A dictionary would be a good start!
I would ask whether Rush Limbaugh was a complete idiot, but it would have to be a rhetorical question as the answer is: yes, of course he is a bloviating, vitriolic, idiot who spouts Republican talking points as if they were facts. He is only slightly more dependable than Glenn Beck for factual content.
I heard today that he is complaining about the presence of
the comic book villain Bane from the Batman universe somehow being a slap
against Willard “Mitt” Romney who used to work at Bain Capital. Huh!?
Besides the fact that they are spelled differently and have
different origins, I do not even understand how this could be. Granted, it is
questionable as to whether much of Rush’s audience CAN read, presumably if
they could, they could fact check (or in his case, “lack-of-fact” check his
statements) to see that they are about as factual as the Batman comic books are.
Okay let’s go over it, though for anyone misguided enough to
have bought his line of logic.
Bane is
a buff, masked, villian from the Batman
comics. He was introduced in the DC Comics book titled Batman: Vengeance Of
Bane published in January 1993. According to the backstory created for him,
Bane was the son of a South American freedom fighter (from a ficticious
Carribean Island country) who was forced to serve-out his father’s jail term
when his father fled the oppression of his country. His mental and physical
prowess allowed him to develop within prison and in order to control him he was
given an experimental drug that – accidently – gave him super powers rather
than controlling him. The name is derived by the English word “Bane.”
According to Dictionary.com, the following is
the defintion of “bane:”
bane
[beyn]
noun
1.a person or thing that
ruins or spoils: Gambling was the bane of his existence.
2.a deadly poison (often used
in combination, as in the names of poisonous plants): wolfsbane; henbane.
3.death; destruction; ruin.
4.Obsolete . that which
causes death or destroys life: entrapped and drowned beneath the watery bane.
Origin:
before 1000; Middle English;
Old English bana slayer; cognate with
Old Norse bani death, murderer, Old Frisian
bona murder, Old Saxon bano murderer, Old High German bano slayer, bana
death; akin to Old English benn, Gothic banja wound
Bain Capital is a real company which started in the ‘70s which is a subsidiary of the
management company Bain & Company of Boston – founded by and named for Bill
Bain. At the time of this writing, there is no report that Bill Bain (nor
anyone in his employ) has evern been imprisoned in a ficticious carribean
island nation for a muder they didn’t commit and given an experimental drug.
(Though it may not have made the papers yet.)
So, other than Bain Capital
possibly being considered the bane of the existence of any of the people who
have been outsourced so that they could make a profit, I faile to see anything
more tan a tangential connection. Or does Rush believe his audience is so
stupid that they don’t know that Bane is a character, bane is an English word,
and Bane Capital is a company that Willard “Mitt” Romney both claims to have
run and not to have run from 1999 – 2002 (it all depends on who is asking and
why as to what he says, apparently…)?
As a corrollary to Henry
Ford’s quote about whether you think you can or you can’t, Mr. Limbaugh might
want to think of his audince this way:
“Rush: Whether you think your
audience is stupid, or you think they aren’t – YOU’RE PROBABLY RIGHT.”
Wherever you are today I hope that you are smart enough to
know the difference – or at least how to find it!
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