QotD: Slate

Slate is a sort of fractal of the facile and the disingenuous, from its smallest headline teases to its very raison d’être; the phrase If there was any need for Slate it wouldn’t exist seemed to stretch the boundaries of my skull like some virtual underground sea, and I swerved to find the keyboard when the phone rang.

From Doghouse Riley.

A Few Words in Defense of the Piano Man

The other day, Slate published an anti-Billy Joel screed by Ron Rosenbaum cleverly titled “The Awfulness of Billy Joel“, so titled to give you an idea of what you were in for, because irony is dead and stuff. I’ve yet to determine why Slate harbors such a grudge towards Joel, because this is the second takedown they’ve published. Anyway, Rosenbaum carefully (or rather, condescendingly) explains Joel’s awfulness, his main beef being that some of Joel’s lyrics are contemptuous of phonies, as well as marveling at Joel’s audacity in fashioning himself as a man of the people, when in fact … he’s WEALTHY!!! (Duh-duh-DUH!) Also, he’s self-absorbed prick and a misogynist who steals Dylan lyrics. (More after the jump…)