One Day At A Time, or A Much-Needed Push

Oh, frabjous day! The Labour contingent of the Scottish Parliament have finally come to their senses and given the World's Worst Political Leader (since Mugabe can win elections, because he's smart enough to make sure he's the only one running) the brush-off. Well, let's face it, it was unlikely that Wendy, having clung to her position for so long throughout the scandal, and displaying the self-awareness and political nous of a particularly thick earthworm, was going to abandon her position voluntarily. The one-day suspension recommended by the Standards Committee was probably the final straw, suggesting to even the finest minds in the Labour Party that keeping her as leader wasn't a good idea after that heavy blow.

"What?" I hear you say, possibly choking effetely a little on your pipe because this is my imagination and I can create whatever strawman I like, boyo. "But the one-day suspension was just a slap on the wrist, at best! She'd be back in the chamber after no time at all, how can that be a heavy blow, except to the obvious morons who're claiming that it was a "partisan" judgement, to which I say tish and fipsy?"

I'm sorry. I'm making you look bad now. Well, let's look at it this way. The Standards Committee is mostly made up of non-Labour members, since Committees are apportioned proportionately based on party strength in the Scottish Parliament, and Labour does not have a majority. Now, if you were an MSP on the Standards Committee, asked to judge on an opposing party's leader who has made a significant fuckup which means that you have to deal with them, and let's just assume for a second that you're a partisan, party-serving Machiavellian bastard, all of which are sterling qualities in a politician, what would you do?

That's right, you would shaft them to within an inch of their life within the boundaries set out in the rules and regulations to leave the opposing party leaderless and disorientated for as long as possible. Advantage, you (or rather disadvantage them, which comes to the same thing). However, if you consider the opposing party's leader a daftie who couldn't find her policies with both hands, who's made a complete arse of everything since she began, and has generally existed under a scandal-laden malaise for her entire period in charge, what do you do then? You suspend her for the minimum amount of time (so she still gets the suspension, and people remember stuff like that), so she can be back in action to fuck up more and more spectacularly as time goes on. Essentially the one-day ban is an insult, saying "you're thick, and we know you are." though it was pretty easy to tell when it came to Wendy.

Thankfully she's gone now, although it's hard to tell who'll replace her. Big Ayrshire Cathie is taking the reins whilst Scottish Labour sorts itself out, and she seems like a steady sort. The big problem is, since the last Scottish leadership election was essentially Nobody vs Wendy Schmendy, that is no-one could be found to oppose such a patently ridiculous candidate as Wendy Alexander, who do they get now? Andy "Dour Bastard" Kerr? Hugh "Who?" Henry? Hell, Frank "Pie and Chips" McAveety doesn't look ridiculous by now. "Nobody" seems like a better candidate, to be honest.

Steamfunk, or The League of Extraordinary Band Names

Is there anyone who, when seeing this comic, didn't immediately google the band to see if they were missing something special? After all, the only reason I read QC now, except for habit, is the bands that get namedropped, especially if I've not heard of them before. This is how I got into Enon, and really I can forgive Jeph Jacques a lot for that, even if his comic is getting interminable.

Anyway, unfortunately, the Society for Creative Rock Anachronism does not exist. But it should exist, and in a just world it would. After all, there's certainly the available instruments.

UPDATE: It is a just world, after all.

Alexander The Pish, or Jersey On My Mind

Wendy Schmendy continues to be the daftest fucker ever to become the leader of a political party, and seeing Scottish Labour's track record, that is indeed a magnificent achievement. Her story, that she seemed to think everything was above board and didnae know, because of advice taken by "experts", just doesn't hold up. If they missed that one, then they aren't much fucking good as experts, are they Wendy? I'd love to use this excuse to the Inland Revenue; "Oh, I was going to pay my taxes, but this bloke round the pub who said he was an accountant said I didn't need to. He was a good bloke, bought me pork scratchings and everything. In any case, I didn't know, so I can get off scot free, yeah?" Alas, I believe the response of the IR would be something along the lines of "Get tae fuck".

But the law works differently for daft fucks who just happen to be in charge of a political party, and it's unlikely, barring a sudden jolt of self-conscience by the Standards Committee, that Wendy will get anything more than a slap on the wrist, or maybe a lobbying job when she steps down after the next election, when she gets utterly skooshed by the Nats. Because, let's face it, that's what's going to happen; even if what she's saying is the truth, and it was those awful legal experts that totally stitched her up, this ongoing scandal has done nothing but hurt her. Coming out in dreeps and draps has been a godsend for the Nats, dominating the narrative about her, and preventing policy debate on the Nats' legislative program. It's lose-lose for her; if she really didn't know, she's incompetent, if she did know, she's a lawbreaking, lying weasel. And this is before we get into the matter of the other £10,000 unaccounted for, not to mention the dodgy fundraising dinner. So we get no message across from Labour except perennial defense for the Amazing Adventures of Wendy Alexander, all the while Salmond takes the piss out of her, as only the fat, jolly, tartan-laden bastard can do. There must be many Labour MSPs, and ordinary party members, sick to the teeth of defending her and wishing she'd commit hari-kiri, sooner rather than later. I know I'd pay for the tantō.

Death From Above 2008, or The Guy Also Swears

So, farewell then, George Carlin. The world's a poorer place without the guy; it's a pity he'll be remembered more for his crudity than his comedy per se. This isn't to say that crudity is a bad thing, or even an unfunny thing; some of the finest comedians of our time had their heads firmly in the gutter. It's just that Carlin will be better known for saying "shit" and "tits", than the way he used "shit" and "tits", which was a hilarious slap at censorship and American prudery, as well as a glee-filled use of the words in an almost poetic, musical way. As it is, he'll be defined as "edgy" and "controversial" by the news, which is the word used by our fair media to describe anything on television not wearing pastels and talking about property prices. Motherfucking Skins, which was about as original and interesting as a paperclip, was considered "edgy" by the media, for fuck's sake, which just tells you how denuded their limited imaginations are. George Carlin will just be remembered as That Guy Who Swore, or perhaps That Atheist Guy, instead of a funny, warm man driven to despair by the world he had to experience. In a word, he was excellent.

As if to prove my prediction, in comes James Lileks before the body's even cold. Lileks is a Minnesotan journalist who lives in a world where it is perennially 1955; before the Soviets challenged American superiority with Sputnik, before the Negroes got uppity, before Watergate, Vietnam, and dirty, smelly hippies. Before America Fell. This is hyperbole, but only slightly. In anyone else his relentless categorising of the cultural minutiae of the mid-20th century would be a cheerful quirk, an interesting peccadillo, even a way to break the ice with guests. With Lileks, you get the feeling it seems to be no less than stockpiling ordinance for the Coming Cultural War. And of course, like any good conservative, he gets off a quick spotting round at the present every now and then, in a cheerful, laconically Minnesotan way.

In any case, after a slight ramble into what Carlin was all about, Lileks gets to the meat of his own obituary, having hinted around it by talking about Carlin's later years as "the preachy, self-important Teller of Truths who eventually traded comedy for Social Commentary, and always seemed about one blow on the head away from reading Warren Commission transcripts on stage." Lileks continues:

Some projection there, perhaps. I never heard Carlin be as hard on himself as he was on his favorite strawmen. That wasn’t his job, of course, and you can’t fault him for the routines he didn’t do. But the more you confront and accept your own human faults the less outrage you find in the small mishaps of others, and I never got the feeling Carlin spent a lot of time interrogating his own character with the same confident derision he brought to things much greater than himself. As I said, I listen to a lot of comics on the satellite channel; half are banal and profane and occasionally funny, a few are Angry Critics whose words shrivel and die without the hoots and whoops of the audience - and then, every so often, you get the blessed ration of Mitch Hedberg - stoned, goofy, sweet, doomed, and insanely hilarious.

It's charitable that Lileks doesn't fault him for the routines he didn't do; the airline food seam, or the self-depreciating fat joke seam, are rich ones I assume Lileks still wants mined. But note that tone of opprobrium. Carlin, especially in his later years, wasn't "self-aware", he was an "Angry Critic", he attacked "things much greater than himself". The inference is one of cool disapproval to Carlin attacking his bete noirs - American culture, censorship, religion - that we get the internal monologue running through Lileks; "Sure he was funny, but he can't attack that, it's a cornerstone of our society. It's what we believe in. If Carlin would just look at himself, see himself how I see him, maybe get a haircut and a tie and a good job somewhere in Des Moines, he'd see what's so good about America. He'd stop being so angry, if he were more like us." (You'll note this is also the standard conservative public policy proposal for the poor, gay, black and female) At the end of it, Carlin is attacking the same things which give Lileks his security myth, and he doesn't like it when it's taken away for washing.

Lileks is sad, of course, as us humans are when someone we can relate to dies. But a part of him is relieved, an ugly little part of him that can't be hidden by Midwestern charm and good writing skills. Social Commentary, after all, isn't very hip.