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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tunxeh
2011-05-07 08:31 am UTC (link)

The metafilter thread on this incident has become much wankier than is usual for mefi. Large amounts of RTFA! and NO U! and "I'm sure I could have done a much better job, personally, of managing a large arts fund that I know nothing about."

To make up for all the unfunny, here are a few highlights that amused me:

And then he apparently set a small boy afloat in some sort of balloon?

Neil's neck in no way resembles a pencil

It's actually not just one, but several parallel universes in which he's a science fiction writer. About twice as many parallel universes that the ones in which he's a street busker.

THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI PAID NEIL ARMSTRONG $45 MILLION DOLLARS TO TALK TO HOWARD DEAN'S MOTHER ABOUT PENCIL-NECKED WEASELS? I'M OUTRAGED.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	chibikaijuu 2011-05-08 03:04 am UTC (link)
	Why do so many people think that getting a bunch of lesser-known authors who would speak for a fraction of his fee would be a better use of the money? The whole point of the program is to bring in big-name authors to smaller libraries that wouldn't normally see them. Those other authors would also be pretty damn unlikely to fill a room to capacity. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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