"... since Donald Trump took office. They say that evil never sleeps, but apparently tech kajillionaires who have pretty bananapants power over federal infrastructure
do, hence Musk’s alleged lil DOGE naps in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Stripping
vulnerable and minority groups of their protections and advocates can really take it out of a guy, not to mention
flipping science the fiscal bird! The EEOB is right across from the West Wing, and Musk is said to get comfy at
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago when he’s down in Florida, so maybe it’s a matter of proximity and comfort.
Ssshhh, he’s right there, he might whisper to himself, gazing out at the windows of Casa Trump, the TV’s soft blue light flickering in the night, his palm pressed to the glass of his own office.
It’s okay."
Does she hate Musk? Is she just in the company of people who can't openly love him? I don't know, but — whatever her condition — she's having fun with it.
She's only calling him a "goon" to make a play on the going-to-sleep children's book "Goodnight, Moon."
Here's a history of the word "goon." In 1934, we get Alice the Goon, the character in E.C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip:
Alice was a fearsome character, immensely tall with shaggy arms and legs and a long nose like a proboscis monkey. She was at first a guard employed by Popeye’s antagonist, the pirate and sorcerer called Sea Hag. Alice was powerful but dim-witted....
Alice the Goon led to "goon" as slang for a labor union thug and the "goon" in "The Goon Show." Before Alice, there were similar words — "gony, gonnie, gawney and other forms, meaning a simpleton or fool" and "gooney bird" for albatross — and some guy wrote about his family's slang in Harper's in 1921, but Segar deserves credit for this word as we know it.
Is "goon" usable against Musk? He's not stupid. And he's scarcely aligned with unions.
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I'm glad I didn't have to go to middle school with Kase Wickman. She's quite cute and smart but seems very mean. Avoid.
There are few things I find more annoying than political writers who attempt to be funny and cute. This applies as much to Mark Steyn as it does to Kase Wickman.
“She's only calling him a ‘goon’ to make a play on the going-to-sleep children's book ‘Goodnight, Moon.’”
Right. Just like Dems only call Trump Hitler because it rhymes with Fit-ler and Donald Trump is very fit at his age.
The cutesy rhyme with “Goodnight morals / And goodnight diversity . . . /And goodnight bodily autonomy . . . / Goodnight human rights” - that’s also not an insult.
Kase “bananapants” Wickman’s writing style sounds a lot like Dinky Dau.
Ethics or morals? Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry) or diversity of individuals, minority of one? Choice in a postmortem or choice with consent? Human rites or rights? As the Kase or case may be. Goodnight, Loon.
Musk wants more people to say “good morning” on the moon.
What did Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson do that Kase Wickman isn't doing?
Thompson selfie-aborted. Wolfe's postmortem was recorded as Her Choice. Wickman is still viable.
"What did Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson do that Kase Wickman isn't doing?" - our gracious host
Appeal to me. Don't know why, just going to struggle through the day like most normies. I'm not her prospective fan base. If she didn't already have an audience, she's wouldn't be in all those places. Best of luck to her.
I love Hunter Thompson, but Tom Wolfe is a whole different animal. The girl? Just another dim bulb, writing skills or no..
Ann, you've put more thought into the word, "goon", then Ms. Wickman did.
I used to watch Popeye when I was a kid in the 1960's. Every character was dim-witted. The episode I recall with Alice the Goon, had her relentlessly pursuing Popeye, as she kept repeating "I love Popeye" like a robot.
Instead of using "goon", Ms. Wickman could have gone with "moon", since SpaceX. That might be a copyright problem.
She could have gone with "boon", since all of the kindly and beneficial government programs are going away.
If she was adamant about chiding Musk, "loon" would have been good since me is kind of wacky.
Wickman didn't mention that Musk has said that he doesn't own a house, and stays with friends where ever he is. He said "couch surfs", which implies that he is sleeping on a hide-a-bed in the den at Serge Brin or Marc Andreessen's house.
My bad. Wickman does talk about Musk couch surfing. I must have gotten bored and nodded off the first time I read her article.
The beauty of the Left’s unhinged reaction to DOGE, Musk and Trump is that people in the middle, weak Dems and people not too closely attuned to politics agree with Trump. They look at the Left and say WTF. The Left is defending spending millions of US tax dollars on sex change operations in Central America.
The bottom line is that Trump has politically and culturally crushed the Left and we are looking at least 12 years of MAGA.
Ann:
Kase Wickman doesn’t belong in the same paragraph as Tom Wolfe much less the same sentence. Please!
I love Hunter Thompson, but Tom Wolfe is a whole different animal.
I’m the opposite. Bonfire of the Vanities was the best novel of the 80’s, and Thompson’s insane drivel is totally lost on me.
The girl? Just another dim bulb, writing skills or no.
Very, very few female authors have ever appealed to me. Not sure if it’s unconscious sexism on my part, or if they just aren’t as good.
I loved Ayn Rand’s message but hated her wooden characters and turgid, repetitive prose. I liked the way JK Rowling wove bits of a classic education into her children’s novels, but at the end of the day they were still children’s novels. Tried to get through a couple of the Brontes and Jane Austen but got bored. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the only book by a 19th century woman I can really say I enjoyed. Had to take a 300-level humanities class to graduate college and somehow found myself in an English class with a radical feminist professor teaching the modernist authors, heavy on Woolf and Stein. God what a fiasco that was. On today’s college campus I would have been expelled for saying some of the things I said back then.
Maybe the real problem is that I don’t much care for fiction in general, and women don’t write much of anything else. I will gladly read anything Mary Beard writes on the history of Rome, though.
Ann Althouse said...
What did Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson do that Kase Wickman isn't doing?
Well, for starters Wolfe and Thompson were way more dispassionate about things than Wickman. Secondly, even though they may have been opposed to what they were writing about they would relate the other side's position objectively before the demolished it. Thirdly, they would probably have (grudgingly in Thompson's case) thought Musk's habit of sleeping in his office admirable and showed dedication. Lastly, neither ever did a bad imitation of the others writing style as Wickman is doing to both of them here.
Also; Thompson and Wolfe could be hyperbolic, but it was more artfully used and they knew when to use it and when not to. Wickman tosses it around willy-nilly in a fit of pique over Musk. It must be hard for the beautiful hip people at Vanity Fair to have to deal with a nerd they can't outright dismiss.
Goodnight, Goon
Ignore the Loon
Thanks for the Boon
Hear from you soon !
I will always have a tough time appreciating any defense of criminal corruption i suppose...
Carville and Al Hunt on the criminal and stupid Trump administration. More fun than Bulwark because they have a sense of humor.
...the contempt they now have for Musk for betraying them politically. The guy was their fucking EV messiah and now every thought in every waking moment for them is an opportunity to try and destroy him...
I listen, now watch a podcast with some LA auto guys. It's mostly childish humor but they can't let an episode pass without getting a dig in at Musk, the mantra being they've owned many multiple Teslas, once the greatest car ever, now anything but so as not to help Musk in any way. Climate be dammed...
Alice the Goon has no breasts and is topless in that picture. Is Alice a man? A trans man?
"The GAO — under Biden — estimated last year that we are losing $233-$521 billion *PER YEAR* to FRAUD."
The real Constitutional crisis IS the fraud itself - and those protecting the fraud.
I honestly thought this was a MoDo piece at first.
By the way, how do you pronounce it?
-"doje?"
-"doggie?"
-"doe-ge?"
...and "gooney bird" for albatross.
My father was stationed on Midway Island after the battle in WWII. One of the first books I ever saw was his copy of "Midway Photos and Verse (-- or Worse)" by Lewis Walker and Loring Hudson.
Here is one cartoon with poem.
The Gooney is Looney
Thru most of the year
It dances and prances
for reasons not clear.
It's quirky and jerky,
Like people, I fear
And I can remember this cartoon of a gooney bird being chopped-up by a propeller kinda freaked me out.
Coincidentally, one of the young nurses treating my father before he died was an undergraduate marine biologist who spent time on Midway.
end bold
"...that's a bold move, Wince."
By the way, how do you pronounce it?
I believe it's to be pronounced "dohj" - one syllable, long O, soft G, like the Doge of Venice.
I consulted a rhyming dictionary and there are essentially no familiar words that rhyme with "doge". The only one I recognized was "horloge", and I have a VERY large vocabulary, if I may say so myself.
the criminal and stupid Trump administration.
Neither of those accusations make a lick of sense. This glorious scorched-earth campaign against the government monster has been carefully planned for four years to fit within the law. It was a stroke of genius to repurpose an Obama-era agency that had already been funded and had long enjoyed a remit to examine government computers for waste and fraud. They have nothing to hang on Trump even in the unlikely event that they retake power, unless they explicitly try to criminalize policy differences, which would not be a surprise.
"Stripping vulnerable and minority groups of their protections and advocates can really take it out of a guy..."
You don't have to sell me, cupcake- I voted for this.
I don't know, but — whatever her condition — she's having fun with it.
It may be fun for her to write, but it's not much fun to read.
I will be glad when AI replaces her, and she has to take her pretty banana pants down to the employment office to see if there are still any openings for software coders or coal miners.
Does she hate Musk? Is she just in the company of people who can't openly love him?
Trump Derangement Syndrome has mutated into a Musk variant. Perhaps we need another Project Warp Speed to create a vaccine?
It would be fun watching the pro-vaxers refuse to take it.
What did Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson do that Kase Wickman isn't doing?
Attempt to tell the truth as they saw it.
I don't think whining, obstruction, and more lawfare is a great political strategy after 4 years of extreme progressivism. Kamala outperformed in the states without Voter ID requirements. If not for that electoral insurance plan, Trump, and Republicans would be in a dominant majority position.
We've had decades of Shmoos. Time for a Goon or two.
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