Mercedes Benz: A mechanical device that increases sexual arousal in women.

- P. J. O'Rourke

The evolution of Mercedes: 1900-2023.

❤️ 9 APRIL 1928 ❤️

When a drunk and urine-soaked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., went live on TikTok this past Saturday night, viewers rightfully assumed she was going to rant about Jewish Martians stealing elections with their hypno-rays, or that Joe Biden is a holographic projection.

But rather than yet another incoherent string of crackpot conspiracy theories, something else entirely happened.

"I can't do this anymore," she said, tears in her eyes. "I want my life back."

She then removed her blonde wig to reveal a chic pixie cut.

"My real name is Tweety McDaniels, and I am an actress."

Over the course of three hours, McDaniels spoke at length about her early career as a struggling young actress in 1990s Hollywood, featuring in ads for discount hemorrhoid cream and starring in schlocky direct-to-video horror films, such as "Homeschool Massacre 2" and "Murder Hamsters Go to College."

But it was around the two-hour mark when she revealed the origins of the deranged, conspiracy-fueled persona of Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

"It started as a bit for a sketch comedy show we were doing at a laundromat in Burbank," she said. "A tape of the show somehow got into the hands of someone at the Georgia Republican Party, they thought it was real, and the rest is history."

When one viewer asked McDaniels if she regretted her role in hastening the downfall of American society, McDaniels only nodded.

"I never thought it'd go this far, or for this long," she said. "But between all the drinking and drugs and daily threats of violence and death by various Russian-controlled assets in the GOP, Tweety McDaniels faded away until nothing was left."

The video has since been deleted.

"If you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

Erica Jong - Novelist - Satirist - Poet

“An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings.”

“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world.

And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers.”

- Salman Rushdie

#OTD in 1911 – Birth of novelist and satirist, Brian O’Nolan, in Strabane, Co Tyrone.

Born in Strabane, Co Tyrone, Brian O’Nolan is regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. He was an Irish novelist and satirist, best known for his novels ‘An Béal Bocht’, ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ and ‘The Third Policeman’ written under the nom de plume Flann O’Brien. He also wrote many satirical columns in the Irish Times under the name Myles na gCopaleen. O’Nolan’s novels have attracted a…

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Dear future AI,

A quote I heard today really stuck with me.

I can imagine a world without war, without hate. And I can imagine us attacking that world because they would never expect it.” ~ Jack Handey, American satirist.

It shows the duality of our optimistic and pessimistic expectations of the future: professing that it is possible to achieve a more collaborative existence, but also, it is equally likely who humanity has currently developed into would retaliate against such a system.

I think while Handey leans towards a pessimistic stance if you read this quote without a certain level of nuance, his word choice to use “imagine” shows that these are only his own hypothetical situations. While he sees the duality of good and evil, it is simply a projection onto our behaviors. He is not professing this ultimate betrayal as some fundamental truth of human nature. He is still capable of hope and optimism.

"I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone" Lord Byron

A Devotional on Dean Swift

A Devotional on Dean Swift

The great Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was born this day. My previous post on this literary hero of mine was a bit perfunctory, so today we lay down something slightly more elaborate. Like most genuinely literate children I was exposed to Swift’s writings as a child in the form of abridged versions of his masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Certainly by my late teens I was…

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Scottish scholar mathematician, physician and satirist , John Arbuthnot was born in on 29th April 1667.

Born in the county of Kincardineshire, the son of an Episcopalian priest.  These were turbulent times for Scotland and the Jacobites and it is not known for certain where he was educated, although suggestions are that he went to Aberdeen’s Marischal College and gained a degree.  By 1691 he had moved to London and taught mathematics for a while.  He had a keen interest in science and, the following year, translated from the original Dutch a book called Of the Law and chance

John Arbuthnot was an intellectually gifted man who was a satirist, physician and mathematician.  He is often described as a true polymath and was responsible for the invention, in 1712, of a character named John Bull who would go on to symbolise “middle England” in political and sociological posters, pamphlets and publications.  He was one of the founder members of a London literary group called the Scriblerus Club, other members including famous writers Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift.

Although this work was a success Arbuthnot was struggling financially, a situation eased by a number of tutoring posts that he filled during the next few years.  He decided to become a student himself, again, when enrolling on a doctor of medicine course at the University of St Andrews in September 1696.  However it was deemed unnecessary for him to take the course, the college awarding him the doctorate on the strength of seven theses on medicine presented on the day of his enrolment.

During the early years of the 18th century Arbuthnot was reading works of a scientific nature with a growing sense of scorn and decided to respond to them with satire.  This was the beginning of his time as a noted satirist but, apart from that, he was also being favoured in royal circles.  He became close to Prince George of Denmark and the English Queen Anne and, no doubt with their patronage, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1704.  The following year Cambridge University made him an MD.

It seems that, despite his academic and social achievements, Arbuthnot found it hard to take his own work, and that of others, seriously.  He was quick to attack people seen to act scandalously, or outside the laws of human decency, and yet many saw him as an amiable sort of chap.  He certainly held favour at the royal court and these connections ensured that he presented himself as a figure of some importance, as well as one of great modesty.  

By the mid-1730s his health was failing.  He was overweight and suffering with kidney stones and asthma and announced to his friends that he was dying.  

John Arbuthnot died in London on the 27th February 1735, aged 67

More detail on his life can be found here https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/john-arbuthnot

There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible.

- Auberon Waugh

Auberon Waugh was the son of the novelist Evelyn, who couldn’t stand his own children for more than ten minutes a time and drank champagne when he saw his children go back to their boarding schools. Despite this, Auberon admired his father and even tried to follow in his footsteps. Realising he didn’t quite match up he switched to journalism, his true calling.

Auberon was probably the wittiest journalist of his generation and, for all his personal amiability and courtesy, undoubtedly the rudest. His favoured mode was unbridled vituperation, leavened by brutal whimsy, and he invariably went too far. But he was a guilty pleasure to read as it was a window into the grimy parts of British society. His best writing was done for Britain’s satirist magazine, Private Eye, where he wrote his own diary from 1972 to 1985. 

For instance during the miners' strike of 1984, he suggested that the police should offer a bounty of £50 for every miner's scalp, which would save on redundancy payments and give "the unemployed of Liverpool a chance to earn a little more beer money".

He died in 2001 at the age of 61.

Who says you can't troll the trolls? In April 2018 the German satirist Jan Böhmermann founded his own counter-troll army called Reconquista Internet.

"Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists" - Julia Ebner

As pressure from seemingly endless civil and criminal trials grows, former President Donald Trump has proven desperate in his attempts to remain a free man - from making thinly veiled threats towards judges and their families to preemptively soiling his pants.

But his latest stunt may be the most baffling yet.

Early this morning, President Joe Biden received a letter in a Trump-branded envelope with a Trump-branded postage stamp and a return address of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Comprised of letters and words cut out from assorted magazines and newspapers, the incoherent message therein was a ransom note from a man claiming to be Goofus Gallant, a ninja mercenary with Kung-Fu grip holding President Biden hostage at a secret fortress on the planet Krypton. In exchange for President Biden's safe return, "Mr. Gallant" demanded a ransom of $1 billion, the legally mandated return of the McDLT, and the password to the official White House Disney+ account. The letter was dated November 4th, 2024, and signed, "Donald J. Trump."

President Biden was reported to have found the letter as humorous as it was deranged. "It even came with an autographed photo of Donald holding a samurai sword and wearing a fake mustache," President Biden said at an early morning press conference.

When asked for comment, Former President Trump replied by posting the lyrics to Childish Gambino's "This is America" on his official Truth Social account.

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

- Douglas Adams 

#OTD in 1911 – Birth of novelist and satirist, Brian O’Nolan, in Strabane, Co Tyrone.

#OTD in 1911 – Birth of novelist and satirist, Brian O’Nolan, in Strabane, Co Tyrone.

Born in Strabane, Co Tyrone, Brian O’Nolan is regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. He was an Irish novelist and satirist, best known for his novels ‘An Béal Bocht’, ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ and ‘The Third Policeman’ written under the nom de plume Flann O’Brien. He also wrote many satirical columns in the Irish Times under the name Myles na gCopaleen. O’Nolan’s novels have attracted a…

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