"Hey! They're calling us names. Can they do that?"

Via Michelle Malkin and thence to Choose Honor, the blog of Hiawatha Bray, (great name for a writer; journalist, now a perjorative is inapplicable here) we have further comments and writing about Newspaper Guild president Linda Foley. She of "they're killing us" responds to Bray's questioning and other "barrages of email", via her spokespiece, "now they're calling us names", editor (and journalist) Andy Zipser. His decalogue, Right-wing attack-dogs savage TNG president for comments on Iraq deaths Barrage of abusive phone calls, e-mails prompted by Sinclair, Fox and bloggers , (yes, that really is the headline title and subtitle). I prefer Journalists in the Hands of an Angry Blogosphere.

Like the Platte River, it is a mile wide and an inch deep. Full of funny, finny, swimmy language thingies, zipping and bolting side and back, to and forth out in the brown froth. No organic life. Brownian motion only. For instance:

The attempt to obscure discomfiting truths with a smokescreen of allegations about the truth purveyor—challenging his or her motives, techniques or basic character—is not new, but in recent years the volume has been ratcheted way up. For Paul Waldman of Media Matters for America, a progressive research and information center that tracks conservative disinformation campaigns, the poster child for such tactics is Ward Churchill, a much vilified University of Colorado professor.

Truth purveyor? The meaning checker my computer uses generated these translations: potion surveyor, ocean razor, quotient failure, and sloth sailor.

What tool do I use to ratchet up the volume on my smokescreen generator? "No Og! I said socket for smokescreen ratchet generator. This particle-size wrench for volume gurgitator! I mean...Dang these stone tools all look alike." (cf. older Far Side cartoons, cavemen themes.)

Rereading... attempting to reread Zipser just now bewilders my reason. Rhetorically the article is un-navigable, verbs barged together, comparisons and assertions blended together like tutti-frutti mixed with confetti and spumoni, finished off with an apperatif of "See! See! They're calling us names! Meanies! Meanies!" Another favorite Gary Larson, Far Side Cartoon comes to the mind's eye. Wagons are circled, pioneers and cowboys lying underneath. Arrows stick in the wagon's canvas top, some are flaming. A hatted, bearded cowboy says, "Hey! They're lightin' 'em! Can they do that?"