The (illustrated) doctrine of the strenuous life

May 18, 2009 2:51 AM

Motivational posters inspired by Theodore Roosevelt.
posted by jbickers (58 comments total)

Pugnacity is a kickass word.
posted by dogwalker at 3:19 AM on May 18

And in that picture he looks totally kickass.
posted by Rinku at 3:23 AM on May 18

It would be fun to watch Teddy beat the shit out of Bush and Cheney with his vocabulary and mustache.
posted by chillmost at 4:10 AM on May 18 [4 favorites has favorites]

I'd rather see him beat the shit out of them with his fists.
posted by RussHy at 4:11 AM on May 18 [8 favorites has favorites]

Metafilter: "To sit home, read one’s favorite paper. and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. it is what evil men count upon the good men doing."
posted by fistynuts at 4:14 AM on May 18 [17 favorites has favorites]

I'd rather see him put that Big Stick he was always yammering on about to use on them.
posted by Item at 4:21 AM on May 18

TR vs. Mike Tyson. "Speak softly and den bite da guy's ear awff!"
posted by not_on_display at 4:34 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

No, it's

Metafilter: "To sit home, read one’s favorite paper. and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy. Fun, too!"
posted by DU at 4:41 AM on May 18 [3 favorites has favorites]

No, you've still got it backwards. If it's on paper, we're not reading it, we're scoffing at it.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:08 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

It's polite to scoff into a paper in public, avoids spreading diseases.
posted by eriko at 5:12 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

If Teddy says he'd 'hit it' you can bet there is no double entendre.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:27 AM on May 18

Teddy was the master of the single entendre.
posted by RussHy at 5:28 AM on May 18 [9 favorites has favorites]

Teddy was a huge believer in vigor and pluck. Apparently.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 5:39 AM on May 18

To... scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy

Even easier in the case of imperialist Vice Presidents who cheerlead wars of choice. [Hmm... deja vu.]

When we recall and squarely face U.S. conduct in the Philippines at the dawn of Pacific empire in 1899, we [cannot] pass off the U.S. rise to global predominance as blind, unintentional, or accidental. Despite some opposition, the United States consciously chose imperial power along with the antidemocratic baggage and even the bloodshed that entailed; and many Americans--none more than Teddy Roosevelt--liked it. - Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples At Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 (via)
posted by Joe Beese at 5:43 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

Being the president is quite an adventure!
posted by Dr-Baa at 5:44 AM on May 18

"It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things."

It also behooves every man to remember that progress is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, understanding is accomplished by the critic who thinks about things.
posted by rusty at 5:54 AM on May 18 [4 favorites has favorites]

FILIPINOS - Fuck 'em.
posted by Artw at 5:58 AM on May 18

MOOSE SURFING- Cowabunga, my good man.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 6:08 AM on May 18 [3 favorites has favorites]

It would be fun to watch Teddy beat the shit out of Bush and Cheney with his vocabulary and mustache.

I'd like to see Teddy Roosevelt fight Chuck Norris mustache-to-mustache.
posted by jonp72 at 6:20 AM on May 18

CRITICISIM

Nope. Not taking the bait there.
posted by hal9k at 6:21 AM on May 18

"by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid."

"by acting as if I was not afraid have a six pound cock I gradually ceased to be afraid made other people believe I had a six pound cock."

FTFTeddy
posted by Pollomacho at 6:27 AM on May 18

Teddy single-handedly dug the Panama Canal in his aunts' basement. This feat of strength alone puts him head and shoulders above us mere mortals.
posted by Spatch at 6:31 AM on May 18 [4 favorites has favorites]

I would have thought despair.com would have some appropriate demotivation, but I had to settle for lolpresident.
posted by MtDewd at 6:37 AM on May 18

Sign me up for one of those "Failure" posters.

(Art appreciation is scary)
posted by giraffe at 6:43 AM on May 18

Bully! Dude got shot in the chest and finished his speech anyway. I should probably think of that while I'm doing work that I find boring.
posted by ignignokt at 6:50 AM on May 18

"I am as strong as a bull moose and you can use me to the limit"

I keep imagining a mash-up with that line and Everybody To The Limit!

I said come on Teddy R, come on Teddy R!
Bull moose to the limit, bull moose is to the limit,
Come on Teddy R.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:53 AM on May 18 [3 favorites has favorites]

What a badass.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 7:20 AM on May 18

This is about as bully as it comes.
posted by Shohn at 7:23 AM on May 18

He reminds me of Chuck Norris.
posted by NekulturnY at 7:33 AM on May 18

A steam-punk's idea of Chuck Norris.

I take that back.
posted by From Bklyn at 7:42 AM on May 18

FANCY BOY PICTURES!
posted by cashman at 8:04 AM on May 18

Teddy Roosevelt was the original Bill Brasky.
posted by any major dude at 8:18 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

Teddy Roosevelt: Steampunk Chuck Norris

*Invokes Anti-Doctorow Hex*
posted by leotrotsky at 8:22 AM on May 18 [3 favorites has favorites]

Dude got shot in the chest and finished his speech anyway.

He got shot because he wouldn't just finish the speech and sit down, people wanted to go home for christ sake! He lived and was able to keep going because the speech was as thick as a phonebook.
posted by Pollomacho at 8:24 AM on May 18

He was like the Vin Diesel of his day.
posted by fire&wings at 8:26 AM on May 18

Teddy may look way cool, but Kurt Vonnegut was spot on.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:29 AM on May 18 [2 favorites has favorites]

Ah, Teddy. How fondly I remember our 26th president. Blowing his bugle and charging up the stairs to the war room, digging the panama canal in the basement, his eventual retirement to Happy Dale. And Cary Grant was his brother!
posted by shmegegge at 8:40 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

PATRIOTISM:

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

posted by kirkaracha at 8:55 AM on May 18

From a different perspective: Gore Vidal's "Theodore Roosevelt: An American Sissy"
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:56 AM on May 18 [2 favorites has favorites]

Kickass is a pugnacious word.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:59 AM on May 18 [2 favorites has favorites]

Ah, Teddy. How fondly I remember our 26th president. Blowing his bugle and charging up the stairs to the war room, digging the panama canal in the basement, his eventual retirement to Happy Dale. And Cary Grant was his brother!

I especially liked it when Boris Karloff came to visit him, such a friendly chap that was. Good times.
posted by aldurtregi at 9:02 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yes, it was a good time to be a wealthy white man.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:19 AM on May 18

I especially liked it when Boris Karloff came to visit him, such a friendly chap that was. Good times.

Wait, are we talking about Teddy Roosevelt or Ed Wood?

(Yes, I realize that was Lugosi and the "Limey cocksucker" Karloff did not deserve to smell Lugosi's shit)
posted by Pollomacho at 9:21 AM on May 18

MOOSE SURFING

Guess I was hanging out in the wrong places - why didn't I see Sarah Palin Moose Surfing?
posted by rough ashlar at 10:11 AM on May 18

Teddy was pretty hardcore, but he did do some "Bush-type" stuff. Such as starting a revolt in Colombia so the US could take over the unfinished Panama Canal.
posted by sideshow at 10:45 AM on May 18

Motivational Posters Inspired by Donald Rumsfeld
posted by ornate insect at 10:48 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

Guess I was hanging out in the wrong places - why didn't I see Sarah Palin Moose Surfing?

Sarah Palin is too busy shooting them with a high caliber scoped rifle from a helecopter to learn how surf them. TR had no choice as the black powder rifles he used were only powerful enough to stun the moose and make it doscile enough to ride to death.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:06 AM on May 18

"Theodore Roosevelt: An American Sissy"

I would like to be known as "the Exquisite Mr. Whelk." from now now, please.
posted by The Whelk at 11:20 AM on May 18

It never fails to amaze the quality of American History education among americans. This was a president who wanted war for any excuse, who invaded Cuba to undermine the already successful rebellion of locals in order to "advance white civilization," who oversaw the slaughter of tens of thousands of lives in the Philippines, who repeatedly called for the "total extermination" of natives in America. And here we are fawning over him because he rode a moose.

Whether or not history vindicates Bush Co., american collective memory will.
posted by sarcasman at 11:29 AM on May 18 [1 favorite has favorites]

My favorite TR quote is actually not by him, but about him. His daughter, Alice, once said of him something like "he wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."

Perhaps that can be under the motivational term "Ego?"
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:31 AM on May 18

But hey, you got a neat new gun out of the Philippine–American War ('cos filipinos are too tough to die from .38s).
posted by Artw at 11:36 AM on May 18

Not enough "BULL-LAY!!"

(which is how I always imagined TR would say it not "BULL-EE!!")
posted by spec80 at 11:49 AM on May 18

who oversaw the slaughter of tens of thousands of lives in the Philippines

Are you suggesting that the Phillippin-American war, like the Iraq war, was run from the Vice-President's office, because the only part TR oversaw as President was the handover of power from a military governor to a civillian one and a general amnesty for insurgents. Hardly acts of wholesale slaughter.

As for the Native Americans, he sure did work really hard to afford them never before recognised human rights (much less status as humans) for someone who wanted to wipe them off the earth. It may have been "white man's burden" over the "savages" that motivated his protectionist stance regarding the Indians, but at least it was a protectionist stance.

But, at the same time, don't mistake sarcastic comments regarding his well cultivated macho image as actual fawning.
posted by Pollomacho at 12:03 PM on May 18

Sarcasman...where are your quotes from? When did he ever mention that he wanted "total extermination" for the natives??
posted by hadlexishere at 12:04 PM on May 18

He was also one for good old fashioned us-and-them not-really-torture arguments:

President Theodore Roosevelt privately assured a friend that the water cure was "an old Filipino method of mild torture. Nobody was seriously damaged whereas the Filipinos had inflicted incredible tortures on our people."
posted by Artw at 12:22 PM on May 18

"Whether or not history vindicates Bush Co., american collective memory will."

Totally. Nowhere in history is anyone from any other country in the world who initiated war celebrated in any way.

How far back in history are we going? Willing to donate whatever land you might own back to the indigenous tribe in your region?
This 'evil white man' view of history isn't hateful like racist rhetoric, but it's easily as provincial. What, the Berbers never conquered anything? No such thing as the Almoravides dynasty? Asiatic people's didn't dominate regions of eastern Europe under Subutai? Byzantines? anyone?
Far as I know the Philippines were a Spanish colony, we aided the insurgency against them (I'm ceding any argument as to motive there) and it spun into goofyland.
Hell, back then women didn't even have the right to vote.
Point being - it's possible to celebrate a given historical figure while bearing in mind the realities of the time as well as the methods they had at hand. Annexation was a political reality at the time.
We understand men such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, for example, held slaves, but to assert modernity upon their actions is to criticize for the sake of criticism and make this wrongheaded point about imperialism and all things 'bad' - blah blah blah.

I say that not in defense of TR, but rather in defense of what history can teach us, in proper context, about ourselves and what genuine progress we've made.
It also points out errors that are all the more egregious.
One might condemn TR (et.al) for their belief in the use of torture against prisoners - but one has to recognize the context of that belief. The era in which TR existed was especially backwards in certain respects. Similarly - we have the example of George Washington (who refused to torture the Hessians who were engaging in the torture of his troops). But to compare the two simply along a timeline is to make the mistake of thinking that progress is merely temporal progression.
Washington existed in an age of reason. Many man were already begin to shift to opposition to slavery for example.
Whereas today, we've slid back some. But Bush's excesses are still far worse than TR's. Torture in this age should be as vehemently opposed as slavery would be.
I think historians looking at Bush in proper context will judge him pretty damned harshly. TR - they tend to give a pass because he had to be an innovator in many regards. Just as we cut Jefferson some slack for owning slaves because he laid so much groundwork for the system to end that practice.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:24 PM on May 18 [3 favorites has favorites]

Hunter S. Thompson Motivational Posters
posted by homunculus at 5:39 PM on May 18 [3 favorites has favorites]

I was really kinda disappointed that these used the graphic corporate style rather than something more akin to the last turn of the century (T.R.'s).
posted by dhartung at 9:56 PM on May 18