Wonkette
We’ve been getting a bunch of referrals to this Fake Texting Scandal post from the other day, randomly, and the absolute best mention is this Associated Content column by a gal named Carol Bengle Gilbert. It is called “Obama Text Message Fakes: Prank Reminiscent of 4th Grade.” Let’s look a little closer at Gilbert’s column, especially the parts in which she insults her young child and confesses to getting “angry at Word,” as in the basic computer program.
Gilbert’s structure is TIGHT: introduce new topics in the form of bold rhetorical questions, and then dig into each topic with several more rhetorical questions. For example:
Are the Bona Fide Potential Obama VP Nominees Too Boring?
What is behind the fake Obama text message onslaught? Too much tease? Too long a wait?
Or is the bona fide potential VP shortlist- widely believed to consist of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh- just too boring to entertain the American public while we’re waiting?
OK? Those are all important and varied questions? The column gets funnier? She calls her own child a “computer nerd”? She hates her child’s fucking friends too? Because they are all apparently smarter than her? “Processor”?
Does the Fake Obama Text Message Spate Remind You of 4th Grade?
In late elementary school, many children love pranks. My first thought when I heard about my fellow Americans pranking each other with fake Obama text messages was, “4th grade all over again.” My son and his friends are computer nerds who learned how to program computers in elementary school.
One of those friends decided to try out his skills on my laptop without my knowledge. He inserted programming to change every instance of the word “she” to “he” in a book I was writing about Europe. I discovered the result and immediately got angry at Word and its ever errant efforts to overwrite my text with “corrections” that often aren’t correct. But when I came to type the word “Europe,” only to have it transform into gibberish, I recognized the culprit.
She got angry with a *word processor* because she assumed that the devilish program that offers such corrections-in-scare-quotes as spell-check and grammar-check would also, as a logical extension and for the sole purpose of fucking with her, change the gender of every pronoun in her book about Europe. No, it was just one of her computer nerd son’s fucking stupid computer nerd 4th grade rat classmates from Hell.
And that is why the fake Obama vice president texts were so peculiar.
Obama Text Message Fakes: Prank Reminiscent of 4th Grade [Associated Content]
I discovered the result and immediately got angry at Word and its ever errant efforts to overwrite my text with “corrections” that often aren’t correct.
“The internet comes on computers now?”
He inserted programming to change every instance of the word “she” to “he” in a book I was writing about Europe.
Also, “inserted programming” = “Find/Replace”? That kid’s a damn hacker!
My son and his friends are computer nerds who learned how to program computers in elementary school.
And I learned how to build a mission out of sugar cubes. Thanks a lot, California.
It was Kilpatrick. He’s eyein’ some dark meat.
She has a link at the end of the article that goes to a Wonkette site. And Wonkette has a link to her site, which links back to Wontette. This is terribly confusing. I hope she can handle it.
Dave J.: This is our world now. The world of the electron and the switch; the beauty of the baud. We exist without nationality, skin color, or religious bias. You wage wars, murder, cheat, lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto.
If she was my mom I’d be a male prostitute right now.
…I would changed:
-Europe to Assland
-She to Trollop/C%nt
-Penis to Hard Pulsating Love Rod
-Car to Pimp Wagon
-House to Crib
-Vagina to Poon-Tang
If we’d had Carol Bengle Gilbert as a substitute teacher when I was in grade 4, she would have been institutionalized by day’s end, I can assure you. 4th grade … good times.
Does the recent spat between Obama and McCain about houses remind you about the time you were on summer vacation - must have been 5th or 6th grade - and Jimmy Filcher didn’t invite you to his family’s picnic, so you told all your friends he was selfish and a loser, and then he told everyone that you were just a whiner and a bigger loser to boot, and then you said that him doing such a thing goes to show how much of a loser he is, and all your friends stopped caring? Isn’t that an amazingly relevant metaphor for the situation at hand?
Goddamnit Carole, all your computer-hacking wizardry is doing nothing but clogging the tubes on my end of the internets. All I want to do is open up my e-mail to receive nice e-greetings from my grandchildren, read some e-mails from relatives about Hussein Obama’s jihad, and log onto AOL to play bridge online. I don’t need all this fast-paced techno-babble.
Find: “she” / Replace with: “he” / Replace All
OOOOOH! Such devilry! Professor pwned by l33t haxor!
Everyone at CNN is going nuts right now:http://www.236.com/news/2008/08/22/media_waiting_for_obama_vp_ano_8441.php
Maybe her kid’s friend was trying to tell her that “she” looks like a dude.
tonashideska:
http://www.236.com/news/2008/08/22/media_waiting_for_obama_vp_ano_8441.php
“Carol Bengle Gilbert”? I assume that name is as fake as the text I just received announcing that Jesus is going to be Barack’s VP.
As if to highlight how out of touch Carole is with modern society (or rather, highlight, double-underline, and make a big red arrow pointing it out) her most witty, pop-culture-savvy recommendation for a fake Obama VP is… Fonzi? Hey, remember him, Fonzi? The guy who’d hit the jukebox and go “Eyyy!” Haha! FONZI! Y’know, good old Arthur “Character-from-a-TV-show-cancelled-24-years-ago” Fonzarelli!
“Book about Europe” riiight. You know she was really writing about her erotic journey to womanhood as she rode the rails in Europe for http://www.literotica.com
i feel simultaneously vastly superior for my mad TXTing hacker skillz and incredibly dumb for having read all that
Meanwhile, Drudge says it’s Bayh, says a company in Kansas that specializes in printing political literature has been printing Obama/Bayh stuff. No joke, y’all can go check.
I’m pissed, Bayh sucks.
http://www.destinationelsewhere.com/articles/europe/gilbert.htm
Dave J.: And it looks like such a lame bumper sticker too. Maybe they are doing a little pranking of their own?
What a putz.
When I was in fourth grade, we got together and stole the Dakar, a French nuclear submarine. Never did give it back, and the Francos never did find it. [For the proper sum, I'm now prepared to tell 'em in which lake we scuttled it.]
Kids today! Bunch’o fuckin’ amateurs!
Dave J.: That image of the sticker on his home page looks like total shit so I doubly hope it’s not true.
They’re texting in fourth grade now? Those crazy kids!
Dave J.: It’s not just Captain Asshat: http://www.kmbc.com/politics/17267009/detail.html#-
This better be a joke…
Dave J.: no way. And goddamit I just looked at the Drudge Report. ugh… Okay, I’m punching out early.
tunamelt: *disgust*
What a captivating writer. I am definetly going to go out and by that book about Europe, once all the typos are fixed.
Also, I am Barack Obama’s Veep.
I call bullshit on the bumper sticker thing.
Dave J.: This is just a 5th grade class in Lenexa, Kansas one-upping the fourth graders by having a bunch of lame-o stickers printed up.
Good to see TruckNutz in the comments section on AC. But WOW people really get their news from that site? Here are two comments on the article:
“Carol - Wow! I can only imagine your reaction when you thought your text was being edited. I would have been upset, too. That part of the article really tied in well to the rest of the news info and made it very personal for this reader, vivid and lively.”
“You are on top of everything.”
EVERYTHING.
Also, the article links to a page which hosts “a variety of content related to websites?”
http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/1650/websites.html?cat=15
Is this thing run by horrible Martian robots or something??
This fake cell phone texting is so easy it’s not even fair to call it hacking. Try fake email; i.e.:
From: president@whitehouse.gov
To: GeneralPetraeus@army.mil.gov
Commence military action against the former Soviet Union, including nuclear weapons.
Now that would be funny!
Good lord! That woman has stolen Bill Clinton’s NOSE!!!!
What were the Secret Service guys doing?!?
mission accomplished…info-anarchy prevails…..
4th graders rule!…
edgydrifter: it may have been as sinister as involving auto-correct, a devilish feature, as we all know.
Haha… some elementary school kids vacationing in Europe inserted a computer hacking program into her bio claiming she used to write Top Ten lists for Letterman…
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/29460/carol_bengle_gilbert.html
Now that’s funny.
BayhSexual: I thought you were joking, until I saw her article:
In my single days, I joyfully explored the Continent in the most spontaneous manner imaginable, rarely bothering with even a first night’s bed reservation.
… because someone else always provided the bed.
Screw all this talk about text pranks, I want to read this book she’s writing about Europe!
Jim Newell,
Are you sure it wasn’t Midge? He’s not very text-savvy.
Sincerely and respectfully,
Mr-Clark