In the Belly of the Beast

Tina Brown (former editor of the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The Tatler) launched her new news/blog site, thedailybeast.com this week. Novelist/political satirist Christopher Buckley's blog is one of many featured on the fledgling site. Here are some excerpts from it:

What Fresh Hell Is This? by Christopher Buckley

"I try to refrain from the alarmist statement, really I do. It's bad for the liver and worries the dog, who has plenty enough to worry about as it is. But apart from the truly gladsome tiding that O.J. Simpson was found guilty on all counts—and on the 13th anniversary of his acquittal for murder; there is a god—there isn't much frabjous joy or calloo callay in the morning paper. We've handed $700 billion over to the same folks who got us into this mess, (the U.S. government), and who know what good is going to come of that. Pete Peterson's foundation is taking out two-page ads in The Times pointing out a really inconvenient truth, namely that we face $53 trillion in unfunded liabilities. (How much is $53 trillion? Well, the GDP of the United States is about $14 trillion.) What else? Oh yes: home prices are in free fall and nearly ten million Americans are out of work. At this rate we're all going to be working at Starbucks. Michael Gill, author of How Starbucks Saved My Life, soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, is the new Steve Jobs!

Well, as the old Chinese curse has it, we do seem to be living in interesting times. Or to put it in Sarah Palinesque terms, could this be The End of Days? Either way, the excellent Mrs. Parker's memorable phrase (above) could serve as a headline for most stories running these days. Things could be worse: my next-door neighbor, a lovely fellow by the name of Mudd, is the now ex-head of Fannie Mae."
_________________________________________________________

"Every election, a presidential candidate inevitably proposes a new cabinet agency. The idea is that this is the only way to solve a particular problem. Just create more government. Why didn't we think of that before?

Last time around, Sen. Kerry proposed—I wrote it down—a Department of Wellness. Exactly what we need. It is, however, worth asking up front: where would the Secretary of Wellness come in the presidential line of succession? There's a plot for a post-apocalyptic novel: the only one left alive in the rubble is—the Secretary of Wellness. Let the healing begin!

I, for one, would propose a Secretary of Reality. So during cabinet meetings, when the President was proposing to, say, invade Iraq, or to announce a federal bailout for the kitty litter industry—the ripple effect would be calamitous!—the Secretary of Reality would cough softly, like Jeeves, and say, Mr. President, with all due respect, sir, that is a colossally stupid idea. The Secretary of Reality would probably require heavily armed bodyguards and some kind of statutory immunity. But the idea isn't so novel, really. In Shakespeare, he went by a slightly different name.

Lear: Dost thou call me fool, boy?

Fool: All thy other titles, thou hast given away; that thou wast born with."

If you were like me and thought, "'Frabjous'? Buckley totally made that up," I consulted my trusty Oxford English Dictionary and found that it is indeed a word--one that I'll be using the next time I play (read: annihilate my opponent[s] in) Scrabble. Check out Christopher Buckley's books (Thank You For Smoking--made into a film of the same name, Boomsday, Supreme Courtship). His writing is mad frabjous, yo!

frabjous |ˈfrabjəs|
adjective humorous
delightful; joyous : “Oh frabjous day!” she giggled.

DERIVATIVES
frabjously adverb
ORIGIN 1871: coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass, apparently to suggest fair and joyous.