Category: Hathos Alert

From The Archive: The First Hathos Alert

I wrote on June 20, 2001:

John Derbyshire’s uncategorizable advice to his timid son is now up on National Review Online. Who else would encourage his offspring to fight back against a bully by bribing him with ice-cream and the words: “But I want to see the blood. Ice cream for blood.” The piece ends with the injunction that anyone who advocates single motherhood as a lifestyle option should be “sewn into a heavy leather sack with lots of broken glass and rolled down a l-o-n-g slope.” Leather? Have I created a monster? Derb has also just written what must be one of the weirdest discourses on fellatio I have ever read in New York Press. It begins: “I have been thinking about fellatio. No, no, don’t hit the back button. This is serious stuff. I have issues.” On that last sentence, I think we can all agree.

A colleague of mine – I can’t remember who, maybe they’ll email me to remind me – once coined the term “hathos” for the compulsive need to read something you find horrifying, yet irresistible. Read these pieces and you’ll know what I mean.

Hathos Alert

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David Atkins plays the world’s smallest violin:

So this is apparently a real thing from the Wall Street Journal. The Onion couldn’t top this. Whether it’s the sad faces of all these put-upon dejected rich people, or the elderly minority couple who is depressed despite not paying extra taxes (or was that the point?), or the distressed single Asian lady making $230,000 who might not be able to buy that extra designer pantsuit this year, or the “single mother” making $260,000 whose kids presumably have a deadbeat, indigent dad just like any other poor family, or that struggling family of six making $650,000 including $180,000 of pure passive income and wondering how to make ends meet, mockery is almost superfluous. The thing mocks itself.

Hathos Alert

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Max Fisher highlights an air freshener being sold in Iran:

The Post’s Tehran correspondent, Jason Rezaian, sends on the above photo of the Khamenei air freshener, which is apple-scented, if you’re wondering. It’s just the thing to add some revolutionary aroma to your late-model Samand. The item was procured by a friend, Jason says, at the Tajrish bazaar in northern Tehran. It cost 10,000 Iranian rials, or about 81 cents. And no, sadly, he is not taking orders. But I’ve asked him to let me know if he comes across a cherry-scented Khomeini or "new car" Rafsanjani.

Update from an Iranian reader:

The cult of personality they are trying to build around Khamenei is reaching North Korean levels. Too bad for them the majority in Iran cant give a flying fuck about the monster. Back in the '80s, Khomeinei was a charismatic leader and had a real following, yet he wouldn't even allow his pic to be posted on the national currency – he didn't need it. He was popular among the more religious and traditional sectors of the society without any such propaganda. Khamanei is not, and that's why his gang tries so hard to turn him to a saint, to recreate that aura around the Ayatollah.