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In This Issue

• Cartoons Infiltrate MLB
• Portrait of the Bullshit Artist as a Young Man
• Jon Lajoie Bares All
• The Binding of Isaac: Raw and Uncensored
• MTA Fare Hike Massacres Millions
• Thanksgiving Day From Hell!
• Douches: A Historical Who's Who
• Spin-Off Shows the Fed Would Watch
• World’s Developing Regions Receive Additional Shipment of Bullshit
• The Netherlands Corner
• Mandelatitis
• Planned Parenthood
• They Watch
• The Staff of the Federalist

Cait Sigler

In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce's epic magnum opus from the fertile year of 1916, we find a man (what a piece of work he is!), struggling with the essential paradox of the young artist; that of maintaining vitality alongside a dull sincerity." Thus begins the first sentence of my seminal essay on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. What few but the most loyal Fed readers will ever know is that I have never read this novel!

However, I am assured of my success on this yet-to-be evaluated essay, for I am a highly effective bullshit artist. Rather than continue to bore you with more of this lofty talk, we gwan' talk about the art of bullshit; caveat emptor!

Do you see what I did there, in that last sentence? By using the first-person plural pronoun "we," I constructed the illusion of a discourse, while I am really lecturing you, the reader, in a manner that is quite one-sided. This effect can be enhanced by invoking congenial-sounding words like "team" and "brother." The astute reader may have also noticed my use of the Jamaican dialect with "gwan." Speaking in the local vernacular has been all the rage since the Protestant Reformation, when bullshit artist Martin Luther argued that people were tired of listening to high-falutin' Latin. In case any of my Latin American brethren read this manual, I did throw in a bit of Latin. Can you spot it?

Correct, it's "caveat emptor!" This is a great phrase because everyone has seen it, but few know that it means, "Let the buyer beware." A bullshit artist may avoid feelings of guilt by using this phrase before making any transactions, with the assurance that only those buyers with a powerful grasp of Latin will realize that they are falling into a bullshit trap.

Of all the great bullshit artists of highest esteem, perhaps the one whom I adore most is Michel de Montaigne. This is the man who wrote, "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know" in the first book of his Essais. Not only did Montaigne invent the essay as a literary form, but he also legitimized cannibalism and defecation as appropriate topics for academic discourse.

Imagine: the good Monsieur Montaigne must have been splitting his sides with laughter while writing that he stayed healthy by abstaining from drinking fluids. What a gas! One should study Montaigne closely, as his skilled bullshitting was the key to his great success as both a living and dead white male.

Why, you're currently asking yourself, is it important to read about such an ancient and obsolescent bullshit artist? Fantastic question, team! Bullshit-artistry (not to be confused with modern art) remains just as relevant today as it was in Montaigne's time.

Witness the webs of bullshit spun by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who quipped that Benito Mussolini was a "benign dictator" and described American President Barak Obama as "suntanned."

One Colorado family recently bullshat its way into the public spotlight with ludicrous claims about a helium balloon. This occurred shortly after a notable American won a Nobel Prize for bullshit! (Here I refer not to Dr. Martin Chalfie, whose glowing accomplishments are the antithesis of bullshit).

If, after all this, you still cannot grasp the importance of bullshit, maybe bullshit-artistry just isn't for you. But to all others, carry forth, and caveat emptor!