Because its base is made up of people like Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm:
Signs that read “Deer Crossing” and the like are going to continue to pop up throughout our country including Avon Lake, but who are these signs for? Deer cannot read, do not obey the law and probably will cross where they wish. Although adorable companions, it is hard to remember the last time that the news reported an animal talking, thinking or providing significant input for the benefit of society. Yet, these signs cost taxpayers like so much of government.
It gets better from there. Just go read. Don’t say I never provided the Horde with amusement.
This sounds too much like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxaZIh3M0mQ
Which was a while ago and confirmed as serious.
Surely there cannot be two people that silly.
This is my favorite part:
(Willhelm)
(Comment response)
Oh, also the part about kindness to animals => Obamacare => abortion. That was funny.
Why put up signs for train crossings? Trains can’t read! And they move too fast to see the signs, anyway!
Why put up signs for falling rocks? Rocks can’t read! But they sure seem a lot smarter than Ms. Wilhelm.
Wilhelm Scream: what your brain does after reading something like that stupid article (the piece or the writer)…
It’s older than that, and it’s not serious. This is a joke, people.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/deercrossing.asp
That takes care of my “joke supply” for a whole week! If I could stop laughing, I might feel sorry for her!
bognor, your reflexive condescension would be a lot more effective if you hadn’t linked to a Snopes page labeling the story as “true.”
On second thought, after reading this, I’m not laughing any longer. These Republicans are really becoming scary:
The chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology said today that the committee would hold hearings next week “to settle the question, once and for all, of whether meteors exist.”
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/02/house-science-committee-questions-existence-of-meteors.html#ixzz2LEDfCjaV
Sorry for sounding condescending, but the “true” in Snopes just indicates the original letter really was published. If you read the article it’s pretty clear the letter was intended as a joke.
bognor
Chris Clarke
Extra laughs! Thanks, Chris. I admit, I did check Snopes when I first heard this story and was amazed that it wasn’t a spoof. But I suppose it takes all kinds to make a world!
Appreciate the apology, bognor. Thanks. Still: someone else told it as a joke, and therefore this woman is doing the same? I see a logical leap there.
Ironically, the Borowitz New Yorker meteor story is indeed a joke.
The comments on the article have been closed by the editor. Damn.
Her other articles are just as full of inane wingnut politico-babble. But they lack certain something…. can’t put my finger on it…. oh yeah, a misinterpretation of road signs that most children would not make.
@Rike (#7):
You do know that Borowitz is a satirist, right?
Regarding the near-total illiteracy of animals, of course the sign-makers know that the animals can’t read. That’s why they use pictures, instead!
I usually see this joke in the form of “letter to a local newspaper” :There’s a deer / badger /whatever crossing in such-and-such place, I think it should be moved, it’s not a safe place for them to cross the road there because of all the traffic.
Sigh. Still, doesn’t mean there aren’t people who really are that dull.
Fair enough, I guess it’s possible someone does something dumb as deliberate satire, and then later, someone really dumb does it sincerely. I’m not sure there’s a word for this. Might we coin “Eop”, a reverse Poe?
Also, rofl@me for my first ever comment here getting comic sans’ed :-P Now I feel like this guy: http://xkcd.com/481/
bognor@15:
I may have been slightly hasty. I am comicsansing my comment here by way of restitution.
Oh, but maybe the scary story in the New Yorker is a joke. Quite believable, though, when you look at what makes up the GOP!
If Donna is faking then Hollywood is missing one hell of an actor.
I mean the first recording of her I can see being a fake but the follow up? Really sounds real to me.
But I am frequently fooled :P
I’ve been hearing that the Republican party is doomed since 1980. My parents have been hearing it since 1964. I wish it would hurry up and die, already.
I’ve copied a PDF of Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm’s piece and the (sadly, closed) hilarious comments into my ebook collection. Handy for a good laugh! =^_^=
Let it never be said that our Squidly Overlords are unforgiving…
let’s be clear here…
yes, the letter was real.
BUT
it’s pretty clear by the author’s response he meant it tongue in cheek.
BUT
it gets even more complicated, as the radio call in show where a woman essentially repeated the same schtick, was in fact, real but unintentional, and she admitted feeling a bit silly after it was explained to her how the “deer crossing” signs actually work.
multiple layers… like an onion.
…and a comment about the thesis expressed in the title…
if blatant stupidity ever doomed a political party, politics itself would have imploded ages ago.
one could even argue that it is indeed people like Kathleen that keep the GoP going.
As a child, I learned that wild animals prefer distinct spots and paths when moving around in their area. That’s why putting these signs up in specific places makes sense. Did Mrs. Wilhelm go to school? Has she tried thinking?
somewhere, I actually have a picture of a billboard that illustrates this.
I’m not kidding.
just have to find it…
@1 Stevenbrown
YES that is EXACTLY what I thought of immediately – fucking hilarious. To some people, thinking is anethema.
…found it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ichthyic/8484161047/in/photostream
Emily Litella lives.
@ gridironmonger
I think the “comments closed” was a ruse by one of the woman’s embarrassed sympathizers. (My partner was able to “reopen” them.
Joe Maloney #19, Nietzsche said that god was dead but it would take a 100 years to bury him. It turns out he was too optimistic. I hope it does not take that long to bury the Republican Party. But there is the danger it would come back as the Republican Zombie Party. Maybe it already has.
From the referenced post:
“Yet, these signs cost taxpayers like so much of government.”
Two good reasons I can think of for erecting signs like this:
1. Having cars act as an extreme selective pressure on wild species in the ecosystem is not good conservatism
2. Hitting any large metazoan at speed does nothing for your own chances of survival, let alone your insurance premiums.
well this letter may be meant as a joke but the irrationality of some of the conservative spokes people how is anyone supposed to tell.
I heard a discussion of the minimum wage increase on the PBS News hour last week. the conservative shill said he was against the proposed increase of minimum wage but if the government wanted to pay the difference to to the workers that would be OK.
I guess that the money that would come from the government would be OK because it would not be socialism because it would be a subsidy for business and the money needed would be taxed from the working classes any way.
uncle frogy
Unfortunately, I think that it is precisely the exisence of so many people like Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm that is keeping the Republican party in its current sadly wealthy and influential state – you still need a grass roots base, even when the policies of your party are fundamentally at war with reality, and only people like Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm are sufficiently lacking in awareness to happily swallow the Republican party line of failed and irrational policies calculated to maximise suffering for all but the most privileged, often including worsening the lot of the very people they gull into supporting them.
The Republicans chose to bet on human stupidity, and that wager has always been a sure thing. It is no concidence that the Republicans show so little interest in funding education that is not poisoned by creationist blather and other anti-intellectual woo – and educated populace is so much harder to fool, afterall, and may even start thinking for themselves rather than expressing the desired Pavlovian conditioned response to Republican talking points on issues like immigration, restriction of abortion access and their opposition to marriage equality.
Oh for fuck…
This woman is an idiot. Apart from the above annoying little aside, that article had me in stitches. I mean, does she seriously think the signs are for the deer? That they mark specific crossing points that the deer are expected to use? What on Earth is wrong with her?
My cat loiters around the compost heap because he knows that the mice go there. I conclude that my cat is better at reading signs and better at thinking than Ms O’Brien Wilhelm.
Which is why Chris’ title is mistaken.
Personal pet peeve: “Fallen” vs “Falling” rock warning signs (when the symbols are accompanied by text). In Ontario and New York it’s the former. That makes sense. In other states and provinces it’s the latter (Pennsylvania and Alberta for example). That makes no sense as you are many times more likely to hit a rock on the road then be hit by a falling rock.
I honestly fell for it when I first read it but the Republican Party has become so cartoonish in their willful ignorance that give it a couple of years and we might well see the “how do fucking magnets work” debate in full swing on Fox News.
Having a browse through her other posts there is another one about deer.
http://avon-oh.patch.com/blog_posts/council-get-er-done-please
Thought it was worth sharing this wonderful comment by a Mister Rudolph Reindeer …
Deer crossing signs are an example of wasteful government spending (just like Obamacare!), because deer can’t even read the signs. I….can’t…..
Ontario has replaced our “Watch for Fallen Rock” signs with a caution sign that has a picture of fallen rock at the base of a cliff/rock cut. It’s sad up north because, as kids, we used to get a real kick out of reading all the signs and then passing the “Fallen Rock Inn” in Schreiber and yelling “I SEE FALLEN ROCK!”
Oddly, our parents didn’t think the joke was nearly as funny as we did.
I forgot to add:
This woman is clearly a danger to herself. I thought she was joking but the follow up interview where she admits to being embarrassed when someone explained the signs to her proves that she was serious when she wrote it. How does she manage to not poison herself?
I’m just so happy that Canadians are, as a general rule, less likely to express their opinions. I’m sure there are just as many (porportionally) thoughtless Canadians out there but luckily we’ve been raised to think it’s rude to tell people what you’re really thinking unless you’re in a coffee shop or a hockey rink.
Argh **proportionately**
In the article marko linked to, she complains about how many deer there are and how she had hit two deer and damaged her car both times.
Somehow this seems directly related to her misunderstanding of what deer crossing signs are for.
On the other hand, you can see fallen rocks, sign or no sign, and you should already drive so as to be able to cope with stuff like, say, an accident blocking the road – rocks are not qualitatively different.
Whereas the danger of rocks which might fall at any moment (especially in heavy rain, weakening their support) is something a warning of might be useful. You can’t usually see them until they’re close.
Worse though are the falling deer. You never see them coming.
Okay, I am just barely thinking this is serious and not satire… I saw one of the woman’s other blog posts, and for a second I thought that was satire too, but now I think it’s (probably) real. I’m just not entirely sure… The specific words she chooses to use sound sort of satirical (even though I know the ideas expressed in the latter blog post are sincerely held by many Republicans), which makes me wonder… But I guess she’s just an idiot?
@jamessweet
Reading through the comments for that post you linked to; I am beginning to wonder why everyone named Phyllis that I have ever come across happens to be a moron. Does the name just happen to be popular among moronic, Right-wing, parents-to-be?
@ Jamessweet #47
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from 17-odd years on the internet, it’s that there is no proposition so rock-stupid that nobody will take it seriously.
Let’s all read Snopes for comprehension, shall we? This particular letter (the one quoted and linked in the OP, the one by Ms. Wilhelm) is not mentioned in the Snopes piece. OK? There is no response from the author etc.
we now return you to our regularly-scheduled Republican-mocking.
Whether or not the article in question was an attempt at satire, the problem for the Republican Party remains. That people think it is credible Republicans could say something like this is damaging in itself.
Canadians have a different sense of humour on this issue:
http://vancouverisawesome.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/dogsign3-771×1024.jpg
I say it was tongue in cheek. If you look at some of her other articles, the one previous to this was about the deer overpopulation in the area, but that attempts to cull the herd (you know, by killing them) are met with protests. Deer overpopulation is a real problem (both in terms of eating everything, and collisions with vehicles), and there just aren’t the predators around any more to take care of them.
Awesome.
It does say that Tim Abbott was a troll… but also that “Donna the Deer Lady” really was that stupid. So perhaps Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm is, too.
Poe’s Law states that creationism is indistinguishable from satire. There is no “reverse” about it; it already goes both ways.
Well played.
…That would explain a couple of things. *strokes beard*
Which is exactly why the sign shows most of them still in the air.
Americans! Y U NO use international traffic signs and instead spell everything out?
I associate it with upperclass Americans of the 1950s. So, yes.
I hope so!
best comment over there?
’nuff said.
I hear that Cirque de Soleil is recruiting from the Conservatives these days. Some of these contortionists are so flexible they can get their foot in their mouth and their head up their ass at the same time.
See here for an article where she shows awareness of the problems of deer in traffic. I thought that this article was one that surely must have been the one that shows that she isn’t sincere, but she actually does try to come up with serious-looking reasons for why we have to “KILL MORE DEER” or, as the title states, “kill bambi”.
http://avon-oh.patch.com/blog_posts/ohio-needs-to-kill-bambi
See here for weapon’s grade projection and other nuggets of dumbassery:
http://avon-oh.patch.com/blog_posts/democrats-are-goosestepping
Honestly, I wish I could say that she was clearly a satirist. But I don’t see the right tells. I don’t see the cues necessary to clearly distinguish her from a sufficiently devoted and incompetent wingnut. If she isn’t a satirist, though, I almost feel bad for her. Because, if this isn’t parody, she is clearly as dull as a brick with sanded-off corners.
@naturalcynic:
Emily Litella loves whom? And why are we talking about romantic lives of random people when the real topic of conversation should be what we are telling our mayors and road-sign people to do about the deer. This is a real problem, it’s not just about more sex! Sex, sex, sex, that’s all you ever hear about on these blogs. Well, I, for one, don’t believe that it is appropriate to…
…what?
Emily Litella lives?
Oh.
Never mind.
Not when human stupidity is allowed to literally and figuratively utterly and totally destroy said political party’s host nation.
@naturalcynic, Crip Dyke,
I miss Gilda.
This woman’s writings are a lot more entertaining when read in an Emily Litella voice.
Wow.
Based on her past posts, I don’t think this is parody or satire.
And she really hates two things: Obama and Deers.
@David Marjanović (#54):
In other words, “Poe” is a palindrome?? As if I wasn’t having enough trouble trying to work out if Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm is for real…
/headsplode
@Bognor (#15):
Congratulations on your ComicSans-ing – and the well-executed recovery! I would say thanks for the XKCD link, but when I clicked on it I had a mouthful of beer, and now I no longer have either a mouthful of beer or a clean T-shirt. :-(
This is not parody. This is not satire. This is Avon Lake.
I live about 10 miles from Avon and Avon Lake. Their politics are wacky. Median income is close to $80k/year. Big houses. Their politics are very much concerned about (and clueless of) their own privilege.
A local church had kids stay the night in the church in cardboard boxes with no electronics or entertainment to learn a little about what it’s like to be homeless. Kathleen says they’d be better off following a successful business owner around for a day. Some folks got upset about a deer culling program set up by the city. She basically called everyone who opposed it brainwashed and stupid.
#firstworldproblems
glodson,
Yeah, I browsed through her other posts too. *shudder*
Beatrice,
Yea… I had a hope that I would go in and find something that tells me this is a joke, a satire or something. Unless all of her posts are some kind of wicked satire, she’s just a stupid wingnut.
And seeing nigelthebold’s post @ 63 pretty much confirms that she meant this in all seriousness.
This is some of the finest quality insane troll logic I’ve seen in awhile.
Day saved.
*steal*
glodson:
She’s one of the most vocal purveyors of teh stoopid in the area. Even a lot of conservative folks I know think she’s a wee bit batty. Here, her biggest problem is communication, I think. She’s hit a couple of deer with vehicles in the past, and there were no deer crossing signs around (according to her story). This is entirely possible — deer come through in the spring all over the place. I see dozens of dead deer along the road in the spring and fall.
Thats why she has a vendetta against deer. They have personally attacked her, and ruined her perfectly good SUVs.
I think her argument is that deer cross roads all willy-nilly. They don’t pay attention to the signs.* This somehow ties into our fetishization of animals, where we are indoctrinated to treat animals with respect, and in the case of pets, even love. Meanwhile, we’re not taught to extend that same kind of respect and love to other humans.
(Never mind most people suck, and our dogs give us unconditional love in return, so there’s no contest for which really deserves the respect in the first place.)
The Affordable Care Act is emblematic of this, as it forces everyone (even males) to have abortions at least annually. Or something.
So, can we please stop buying our pets blinge, and start hatin’ on the animals? They’re only here so we can have Outback Steak Houses anyway.
* Yes, this argument shows a complete misunderstanding of game trails and statistical probabilities. But I don’t think comprehension of reality is Kathleen Wilhelm’s strength.
The author was writing an ‘op-ed’ piece. Doescthatvstand for ‘optional educated?’
She… yea.
Why do they let her write?
@nigelthebold, also Avo 67:
I cannot understand how someone can say we should be treating humans with more respect and yet also be against the idea of healthcare being accessible to everyone. The shouting of teabaggers of letting the uninsured die hardly speaks of love and respect for your fellow humans does it? Also, this ridiculous binary “if you love animals you hate humans ” really shows the black and white mindset of modern US conservatism at work. Is it really so mind blowing that you could be kind to your pets AND the people around you?
She is probably cheap and prolific.
@glodson, #69
When you read this:
you realize that there are no editors there whatsoever. Or, perhaps, in Avon even the people who call themselves journalists are so ignorant they apparently think that commas are like modest earrings – they don’t attract any real attention or have some deep meaning and thus they don’t get in the way of anything substantive, so why not throw one in a small hole whenever you’re in the mood?
Isn’t it supposedly a conservative parody of liberal positions to say, “If it feels good, do it”? This woman has a seriously hedonistic and unnatural relationship with punctuation. I’m sure that somewhere in the 613 mitzvot there’s something that should prohibit this.
@ 71:
They need to shop around more.
@ 72
I didn’t read that post. I looked at her past blog titles. Once I saw the bit about Goosestepping with Obama, I had learned what I set out to learn. I… really, I’m at a loss here.
If we created a strawman of her arguments, we would actually be improving them.
The first “Donna the Deer Lady” call was a hoax.
The second “Donna the Deer Lady” call was a hoax.
“Donna the Deer Lady is an employee of the radio station.
This Wilhelm person may be a complete idiot, but even idiots can copy stupid jokes. In all probability, her remarks on the signs constitute a hoax.
Fess up: you don’t know what “hoax” means, do you. Or “probability.”
rike @ #7:
Borowitz is satire, but reality is not far behind. That House committee is planning a hearing on how to defend the earth against a meteor strike. Remember Paul Broun? He sits on that committee.
We’re boned.
You know, I’ll bet she’s never actually driven in the country. For those of us in rural areas, we appreciate paying for signs that help us avoid potentially deadly collisions with large mammals.
As sharp as a bowling ball and twice as dense.
“Fess up: you don’t know what “hoax” means, do you. Or “probability.””
I do know what “hoax” means and I do know what “probability” means.
Perhaps you could explain why you believe the “Donna the Deer Lady” pranks don’t fit within the common definition of “hoax.”
Perhaps you could explain why you believe the “Donna the Deer Lady” pranks don’t fit within the common definition of “hoax.”
Perhaps you could provide evidence that “Donna the Deer Lady” was a hoax? Because I haven’t seen any evidence, just your claim that it must be so, because Probability. Or something. Citation needed.
Are you suggesting that you think that the “Donna the Deer Lady” calls were legit, or probably legit?
The probability comment was with respect to Wilhelm. The reason I believe that it’s probable that Wilhelm was taking the piss is because the “Donna the Deer Lady” hoaxes were recently well-publicized and the joke would seem to fit into one of her pet concerns. Maybe she is that dumb, it just seems like a odd coincidence.
not so sure this is stupidity over a simple perception issue.
in the interview with the deer woman in the Snopes article, she talks about growing up in an isolated small town, and had never heard of nor seen a deer crossing sign before she moved with her husband to the larger town.
It does sound like one of those tiny things that could fall through the cracks in one’s early education, and allow one to form a conception on the spot based on just the raw information one has at hand.
So, this person may not be so low in IQ they are unable to tie their own shoes.
That said, this same person, after making the conclusion that deer crossing signs were for deer, ALSO said that they “never thought about it much after that”. THERE lies the problem. I’m betting the average person, after a moment’s reflection, would have rejected the idea.
so, coming round full circle, yes, the woman might indeed be a danger to herself, not because she is “stupid” necessarily, but because she does not reflect on the conclusions she forms initially.
This indeed could lead to all sorts of dangerous situations.
So, after much windy consideration… my conclusion is simply to push for more education in critical thinking, starting much earlier in the educational system.
If she had been taught to analyze her own conclusions, there might have been an entirely different result.
OTOH, there would be far less humor in that.
cachorroquente:
Read her other blog posts. They are here. In order for me to believe she’s joking, I would have to look past these older posts that are written in much the same style.
There’s little to indicate she’s joking. In fact, she seems to be suggesting this argument in all seriousness.
that’s what Snopes says.
currently, there is no evidence to support the contention the woman worked for the radio station, or that this was a hoax on her part.
in the replay of the second segment, you can hear her explanation. Why bother if it was a hoax?
this is a case of you attributing a low probability of coincidence by taking the two events out of context.
think about it:
it’s like saying there must be a conspiracy if two people have the same kind of auto accident in the same city on different days.
Are you suggesting that you think that the “Donna the Deer Lady” calls were legit, or probably legit?
Yes. I still haven’t seen any evidence to suggest they were a hoax. Snopes seemed to call them legit, and she called back in to the radio station to explain her initial call. So, Occam’s Razor and all that…
Some people really are that dumb. I’ve met some of them.
Read the thread.
(Also, click on the link, the commentator made a slight error which he corrected later)
I’m pretty sure she’s not kidding about most of it. Perhaps she’s a bit like Glenn Beck, who certainly is a wingnut yet will also crack pointless, stupid, cruel “jokes” just to add some flavor and not always be such a stuffy, uptight wingnut. But you basically still have to be a wingnut to think that shit is funny or even remotely clever, so in the end it doesn’t really make a difference. It sort of comes with the territory whenever you’re a bullshitter: you don’t even care what you actually think. That isn’t the point.
“OTOH, there would be far less humor in that.”
That appears to me to be a clue.
So, Tim Abbott wrote a pretty funny letter to the editor in an Indiana paper suggesting that deer crossings be moved to lessen the danger of collisions. The letter got a lot of attention including mention by Jay Leno. The joke was not original with Abbott as George Carlin used to do essentially the same gag.
Not so long after, Donna called into the Fargo radio station running essentially the same joke. The Fargo station got a lot of attention, the radio personalities got a lot of attention, lots of people got worked up about it and everybody had a pretty good time. Then, some time passed and just about everybody who didn’t spot it right away figured out that “Donna the Deer Lady” was a joke and the Fargo radio station, and everybody else involved, faded back into obscurity. So, what’s the radio station going to do to try to extend its fifteen minutes? Exactly what they did: get Donna back on and try to extend the joke’s life a bit. Having Donna come on and confess to the hoax wouldn’t have been funny. Donna’s second appearance wasn’t very funny either, but it was a shot.
Then, we have this Wilhelm person running the same joke. Maybe she’s for real, but it seems unlikely to me.
Serious tangent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing
http://twistedsifter.com/2012/07/animal-bridges-around-the-world/
“that’s what Snopes says.”
You must be reading a different snopes. Here is what the snopes that I read has to say about the second call:
“Y94 posted a follow-up interview with Donna on 17 October 2012 in which she thanked the radio hosts for being so nice to her during her previous call and professed that she “never really thought about it enough to realize that I was kind of being ridiculous”
there is no indication at all as to the seriousness of this second call.
So basically, cachorroquente, you’re responding to requests for citation that the Donna the Deer Lady call was a hoax in the face of contrary evidence, not by providing actual citations but by doubling down on your armwaving, and then insisting that since you’ve decided with no evidence that DtDL was a hoax, that Wilhelm must be too.
Yeah, you’re gonna do really well at Pharyngula. We do so love unsupported arguments from personal convictions around here.
“it’s like saying there must be a conspiracy if two people have the same kind of auto accident in the same city on different days.”
No, it’s not. It’s like seeing two different magicians perform the same obscure magic trick and realize that it’s likely that the magicians have the same inspiration.
sgbm, #90
Wow. That’s pretty amazing.
The only evidence that the “Donna the Deer Lady” calls were not hoaxes is the hoax calls themselves. The evidence that the calls were hoaxes is circumstantial, but it’s still evidence.
“then insisting that since you’ve decided with no evidence that DtDL was a hoax, that Wilhelm must be too.”
You are attributing to me a claim I did not make.
“We do so love unsupported arguments from personal convictions around here.”
I am aware of that.
Here’s another opinion to consider. It is not evidence as to whether the Donna calls were hoaxes or not, but it explains some of the reasons to think they might have been.
Seems pretty obvious to me, but if someone has actual evidence, distinct from the calls themselves, and if it’s good evidence, I’ll happily change my opinion.
Presuppositional interpretation on your part isn’t evidence either, but that is all you offer. Citation, or time to call it quits.
cachorroquente: I’ve heard lots of hoax calls on radio stations and I go back to my earlier statement: If this was a hoax then Donna is one of the finest voice actors presently alive and could surely be found in many other settings. The radio DJ’s are not half bad.
You’re welcome to hold your own opinion that it’s a hoax but unless you have some kind of proof that it was a set up but you didn’t express it as an opinion you expressed it as fact:
If you have any proof then post it. Otherwise admit that you’re only going off your own personal interpretation and that you’re spouting an unsupported opinion.
Sorry, I must have misinterpreted it when you said
and
and
and
Of course it’s an opinion, though it’s not unsupported.
Earlier you claimed that the first Donna call had “been confirmed as serious.” The confirmation being, of course, the second Donna call. That’s pretty weak confirmatioin.
“Presuppositional interpretation on your part isn’t evidence either”
We execute people on flimsier evidence.
Perhaps you’d be happier back at Yahoo Answers, cachorroquente.
“Sorry, I must have misinterpreted it when you said […]”
when you responded:
“insisting that since you’ve decided with no evidence that DtDL was a hoax, that Wilhelm must be too.”
You certainly did.
I’m not sure that you know what “probability” means.
@consciousness razor
Maybe parts of that rambling mess was meant to be a joke, like how Beck can be. But it is just mired in so much… I don’t know. It just fits the mold of her previous offerings. In a vaccum, I might agree, but as I read her older posts, I found it hard to write this blog post off as some sort of joke or her trying to take refuge in the absurd.
@cachorroquente
Not to just echo the others, but that’s what you got? Even if Donna was joking and it was just a hoax, what about Wilhelm makes you think that she’s joking? Even if I grant that the original was a hoax, what about this posting in particular makes you think it was anything else than in all seriousness? What evidence do you even have for that lowered bar?
I think there’s a strong probability that Cachorroquente will be posting bunny videos soon.
cachorroquente, your arguments are fascinating.
No sorry that’s not the word I’m looking for…
Reaching and unsupported in the face of contrary evidence.
That’s it.
viajera:
I’m with Icthyic on this one — it can happen that your brain just slides off something for some reason.
To offer anecdata, I am well-educated, reasonably intelligent, and regarded by friends as being analytical to the point of being seriously annoying. Yet, for a couple of years, I was mildly mystified by a freeway sign in the East Bay that I drove past every few weeks on my way to somewhere else. It said:
A STREET
DOWNTOWN
Every time I drove by, I wondered fleetingly why they weren’t more specific. After a couple of years the penny dropped, and I realized there must be an “A” Street in San Leandro.
So, I have to sympathize a bit with Donna the Deer Lady. I think there’s probably a little Emily Litella in all of us, and that’s why she’s so funny.
“Even if I grant that the original was a hoax, what about this posting in particular makes you think it was anything else than in all seriousness? ”
In my opinion, the Donna calls are an obvious hoax. Then you have Wilhelm apparently riffing off the same joke. The way it’s written, it does not appear serious. But then, I’ve read a bit more of what Wilhelm has written and she doesn’t appear to be a particularly sharp thinker nor does she appear to have much of a sense of humor, so maybe she is that dumb.
In my first comment on this I said that “in all probability” Wilhelm was jiking. I should have said “probably” and I’m no longer sure of that. I still think it’s possible.
@ psanity
I have a personal anecdote about stupidity. My wife and I were going to El Paso. She’s from there, and it was my first trip out there. I saw a sign for Juarez. It bothered me. I kept trying to pronounce it in my head, not bothering to think in Spanish. So after about 20 minutes, I realize that it is supposed to be in Spanish, I loudly announce “Hey! That says Juarez!” It was followed by five minutes of me explaining to my wife how stupid I am.
Oh, and cachorroquente? Pro tip: assumption unsupported by evidence is kind of exactly not skepticism.
Well, not in real life, if we can help it. Even your nonsense isn’t a capital offense, even here. You can expect to be chewed upon, spat out, and bunnified, though.
Shape up, and give us some real argument. You wouldn’t even qualify for MP’s Argument Clinic.
“Reaching and unsupported in the face of contrary evidence.”
What contrary evidence? Someone claiming to be Donna playing a role. That’s pretty weak evidence.
cachorroquente:
Again, what in her blog posting makes you think it is a joke? What lines? What phrases? In a vacuum, I would agree with you given the ridiculousness of it. However, look at it again within the context of her previous works. Really, read a few.
Unless those are all jokes, there is little to believe that Wilhelm is anything but serious. It is possible, of course. But without any evidence as to that possibility, I would just go with not joking.
psanity @108: STOP CASTING POROSITY.
I need to know one thing.
Where is this magical land located? Where is it you run into total idiots so rarely, that you cannot believe this woman could possibly be for real? I want to live there.
cachorroquente:
Unless Wilhelm likes to carry these kinds of jokes to extreme, she’s not kidding. She has talked about this at city council meetings (according to a friend who lives in Avon Lake). She was a very vocal supporter of a city ordinance for the culling of deer in the Avon Lake area.
She really, really hates deer.
And as far as anyone can tell, she’s very serious about it.
“Where is this magical land located? Where is it you run into total idiots so rarely, that you cannot believe this woman could possibly be for real? I want to live there.”
Are you referring to Donna or to Wilhelm? Donna, it seems to me, is pretty clearly playing a role in a skit. Wilhelm might actually be that simple.
“Oh, and cachorroquente? Pro tip: assumption unsupported by evidence is kind of exactly not skepticism.”
There are good reasons to be skeptical about the Donna the Deer Lady Show. If some people at a radio station in Fargo decided to come up with a joke skit based on the well known deer crossing joke it would look exactly like what we see. As mentioned by Snopes, it’s classic silliness in the pattern of Gracie Allen. Or Lucille Ball.
cachorroquente: Firstly you’re absolutely right I shouldn’t have called it confirmed just because of the follow up. My apologies for pulling you up on something that I was guilty of myself.
Secondly thank you for changing your language to that of an opinion rather than fact.
And yeah, after reading a couple of the other articles Wilhem articles I find it harder and harder to believe she has a sense of humour to pull something like this off unless ALL her articles are satire. If they are she needs to learn to be slightly more obvious because at the moment she’s fairly indistinguishable from a garden variety dullard.
I agree. The only reason I think it is real is the second clip which seems, to my ear, to be too real for a local radio show to pull off. Not impossible but unlikely.
I think it may be I have a lower opinion of humanities acting skills and intelligence than you do.
The question you didn’t answer was referring to you and where you live. Where I live, this kind of nonsense isn’t hard to believe. It doesn’t even surprise me anymore. I’m much more likely to encounter someone who believes a load of nonsense, rather than some master of satire who does this sort of performance art regularly, just to … well … express something, I know not what. All else being equal, I’m pretty sure I would prefer to live in that magical land where all the Stephen Colberts are running around, not the one with a bunch of Glenn Becks.
p.s.: <blockquote> Blockquoting stuff </blockquote> is helpful.
“And yeah, after reading a couple of the other articles Wilhem articles”
I can’t get all the way through any of them. If there is any organization to her thinking, it’s not apparent in her writing: she conceals it well.
Her article, “Animals Can’t Talk”, was published over a week ago and there are well over 100 comments, mostly critical. If she had been making a joke, it seems probable that she would have pointed that out somewhere. It doesn’t appear that she has. I don’t suppose her lack of comment can be called evidence, but it’s something to consider.
You didn’t ask me where I lived. You asked me “Where is this magical land located?” I assumed that the question was one of those rhetorical ones. But, what do I know, I’m just the night clerk at a convenience store serving tall boys in paper sacks to men (mostly men) in shabby clothes with dirty faces and hands in gloves with no fingers clutching Nabokov novels. This place is a lot of things, magical not being among them. I suppose I could lie and tell you I was in Milwaukee or something but there may be someone around here who is smarter than what we perceive and then I would be caught in my lie and then where would we be? Someplace else not magical, I fear.
psanity @108:
I’m with Icthyic on this one — it can happen that your brain just slides off something for some reason.
Oh, I know. I refuse to admit how old I was when I finally figured out that “Lego my Eggo” actually meant “let go of my Eggo,” instead of just some random catchphrase that for some reason I couldn’t figure out associated Eggo waffles with a child’s block toy… We’re all capable of goofy / stupid mistakes.
That said, some more so than others…especially, I find, those of the Faux News-watching variety, like (apparently) Wilhelm
Meh. Signs vs. “Deer can’t read” was stupid when Bill Engvall used it as a joke several years ago. That some moron recently used it in all seriousness is just sad.
you know I know some one who does not believe Colbert is satire. He will not believe me no matter how many times I tell him either.
may that has happened here that Kathleen heard about the hoax call but did not get it was a joke and she went with it because she dislikes the dear so much.
uncle frogy
So, what are we to make of this second clip? If this second clip is great “evidence”, exactly what is it evidence of?
Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what information that I can draw from that second clip. What does it tell me about whether the first clip was a hoax or not? If the first clip was a hoax and the radio personalities put Donna on the air to discuss her performance in the first clip, this is exactly what I would expect the second clip to be: Donna continuing to play the role that she played in the first clip. If Donna had been sincere in the first clip, her performance in the second clip is exactly what I would expect. So, whether the first clip was a hoax or not, the second clip would be what it turns out to be. So, the second clip adds no new information — it provides no guidance whatsoever in determining whether or not the first call was a hoax. That means to me that it’s necessary to evaluate the first clip on its own and in the context of the previously established deer crossing joke.
Over the years I’ve attended a bunch of seminars and workshops on various topics many of which had some role playing exercises. I’ve seen many seemingly ordinary people turn in some quite amazing performances. With a little thought and planning, a decent rough script, and a little practice and it can be pretty good. I don’t think what we hear in these two clips is beyond the abilities of many, many people.
The clearest evidence that Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm’s article is not satire — unless everything she’s ever written is also satire — is that she connected the deer crossing idea with her stance on abortion.
If you’re making a humorous reference to something that you know is patently ridiculous, the last thing you would do is deliberately connect it with an important issue you feel strongly about.
There’s only two possible outcomes: you convey to people that you’re sincere about the ridiculous idea, or you convey to people that you’re also joking about your sincere beliefs.
In the case of creatardism, the stupid came first; it inspired the indistinguishable satire.
In deercrossingtardism, the satire actually anticipated the stupid.
@Red-Green in Blue (#62)
:-D
@Chris: Yeah, San Leandro is so weird.
@cachorroquente:
Ah, seminars and workshops. “Role playing exercises”, right.
I would suggest, first, that if you want to do a believable hoax, get professionals. Not fishing for work, just offering advice. And second, the thing you’re not getting is that while many, many, events, large and small, every day, could very well be hoaxes, they’re almost always … not. Not only was the Apollo landing film not produced on a soundstage, it didn’t need to be, because the Apollo landing actually happened. And there’s no reason to automatically assume the radio call-in was a hoax, because people call in to radio shows every day saying things as dumb or dumber.
It would be like me assuming that you are a hoax because you said that very silly thing about role-playing in workshops. But, experience has taught me that the world is full of silly people, including me, so I usually go for the entertainment value. Also, hoaxes tend to out, especially if they get much attention, and Donna’s second call was way back in October; it strains credulity that those in on the joke, if such it was, are still keeping mum.
bognor,
Please don’t use permutations of tard.
Like using permutations of dyke or gay or queer as insults, this is hurtful to innocent bystanders.
Cacharro, we have someone who *lives nearby* who knows of her antics. She is clearly that dumb – we have essentially eyewitness evidence.
Never mind the foolishness of the deer crossing sign. Right below that is a No Parking sign, which is even stupider. As if cars could read! At least deer can understand pictures.
Acknowledged. Sadly I can’t edit the post.
Thanks, bognor; going on from here will be just fine. We all trip up now and then.
Thanks Chris :-)