By Joel Thurtell
Does anybody know Jeff T. Wattrick?
Somebody should tell him an idiot is blogging under his name.
I can’t believe a person with intelligence would equate a flunky like Ambassador Bridge honcho Dan Stamper with luminaries like Henry David Thoreau, Alfred Dreyfus and Nelson Mandela.
No person with an ounce of sense would pretend that a few hours in a Wayne County holding cell could make a martyr of Stamper, mouthpiece and fall guy for billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun.
The real Jeff T. Wattrick needs to locate this counterfeiter asap and stop the embarrassment.
Here is what the pseudo-Wattrick says:
Detroit International Bridge Company President Dan Stamper emerged from jail yesterday evening, unbroken and unbowed, after six hours of incarceration.
Wow.
“Unbroken and unbowed.”
Wonder what those Wayne County deputies did to poor ol’ Danny boy.
Waterboard?
Probably fed him a baloney sandwich.
It doesn’t happen very often but sometimes a man – maybe not a hero, exactly – but a man of deep conviction must submit to incarceration to expose a great injustice.
Dan’s convictions are about as deep as Matty’s pocket book. Bet those six hours were worth a husky bonus.
One, no doubt, thinks of Henry David Thoreau and his principled opposition to the Spanish-American Mexican War. Or Alfred Dreyfus, whose unjust imprisonment exposed latent Antisemitism lurking in French society. Or Nelson Mandela and his nearly 30-year prison term for opposing South Africa’s Apartheid regime.
Oops, did our fake Wattrick mistake the Spanish-American War for the Mexican-American War? Both wars were were land grabs, so there’s that in common with Matty’s filching of city of Detroit property for his new bridge.
But Thoreau?
Since when was Thoreau the well-paid president of a substandard bridge?
Dreyfus?
Since when was Dreyfus a nonsense-spewing front for a wily trucking tycoon?
And since when was Nelson Mandela a walking, talking smokescreen for a land-stealing oligarch with a private army of bully-boy shotgun-totin’ goons?
Yesterday, Dan Stamper joined the ranks of those noble men who sacrificed personal freedom for a chance to create a freer society.
Decryption: A society policed by Matty’s goons and thugs.
His six-hour stay in the American Gulag that is Wayne County Jail will raise awareness of a nefarious governmental intrusion into the free market known as contract law.
What? “The free market known as contract law”? Can anybody tell me what this garbage is supposed to mean?
Under this dangerous concept, government bureaucrats (known as judges) can force a citizen (at the barrel of a gun) to submit arrangements previously and freely agreed to.
“Submit arrangements previously and freely agreed to”? What in the world does this mean?
Okay, wait a minute. Now I get it. He’s talking about the Matty Moroun-hired hood who tried to arrest me September 22, 2008 in a city of Detroit park for legally photographing the Ambassador Bridge on public property. Matty’s guard had a shotgun and used his company pickup to block my car. Wattrick’s comment about “forc(ing) a citizen (at the barrel of a gun) to submit arrangements previously and freely agreed to” must refer to my citizen’s right to be in a public park without having one of Matty’s army of gofers try to arrest me.
Even worse, in this particular case, Stamper and his shining example of American enterprise are being compelled to assist the government with a road project, as previously agreed to in a contract between MDOT and DIBC.
Compelled to take part in a contract they signed?
I’ve got an idea: He hates government so much, well, what if the state and federal governments stopped supporting I-75 and I-96? Let Matty and his billionaire pals pay for the freeways that bring the toll-paying trucks to his rundown bridge.
You know who else used the government to build roads? The Nazis. And on their “autobahn” the Nazis drove Nazi cars (known as Volkswagens) at dangerously high speeds.
“Wattrick” has got to be a nom de plume. No sane person would be identified with the faker’s absurd claim about the Volkswagen bug. I learned to drive in a 1956 Beetle. It couldn’t attain dangerously LOW speeds.
Is that what we really want for metro Detroit? Nazis driving their Jettas at 90 MPH on I-75 or I-96?
Well, we’ve got Tea Party know-nothings driving on them now.
Dan Stamper would not go gently into that good night and, for six hours, sacrificed his freedom to protect our fragile Republic from such a fate.
Heart-rending, indeed. But this much is true: Dan Stamper did not go gently out of jail. No sooner was he free, than the bridge bureaucrat started spurting the same obstructionist crap — not unlike Wattrick’s — that put him behind bars.
Hey Joel — We’re big fans of your blog, but your critique of Jeff’s piece is off base. If you regularly read Jeff, or perhaps his previous work at Dyspathy, you’d understand his take was tongue in cheek. Had he been serious, your outrage would be justified. But in this case, you just missed the jokes. All 30 of them.
ummm…. “Jeff T. Wattrick” was writing satirically. Are you dense?
Yeah, that “Wattrick” guy is way off base. And we should probably go after that “Swift” guy who advocates the eating of Irish babies in “A Modest Proposal.”
Please see above for examples of sarcasm.
jeff rules. you dont.
Years ago, a dear friend, discussing theology, said, “God ought to make Himself more clear.”
Satire can be dangerous if it misfires. I had to read Wattrick’s column a second time before I decided that he was being satirical. I e-mailed the column, without comment, to two friends whose brains are at least as good as mine and probably a lot better. Both e-mailed back, one in puzzlement, the other outright querying whether the column was meant as satire. “I hope so,” she wrote.
In “Judged By Love,” Javan Kienzle’s biography of her priest-turned-mystery-novelist husband, she recounted how then-Father Kienzle, whose mother was part Irish, had written an editorial in “The Michigan Catholic” in defense of Catholics in the north of Ireland. Unfortunately, he chose satire as his tool; his “editorial had, in a limited way, somewhat the same effect as ‘A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country,’ wherein Jonathan Swift, tongue firmly in cheek [alluding to the Famine], suggested that Irish babies be ‘stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled [or served] in a fricassee, or a ragout.’
“All hell broke loose. Michigan’s Irish, with pens as sharp as their tongues, aimed both at Father Kienzle. They didn’t realize that Mary Louise Boyle’s son was not on the side of the English.
“In response, the following week’s editorial opened with, ‘It was a satire. It was a satire. It was a satire.’ And Father Kienzle went on to explain: ‘It attempted, through irony, to illustrate the false concept of law and order. etc., etc., etc.’
” ‘During the past week we have received many, many calls and letters (you don’t have to keep them coming) from distraught, angry and incredulous Irish people who missed the satire of the editorial and took it all quite seriously.
” ‘They were incensed, and rightfully if one forgets it was a satire, to see Catholics of Northern Ireland called ‘second-class citizens,’ ‘shiftless’ and told to leave if they disliked their treatment.’ ”
Father Kienzle told friends that he had learned a valuable lesson: Never write satirically without first giving notice that you are doing so.
Nowadays, when too many articles and columns are poorly written and poorly edited, resulting in too many readers extrapolating wrongly and misunderstanding or misconstruing the writer’s meaning and/or intent, a writer should be sure, while sharpening the cutting edge of his/her satirical axe, that s/he hits the reader with the cutting edge and not with the blunt edge.
When dealing in satire, the writer should, like God, make Himself (or Herself) more clear.
Do understand sarcasm and irony? Maybe you should familiarize yourself Jeff’s work before you dedicate a blog post to criticizing him.
Hi, second MLive staffer commenting here. Like my colleague Jonathan said, regular readers of Jeff know his style. I’m guessing a satirical post in the Michigan Catholic backfired because, well, the Michigan Catholic doesn’t usually feature satirical posts. Am I right?
(On the subject of poorly written and poorly edited articles, a quick visit to the Michigan Catholic’s website today shows an misspelled word in the top headline. God clearly isn’t working on the copy desk over there.)
And to preface a satirical post with “DANGER! DANGER! THIS IS SATIRE!” kinda takes the wind out of the sails.
“I’m guessing a satirical post in the Michigan Catholic backfired because, well, the Michigan Catholic doesn’t usually feature satirical posts. Am I right?”
Not since the days of Father Kienzle and Msgr. Jerry Martin . . . .
Not to beat a dead horse (yuck, I have always hated that expression), Joel, but Jeff does satire and always has. And well, I might add. In particular, he has never been a fan at all of Mr. Maroun or his meathead lieutenant Mr. Stamper. Is your piece intended as satire as well? I didn’t think so. Wow, bad day, I guess, and we are all entitled to them. So, I guess a mia culpa might be in order.
Ha, saw your mia culpa. Thank you!
DRIC-ites have no sense of humour
Hey, lighten up! Joel’s writing is meant to be entertaining as well as addressing serious subjects like Matty Maroun acting above the law and having his thug lawyer, Dan Stamper, carry out his directives. You need to read about Peppermint Patty as well as these articles before you judge and criticize. Frankly, I think Joel’s writing is not only fun, but thought-provoking and outright brilliant. Wish I had just a smidgen of his talent with the English language and history.