b Papa Dog's Blog: Explain Yourselves!

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Monday, December 20, 2004

Explain Yourselves!

For those who don’t take the time to click on the comments, here’s what Charles wrote on my last post: “You know, the results of your current poll are so unsettling that you should have an entry allowing voters to give justification of their horrifying choices. Like, me, I voted for Michael Jackson. He’s a confirmed loon and an alleged pederast, but he’s more likely to be gentle with a kid and do no harm to one under his present circumstances than say Mommie Dearest or Der Führer. Especially since I’m, ethnically speaking, a Jew.”

A very timely query, as I’m finally closing that poll down and declaring Adolf Hitler the official least desirable celebrity babysitter. For those who didn’t see or don’t remember, the original roster of potential babysitters consisted of Michael Jackson, Lewis Carroll, Adolf Hitler, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Courtney Love, Bing Crosby, and Joan Crawford. I selected this list kind of randomly, but figured a case could be made for why one might be uneasy leaving one’s child with any one of them – and that, if push came to shove, perhaps a rationale might be made for why any one wasn’t quite as bad as one of the others.

In the first round of balloting, Sir Anthony was the clear winner, receiving 7 votes. He was followed by Lewis Carroll (3), and Michael Jackson and Courtney Love (1 each). Sir Anthony – the only one on the list who had never been the subject of innuendo regarding childcare of genocide, was the obvious choice. I consciously bucked that myself, voting for Lewis Carroll. My rationale – other than wanting to avoid backing a winner – was that Sir Anthony, while no doubt a charming fellow in real life, might give nightmares to any child he cared for who happened to have seen that movie, you know, oh what’s it called, oh yeah, The Remains of the Day. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I remember having terrible dreams about repressed butlers when I was a tyke. Lewis Carroll, on the other hand, though know to fancy the wee lasses, was far too Victorian to ever act on it, and would come up with the most enthralling bedtime stories.

In round two, Tony and Lew were eliminated. That left Courtney Love as the clear favourite, with five votes, followed by Bing Crosby with two. I can’t remember for certain, but I think I voted for Courtney this time, although she again was the obvious front runner, being the only one who’d never been accused of doing injury to a child or ethnic group. I almost voted for Bing because so far as I know he only beat his own kids, but I decided not to take the chance.

With those two eliminated, we were left with the final three: Jacko, Hitler, and Mommy Dearest. I think it’s at this point that the poll becomes most interesting. This time, Joan Crawford seemed the obvious choice – while she was by all indications a terrible mother and a real piece of work, she wasn’t a molester and she never actually killed anybody. I voted for her. Two people voted for Jacko and one for Hitler.

I think it would have been toughest if I’d left the poll up with Hitler and Jacko going mano a mano, but this thing has stretched out more than long enough. I wouldn’t want to leave my child with either of these fellows, but here are my thoughts on why someone might choose one over the other.

Charles makes a good pro-Jacko case, although I’m not sure I buy the “under his present circumstances” argument. Michael has clearly been at cross purposes with reality for a long long time, and I’m honestly not sure he understands the ramifications of the things he does, even now. Mama Dog points out that she’d be more worried he might dangle the baby out the window than that he’d molest her (particularly since his preference seems to be for little boys). She still tends to view him as an essentially asexual man-child who’s been widely misunderstood and misrepresented in the popular press. Maybe so, who knows? I definitely wouldn’t agree to any overnight stays at Neverland.

Now in defence of Herr Hitler – not how I expected to start a sentence when I woke up this morning, but this is devil’s (almost literally) advocate – while it’s true that he’s responsible for the extermination of millions of people, many of them children, there’s no evidence that he ever personally did any harm to a child under his care. If I had to work and Mama Dog had a job interview, and Hitler offered to keep an eye on Baby Dog at the Berchtesgarten for the afternoon, it might be tempting.

At any rate – Charles is right. Those of you who’ve voted on this – and particularly whoever it was who gave Hitler the thumbs up – should post your reasoning here. I think it would be a very illuminating look at our essential priorities.

(And Charles – isn’t Jewishness traditionally passed down matrilineally? Since it’s on your dad’s side, dude, you’re a goy! Like, technically.)

2 Comments:

Blogger Charles Brownstein said...

Dude, tell that to the Belsen Burners. My last name is unmistakably Jewish, and I've got Russian Jew blood on one side and questionably goyim Czech/Pole blood on the other. Add it up and if it looks like a Jew, and it smells like a Jew, then it probably burns like a Jew as well.

So, yeah, technically I'm a goy, but I still wouldn't take any chances leaving my kid in the hands of that coke-addled loon.

6:37 AM  
Blogger Tarz said...

That's right; I do believe that Jacko is harmless (except for the baby-dangling) and probably innocent of the child molestation charges that are currently against him. Despite the crotch-grabbing for which he was famous in the eighties, Jacko seems about as sexual as a small filbert nut. Instead of sex, he craves intimacy from young children, to make up for the abuse that his father administered to him as small boy. Is there (too) much wrong with that? As long as he keeps it to innocent cuddling, who the fuck cares?

2:30 PM  

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