I could spend several days discussing issues about which that populist dunderhead and noted anti- American Noam Chomsky is completely wrong, but perhaps one of the worst offenses on his part is his rejection of cognitive linguistics. I generally prefer the storied and esteemed art of philology to the half-formed, upstart study of language that is linguistics, but in a nutshell (for I realize that many Stranger staffers attempt to read my column on a weekly basis, and they require explanations that would fit in a 3-year-old's scrawl on a postcard), cognitive linguistics claims that your language is derived from your surroundings. This is potent stuff, and it can be readily applied in an analysis of this issue of The Stranger.
It's widely known that CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE mistakenly believes that The Stranger is somehow going to be his stepping-stone to a position in the mail room at the New Yorker. And applying cognitive linguistics to this week's feature about his experiences at the wrongful inauguration of the communist Indonesian known to the public as Barack Hussein Obama, one can surmise that Mr. Frizzelle spent his early childhood masturbating to portraits of Eustace Tilley. Or perhaps, at the tender age of 10, he was accidentally locked in a refrigerator for several hours with nothing but a flashlight and a Hendrik Hertzberg essay to keep him company. The feature, overlong and oversentimental, is only so much blather poorly mimeographed from a lifelong collection of worn and battered New Yorkers, but translated to plain English, it may be condensed to this: "I'm in Washington, D.C., and there are happy people and celebrities everywhere! The president is black—neat-o! I bet he'd like me if we met in real life!"
Of course, this publication is known for its shameless plagiarism, and so we turn our eyes to the bleariest possible copy of Mr. Frizzelle's copy: PAUL CONSTANT, in the books section, attempts to mimic Mr. Frizzelle's prose while scribbling about children who have been brainwashed by their parents to praise the nonexistent accomplishments of our new fraud in chief. Though misinformed, the children's writing is at least of a higher quality than Mr. Constant's shameful simpering.
What else can we determine that Stranger "writers" are surrounded by? Judging by DAVE SEGAL's potty-mouthed rant about a band with an unprintable name, we can determine that Mr. Segal's desk is located somewhere near the office septic tank—if indeed all the mental midgets at this brain-damaged papier-mâché factory are trained in the art of using the bathroom. From MEGAN SELING's bloated diary entry about the pros and cons of Washington State–made candies, we surmise that her desk must be littered with copies of Tiger Beat and in close proximity to a preschool. And don't get me started on where DAN SAVAGE has been.
On second thought, perhaps in this one unseemly case, the distasteful Mr. Chomsky is correct: It's best not to know how the rancid sausage that is The Stranger is made. 
