JWhiting.com

(Don’t you love alliteration headlines that end with question marks? …? ??!!)

Laying aside the fact that “succumbs” is the most impressively gayful word in the English language, everyone knows Dan Savage of the sex advice column Savage Love, yes? (…? ??!!)

If not, you can find an excellent Savage Love backgrounder at Wikipedia and then open your own voyeristic window on kinky North America from one of the many sites that syndicate it. (My bookmark points to Savage Love’s home on The Onion.)

Dan Savage has never shied away from slipping big issues into his colon column (a true GGG if there ever was one) and so back in 2003 when Rick Santorum defended laws banning gay sex on the grounds that legalizing homosexuality would open the door to bigamy, polygamy and incest, Dan decided to fight back.

Going with a written suggestion from one of his readers, Dan ran a poll in his column to determine which unlabeled-’til-then naughty thing should be named after Santorum.

Lo and behold, we now have:

san-TOR-um n. A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex. (See also: Sen. Rick Santorum (R - PA).)

The movement to re-brand Santorum picked up steam online and off, tracked every step of the way from the Spreading Santorum site which became the #1 result when you Google “Santorum” (with Rick’s official site playing a bottom at #2).

Now that the midterm elections are over, nobody is saying that the santorum movement was single-handedly responsible for bringing down the Republican’s No. 3 man, but it certainly didn’t help.

I’ll leave the closing words to Dan Savage himself who said:

There’s a reason why monarchs and despots used to lock up political cartoonists and satirists. Being made ridiculous, being turned into the butt of a joke—that’s politically disempowering fairy dust. It’s hard to rule when you aren’t taken seriously, and it’s hard to be taken seriously after your name has been reduced to a dirty joke. Indeed, the power of satire should never be underestimated.

Great comics, like great musicians, were raised on the audio knee of the masters who came before them. Invariably when you hear a great modern comic talking about his/her childhood, they’ll mention the albums they listened to as kids. It was as true for Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks as it is for guys like Stephen Colbert.
It goes without saying that a good way to get into the head of your favourite comic, is to hunt down the movies, albums and books that they list as influential. If you haven’t already, check out Colbert’s great interview that was up on The Onion last week.

People love the president because he’s certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don’t seem to exist. It’s the fact that he’s certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?