors, omg mock people mock, person: neil gaiman, political wank, twitter, wanking inside the house

Tax deductables! Pencil necks! Thieves! HIGH SPEED CAR CHASES!
Well, all right, maybe not high speed car chases. So, the background: last year, Neil Gaiman, author of such lovely things as Neverwhere and the Sandman series etc., was contacted to speak at a library in Minnesota for a hefty speaking fee, which was paid for by a fund which (a) stated any leftover money would be lost if not used, and (b) was also not available for books, salaries, or other useful things. Neil Gaiman did so, and subsequently donated the speaking fee to charities.

All's well that ends well, right? Well, except that Matt Dean, the House Majority Leader, decided it was time to let his long-simmering grudge be aired to the world: 'Dean said that Gaiman, "who I hate," was a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota."'

Neil is... well, he's not well pleased. Nor is his Twitter.

"Sad & funny. Minnesota Republicans have a "hate" list. Like Nixon did. I'm on it. They also don't like capitalism. http://t.co/FObmLGo"

"It's strange watching a grownup high school bully in power. But the bully vocabulary remains the same. http://t.co/FObmLGo"

"And for those curious how and why I made it onto the hate list, what I wrote at the time on my blog. http://bit.ly/lMxsWQ"

"Any nice, sane Minnesota Republicans reading this, please vote for someone who isn't a bully with a hate list next time."

"You can listen to the Stillwater speech that all the Pencil-neck fuss is about at http://bit.ly/k3lA1B (You need to go down to point 2.)"

He also happened to link to Dean's blog, which proceeded to crash. Whoops.

So you'd think that Dean would realize his mistake and apologize, right? Well... sort of. Why?

His mommy made him do it.

The universe collectively facepalms.

(Bonus funny from the comments, courtesy from someone called Lucas: "Do weasel thieves steal just weasels? Or do they also steal ferrets, otters, and wolverines? In the case of the latter, how do they arrange for transportation?")

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sgaana
2011-05-06 10:01 pm UTC (link)

Do you NOT take full history classes on a country just because you don't live there? For every hypothetical person whom you can argue would not choose to learn anything about a country of which they were becoming a resident, you can point to other examples of people who choose to learn more about other countries' culture and history just because they feel they want to or should, without having any "reason".

I looked up one day and realized that I didn't know anything about the history of Australia beyond a few basic facts that I'd picked up here and there. I went out and got a few general history books and read them. I did the same with a big comprehensive history of Canada when I realized it was silly for me not to know more about the history and culture of a neighboring country whose tv I watch a lot.

Which is not to say "yay me" but only to point out that it happens.

At any rate, we're arguing here about the reasonable-to-assume knowledge base of a specific person, not people in general. There are fairly good reasons to assume that Gaiman in particular would be more aware of American history and culture than most non-Americans. And saying that one thinks that HE ought to be is NOT the same thing as saying that "America is the center of the universe".

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