It’s the last week of tax season: that annual gory, gruesome grind up Hill Ten-Forty (and Ten-Forty-One). Thus, a welcome surcease to my inevitable prolix prose.

And, frankly, why reinvent the wheel? John Derbyshire was fired at the National Review this weekend, for finally crossing a line I’d noticed back in 2007:

Here’s a little snark to start us off, a mindless Universal Generalization spoken by a bigot, the sad sludge of a septic tank mind, from Wednesday, January 25, 2006, “More On Heinlein” [John Derbyshire]:

Practically all—no, make that all again—sci-fi writers fall flat on their faces when they try to write about sex. Theodore Sturgeon, a brilliant sci-fi writer, did a dire thing about a future world where human beings were all hemaphrodites, everyone having a full set of both male and female kit. I forget the title, and wish I could forget the story too. There were even diagrams. Oy oy oy. If you want to read interesting stories about love & sex, or about human relationships in any form, my advice would be, don’t head for the sci-fi shelves.

Now, this isn’t about the National Review‘s literary stance. Frankly, in referring to the NEW National Review, literacy isn’t the point, or even an ofttimes sort of thing. You might appreciate the casual thuggery of that last sentence, which throws out a spoiler to an entire novel, as casually as Derbyshire undoubtedly tears the wings off of a fly before eating it.

It’s about the HATE. It’s about being so deeply up one’s own ass that one can see one’s own tonsils. It’s about having the power of the pen, and using it to “hurt” anyone and anything that offends or annoys the writer…. [From the original "Lost in a Sea of Hate," 12 October 2007.]

compare and contrast (10 points)

And I said this:

… they write pretending that they’re Conan The Barbarian, when, in fact, they’re Norbert The Librarian: pocket protector, wing tips,taped-together-glasses, eczema and all. (An utter lack of self-awareness certainly helps).

Or, as we used to call them: Two-fisted typists. The world of writing is filled with such self-delusion, but seldom have we seen so much loathing, hatred, cynicism and sheer incivility in print… [ibid.]

Well, if anything, it’s worse and more naked now than then. By comparison, the casual cruelty of 2007 looks Pollyannaesque when placed side by side with the sulphurous snark of the present.

Today’s Memeorandum is so filled with mindless rage and hatred (no false equivalences here: nearly ALL from the rampaging Right) that it beggars the imagination and would be impractical to comment on at length: the old paradigm of an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters, comes to mind, minus Shakespeare and adding only “angry monkeys.”

Here is the link. (Will open in a new tab/window.)

You will find:

• Anti-black racism.
• Anti-gay bigotry.
• Anti-woman hatred.
• A Dickensian sneering at the poor by Mr. Saddleback Christian Guy who delivered the prayer at the inauguration.

Oh, and the

• mindless snarking and hatred directed at the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

I guess yesterday’s astonishing display of hatred at Mr. Obama for having had the effrontery to attend Easter Service at the Episcopalian church a block from the White House must have fallen off Memeorandum this morning, but you can find it HERE. Just as the blogosmear­™ sneered at his comments about Easter earlier in the week (because, evidently, no uppity you-know-what DARE to speak of the Anglo Jesus and Christianity), and Gary McCoy published a frankly and literally blasphemous cartoon, reprinted on The Moderate Voice.

Gringo Jesus (pronounced with the hard “J”)

Were this baseball, we’d call it “hitting for the cycle.”

There is, however,  one small ray of hope:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder: Limbaugh to Leave AM Station in Philadelphia  —  “The Rush Limbaugh Show” is leaving the dominant conservative talk radio station in Philadelphia, one of the biggest radio markets in the country.  —  In its place on the station, WPHT, will go “The Michael Smerconish Show,” hosted by Mr. Smerconish, a native of the city….

Which is kind of like saying “well, at least we scored a point; we didn’t get shut out.”

And that’s something. Fer sure.

I leave you with this phrase from the original 2007 post that seems to particularly fit here: “fits of screeching snarkolepsy.”

I hie to the Land of the Ten Forties.

Courage.

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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.