Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Watch Not for Whom the Watch Tolls... It Tolls for We (Us. Whatever.)”

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November 6, 2007

Watch Not for Whom the Watch Tolls... It Tolls for We (Us. Whatever.)

Hatched by Dafydd

In the nine or ten years in which Big Lizards has been on the Watcher's Council, dutifully submitting posts for nomination (when we don't fall asleep on our hammock of nails and forget), decades in which we have sometimes won and sometimes lost, we've had joy, we've had fun, we've had seasons in the sun... we have always taken comfort in the fact that somebody, somewhere on the Council has always enjoyed our post enough -- or was moved to sufficient pity -- to cast us at least one, lowly vote... even in second place.

But this week, in what may be a harbinger of things to come, Big Lizards was completely snubbed and shut out by every, last member of the Council of Watchers. Not a single person voted for our nomination -- Mucking About With Mukasey... not one!

We suspect that this will continue into the future. Fate has spoken; our lot in life will be to become the invisible member of the Council, reduced to furtively scuttling about the kitchen floor after the banquet, picking up odd bits of cheese and scraps that fall to the floor and are missed by the hound.

We feel like Vice President Hubert "Humpty Dumpty" Humphrey: destined for a great fall and to be totally forgotten as soon as the eggshells are all swept away.

Council

To kick us when we're down, the Council also gave the win to our nemesis and arch-rival Joshuapundit, the most anti-Bush member... whose posts, however well reasoned and well written, cannot seem to go more than a paragraph or two without bashing someone in the administration:

Syria's Assad Caught With His Hands in the Nuclear Cookie Jar, by Joshuapundit.

The post describes the discomfiture of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose North-Korean built nuclear weapons reactor was just destroyed by the Israelis -- a bold and courageous act for which the entire world should applaud the most unjustly reviled nation on the planet, Israel. The post makes some very good points; but like David Copperfield's Mr. Dick and poor King Charles's head, Condoleeze Rice creeps into the post at the beginning then makes a strong comeback later, seizing control of the entire last third of the piece.

The two posts that we voted for did well, finishing 2 and 3 in the very order we voted them. In fact, in the normal voting, our number-one selection got the same number of votes as the winner; the Watcher had to break the tie... which, as reported, he chose to give to Voldemort. I mean Joshuapundit:

Why Hate Crimes Are a Joke Part 5783, and Why the University of Delaware Digs 'em, by The Colossus of Rhodey;

A Matter of Death, by Rhymes With Right.

The first post discusses -- well, it's best described by the press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, with which Hube opens the post: "The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a 'treatment' for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs."

The second post discloses the reaction of a congregation of United Methodists to a brutal triple-slaying of their own congregants... and how that changed the attitude of many of the survivors towards the death penalty.

Nouncil

We did pretty well in our first choice for the Nouncil, not so well in our second. Our first-place choice came in first, which is always a nice feeling. Almost but not quite making up for the career-ending humiliation of... but enough about us and our private tragedy:

Is This the State of Academics Today?, by The QandO Blog.

This very funny post (all humorous posts get a few extra points in our evaluation, because humor is so hard to do... as we have invariably found to our chagrin and further shame) takes a look at how a professor of English can go astray when he assumes his facility with literature makes him an expert on pollution, global warming, and military strategy.

Impossible to Take Seriously, by Power Line.

This Power Line post -- nobody but Big Lizards cast it a vote, which can only be explained by concluding that nobody actually read that far down the list of nominees -- notes that nearly all of the most vociferous media critics of the Iraq war appear to have gained their understanding of military affairs by watching Vietnam movies... bad ones.

And from Tribes (a bad remake of the great Jack Webb movie, the D.I.), to M*A*S*H (yeah, yeah, but the Robert Altman movie is really about Vietnam), to Soldier Blue (yeah, yeah, but it's is really about Vietnam), to the Boys in Company C, to Coming Home, to the Deer Hunter, to Apocalypse Now, to Spitoon, to Full Metal Jacket, there are an awful lot of awfully bad Vietnam movies to choose from.

If it's Tuesday, it must be the Watcher

See the sights and hit the heights here. And join in the general mockery and rock throwing at the lizard. I think I'll save everyone the trouble and go hang myself in effigy. Or in Bakersfield.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 6, 2007, at the time of 4:44 PM