Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction–I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my longstanding project of migrating old “classic” (depending upon your definition of the word) posts from the old blog over to the new blog. These are all at least two years old, and thus the vast majority of my readers are unlikely to have seen them. Only the longest-standing readers will recognize these, and it is sincerely hoped that they will enjoy seeing them again. Truly, Orac is a benevolent blogger, his arrogance, long-windedness, and cantakerousness notwithstanding.
The following post first appeared on August 9, 2005 and represents the second part of a sort of “trilogy” of Hitler Zombie terror (or ridiculousness). It only took me two years to do it, but I finally did it. Enjoy! And fear not, new material shall be forthcoming as soon as the present storm passes in a few days. Also, I now realize that it has been a very long time since our rather odiferous zombie has been featured in a new adventure. The reason is that there just haven’t been any Hitler references over-the-top enough to inspire me to do one. If you’re aware of such a reference, by all means e-mail it to me, and maybe I’ll use it sometime. The crypt has remained closed for too long.
…CONTINUED FROM THE PREVIOUS EPISODE MUCH, MUCH SOONER THAN THE AUTHOR HAD HOPED IT WOULD BE
“Day-O. Daaaayyyy-O.” Through the steam and the rush of the shower, singing a rose, a rich luxuriant voice, perhaps not as strong as it was in its owner’s heyday 50 years ago, but powerful and disciplined nonetheless. “Daylight come and me want go home—”
A loud thump interrupted.
“Who is it?” And elderly but still vigorous and extremely handsome black man poked his head out from behind the shower curtain, water dripping from his face. He saw nothing out of place. The bathroom looked as it always looked.
He resumed his shower. “Day-O! Daaaaayyy—-!”
Another thump.
The man was becoming angry, but an icy fear gripped his heart momentarily. Was it a burglar intruding in his house? How could burglar have gotten through the security system? He turned off the spigot and wrapped himself with a bath towel. He stepped out of the shower. There was no sound except for the distant roar of a lawn mower. Cautiously, ever so slowly, he opened his bathroom door a crack, to see if he could see anything.
One skeletal hand wrenched the door open from his very hands, and another skeletal hand clamped around the back of his neck, drawing his skull towards a rotting mouth.
******
Deep in the bowels of his underground bunker, Orac lit up, blinking multi-colored lights flashing seemingly at random.
“What is it?” Orac demanded testily. “Why do you interrupt my computations? I was just making fascinating observations on the interaction of different computer networks across the primitive network known as the Internet.”
“He’s struck again,” said a scientist.
“So soon?” demanded Orac.
“No, sir, only very shortly after the most recent two attacks.” He hesitated. “Unfortunately, we only just learned of this new attack now.”
“Only just learned of it now?” hissed Orac. “I provide you with the most advanced computers your primitive minds can use, and you only learn of it more than two days after it happened?”
“Sir, it came from a rather fringe source, but now the right wing blogosphere is picking it up. It won’t be long before it spreads across the blogosphere like a virus, and then onto conservative talk radio. I predict that, by the end of the day, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will have picked it up, if they haven’t already. Just last night, the obnoxious Limbaugh wannabe Mark Levin was ranting about it.”
“Tell me about this fringe source. Why should we believe it? How do we know that the monster has truly struck again? You know the blogosphere is very credulous and that misinformation can spread at an incredible rate through the Internet,” said Orac.
“It came from the Cybercast News Service, which is a subsidiary of the Media Research Center, a conservative media ‘watchdog’ group.”
“So its objectivity is already in question, given the clear ideological bias,” observed Orac. “Such a group would have motivation to make its ideological opponents look bad, and Belafonte has been quite outspoken in the past.”
“Perhaps, but the story provided video. The quote is undeniable, ambush interview or not.”
“Download the video into my circuits,” commanded Orac. “I will project it for all to see.”
The room lights dimmed, and a flickering, grainy video image projected upon a screen. It showed a man’s chest as he walked. The camera was clearly bouncing as the interviewer tried to keep up. The interviewers’ voice could be heard asking a question about African-Americans in the Bush Administration and whether that said something good about it. The camera moved up to reveal the face of an elderly but vigorous black man.
It was Harry Belafonte walking as he was speaking with the “reporter.”
Harry Belafante replied:
Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Color does not necessarily denote quality, content or value.
A black is a tyrant, he is first and foremost a tyrant, then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant and if he gathers around him black tyrants, they all have to be treated as they are being treated.
“I’ll never listen to the Banana Boat Song in quite the same way again,” smirked a scientist.
“Interesting. This is not nearly as clever a use of argumentum ad Nazium as Michael Ruse displayed,” said Orac. “Indeed, it is remarkable mainly for how unimaginative and so obviously fallacious it is. Belafonte must have been attacked by the monster. There simply is no other explanation for an analogy that mind-numbingly stupid. Hitler most certainly did not have a ‘lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich.’ In fact, one of the very first things Hitler did when he took over was to start systematically purging the government of Jews, starting at the top and working his way down. Indeed, in April 1933, slightly more than than two months after taking power, the Nazis passed the ‘Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.’ Its purpose was to exclude Jews and others the Nazis considered politically unreliable from all levels of civil service and government. That very same month, laws were passed restricting Jewish activity in the legal and medical professions. Belafonte used an extremely sloppy and disgraceful analogy. The Hitler zombie must have eaten more of Belafonte’s brain than is his usual custom.”
“It’s not just Belafonte,” said one scientist.
“What?” said Orac. His lights blinked ominously.
“He got Dick Gregory, too. Although there is no video, this is the transcript. Here is Gregory referring to black conservatives:
They have a right to exist, but why would I want to walk around with a swastika on my shirt after the way Hitler done messed it up? So why would I want to call myself a conservative after the way them white racists thugs have used that word to hide behind?
“In a way, this news is almost reassuring,” said Orac.
“What?”
“Come now. Must I do all your thinking for you? Reason it out. The Hitler zombie appears to be returning to his more traditional prey, politicians and political activists,” said Orac. “I had become concerned that the creature was seeking new prey, such as vaccine activists, social conservatives pontificating on issues of bioethics, and even philosophers of science. Perhaps its black heart just wasn’t in it. If the creature is again restricting itself mainly to political activists, however, perhaps we can narrow our search.”
“But how? The creature doesn’t discriminate between left and right! Political activists of every stripe are dropping like flies, their brains eaten, and then making fools of themselves,” the scientist asked.
“You have a point,” said Orac. “I have to wonder what is responsible for this spike in the creature’s activity. Yes, it is August and a slow news time, an irresistable draw for the irrational attention-seeking activist fools looking for media attention. However, this behavior brings up the question of whether the creature is weakening. It is, after all, seeking easier prey again, but at the same time it is attacking much more frequently than it has in a long time.”
“Maybe it’s going for quantity over quality,” said a scientist, “junk food, if you will.”
“Is there any way we could lure it in and trap it?” asked a young woman in the back.
“Finally, someone is showing signs of rational thought,” said Orac. “I must shut down again to consider this question. What sort of bait would work to draw a brain-hungry undead Führer with a love of ridiculously overblown Hitler/Nazi analogies? I must shut down again to consider this question now. In the meantime, keep working on finding the creature.”
Orac’s lights went black again.
“Great,” said one scientist. “There he goes again. He’s always disappearing into his computations whenever the going gets tough.”
“Sir, sir!” Dr. Myers stumbled into the room, short of breath and huffing. “It’s another attack, but this time the Hitler zombie wasn’t alone.”
“What?” the assembled group of scientists said, almost in unison. “What do you mean?”
“It’s D. James Kennedy. This time, though, it’s not just the Hitler zombie that attacked him. It looks as though the Hitler zombie’s been joined by the Stalin zombie as well! Kennedy’s toast!” (Ed. note: see pp. 6, 7, 21, 22, 54, where Kennedy blames evolution for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.)
The lead scientist sighed. Four attacks in a matter of days and now this. Orac would not be pleased to hear this latest news.
TO BE CONTINUED YET AGAIN….UNFORTUNATELY (but hopefully not for quite a while…Can you say “overexposure”? Sure, I knew you could.)
[Author’s note: I hadn’t intended to do a sequel to yesterday’s Hitler zombie appearance so soon, but I hope you’ll forgive me. I have no control over when the creature strikes.]
