I have determined that there is a grand new public health crusade to be undertaken, and like Jerry Lewis renewing a failed career with the MDS telethon, I have undertaken the tough work necessary to run a dreaded scourge -- a grave menace to the public well-being -- to ground.
The malady I refer to is, of course, Snarkolepsy. Therefore be it highly resolved, that we, of Snarkoleptics Anonymous, shall endeavor to raise funds -- certainly enough for our paid staff to live comfortably, as long as the disease is out of control -- to raise funds until this blight is brought under control, or even cured.
Snarkolepsy was only revealed to the American Public in the late 1990s, a byproduct of a backwater of Human Genome research. Due to a deficiency in the TK-321 Gene in the Fibonacci Series, the snarkoleptic will, suddenly and without warning, attack someone with whom one ought to be friends, or, at least, natural allies.
Perhaps it would be easier to explain by invoking the example of 'progressive' radio talk show host Randi Rhodes a few daze (sic) ago, snarking on Sen. Joe Biden's fumbling attempt to congratulate Sen. Barak Obama that came out as the post-modern version of "some of my best friends are Black."
Randi may have been under the influence of lunar hormones, and certainly I recognize the syndrome from what has betimes happened to this author during extreme nicotine fits (usually while attemping to quit smoking): what starts out as intentionally civil turns its complete opposite. That was what happened with Randi, as Senator Biden's characterization moved, by turns, from "what a dumb thing to do," to the tacit "Joe Biden is Strom Thurmond in an extreme combover."
Which was just bloody WEIRD.
Except, a few weeks earlier, in a classic Rovian trick, Senator John Kerry was swiftboated once again over what was, in essence, a sheer triviality, gleefully egged on, aided and abetted by the "progressives" in whose name Kerry once campaigned.
Now, with Kerry, it was more complex. While vaguely admitting that Kerry might have actually won that election, the selfsame progressives turned on him like a terrier shaking a wet rat in the years since the election, and turned Kerry into the devil. A walking clod. A dullard. A bore (Kinda like Al Gore, one recalls).
Result: Kerry withdrew any consideration of candidacy. Gee. Sure interesting timing, wasn't it? (I mean, by whomEVER was behind it.)
The same thing had happened after the 'progressives' knew that Gore had won, and the election stolen. Snarkolepsy kicked in and Gore was, for several years, the boogie-man conjured to frighten small liberal children into eating their broccoli.
This is referred to as a "cascading snarkoleptic attack," or, as a variant of the dreaded cascading CF. But it is not much understood in laypersons' circles.
The phenomenon seems to reside in the reptile-brain, that most ennobled of organs, the sole focal point of all Super Bowl Advertising, and the highest of high tech.
Snarkolepsy is currently considered perhaps the most common of all chromosomal defects, a genetic malady that afflicts over 10 in 7 Americans, second only, perhaps, to transposition malady, or, as some call it, Spoonerism Disease -- according to a recent in-depth investigation by the Northwest Shamanic Fortnightly's crack vegan staff.
Saying was I what? Oh yes:
Snarkolepsy is definable as a fugue state in which -- imperceptible to the untrained eye -- the snarkoleptic "seizure" causes a hissy fit to be directed towards an object of former affection. Snarkoleptic seizures are the cause of over half of all marital disputes, some researchers claim.
Thus: Randi Rhodes' sudden and inexplicable tar-and-feathering of Sen. Joe Biden for imperfectly expressing affection -- as opposed to the Southern Republican Leadership in the House and the Senate who perfectly express their disaffection and gleefully use the N-word --privately. The very irrationality of the attacks on Biden by those with whom he is in closest harmony ideologically is one classical indication of a snarkoleptic seizure. Aristotle refers to it in his "Poetics":
"As the phlegmatic humor and the melancholic temperament cojoin within the spleen, the symptom of acting like a real dick towards one's friends commences. Right, Plato? That Philip of Macedon may well be the single biggest dumbass it's ever been my misfortune to meet, let alone work for."
Certainly these seizures can be induced via external means, as in the piling on that the Left did to Kerry recently, but, at other times, they are merely random, as in the recent case of the selfsame Randi Rhodes snarking on Al Franken (another host on AirAmerica radio in an adjacent time slot for a couple of years now) and gleeful delight at his leaving the airwaves. The sheer irrationality of the snarkoleptic seizure extended to the following day when Rhodes snarked "I'm not sure I'm ready for SENATOR Franken, either."
This was, of course, utterly against Rhodes' self-interest and values, indicative of the irrational nature of the involuntary snarkoleptic attack. After all, Rhodes' national audience is attributable in large part to Franken's much bigger name (and far greater "show biz" accomplishments), and, even were Randi Rhodes afflicted with that infantile form of self-loathing called professional jealousy, she is certainly intelligent enough not to blab her most vicious sentiments to millions over an open mike, much as the Southern Republican Leadership is smart enough not to openly talk about the "Darkies" (and other, traditional Southern melanin-based nomenclature).
No: the snarkoleptic sufferer doesn't even realize that an attack is underway. They may have headed out in an initially gracious direction ("My fellow AirAmerica Host Al Franken has announced his departure from this network on February 14 ...") when the sneezure takes them into snarkyland.
It was reminiscent of Alexander Cockburn's
death snark on Hunter S. Thompson, an idiotic outburst that was as self-defeating as it was incorrect, factually. Cockburn has suffered from the malady for many years now, which explains medically why he tends to veer from crystal clarity to lunatic snarkiness, often several times in the same piece of writing. The affliction is no respecter of persons (
somewhat like Cockburn himself).
Recent advances in medical science have moved us beyond the old fashioned and obsolete treatments for snarkoleptic attacks -- the "backhand across the face" and/or the more traditional "cold-cocking the sum'bitch" -- but modern treatments are, themselves, highly imperfect.
Which is why Snarkoleptics Anonymous asks for your generous soon-to-be-tax-deductible donation now. (We can always issue you a receipt later. The paperwork is in process. We promise.)
Snarkolepsy afflicts millions. Suddenly, and for no reason, they turn on their friends like rabid weasels, while the puppy-stranglers of the Right look on in glee, or attend treatment to assure their 100% heterosexual orientation. (A different affliction, and not germane to our discussion here).
Snarkolepsy must be cured in our time. After all, these are intelligent people. They have college degrees, most of them, and yet they turn on their own friends like sharks going after a wounded comrade. This is not merely an inadvertent affectation. This is a full-blown disease, and we've got to find a cure. Snarkolepsy is spreading, and it is only through medical research that we can stop this irrational turning on one's friends and allies that so afflicts 'progressive,' 'liberal,' and 'libertarian' thinking.
You twits.
Courage.
