what should we call our blog? (really, help!)

Speaking of hyper-critical America-haters…

James Lileks goes on a bit of a rant today:

Love of country must always be qualified these days, lest anyone think you are unaware of slavery, insufficiently regulated railroad stock offerings, Lester Maddox or the attempt by Philip Morris to conceal the addictive nature of cigarettes….We are an exceptional nation, to be sure, but you can’t leave it at that. We are exceptionally misguided, exceptionally lazy and xenophobic, shot through to the pith with bilious perfidy, and our sole redeeming quality is our ability to constantly remake ourselves. We’ll either perfect society so we can perfect human nature, or do it the other way around. Either’s fine. Whatever works.

And what, you might wonder, caused me to prop that straw man up and jerk his jaw up and down? The Freakonomics blog on the NYT site has a contest: a six-word motto for the US. It was no doubt tendered in good faith, but reading the suggestions is like licking a corroded battery. The latter-day sub-Menckens will always get off the sharpest lines, of course; you can’t draw a laugh with something Grandma might knit on a pillow, and drawing a laugh – or a mirthless snort of appreciation, which counts as a laugh nowadays – is the prime objective.

I loved this saracastic aside the most:

Merit has nothing to do with America; it’s all about white male privilege. Do not be fooled by the rise of Hillary and Obama; put them together, and what do you have? White. Male.)

*grin* Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is snark.

~ Matt