BRAFFY NOMINATION: WORST WRITER ALIVE

Not a lot of actual voting in the last Braffy nomination post. A lot of comments, sure, but most people are replying to Steve's assertion that I be nominated in the category of Ugliest, Fattest Jew. I gave it some thought, and I can't help but agree that I should at least be considered in the category. So, as a little side category, I give you the nominations for the Braffy Award for the Ugliest, Fattest Jew:

Henry Kissinger



Yes, he's ugly and fat, but ask yourself this...Is Henry Kissinger Jewish? Oh, wait, he totally is. So, yeah, he should probably win.

Jon Lovitz



People used to tell me I looked like Jon Lovitz. It's the sort of observation you should probably keep to yourself. That's not complimentary. There's an easy test for whether the person you're about to tell they resemble a celebrity will appreciate the comparison. If you think that celebrity would be likely to appear on the cover of a fashion magazine, that's a nice thing to say. If you think the celebrity in question would be likely to appear in candid shots taken in the grotto of the Playboy Mansion, just don't bother following up on that particular thought. Why not use the previous weekend's box office totals as a conversational starter instead?

Ariel Sharon



What, just because he's in poor health means I can't pick on him for being fat and ugly? Nuts to that. Just take a look at that specimen and tell me he doesn't belong in this illustrious company.

Me



Believe it or not, the beard is slimming. I keep meaning to lose some weight, but for some stupid reason, my body only seems to respond to exercize and proper diet. I would try the program that worked for Anna Nicole Smith, but I'm afraid that all that freebasing might hurt my ability to blog cogently.

Now that we've all had some fun with my chronic obesity, let's move on to the actual task at hand, shall we? As always, vote for both UFJ and Worst Writer Alive in the comments section below.

Ann Coulter

Really, Ann might not be eligible in this category. I'm not sure if constantly spewing senseless invective actually counts as "writing." I occasionally see her credited in print as an "author," which is kind of like calling Jason Voorhees a "surgeon." It's like, yes, she actually types up her columns, which are then read by people, but that's letting her by on a technicality.



Ann's composed too much hateful rhetoric to summarize in one single nomination post. I could write several books, if debunking a known crackpot were worth the effort. Also, if I didn't have to go work in a video store every day. Here are a few of her more recent post-nasal drips of wisdom:

Even proud American corporations find their names being turned into curse words by liberals, such as “Halliburton,” which is currently losing money in Iraq in order to supply food to our troops – you know, the same troops liberals pretend to love (but don’t lose money feeding).

Awww...Those poor guys...Maybe I'll send them a check to help tide them over.

Liberal doctrines are less scientifically provable than the story of Noah’s ark, but their belief system is taught as fact in government schools, while the Biblical belief system is banned from government schools by law.

I'll give you a moment to wrap your head around this one...How can something be less scientifically provable than a made-up story with no scientific evidence in support of a single one of its contentions? In essence, how can something be less provable than an outright fabrication? Or is she finally admitting that she just makes up ways to attempt to prove things that are blatantly untrue? (I mean, even Christians in the Dark Ages accepted that much of the Bible wasn't literally true! And they thought whipping themselves with Cat o' Nine Tails was a way to get closer to God!)

On behalf of red state America, let me be the first to say: "Screw you, Hollywood."

So all those people in Texas and Utah and Alabama who saw X-Men: The Last Stand just drove in for the day from Maine, huh? It must be, because Ann Coulter speaks for all of Red State America every time she opens her gaping maw.

If you want to find the cool, anti-establishment rebels who don't answer to "The Man" on college campuses today, you have to go to a meeting of the College Republicans.

Wooo! Maybe Bill Maher's right about her. Maybe she is really hilarious. Cause that's...

Oh, she's serious...Moving on...

Tom Clancy



It's not that I think Clancy's such a shitty writer, although I'll admit to not particularly getting off on long, loving, detailed descriptions of rockets and missiles and guns. I greatly dislike him for two reasons that have little to do with the actual quality of his writing.

(1) He puts his name on all kinds of crap that he doesn't write or really have anything to do with. Tom Clancy's Shadow-Ops Zone: The Glaciation Trilogy: Commanders-in-Chief for the XBox, or some such thing. Or even novels! There are all these books called Tom Clancy's Executive Order Files or whatever, and then you look under the title to find the name of some random schmo. If it was written by Jim NoName, then it isn't really "Tom Clancy's Executive Order Files." It's "Some Asshole's Executive Order Files." But they probably wouldn't carry a book with that title at Barnes & Noble.

(2) His largest contribution to pop culture has been the ongoing glorification and fetishization of war and the American war machine. How many men (and, let's face it, that's Clancy's prime audience) have been seduced into thinking of war as a desirable state of affairs because of Clancy's military-themed thrillers. They preach not only the notion that protecting America's vaguely-defined "national security" is worth any cost in human life, but the idea that war is not just neccessary but exciting. Even glamorous. Those video games bearing his name are little more than Military Indoctrination Programs. Play them for long enough, and you'll start to think sneaking up behind guys in hallways and slitting their throats with a razor-sharp hunting knife sounds doable.

It's just more of this us-or-them, might-makes-right propaganda that's needed by our leadership to convince everyone to back foreign conflicts.

"Hey, do you guys want to go risk your lives to kill brown people senselessly?"
"Um, not really."
"Didn't you read Patriot Games? Terrorists want to remove your daughter's spleen!"
"Wasn't that about Irish terrorists?"
"Sir, why do you hate America?"

Kate O'Beirne



Kate's the particularly virulent GOP mouthpiece who went on TV earlier this year and criticized the speakers at Coretta Scott King's funeral for insulting her beloved President. She also wrote a book earlier this year about how all feminists are horrible and ugly and mean, especially Hillary Clinton, who is probably one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but Kate can't decide which one.

Despite seeing her show up on TV all the time to comment on politics, I have never heard Kate utter a single original insight. Her punditry has a less contemporary spin on American politics than Alexander de Tocqueville's early work.

It's just all this "feminists never got a date to prom so now they hate all men" stuff. I just wish she could be honest and admit that social and sexual freedom are just too terrifying for her, openly stating that she needs a man areound to dictate proper behavior. Then we could finally get her the help she so desperately needs.

Dan Brown

Failed songwriter and self-help author Dan Brown made a killing off a dumb book you may have heard about called The Da Vinci Code. It's an egregiously poor piece of fiction with a great hook, so of course it has sold more copies than the Kinko's Corporation.



He kind of looks like an ugly Kirk Douglas. It must be the chin...

Plenty of novels are poorly written. The Left Behind series for example. And A Million Little Pieces. Not to mention Dianetics. But Da Vinci Code has set off this whole obnoxious trend now of pop Biblical historiography and faux art appreciation, where everything's about "unlocking the buried secrets of the past." As if World History is a Tomb Raider game.

Americans know so little about history, even their own history, and now that the subject's finally getting some mainstream attention, the central preoccupation is sexy Jesus-related gossip. You can't even watch The History Channel any more without seeing idiocy about symbols and codes buried deep within Botticellis and Caravaggios. Isn't it enough that the paintings are beautiful masterpieces? Do they have to be Sudoku now as well? I never thought I'd say this, but those guys should probably focus a bit more on the Third Reich.

You want to know a very closely-kept, conspiratorial secret about the New Testament? Lean in closer...IT'S ALL HORSESHIT WRITTEN LONG AFTER JESUS WAS ALREADY DEAD BY PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T HAVE ACCESS TO ANY AUTHENTIC INFORMATION OR PRIMARY SOURCES! Ditto the Old Testament! You can tell because it's full of ludicrous nonsense! Did I just blow your mind?

John Stossel

And now, my impression of everything John Stossel has ever written or said, ever:



I was wondering just what the deal was with this whole Halliburton Corporation. Are they really as evil as everyone says? I think anything a company does in order to earn the largest possible profits is inherently good, so I did a little research. And what I found out might shock you.

"Halliburton isn't really evil. We're all about helping people," said Halliburton Public Relations director Dave Orson. "Why would people assume that just because we're intimately and directly connected to a Vice-President who keeps starting expensive wars that provide us with expensive contracts, there must be something untoward going on?"

Could it be that Halliburton is really doing great things in Iraq and elsewhere? I went over to Iraq and took a look for myself, and what I found might startle you to the point that you defecate in your pants.

What I saw were big buildings with the name Halliburton on them and trucks bearing the Halliburton logo. I talked to several people who were working with large pieces of equipment, and they told me Halliburton had hired them to go to Iraq and do things. I even saw some Iraqis around who hadn't been shot or blown up yet. This doesn't sound like such an evil conglomerate to me.

But it doesn't stop there. I also discovered that, out of all the high-ranking executives from Halliburton, none had been arrested in the past six months for fraud, money-laundering or racketeering charges. What a collection of criminal war profiteers, huh?

"Halliburton is the best company in the world, and you are getting very sleepy," Orson explained to me while waving his pocketwatch in my face. "Your eyelids are getting heavy. When you awake, you will want to give Halliburton unfettered access to the U.S. Treasury and pass a Constitutional Amendment providing them with the right to declare war on a sovereign nation without Congressional approval. When I snap my fingers, you will complete the interview."

The answer is clear. Halliburton isn't a collective of thieves and greedy fatcats bilking the citizenry of the United States out of billions of dollars under the guise of the War on Terror. You're thinking of George Soros and Hillary Clinton. Now let's never speak of this company again and get back to attacking the real enemies of America - Islamofascinazis and liberals.

Rick Warren




One of America's most popular, influential and creepy preachers, Warren made a name for himself with the publication of The Purpose-Driven Life, a book that tells you how to live in a Rick Warren-approved fashion.

Here is how the book opens, with comma errors left in place:

IT ALL STARTS WITH GOD

It's not about you.

The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions.

Wow, that sucks. I'm not supposed to try and find fulfillment and happiness? Thomas Jefferson, you are a liar!

If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.

...

Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won't discover your life's meaning by looking within yourself. You've probably tried that already.

Hey, yeah, just because I haven't yet figured out man's place within the infinite, I should just shrug and give up and leave it all to the invisible guy in the sky. Thanks, Rick Warren! You're fatalistic worldview doesn't at all conflict with the reality of the modern world in which I live!

If I handed you an invention you had never seen before, you woulnd't know its purpose and the invention itself wouldn't be able to tell you either.

This is just a bad analogy. There are plenty of inventions the use of which could be discerned from a superficial examination. What about a straw. You don't think, if you were presented with a straw, you could determine that its useful for sucking up things on your own? Do you read the instructions every time you get a new device or piece of equipment? Doesn't this argument ignore the entire concept of trial and error, upon which all human knowledge is actually based?

But Warren's philosophy is far more sinister than just dumb analogies and bad teleological arguments. It is dangerous for two reasons:

(1) It is a cult mentality

Warren argues that the only happiness is to be found through performing God's will.

You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God - and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny.

Okay, so once we decide that it's all about God's will, how do we know what God wants from us? Why, we listen to Rick Warren, of course! And this is how one goes about founding a global ministry with hundreds of thousands of members. By lying about "God's will" and then telling people how to behave in between hitting them up for money.

(2) It is a hopeless, anti-human philosophy

Think about it...To Rick Warren, you're a useless piece of shit. A slave. You have no purpose of your own. No meaning. You exist only to serve an invisible deity who created you because he was lonely and needed some other beings to boss around and dominate. Who wants to live in that kind of world, an eternal servant to a cold and uncaring master?

Listen to how this guy talks:

You were made for God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purposes.

Life is futile. Only God matters, and since we can't know anything about God, in a sense nothing matters. At least, nothing in the here and now on Earth matters. It's nihilism disguised as Christianity.

I'll take atheism any day over this bizarre form of self-loathing. Sure, a world without God can seem somewhat empty and futile, but I think atheists can come to understand that life has whatever meaning you invest in it. If you think helping others is a way to give your life some meaning, then you do that. If it's using your imagination and creativity that makes you useful and provides you with an outlet, hey, go for it. But, I mean, how are you supposed to wake up every day ready to once again submit to the will of a silent, possibly fictional Guy who lives in Outer Space? I wouldn't survive a week.

Okay, those are your nominees. Write-in suggestions are welcome.

[UPDATE: I don't want to unduly influence the voting, but I think you all should be aware of this quote from Ann Coulter's latest book, Godless, cited by Dave Neiwart at Orcinus, in the interest of fairness. She's discussing 9/11 widows:

These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was part of the closure process. These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much.

Beat that, O'Beirne! Your move!]