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Members of Bastard Nation sometimes run into media who balk at mention of the name during interviews or in stories, even to identify an official spokesperson, simply because of the word "Bastard". Such squeamishness is disingenuous and discriminatory. Indeed, the mainstream press has no compunctions about usage of the word in either its literal or derogatory senses. So, what's the problem, Mr. Editor? |
Here are examples of
Bastard Mentions in the News
from major news media, sampled on October 5, 1998.
A great novel: Charles McCarry, arguably the best writer of fiction about politics, has topped himself with Lucky Bastard (Random House, $24.95). The plot is wild (illegitimate son of JFK runs for the presidency as almost a Clinton clone, unknowingly backed by the KGB). This is a page turner that also is brilliantly conceived.
[nice color graphic of the book cover, eh?]
KEITH RICHARDS' STUNTMAN LEAVES NME.COM
...
So we'll bid the grumpy old bastard adieu with a lager mountain
tonight. Life will be quieter, and infinitely less entertaining
without him.
BOOK REVIEW/John Kenny
Sad Bastard by Hugo Hamilton
Secker & Warburg 193pp, £9.99 in UK
Broadcaster exonerated for labeling English squad
...
Judge moved to New Zealand in 1974 and reported to the authority that
his son had been victimized at school and was called a "Pommie
bastard" by classmates.
The Shaun Jackson Design Lapdog ($140; 888-662-4300) isn't so much a pack as it is a nylon-and-foam wrap that folds smartly around your computer for transit and then flips open to create an impromptu workspace. Its modular design is a marvel, ideal for the peripatetic professional who can't afford not to work on the fly. Indeed, the Lapdog fits perfectly atop an airline tray table, and if the bastard in front of you insists on reclining, you won't mind shifting the whole caboodle to your lap.
A Chaplain's Painful Rite of Passage
...
The hellfire sermons and finger-pointing bothered the 15-year-old
Michael, but he felt they might be worth it if God cured her. One
morning, "at about 2:45," her coughing was loud enough to wake
him. His father told him "it was nothing"--that he would just take
Michael's mother to the hospital. When she never came out, Michael was
furious--at God: "a bastard. This woman had run back, saying, 'I'm
sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry,' and now he had killed her."
Opening door to past for Oregon adoptees
...
Hill, who is the Oregon director of Bastard Nation, the largest and
most vocal adoptee activist organization in the country.
The lady is a vamp
...
More recently, [Anjelica Huston] turned her hand to directing with
Bastard Out of Carolina and the yet-to-be-released The Mammy.
There's plenty of ammunition here for arguing that Nixon was corrupt to the core, a rotten bastard who not only lied to the nation and attempted to cover up his underlings' actions, but also abused the power of the IRS and the FBI, engaged in sleazoid campaign tactics, used campaign money to fund illegal activities, willfully disobeyed congressional subpoenas, and a whole host of other entertaining misdeeds.
Hunt Emerson, the funniest cartoonist in the UK, illustrates the unsavory story of Asahara, the Brian Wilson lookalike who founded the killer Aum cult in Japan. Did you know Asahara charged his flock 20,000 yen ($220) for a drink of his bath water? Bastard probably faked them with someone else's bath water, too.
"Look, bastard," Bomar shouted, "stop making me a 'ho.' Look, you want to know how I'm going to act? You want to know how I'm going to act, you stupid [ expletive ] ? That's how I'm going to act."
[Interesting to note that the Philadelphia Enquirer does NOT consider "bastard" to be an unprintable expletive.]
He explains to the magistrate that he has pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. Lacking a mother who would talk to him, he read some books he found and mastered English. Without a father to protect him from the taunt of bastard, he learned to defend himself and control his temper.
SIMON BIRCH (PG, 115 minutes)
...
Joe (Joseph Mazzello) is the bastard son of the town saint (a warm and
radiant Ashley Judd) and his best friend is a gnome-like savant named
Simon (Ian Michael Smith) who declares himself to be "an instrument of
God."
(Courtesy of Excite News Search)
See also Bastard Utterances on Television, and Bastardy on the Web.
