This article was like a breath of fresh water.

“…Reading that felt a little like stepping on a stair that wasn’t there: it was jarring to go from the image of “dinner tables” to the image of “a galaxy”, as though giant balls of flaming hydrogen could give dinner-parties. But that’s what a mixed metaphor does: it combines incongruent or incompatible images in a lingustically gauche way.”

If you like mixed metaphors, President Obama is quite a fruitful goldmine. You could say that he’s one of the backsliders purposely striding towards a future where our embrace of the English language is repellent.

I think Obama needs to count his chickens before they cross the road and come home to roost, and stop pawning words in the discount bin for the highest bidder. He needs to pack up his cowboy hat and stop catering to wealthy one-percenter fatcats who refuse to shed their puppy fat, and who pick the pockets of the remaining 75% with the reckless precision of racketeering wolves, and who aren’t very nice people besides.

“We’ve got more work to do than to just try to dig ourselves out of these self-inflicted wounds.” (source)

“As we consider the road that unfolds before us” (source)

“If we can get that done, that takes a big bite out of the fiscal cliff” (source)

“Jedi mind meld” (source – it seems there is an obscure EU Jedi ability called the “force meld” but I don’t think the POTUS spends much time reading Wookieepedia articles)

“The lines of tribe shall soon dissolve” (source – more an unpleasant double entendre than a mixed metaphor)

“This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it.” (source)

“I’m willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without. But let’s make sure that we’re not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.” (source)

I think there were some mixed metaphors in The Audacity of Hope, but finding them is like shooting haystacks in a barrel with the broad side of a knife.

Q. What is this site?

The graphomania of MawBTS, including fictional stories and essays on popular enterdrainment

Q. Is Empty World suitable for people over the age of 18?

I have tried to make it adult-friendly but you may want to have a child supervising you.

Q. What are your influences?

Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, Junji Ito, Suehiro Maruo, single moms who discover 1 weird trick to eradicate wrinkles (and are hated by dermatologists etc). I also enjoy books by racists and misogynists. I usually find these books to be interesting, and not racist and misogynistic at all. I don’t believe everything I hear.

Q. Where do you live?

Here.

Q. How did this site begin?

The domain was registered in 2005 to host a fansite for a video game. Empty World appeared in 2006. 8 years later, the internet is a changed place. Nobody would build a HTML fan page for a game any more. In 8 years more there will be nobody reading books. In 16 years more there will be nobody reading. In 24 years more there will be nobody.

Q. What do you hate?

Once, I would hug trees, and when the trees didn’t hug back my feelings were hurt. Then I saw a tree hug someone and I felt glad.

Q. There’s a problem with the site, what do?

A. Let me know and I’ll get tech support right on to it.

Every time some lunatic pulls out a gun and turns a bunch of people into human swiss cheese, there’s always some shitbird saying “it’s time we had a discussion about gun control!”

That’s not always what they say. Sometimes it’s “a conversation” about gun control, or a “national discourse” about gun control, but the sentiment is always the same. I have heard it dozens of times.

I wish people weren’t cowardly, and said exactly what they wanted to say. Clearly these people don’t want a “discussion”. They want change. Why can’t they admit that? Malcolm X didn’t want a “discussion” about race relations. He had goals, he had things he wanted to see done.

Saying we need a discussion is slacktivism, straight up and straight through. It requires slightly more effort than clicking a picture on Facebook. If you want to seriously advocate for gun control, you need to do some intellectual legwork. You need to analyse statistics, construct logical arguments, and expose yourself to the return fire of people who think you are wrong.

But why do that when you can just say “we need a discussion on gun control!” There, that’s all you need to do. It’s easy. And who could disagree? Who could argue that a discussion on gun control is a bad thing?

I am! I respect people who contribute actual, real ideas. I respect the person who sees a housefire and picks up a firehose, not the person who announces “we need to have a discussion about fire safety!” and then sits down, satisfied that he has done his moral duty.