A Murder of Crows

A Parliament of Rooks, A Murder of Crows, and Seven Drunken Nights:

One of the more interesting terms to emerge from Mrs. Palin's writing is her description of those who 'hijacked the feminist movement,' a subject that I know is dear to the heart of several of you. (I'm looking directly at you, Elise.) She apparently described them as "a cackle of rads."

"Rads" is obviously "radicals," but "cackle" is new. I wonder if she was aiming at "gaggle" (as in geese), or if she was thinking of things that actually cackle (as do hyenas, chickens, or the Wicked Witches of various cardinal directions).

Either way, it's remarkably descriptive, and nicely captures her idea of the sort of person who 'hijacked feminism.'

By the way, this is an opportune moment to address Elise's argument that men who joke about depriving women of the vote are necessarily unprincipled. (Cassandra also took umbrage at the post at National Review.)

I once wrote a piece on a similar topic. It happens to touch on the very point that they raise, which is that "women" couldn't be replaced by "Jews" or "African Americans." That was the argument raised then, too, except that time it was men who were the butt of the joke:

Lucas says that you couldn't replace "men" in the insults with any other group of people without raising an uproar. That's not quite true, though: there is one other group that could fit in the space, which is women. I can't count the number of bumperstickers I've seen for sale that said something to the effect of: "I miss my ex-wife; but my aim is getting better," or "My wife said to give up fishing or she'd leave; I sure will miss her." (There was a successful country music song about the last one.)

Could you raise a joke about the importance to the country of disenfranchising men without raising an uproar? I think so; in fact, jokes about the relative stupidity of men are so common in sitcoms, etc., that the only bar against anyone making such a joke is that it is probably too obvious to be funny.

The earlier movements accomplished this: they moved the culture from a place where the idea of "women's suffrage" was a joke, to a place where the idea of "ending women's suffrage" is the joke. That is a remarkable thing; and if it takes the telling of the joke to make that clear, so be it!

In the meanwhile, the best antidote to this -- as on the last occasion -- is more jokes, bawdy songs, and the like. Comments are open!



UPDATE: Another piece I wrote on humor, in this case humor and religion, may be relevant. Also, the jokes in the comments were better.

The point here is Chesterton's point about the pessimist. Marcotte doesn't get into trouble for criticizing religion; she gets in trouble because she doesn't love the thing she criticizes.

UPDATE: Since I'm telling jokes tonight, how about one at my own expense?

The university professor called in the head of the physics department, and read him the riot act. "How can you ask for this expensive lab equipment? You know how much our budget is being cut with this bad economy!" he shouted. "We're having to let professors go, not hire new ones, cut scholarships, the works. And all I hear from you is how you can't do your work without all this lab equipment."

"Physics research often requires this kind of laboratory," the department head ventured.

"Nonsense!" the president shouted. "You should be more like the Mathematics department. They could be using expensive computers, but all they ever ask for is paper, pencils, erasers and calculators.

"Or better still," he added thoughtfully, "you could be like the Philosophy Department. They don't even ask for erasers."

You could substitute "the journalism school," and it would still be pretty funny.