Minneapolis sports writer rips Detroit
BY MIKE THOMPSON
FREE PRESS CARTOONIST
No city gets dissed more than Detroit. And while I enjoy a good insult as much as the next guy, or as much as the next guy should be thick-skinned enough to enjoy, the key word here is “good” – as in clever, or witty. I’ve noticed over the years that most of the verbal bricks hurled at the D are downright lame. So I figured that I’d begin rating these insults as they popped up on the basis of their originality and cleverness with my very own “D diss-o-meter.”
The latest D diss came to my attention via Free Press sports writer Steve Schrader’s Monday column that included a real gem from the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Jim Souhan. Souhan, grousing about the Vikings second trip to Motown in recent weeks, quipped on his blog: "Two trips to Detroit in a month. I forget, is that the second or third ring of Hell?" The Vikings played here this past Sunday and also in December when the roof of their stadium collapsed.
If structures in your city are in such bad shape that you need to come to Detroit, you probably shouldn’t be throwing stones. And people who live in stadiums with glass ceilings shouldn’t throw…never mind. Besides, I grew up in Minneapolis and visit there often, so I can say with authority that hell is listening to music on Minneapolis radio stations – all of which seem permanently stuck in 1985.
The literary work Souhan is attempting to reference is Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” in which hell is depicted as a series of nine circles; each reserved for souls damned for various sins such as murder or heresy. That’s circles of hell, not rings.
At any rate, according to the website danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu, the second circle of hell is where unrepentant sinners guilty of carnal lust are doomed to spend eternity. So Souhan’s comparison of Detroit to the second circle of hell makes no sense, as Kwame Kilpatrick is no longer mayor. Although the rest of us here in Detroit have certainly been put through hell thanks to Kwame.
Dante’s third circle of hell is the final stop for those souls guilty of gluttony. Considering the state of our economy here, Motown ain’t exactly synonymous with gluttony and excess. It’s kinda hard to be gluttonous when the unemployment checks stopped arriving months ago.
In short this D diss falls short. It doesn’t even make sense.
D diss-o-meter rating: 1
[[On a scale of one to 10)
If you come across a D diss, forward it to me at: mthompson600@freepress.com
Source: http://www.freep.com/article/2011010...r-rips-Detroit
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