A game, inspired by this comment from TBogg over at Roy's. The game is called TICK VS. TAC. Here are the rules. They are simple.
Below, I offer paired sets of quotes. One set comes from the mighty cartoon superhero, The Tick. The other comes from the mighty cartoon superhero Tacitus, whose humble alter ego is called Josh Trevino. Please decide which superhero is more Profounder. The winner receives a Vaulable Prize.
THE TICK: You know, evil comes in many forms, be it a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin. But you can't let the package hide the pudding. Evil is just plain bad. You don't cotton to it. You gotta smack it on the nose with the rolled up newspaper of goodness. Bad dog! Bad dog!
THE TAC: When the conflagration comes, it will burn as surely as night follows day. The puerile predator in Pyongyang will do no less. We have failed to prevent: now it falls to us to deter, and in time, avenge.
THE TICK: You know, Arthur, when evil is afoot, and you don't have any arms, you've gotta use your head. And when evil is ahead and you're behind, you've gotta do the legwork. But when you can't get a leg up, you gotta be hip.
THE TAC: Victory brings its own reward, and defeat brings more of the same.
THE TICK: You don't have to be a genius to know that evil is bad. And good isn't.
THE TAC: If their iniquities will not have the same manner of resolution, they are nonetheless the same stripe of evil.
THE TICK: You know, though today was the worst day of my life, I learned many things. First, the world looks a lot different when you're six inches tall and covered with feathers. Second, two heads are definitely not better than one. And finally, you can lay eggs and still feel like a man.
THE TAC: But plagiarism is not a crime of hate; it is not a black mark on the soul; and it is not, one suspects, foremost among the crimes for which God will demand an accounting on the last day.
THE TICK: But what really pursued us? Where were we really trapped? C'mon, Arthur. Get meta with me. What pursued us were our own obsessions. I'm good, you're evil. I'm a superhero, you're a sidekick. I'm a woman, you're a man. What does it all mean? Nothing. And where were we all trapped? I'll tell you where, Arthur. In the belly of Love - Love, Chum, Love.
THE TAC: Logical consequences of a thing somehow strip away the association with that thing.
THE TICK: Yes, my slimy friend, once again slime does not pay. You can't just coat yourself with artificial mucous and slip through the long fingers of the law. It's wrong and it's gross.
THE TAC: How risible would it be in a sane world for the likes of the President to repeatedly pronounce upon the very nature of a faith — or for the endlessly slick Tony Blair to utter theological verities with the certitude of a legitimate scholar or a cleric?
THE TICK: When a nice clean brain tumbles into the dirty street to lay among the discarded wrappers and spat-out gum wads of wickedness, you can't just pick it up and wash it off with soap and water; you have to think it clean from the inside out.
THE TAC: Thou reporters, thou journalists, thou who actually work in the White House, Dan Froomkin shall bear witness to thy very deeds. Is he Victor Klemperer or Christ? Which would be more tolerable to the journalists who groan under the oppression of his rectitude?
THE TICK: Well, once again we find that clowning and anarchy don't mix.
THE TAC: You cannot fear death and fully love life. You cannot fear death and fully love America.
THE TICK: Thank you for teaching us all that love is thicker than most bodily membranes. But not quite as sticky. And that a heart full of love is better than a body full of people. Merrily, the feet that carried us on the heart's path today will be the feet that soak in the steaming brew of happiness tomorrow.
THE TAC: There was a time when these titans of the battlefield would be celebrated and feted, their names inscribed in the book of renown. That time is past.
THE TICK: Mucal invader, is there no end to your oozing?
THE TAC: We neither rush to danger nor senselessly flee. We do not form mobs. We do not declaim to one another. We do not make new friends of strangers in shared sorrow. We do not fly to hate, which many point to as a sign of our superiority. I am not so sure: a well-directed anger is a good thing, and that we do not see it as often as we might strikes me as a sign of un-self-confidence rather than civilization.