The BEAST: America's Best Fiend

UTHMANIA!

Just wanted to say thanks for making my day every 2 weeks! Great piece, the "Laugh Riot"... Good to know there's still people with common sense. Maybe one day we'll rid the world of religious drones and their homicidal masters. And of the spineless cowards who call themselves liberals and hide their heads in the sand. Or at least silence all these fucks, so the real people can enjoy their lives!

Um abraço,

Ralph

Yes Ralph, they must all be killed. Umma Gumma.

SAYING SAID SAYINGS

thank you for saying what needed to be said. I have yet to see an editorial on the cartoon escapade that actually echoed what i was thinking.

I completely agree with you 100% which is a rarity for me, but it's meant as a compliment for you. What i am afraid of, about this whole deadly protest over freaking cartoons...is that it is getting harder to poke fun at religion. I too think they are ridiculous, and after the eons of freethinkers/athiests/agnostics being persecuted, ridiculed, whatever...for just thinking, we should be allowed to make fun of all the death, destruction, and ruin that religion has created.

anyhow, rock on!

liz

Dear Liz,
Well, as you said, it needed to be said and, therefore, we would have been negligent in not having said it. But as you said, we in fact said it. Or so you said. We must emphatically disagree, however, with your observation “that it is getting harder to poke fun at religion.” This was the easiest gig we’ve had in a long time.

CORRIDOR ACTIVIST

Hey,

Just wanted to tell you there are people who support the paper, especially this latest issue. I'm glad you printed one of the Mohammed cartoons, too. I cut it out and put it up in the hallway at work. Freedom of the press is a belief REALLY worth fighting for.

That being said, I wondered why you didn't put up the cartoon on the website.

Gavin Fulmer

Dear Gavin,
Wow, you really posted the Mohammed cartoon at your workplace? And in a hallway, no less! Truly, you’re an inspiration to cowardly free speech advocates everywhere. We bet all of the Wahabi fundamentalists at your job were incensed! That being said, the cartoon was on the website and we’re wondering why you didn’t see it. Does your IT guy have a bomb in his turban?

BRILLIANT!

Mr. Uthman,

I just wanted to let you know that I found your article "Laugh Riot" brilliant. As a Buffalonian transplanted to Europe, I was pleased to be told that you guys were online. Keep up the great work.

Respect,
Jarrod K. West

Dear Jarrod,
Come on, man. Try another adjective. Illuminating? Incandescent! Paradigm-shifting? Bowel-churning? Something…

BECAUSE IT’S THERE

Allan,

I agree with most of your commentary. But, just because you have a right to be an asshole doesn't mean you have to be one. And being an asshole because some one else is being one gets us nowhere. So, reacting to the riots by everyone printing the cartoons at once seems a little childish. Maybe explaining it, like you did, that this was whipped up demagoguery (sp) by a minority of a certain religion might even enlighten our own people to what is being done to them and in their name.

Thanks,

Jim Fox, San Antonio, Texas

Dear Jim,
So, if we understand you correctly, what you’re saying is: just because you’re being anal retentive, doesn’t mean we should respond in kind. Because that wouldn’t get us anywhere. Is that about right? Or just because you’re too scared to print something doesn’t mean you’re not an asshole. Or was it just because you’re childish doesn’t mean your head should be cut off? And who puts the notation “(sp)” in his own letter? Who does that, Jim? Other than you, obviously. You want us to check it for you, is that it? It’s right. You were right, Jim, “demagoguery.” Maybe next time look it up yourself.

STUPID = ILLEGAL

Not a bad article, the 'Laugh Riot'. Funny as hell, actually.

However, I think your comparison with christians and muslims was pretty specious. The christians haven't been bombed and shot at on a daily basis for the last 3 years.

Bear in mind, you do not have complete freedom of speech, no matter how you slice it, though. Some things are simply ill timed and stupid to say.

You cannot scream 'fire' in a crowded theatre, for instance, though you can do so at home. The reason is simple: people will wig out and trample eachother.

And the fact is, the cartoons were just another brick in the wall of the 'clash of cultures' that they figure the westerners are promoting.

No doubt about it. People who kill people over this kind of thing and burn shit down are idiots. That's a given. But people who give them grist for their mill are idiots, too.

Ra-Ha

Dear Ra-Ha,
Don’t go getting fitted for that Supreme Court robe just yet. Equating religious insanity with legitimate panic sets a bad precedent. Think it through: say reading the word “ancillary” causes some guy to fly into an irrational rage and stab people in the neck. Is it then your responsibility to avoid using that word? Or should you say, “fuck that neck-stabbing dude, ancillary ancillary ancillary!” Probably neither. The point is, that guy is the problem, and that guy should be in jail, or probably the nuthouse.

The publication of controversial material—even if it’s as unfunny as the Danish cartoons—shouldn’t be hindered by the extortionate prospect people will die or embassies will burn. If they were protesting about getting shot at and bombed, do you think we’d have a problem with that?

Oh by the way, every time our man Michael Gildea goes to a cineplex, he yells out “Fire!” in the middle of the movie, just for a giggle. Still a free man, we might add.

FOOLS RUSH OUT

Hello,

I absolutely loved your "50 Most Loathsome People In America" and subscribed immediately after reading it.

After receiving my first issue of "The Beast" I realized it was not for me.

Would it be possible to receive a refund for the rest of my subscription?

Thanks much,

Ruth Ann Bock

Tomah, WI

Dear Ruth,
No.

NOT EVEN A LITTLE?

I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Uthman and his piece “Laugh Riot.” Thank you for expressing my feelings so accurately and amusingly!

Louise-Annette Marcotty

Dear Louise-Annette,
Mr. Uthman couldn’t agree with himself more, either. Sometimes, maybe. Still other times, he agrees with himself far too much. And then other times, he doesn’t agree with himself hardly at all. Those can be very bleak times. He captured your sentiments accurately, really? That’s, just, it’s just so great for us, you know? Al’s really, he’s just, so pleased for you, for all of us. It’s just, we were so hoping to articulate what you were thinking about all of this and, well, when it all turns out, so perfectly, it’s just…It’s indescribable.

CHEERY-MANDERED

I just discovered your web site a couple of weeks ago through a link to the "Most Loathsome List".

Keep up the good work. Living in texas I had come to believe really good satire was dead. Fortunalty it lives in the cold white north.

Bruce Asher

Dear Bruce,
That’s because it was nearly beaten to death in Texas.

BRILLIANTLY LATE

Dear Paul: I just ran across "The 50 Most Loathsome People in America 2004." It is absolutely BRILLIANT!!!! I would have included the rabidly loathsome and oxycontin junkie Hush Dimbulb, but your list is so amazingly on-the-money that Ann Coulter and Michael (Weiner) Savage will suffice. Well done, BRAVO! And I'm African American and I "concur" with your references to ALL those so-called jive ass Knee-Grows purporting to somehow uphold and support their race and culture by screwing them....! Peace.

Ron Gordon

Buzzflash supporter

ABC News Cameraman [NYC

Dear Ron,
Wow, a real, live black person who reads The BEAST! And a member of the MSM, no less. See, folks, we enjoy widespread appeal—a veritable rainbow of readership. One thing, Rob…it’s 2006. A year and two months have passed since that list’s publication. There’s a whole new list now. Maybe you can write and tell us what you think of it next year.

WAS JESUS RETARDED?

As I was reading your list, here are my thoughts:

First of all, why put God on the loathsome list when everyone (including myself) LOVE Him? After all, it was when Mankind sinned that caused these natural disasters (God allowed them to happen but doesn't hold any responsiblity). There's a good website to go to on this called www.christianspotlight.net. They've got some good answers as to why God allows natural disasters.

Second of all, instead of God on the list, replace him with radio pundit Michael Savage (unless Dr. Savage is an "honorable mention"). Now I consider myself conservative but he's just pessimistic and hateful. I used to listen to him on a regular basis but now his rants really turn me off. He's just as bad as Rush Limbaugh.

That's all I have to say. God bless and Godspeed!

Shannon Hammell

Dear Shannon,
Did you by any chance check out our ”Special Blasphemy Issue?” You really should. We think you’d be mighty flattered.

God allows disasters to happen, but doesn’t bear any responsibility? Damn, must be nice. We ignore a few parking tickets and they take our fucking car away.

THE GREATEST STORY EVER RETOLD

I read your (fabulous) article on the cartoon story and thought I'd throw in my two cents. As a sporadic, aspiring comic artist I’ve been following the Mohammed cartoon controversy, well, religiously. I just can’t see how this has become a two-sided issue. I think people need to stop bending over backwards to find justifications for tolerance and leniency in this situation. Why are we striving to conceal the values we fought so hard to uphold at the whim of countries that think boycotting European medicine will somehow teach the world a lesson? We’ve spent countless quantities of media cosmetics to make the Middle East seem like a sweet, cultured world with a bad reputation, I think they’ve long since given up the right to that compassion. It’s time we stop defending people who burn cars, bomb weddings and stone people for “blasphemy”. They’re not asking for sympathy or freedom from religious persecution, they’re asking to be exempt from all criticism on the grounds that it’s only unfair when it happens to them. Tolerance for others should end when we cease to tolerate ourselves.

-Gabrielle Sheinberg

Dear Gabrielle,
Gee, your two cents sound awfully familiar. Almost exactly like our two cents, in fact. Can’t you just take a cue from everyone else, write “Your article was the most brilliant brilliance ever brillianced,” and leave it at that?

OFFENSIVE LINES

Hi,

I was wondering why you guys removed the Sports Blotter from the Beast. My co-workers and I really enjoyed it. Is it ever going to appear again in future papers?

Maurice A. Thomas

Dear Maurice,
Here we are churning out reams of high comedy and sheer widely proclaimed brilliance, issue after issue, and all you and your colleagues want to know is, “Where’s my ‘Sports Blotter?’” Don’t worry your pretty little head, Maurice. We’re pinching it from one of Taibbi’s current employers, just for you. Happy now? You wound us, sir.

SO CLOSE…

Gentlemen:

You are a danger to America and to the world at large. I nearly asphyxiated myself laughing at your 2005

roundup of the Fifty Most Loathesome People and, had I not diverted my browser when I had, you would've received a letter from my widow's lawyer demanding financial compensation for my laughing myself to death.

As it is, you (and I) have dodged the bullet... this time.

Let this be a lesson to you all: Do not be this funny next year or we may not be as lucky.

That is all.

(tee hee. Sorry.)

JP, creator of Assclowns of the Week.

Dear JP,
You know what the funniest thing about your death would’ve been—other than you dying? The whole, “lawyer demanding compensation” bit. You know, we have other “Most Loathsome” lists. Have you seen those, JP? Why don’t you, uh, read them all back-to-back in one cardiac-arresting marathon session?

IT’S A DEAL

Your Special Blasphemy Issue was incredibly over the top. No 46 virgins for you! Not even 1 virgin for you. Just sluts for you in Hell, performing depraved unnatural acts on you for eternity!

Repent immediately or reap the sick perverted consequences.

Fast Eddy

Sluts from Hell, Eddy? “Depraved unnatural acts…for eternity?” So, you want us to apologize to avoid that fate? Ha! Boy, have you miscalculated! You’re wrong about one other thing: our intern’s a virgin.

MALEVOLENT IN MOSCOW

Al-Jazeera Special report....

Shiite Hits the Fan

By Muhammad al-Saword

The Taliban Tattler

This latest stunt by aptly named publication The Beast only substantiates the long held belief that the balls of this half-wit outfit outweighs its rotten brain by a margin of about two-to-one. The Beast would argue this is a good thing.

This symbiotic gnat on a donkey's stinky scrotum paper will ride the tailcoats of any scandal just so its editor, Mudd Taibbi, can watch his goofy name in big Googly lights for however long the masturbatory thrill may last.

"I was sitting on the toilet when I got a call from my publisher, Gern Farmboy, who shocked the shit out of me when he said that there was, like, 50,000 Muslims below his window bearing sabers and signs that looked like they said evil stuff. "Fcuk," I said. This is definitely one of those me experiences when the entire world points its laser gun at ME. I mean what is all the commotion abvout? This was totally unexpected, like the pope piece. All this hype, for what?"

Dying popes, Popstars and maimed Muhammads are all equally grilled at the altar of this demonic rag, which testifies to the dangers of long-term exposure to Mongolian sports, group sex with farm animals and late night talk shows on young minds.

Mudd, a recluse drug abuser and bronze dildo idolater who is believed to sleep with camels and other hooved desert animals, drives a rusted Dodge and regularly eats at various McDonalds heathen restarunats in the tri-Buffalo region. He is a sick fcuk with potential mad cow disease and should be considered armed and dangerous.

Do not hesitate to dial 9-1-1 if you see this leperous wart on the ass of a dying Buffalo.

Allahspeed,

Ye Merry Swordsmen

Swordsmen? Can that be right: this absurd and tragically unfunny meta-parody was a collaborative effort? Exactly how many dyslexic, oxygen-deprived minds combined to write “tailcoats” and misspell “fuck” the same way twice? As for what seems to be the “point” of your letter: Taibbi Taibbi Taibbi, everything we do that’s any good gets attributed to Taibbi. Taibbi doesn’t live here anymore. He’s moved on to ride even bigger tailcoats. Go bother Jann Wenner.