TIME's puff piece on Glenn Beck

Yawn. I suppose I could bang out a few hundred words about how Beck doesn't deserve the attention, it only feeds the beast, TIME has lost all respect... yada, yada, yada. But I'm not. Beck's an asshole, plain and simple, but there will always be Glenn Becks and Ann Coulters and Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys and it's never going to change. Why? Because people for the most part are not much smarter than rocks and there is a need to have something, someone stoke some emotion-- any emotion-- into our boring work-a-day lives. These clowns do it.

This is capitalism, folks, and this emotion-infused vomit sells. TIME knows it and that's why Beck's the coverboy. Every shit-for-brains Becktard will buy a copy for the top of the commode, and the capitalists in charge of TIME plan on making their quarter this week.

That's not to say the story on Beck isn't informative and entertaining. The most entertaining item is when Glenn Beck, asked about the 1976 film Network which popularized the line, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anyway", says damn right that's exactly how he feels. The funny thing-- if by funny you mean like an icepick twisted into my cerebrum-- is that Beck didn't get the reference, the fact that he's the punchline. In the movie, Beale, the character who invoked the angry tirade, was manipulated by the network's management and Beale was the lackey who merely did their bidding to get higher ratings ... to his eventual demise. Yup, we can only hope.

Beck is a loud, overbearing joke. He's the cacophony we must endure to be a part of a free and open society. Ass-hats exactly like Beck are what prompted Socrates to call for rule by philosopher-kings... presumably to decree that all loudmouth half-wit narcissists be crated off to Sicily.* We, however, are not so lucky and Beck is here to stay... at least until he burns himself out with one of his many self-loathing addictions.

Sure, there's a lot of criticism of TIME for this article, and you can read some here and here. But for me, what the heck... I'm okay with it. My copy of TIME will come in tomorrow's mail, and while it will find it's rightful place on top of my commode, the cover will be promptly removed and placed in it's rightful place-- in the commode.

(*which might help to explain some of my forebears, but I digress.)