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Boats Did Have Cannons, and a Loose One Would Cause it to Rock

Most Tortured Metaphor of the Week award goes to Daily columnist D.C. Lee, in his column on the “Show Us the Jobs” tour: “Thus, the bus tour’s rationale that showcasing unemployment will counter misinformation regarding economic recovery is as disingenuous as filling a bus with 51 atheists and parading them around burnt down churches to prove that another bus full of bishops can’t prove there is a God.”

25 Responses to “Boats Did Have Cannons, and a Loose One Would Cause it to Rock”

Well, see, that atheists are the employment skeptics (or unemployed, I’m not sure), the burned-down churches are the remains of urban decay, the bishops are, um, either people with jobs or governmental representatives that claim there are jobs, and God is employment (a delightfully Ayn Randian image). Also, the wheels on the bus represent capitalism, the bus driver represents the dialectic method of synthesis-antithesis, the tour guide represents Fed chairman Greenspan, the other bus is right-to-work programs in a union state, the roads represent progress and the rest stop represents relief from metaphoric confusion.
It’s all very clear (shades of this week’s Onion story on editorial cartoons).
js
posted by js on March 24th, 2004 at 8:35 am
Like DC, I often find that my best metaphors come to me in dreams.
posted by Sam on March 24th, 2004 at 4:09 pm
Despite his moronic–yet “nuanced”–economic libertarianism, and his inability to actually explain how the AFL-CIO is responsible for the poor economy and joblessness, I do like his spiky blond hair and manly dimpled chin. Ha ha ha ha. Can I sit on your lap while you tell me more about the Invisible Hand?
posted by Alex on March 24th, 2004 at 4:58 pm
But Alex, without the AFL-CIO, people here could work for third-world wages and benefits! Isn’t getting paid $.17 an hour better than not working at all?
(And Jesus, doesn’t everyone know the inherent flaw in basing conclusions about the job market purely on the labor dept.’s new unemployment claims figures? The numbers mean that less people lost their jobs this month, not that unemployment went down. Fucktard.)
js
posted by js on March 24th, 2004 at 5:08 pm
Exactly, JS, it’s the way of the world - if you have to pay somebody for helping you make money, why wouldn’t you want to pay them less than shit rather than more? Clearly the AFL-CIO is holding us back from a world in which wages have no relation to cost of living.

Now excuse me while I go get on the bus with the other 50 athiests and . . . drive by a bus of bishops, and . . . show why a burning church means . . . oh hell with it.
posted by Nick on March 24th, 2004 at 5:34 pm
Guess they don’t teach the undergrads about Fordism…
posted by Alex on March 24th, 2004 at 7:54 pm
Nor do they seem to be teaching them about causal reasoning and hypothesis formation. To draw a metaphor that DC would surely be proud of, governmental fiscal and monetary policy (more so than abstract market forces) is frequently the chicken that lays the egg of decreased domestic labor demand.
posted by Nick on March 24th, 2004 at 8:47 pm
A quick check in the U-M online directory reveals that Dustin (”Dustin”?) C Lee is, ironically, a law student just like the one he chides in his article. So I presume that upon graduation he’ll be just pleased as punch to punch in every day at Jimmy John’s for $8 an hour. Also, his self-description on the directory page is “wise enough to play the fool.” He must be wise indeed, then.
posted by Laura on March 24th, 2004 at 8:49 pm
I particularly love the pseudo-Che Guevarra inco on his website: http://maddox.xmission.com/

Reading his article makes me wonder about his family background. Did grandpa get his head bashed in by Pinkerton’s so that Dustin could one day have the luxury of bitching about how organized labor has destroyed the American Dream?

Is it just me, or does he look like he’s wearing orange lip gloss?
posted by Alex on March 24th, 2004 at 9:27 pm
I don’t know how “icon” became “inco” in my previous comment
posted by Alex on March 24th, 2004 at 9:28 pm
ok, last post from me on this topic because I am now in what DC would call a Feminazi rage. Check out his eloquent essay on feminism and how women should just accept that there will always be gender inequality and therefore take responsibility for their own lives: http://maddox.xmission.com/feminazi.html

The thing that makes me really sick is that this guy probably has a girlfriend.
posted by Alex on March 24th, 2004 at 9:33 pm
that’s not dustin’s homepage. maddox, who is mostly hilarious, is a totally different guy. Overall I love his mad rants.
posted by Laura on March 24th, 2004 at 10:13 pm
…and as far as upsetting feminazi essays, maddox often goes crazy on a topic just to enrage…take it w/a grain of salt is my advice. He’s darn funny.
posted by Laura on March 24th, 2004 at 10:18 pm
oops, my bad.
posted by Alex on March 25th, 2004 at 6:10 am
Maddoxx ownz.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on March 25th, 2004 at 1:00 pm
This is the best metaphor I’ve ever heard. Ever.
It rolls off the tongue in the exact way that peanut butter doesn’t.
posted by Sam on March 25th, 2004 at 1:54 pm
not your bad, Alex–it was Dustin who implied that that was his site. Quel wanna-be.
posted by Laura on March 25th, 2004 at 8:54 pm
He’s a law student at one of the best law schools in the country.

You all sit around making fun of his hair and photograph.

I’m sorry, exactly who’s the loser here?
posted by DontBeSuchTossers on March 26th, 2004 at 5:25 pm
You for posting an asinine response, DBST. Thanks for playing, asshole.
posted by Nick on March 27th, 2004 at 1:55 am
Shouldn’t you be on your way home? Ha ha ha.

Anyway, DC might go to one of the best law schools in the country, but that merely confirms my suspicion that meritocracy is dead.
posted by Alex on March 27th, 2004 at 2:09 am
Yes, and this blog, with its so-called “grad student” minions, is incontrovertible proof that meritocracy is dead.
posted by detrOIt on March 29th, 2004 at 10:03 am
are we so-called minions, or so-called grad students?
posted by Alex on March 29th, 2004 at 7:47 pm
If you needed any further proof that the meritocracy is dead, it should be noted some of us are not a so-called “grad students”, rather a so-called “professors”.
posted by Anna on March 29th, 2004 at 9:59 pm
ouch, that gotta hurt.
posted by __earth on March 29th, 2004 at 11:23 pm
So called indeed. Tranny.
posted by torONTo on March 30th, 2004 at 10:16 am