Wow! It has been a banner week in reprehensible behavior. A special hat tip goes out to America’s crazy homophobes and the voters of North Carolina who decided that they should make the hate part of their state constitution. People are neat.
So let’s take a survey of some of this week’s most dickish behavior. Our first Asshole is super-rich guy Edward Conard of Bain Capital (of course). Conrad, who is a friend of Mitt Romney, has written a book to explain to us all how grateful we should all be to live in a country with lots of income inequality. Conrad takes the usual fratboy douchiness to a whole other level by claiming that we need more income inequality and that the ultra-rich are super swell.
He also claims that the economic melt down was not the fault of lenders and traders and engaged in reckless and predatory practices. It turns out that the real problem was that once everyone realized these assholes didn’t know what they were doing, people pulled their money out of crappy banks and investment firms in an effort to save their own asses. If you all would have let the rich keep wasting your money on worthless investments and bad loans none of this would have happened. Thanks a lot, America! Bonus points: he wants the government to set up a new agency so that banks and investment firms will get a better bail out next time they do this. Our uber-rich must never be forced to suffer like this again.
Ultimately, Conrad suffers from the same delusion many really rich people do. He thinks because he has a lot of money that he has some kind of interesting insight to share with the rest of us. In reality he is just a selfish asshole whose ideas would make most respectable economists laugh.
Our next contender comes from the mighty Thunder Dome of academic politics. Naomi Schaefer Riley, a blogger for the Chronicle of Higher Education, called for the elimination of the entire discipline of Black Studies because she didn’t like the dissertation titles of some students from Northwestern University. The article is a lazy affair where the author picks out three titles she finds objectionable and then bitches about the studies even though it is clear that she is just picking through the abstracts. Apparently, the study of topics like the roles of black conservatives or housing policy are useless and are just examples of black people whining. Instead she demands black scholars look for “Solutions that don’t begin and end with blame the white man.” Wow.
Last week the Chronicle reignited the controversy by firing Riley and the typical outrage was unleashed. There was lots of bitching about how Riley was an annoying racist countered by the usual whining by white people that it is unfair that they can’t say things like “blame the white man” in public without people like me calling them assholes. Of course, all of this misses the obvious point that Riley wrote a shitty, lazy article that was nothing more than a mean-spirited attack on some college students. Look for her new column on Drudge; I am sure it is coming soon.
This last one is probably a strong competitor for this year’s annual Asshole Award. An unidentified online seller from Virginia this week began selling Trayvon Martin shooting range targets. The targets are a figure wearing a hoodie who is also carrying a packet of skittles and a can of iced tea. Isn’t that hilarious? Sweet weeping Jesus. The worst part is actually that the fucktard selling the targets told a local news reporter “My main motivation was to make money off the controversy.” The targets sold out in just two days.
Courage, my friends. Courage.
Send your nominations to [email protected].
Special thanks to Marmalade, Fred, and Miss Anita for this weeks tips.
