the defeatists!

Well, we agree...

Haven't talked about Monsieur IOZ for a while. No real reason, I was busy and kind of forgot. Well, given the uselessness of the press, the mainstream political process, the administration and the military-industrial complex, I guess I should visit more often. IOZ reminds me of Montaigne, who was more engaged than people like to think, but less so than the Hobbits of France; of Boethius, who figured out the wheel of fortune en route from the seat next to the emperor to the rack; of an effete and gay but really pissed off Johnny Cash doing Woodie Guthrie songs. IOZ at Folsom Prison would be a strange concept album, but shit, it would fit the current Zeitgeist well, a strain of hopeless elitist populism...

Look, the election in Massachusetts had everything and nothing to do with Obama. The average guy who's been screwed over by the last two years isn't a factory worker --they've been savaged for the past 30 years. The average guy screwed over is a single mom in Boston, working at an insurance company for $60K a year and paying entirely too much for a two decker in Southie; the average guy is a longshoreman in Fall River or New Bedford, wondering if any ships are ever going to come in; the guy working in maintenance shop for a college in Worcester, wondering if they're going to outsource the work to students so they can pay their tuition, and will their daughter have to join the Army to get any chance of not having to limit her aspirations to working for State Mutual out on Route 9. Jobs, banks, and opportunities -- and instead, the only thing they've heard anyone talk about for months is how well the banks and insurance companies have done and how bad the health care situation is in lower slobovia and how poor the job market is in California. They didn't think that anyone in power cared about them. Now, the new Senator is not all that reassuring, but he cares about the people of Massachusetts, if only because he wants to sell his daughters to another Bay Stater.

As I commented at IOZ, if all the President wants to do is make speeches solidifying his position as leading American most-modern Ironist-politician, Brownie and his ilk will do well. Someone needs to set fire to the Democrats. Kick Lieberman out, and declare war. Start quoting Jesus a little bit, the stormy North side, not the wussy "let's reason together side," which isn't really anywhere. Jesus didn't have any patience with the bankers, Pharisees or Sadducees. He was far more: "Be ye hot or cold but not lukewarm, or I will spew ye from my mouth..." Obama may be hot or cold, but the Democrats have been lukewarm at best, and Massachusetts is signaling their fate if they don't raise the temperature on the malefactors and lower it on the traitors within. Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln and Bayh would all look nice as Republicans...

Rome moment recalled in the aftermath...

I've been trying to get my arms around the Haiti quake. Not sure why -- horrible disaster, the 82d that isn't in Afghanistan is probably on the ground, not a lot that can be done, everything is horrible, what the fuck. Tell me again about a loving God...Tiffany just had an orgasm. Yet, the pictures and the stories catch you. And, they catch you because, unlike Katrina, Haiti is just a bad idea. Has been for a long time; if not this one, than something else will get you. Mudslide, drought, hurricane, plague, famine, war, whatever.

While I could excoriate Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, you're really not supposed to make fun of the handicapped. That said, I think we should declare open season on the morally handicapped. Seriously, making fun of these twits is the least we can do.

However, I'm not sure that there's a lot of humor in this for me. I have been thinking for a while that we're really just a cosmic mistake. I was reading last night, and came on a quote from Aristotle -- Moral Excellence lies in the mid-point between excess and degradation. I want to have a t-shirt made for that.

Anyway, as I watch the coverage and gloom descends, I've considered that maybe the cold spheres of mathematics are most real, and that mankind and perception is really the problem. No consciousness, no real issues. Everything works. Put people in the equation, and we do things like deforestation in the Caribbean, slavery, wars, allow Pat Robertson to wander around babbling nonsense instead of locking the asshole in an asylum and feeding him his own goddamn protein shakes, although he appears to be interested in helping the people. So, how exactly does that work? If God has smitten the Haitians, and we help the Haitians to mitigate the smiting, so to speak, isn't Robertson advocating that we disobey God's will? Or, is he saying that Haiti is something a-physical, and that the a-physical entity did the deal with the devil?

The idea that Haiti is some sort of a-physical entity doesn't exactly tie-in here, but it does for my purposes. A number of years ago, a twit named James Lovelock, " a learned man, possibly a Greek" as Mark Anthony might put it, delivered unto us all the Gaia hypothesis. In big words, suitable for a bio-ethicist-scientist weenie, he proposed that the following, as distilled by Wiki

The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth (atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere) are closely integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis. Originally proposed by James Lovelock as the earth feedback hypothesis,^[1] it was named the Gaia Hypothesis after the Greek supreme goddess of Earth.^[2] The hypothesis is frequently described as viewing the Earth as a single organism. Lovelock and other supporters of the idea now call it Gaia theory, regarding it as a scientific theory and not mere hypothesis, since they believe it has passed predictive tests.^[3]
...

Lovelock, however, defines life as a self-preserving, self-similar system of feedback loops like Humberto Maturana's autopoiesis; as a self-similar system, life could be a cell as well as an organ embedded into a larger organism as well as an individual in a larger inter-dependent social context. The biggest context of interacting inter-dependent living entities is the Earth. The problematic empirical definition is getting "fuzzy on the edges": Why are highly specialized bacteria like E. coli that are unable to thrive outside their habitat considered "life", while mitochondria, which have evolved independently from the rest of the cell, are not?...Maturana and Lovelock changed this with the autopoiesis deductive definition which to them explains the phenomenon of life better; some aspects of the empirical definition, however, no longer apply^{[citation needed]}. Reproduction becomes optional: bee swarms reproduce, while the biosphere has no need to. Lovelock himself states in the original Gaia book that even that is not true; given the possibilities, the biosphere may multiply in the future by colonizing other planets, as humankind may be the primer by which Gaia will reproduce. Humanity's exploration of space, its interest in colonizing and even terraforming other planets, lends some plausibility to the idea that Gaia might in effect be able to reproduce. The astronomer Carl Sagan also remarked that from a cosmic viewpoint, the space probes since 1959 have the character of a planet preparing to go to seed^[22]. This might warrant interpretation as a rhetorical point, however, as it equivocates two differing meanings of "reproduction" otherwise.

Oh, dear. Spinoza had to write in secrecy when he proposed this sort of pantheistic silliness in a sort of Aristotelian-Pythagorean propositions   ; Teilhard de Chardin had to disguise his vision as an Omega point and "Noosphere" in a futile effort to get beyond the condemnation by the Inquisition. Busted...

"The above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine... For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.".[3

Granted, it's probably odd to see AXE citing the Inquisition. However, de Chardin may have had the last laugh -- "A few days before his death (on April 10, 1955) Teilhard said "If in my life I haven't been wrong, I beg God to allow me to die on Easter Sunday"^{[citation needed]}. April 10 was Easter Sunday." Yeah.  Anyway, despite some inspirational quotes evoking evolution and the possibility of being better, Teilhard's stuff inspired generations of Catholic Biffs and Muffies to get excited and copy Corita Kent's American primitive semi-hippie crap. Little good comes of either...

Anyway, AXE finds the whole Gaia thing really fucking awfully stupid. It's not that far from the "It isn't good to fool Mother Nature" nonsense. When Wired Magazine jumps on the bandwidthwagon babbling about  Teilhard's poetic vision of evolution, one begins to grimace..." In particular, Teilhard and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Vernadsky inspired the renegade Gaia hypothesis (later set forth by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis): the global ecosystem is a superorganism with a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. This vision is clearly theological - suddenly everything, from rocks to people, takes on a holistic importance. As a Jesuit, Teilhard felt this deeply, and a handful of cyberphilosophers are now mining this ideological source as they search for the deeper implications of the Net. As Barlow says, "Teilhard's work is about creating a consciousness so profound it will make good company for God itself." Shit.

So, the world is benign because the world is god and God is love and Gaia is...must we? Should I cut to some shots of dead Haitian children? Screaming hospital patients?

It seems odd, but in the midst of this I find something to counter the Gaia hypothesis that is possibly somewhat tongue in cheek, but really makes sense. The Medusa Hypothesis. Everyone who had to read some version in Latin of the tale of the Argonauts or a translation of Euripedes knows the story. Medea is critical to Jason and the Argonauts success; is betrayed, and shit happens. "In Corinth, Jason left Medea for the king's daughter. Medea took her revenge by sending Glauce a dress and golden coronet, covered in poison. This resulted in the deaths of both the princess and the king, Creon, when he went to save her. According to the tragic poet Euripides, Medea continued her revenge, murdering her two children by Jason. Afterward, she left Corinth and flew to Athens in a golden chariot driven by dragons sent by her grandfather Helios, god of the sun."

Well, the Medea Hypothesis is the brainchild of a University of Washington paleontologist named Peter Ward. Ward takes a totally different track -- Life itself is inimical to life. It's all tied to climate change, of course, but then, the current Gaia thought is tied to climate change and is not too optimistic. In a Scientific American on-line article, Ward is pretty clear about how he thinks it's going to go. He has a far more realistic view of mankind than our eco-gaia-we're-all-one-happy-earth-family. As SA sums it up, "Gaians, Ward says, think that hotel guests are likely to repaint their rooms and leave fresh flowers before checking out, whereas Medeans think that guests are liable to throw furniture out the window, trashing the room like Keith Moon in his prime." What makes this a very defeatist theory indeed is Ward's summation, after painting a pretty bleak future although if we can properly train some microbes, the future will be brighter --that kind of says it all. "We can convince microbes to do some very interesting things," he says, pointing specifically to their promise in systems to produce food and fuel. Ward is aware that betting on currently untenable technologies as the way out may seem like pie-in-the sky dreaming. "Look, if you don't have hope, you don't do anything," he says. "You go out and get a drink."

Which leads back to Haiti. Rush Limbaugh is probably more likely to go out and get a drink, until he realizes that the shortage of Haitians will make his ability to get bootleg hillbilly heroin and viagra more complicated. He will then blame Obama. More to the point SA points out that not only did we know that this could happen, we were pretty sure that it was going to happen, soon, on Hispaniola, and that it would not be good. In fact, we were pretty sure it was going to be awful. As soon as I heard 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, I was pretty sure things were going to go pretty far south. My home in Tacoma had better pilings and more than I suspected were in the whole damn country, and my house was built on rock. Haiti, due to the deforestation and general ecological debacle since the Marines left in 1934, is one great big liquifaction zone. Hell, the number of empty graves from Zombies alone is probably a contributing factor. However, people are the problem as well..."But magnitude and shake dynamics are not what really concerned Yeats and other seismologists. "It's really not the size of the earthquake that's the big concern," he noted last week, "it's its relationship to big cities." And an earthquake in this area was particularly worrisome, not just because of the tension-filled fault, but because "the infrastructure there is just terrible," said Yeats, who is also a senior consultant for geological hazards company, Earth Consultants International, and has studied earthquake preparedness around the world. In a book called Active Faults of the World that he is currently writing for Cambridge University Press, he estimated several months ago that "the poor state of construction in both [Haiti and the Dominican Republic], but especially Haiti, indicates that when the next large earthquakes strikes either [Port-au-Prince or Santo Domingo], it will be a catastrophe, in part because of the lack of a social-services network." If you've listened to the news, a constant refrain is that nobody is in charge. Guess what...another example of life being inimical to life.

Oddly, I think this probably had something to do with tolerance...

The significant other told me once that her immigrant mother got enraged at her and her younger sister for listening to the Pogues because that was short for Pogue Mahone, Irish for Kiss My Ass. Ah, tolerance. Now, Ireland has banned blasphemy, and the Irish Atheists are opposed to it. And, this is why I get irritated.

I seem to recall that the Jews originally wanted Jesus executed for blasphemy. Now, while Ireland is kinda, sorta struggling out of its priest-driven ways in the light of a continuing stream of sexual scandals and abuse, what the hell is this all about. The statute in the Irish constitution forbidding blasphemy had  been there since Eamon De Valera and gang wrote the bloody thing -- it was impossible to enforce. Known, as we are as a people, for our love of people of other faiths, cultures and ways of thinking, I suspect Dev was considering how well things were going in the north and how well they had gone with Michael Collins and the boys of the IRA. De Valera was an American by birth, and both Irish and Spanish by descent. He was a very smart guy. If Ireland was ever to have a 32 county Republic, the burning of heretics and religious riots would probably not influence the commonwealth, the Orange Order or anyone else as a good thing. The Pope was not going to be a real help in the re-unification; and, there was plenty for a religious despot to love, I'm sure. So, in the constitution it goes.

Well, more than 70 years later, Eire has modernized. Splendidly well...the new law makes a simple "Jesus Motherfucking Christ that hurt!" worth a fine of up to $35K in that odd Euro currency they use these days. All religions are equally protected...except atheism. In 1937, there were Irish atheists, just as I'm sure there were Irish sheep fuckers. Both stayed quiet about their activities. Today, the Celtic Tiger thing brought scientists, rationalists, computer programmers and people who were fleeing the impact of religion to Dublin and Cork and Dun Laoerhiare and every other damn place.

Well, I love Ireland. The reason we don't run the world is that our totalitarian impulses are countered by a basic anarchy and personal tolerance for those we know. The priests, nuns, ministers and fanatics among the Irish aside, I suspect that this is going to be settled over a few pints and debated in pubs and such places for decades. The Irish Atheists will hold parades and virtual protests; there will probably be parades. The Orange Order will do something to indicate that Ian Paisley, senile goat fucker that he is, is opposed on principle to the idea that Presbyterians can't curse the Pope, which will set the peace process back. Maybe there will be a hunger strike or two amongst those who claim their rights to blaspheme guaranteed under the European Union and the United Nations have been infringed. Benny the Rat will issue something or another -- he can't leave it to his bishops in Ireland, since somehow they're all implicated and resigning.

So, it's funny. Except this -- tolerance is not enforced by laws restricting speech. While no friend to tolerance, the Irish or freedom in general(except from Catholicism and fun), I think this is a time to polish up the Oliver Cromwell quote oft cited here..."I beseech thee, by the bowels of the Lord Jesus Christ, to consider that you may be wrong!"
That would, of course, be the tolerant, non-blasphemous thing to do, and I, of course, have faith that mankind will do so, beginning in Ireland. Sure I do...for it's six miles from Dangle to Donegalday...

I'm going to let Joni's words do for summation and anticlimax...

I was an unmarried girl
I'd just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me.
Branded as a jezebel,
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries.

Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers.
Bridget got that belly
By her parish priest.
We're trying to get things white as snow,
All of us woe-begotten daughters,
In the steaming stains
Of the Magdalene laundries.

Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me—
Fallen women—
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery—
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Oh, charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus,
If they had just once glimpsed their groom,
Then they'd know, and they'd drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries.
They wilt the grass they walk upon,
They leech the light out of a room,
They'd like to drive us down the drain
At the Magdalene laundries.

Peg O'Connell died today.
She was a cheeky girl,
A flirt
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to God you'd think at least
some bells should ring!
One day I'm going to die here too.
And they'll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms come any spring,
Come any spring,
No, not any spring...

And yet, the only intention was tolerance, forgiveness and charity...

The world will not end in 2012 because the Bible doesn't say so...

Instead a professional civil engineer who has been reading the bible for three score and almost ten years, which is longer than we're allotted to live in his world-view -- I am assuming in the authorized, written by the Holy Spook 6000 years ago in Elizabethan English that we call the King James Version -- says the rapture will come in 2011. YaYAYAHHHH!

"That date has not one stitch of biblical authority," Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. "It's like a fairy tale." The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011. The Mayans and the recent Hollywood movie "2012" have put the apocalypse in the popular mind this year, but Camping has been at this business for a long time. And while Armageddon is pop science or big-screen entertainment to many, Camping has followers from the Bay Area to China. Camping, 88, has scrutinized the Bible for almost 70 years and says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Good Book. One night a few years ago, Camping, a civil engineer by trade, crunched the numbers and was stunned at what he'd found: The world will end May 21, 2011.

Good. About time. We'll be rid of all the fundie bastards and their particular poisoning of the world with their blight of bias and ill-informed lunacy. Scholars, whom they don't particularly care about, differ on a lot, but do agree that the King James version isn't a lot closer to the correct translation of whatever the Nicean Council agreed was valid, real bible as opposed to Apocrophya, a Greek word meaning roughly "totally out to lunch Bullshit!" than anyone else. Probably worse. They were concerned about getting all the asses gored to be beautiful. The Hebrews appear to have been obsessed with lists...of ass goring. Or Oxen gorings. Or not fucking menstruating women. Or other men. Fucking a menstruating man was probably not something they worried a lot about...

Anyway, the world will be a healthier place once we pick up the stacks of empty clothes, clean up the car wrecks and other collateral damage from drivers, pilots and other folks just fucking vanishing so the god of the Hebrews can make a point. Conversations will be better; assholes like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh will be whimpering someplace, and we might just have a flowering of thought, art and culture. Probably not...but it will be more fun than with Fred Phelps and this weasel babbling away and polluting the airwaves.

Of course, it appears that the date for the rapture is a movable feast. So, we'll see. However, I've put it on my calendar...not to be flying, driving or on life support that day. Probably my pilot, cabbie or nurse wouldn't be among the saved, but you never know. And, since there is no god but the singularity we chose to call Tiffany, she'll probably just grab whomever she thinks will best work as a cosmic dildo. Again, while I think the rapture-yearning fundies would be just perfect for the job, I'm not the singularity. Just a pissed off old soldier with an AXE and a bad attitude...toward assholes.  

AXE's corollary to Kristofferson's Theorem...

Kris Kristofferson was on his way to a drunken early grave when he sobered up -- Johnny and June probably had something to do with it someplace -- turned to club soda and lime as opposed neat Tequila and, reflecting on his marriage to Rita Coolidge, opined, "Never sleep with someone crazier than you are." Well, I'm not sure on that one. I'm reflecting the list of women I've slept with, and except for the former nun, they were all crazier than I was. Oh, and the unannounced lesbian liberation theologian. (Weren't they the same? I don't think so, but AXE is old, old, old...) But all the rest have been crazier than me. Spouse, significant other, various other encounters -- all fits.

However, Mr. Kris probably has far more to reflect on. However, I believe that this is definitely a true statement...Never divorce your wife to sleep with someone who's less than half your age when her IQ ties your age. In spades if she's less than your age.  As Clarkson says, "Why are you still alive?"

I bow to the master...David Horsey

I've said it before; I miss the old Catholic, grammar school God. Doesn't exist, of course, but the singularity I chose to call Tiffany is less attractive than Grandfather in the Sky with his boy Jesus and the Pet Bird.

We're probably too hard on God because of all the crap that those who worship him do to others. As an Apostate, I look at Catholicism and shake my head -- the beauty, the brilliance and the absolute, bat-shit nonsense that evolved. Protestantism is worse -- same crap, only carried either to more logical absurdity or else into an illogical set of nonsense. Human beings are supposed to be thinking animals -- the Camus quote, "Freedom is nothing but the opportunity to be better!" either spins off into the Rapture or into some other form of babbitry.

David Horsey really nails it. As usual. This is all  that is necessary to understand the problem with organized religion. Man is the problem with organized religion. God - Jesus, Zeus, Mithra, Zororaster, Allah, Buddha, Odin -- has not a goddamn thing to do with it.

Playing Palin, she thinks she freaking Madonna...

Divas do not make good politicians. I know people who have worked in the Senate, for example, and behind the scenes guys like Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer are total dickweeds. Teddy Kennedy, except for the drunken Irishman schtick and the cockhoundness before his remarriage, was a fairly decent guy. The Alaska delegation seemed to have a fixation on assholes, although Begich has yet to offend anyone the way Ted Stevens offended all sentient beings. Bill Frist was supposedly a fairly nice guy; Trent Lott was charming; Bob Dole had an extraordinary sense of humor. In fact, I suspect Dole could join the Defeatists as Cato and make all our stuff here and at the outlier sites -- or sites of which we are outliers -- a lot better. His wife, on the other hand, makes dildoes look warm and cuddly. However, they were all invariably polite to people who demonstrate that they love them. Until now...



So, Sarah Palin is showing her true colors. Not that anyone needs to be surprised but...the AXE figures that she'll blame her self-induced flashing of the true Sarah on the liberal media somehow.

"We gave up our entire workday, stayed in the cold, my kids were crying," one man was quoted saying. "They went home with my wife. She was out here in the freezing cold all day. I feel like I don't want to support Sarah."...Another woman told Indy Channel, "We bought two books from Borders to have our receipt and our wristband to get it signed tonight. My books are going back to Borders tomorrow." The angry crowd turned on Palin as she returned to her "Going Rogue" tour bus. (Emphasis added)

First of all,  The Typepad is not recognizing Palin as a proper noun as I draft this, which means Michael Palin should sue. Next when a crowd of ignorant assholes turns from cheering and orgasmic moaning to booing and catcalls, that's pretty tame behavior. Wonder how many of these twits were carrying guns? If they'd shot the tires out and torched the goddamn bus while making her sign the books and their various body parts, and then barbecuing the kid, then they would have turned. Here, some dipshits got a comeuppance...delivered by the Moose-slaughterer Profundis herself...

This makes the John Stewart bit even more relevant. Seriously, if the candidate for whatever is this oblivious, this tone deaf, then all I can say is that Mitt-Plastic-Fantastic-Romney might have a chance. Huckabee is supposed to actually care about people, even though he gets his economic theory from Malthus. The more Palin shows that she's just a self-centered, baby-popping, ignorant cunt from the backwoods, the better their chances. However, neither MPFR nor Huckleberry can get the crowds riled up and the base enthralled. If I were the Dems, I'd stockpile this footage and play it often.

Note to self: There is no such thing as a small ammunition fire...

While I'm pretty sure that we'll never know a lot more than we do now about the Russian debacle/fireworks show/ etc., we need to recall that this is kinda, sorta something they seem to do periodically. And, shudder a bit. I've spent a lot of time around ammunition and demolitions, and it's rare to have a bunch of that crap just blow up. Screw up, and it'll happen in a heartbeat. Don't screw up, pay attention and the stuff is pretty safe.

Now, of course, that's American ammo and NATO ammo. The Russian crap seems to blow at a moments notice. We have a minor vent at 3 Mile Island and the world ends; that was and probably is a daily event in their weapons and power industry. The reason why this is worth more than a giggle is simple -- Nukes are just as flakey. You don't need a detonation to have issues with nuclear arms--all you need to do is drop one and break the casing. Happens more frequently than anyone will admit...hell, soldiers, airmen, sailors are human beings, and Murphy will bite given half a chance.

So, then we look at the various loonies around the world who want Nukes, or have chemical weapons or just piles of ammo sitting around untended. The whole fucking third world is one big ammo dump, waiting for someone to not pay attention and short circuit a pile of electric detonators they temporaily stocked on the dynamite because, well, they were due for their mid-day prayer and hashish break.

 

At last, a holiday I can get behind!

September 30 was Blasphemy Day and we missed it.   Originally conceived as a day of solidarity with teh Danish Mohammed as a nut cartoons, the UN shot it down in the Security Council because it was offensive to a helluva lot of the people in the UN because they are as nutty as John Bolton. On Acid. Being screwed by Michelle Malkin with a strap-on while doing crack.  Or, something.

As Penn Jillette says, we should all say something blasphemous; he recommends that if you are religious, you should say something to mock your own god, but then, maybe you're not that religious. Problem there -- while he says fuck god! what is a defeatist to say? Fuck Tiffany? Of the Medusa-haired cunt? Not with Rick Santorum...sorry. (Being a goddess, Rick's dick wouldn't suffice for her...)

Dulcinea Dowd nails it...and I remember why I love her so dearly!

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

Yeah, well, I wasn't hesitant to say it, but I'm not a lady with a degree from the Gentile side of Catholic Education. She is, and the rapier is more Maureen Dowd's style than the AXE. But, she's skewered the bastards. This is what every commentator and citizen who is not comatose has thought for months. They've done everything but yell "Coon-ass half-breed nigger at the guy, call his mother a nigger-lovin' whore and hung him in effigy. Guess what -- Michael Steele is an Uncle Tom; there's a reason why finding black faces in the Republican party is hard. The party of Lincoln has been captured by the party of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Not the great General, but the racist slave-trader who butchered Black Union soldiers.

This madness is sooooo Birth of a Nation. Joe Wilson appears to be getting ready to ride; all he needs is a sheet. South Carolina is almost a theme park anyway -- they have Charleston, Columbia, and alligators; an endless supply of toothless hillbillies; and, an actual bunch of nitwits. We really ought to consider walling the place in and charging admission.

Andrew Jackson threatened to hang John C. Calhoun for his nullification nonsense. I kind of wish he had -- the last 170 years might have been quieter.