{"id":15161,"date":"2015-11-24T11:13:49","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T16:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2015\/11\/24\/15161.html"},"modified":"2018-03-13T19:10:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T00:10:15","slug":"a-little-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2015\/11\/24\/a-little-list\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little List"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As it always seems to happen that a victim must be found,
\nI’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
\nOf offenders our society would put under the ground,
\nAnd who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
\nThere’s islamofascist terrorists who hang about in mosques—
\nAnd also unarmed criminals who get shot down by cops—
\nAll children who are refugees, and want to come and stay —
\nThe fellows who have spent the last ten years in Gitmo bay—
\nThere’s the late-night comic newsman and late-term abortionist—
\nThey’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed!
\n
\nThere’s collegiate crusaders and the others of their age,
\nAnd the Black Lives activist— I’ve got her on the list!
\nAnd the social justice warriors who tweet all their outrage,
\nThey never would be missed — they never would be missed!
\nThen the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
\nThe immigrants from Mexico whose lives ain’t like their own;
\nAnd the liberal in the newsroom for the mainstream media corps,
\nWho factchecks and plays gotcha and is generally a bore;
\nAnd who never vets the Kenyan tyrant Moslem socialist!—
\nI don’t think he’d be missed — I’m sure he’d not be missed!
\n
\nThe judiciary activist who lets stand federal laws
\nAnd the militant atheist — I’ve got her on the list!
\nAll people who enlist their friends to click to help their cause—
\nThey’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed.
\nAnd apologetic RINOs of a compromising kind,
\nWho vote for legislation with a chance of being signed.
\nThe ninety-nine percenters and their corporate masters, too.
\nThe task of filling up the blanks is not that hard to do,
\nFor it really doesn’t matter who they put upon the list,
\nWe’d none of us be missed — we’d none of us be missed!<\/blockquote>\n\n

I had written a few lines on the other side, on what I suppose I would call ‘my side’. Those who many of us on the left wouldn’t miss: The football coach who only wants his quarterback to pray, the comics fan who’s outraged when a character is gay, the preacher who gives sermons in between his Tinder trysts, I don’t think he’ll be missed—I’m sure he’ll not be missed. It seemed mean-spirited somehow, rather than even-handed.\n

In truth, Gilbert is “punching down” in this song, as he occasionally does. Female writers, smart-ass children, provincials, Africans, and effeminate men are among the people who wouldn’t be missed. And then, of course, he goes on to judges and politicians; I don’t mean that it’s purely punching the underclass. The whole point is that the list includes everybody<\/i>. Still and all, it often feels mean to me. And the ‘updated’ lyrics tend to feel even meaner, particularly as G&S performances tend to be attended (and funded) by elderly, affluent high-brow snobs, chuckling at jokes about the young, hip and crass. I don’t know if making fun of reality-show contestants is punching down<\/i>, particularly, but.\n

At any rate, once I got this thing into my head, I had to write it out, and here it is.\n

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Which Your Humble Blogger has a little list, and will probably not be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-puff-piece"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16487,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15161\/revisions\/16487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}