It's not true but it is because we know it is

No, that's not some Zen Koan, it's Rush Limbaugh. Caught being fooled by some blog with a fake Obama speech allegedly from his college years, Rush didn't apologize for his total lack of journalisticintegrity but instead called it "satire."

"You can't beat that", said Chris Matthews this evening on Hardball this evening and he's right. Rush did his usual bouncing up and down excoriating Obama for advocating massive redistribution of wealth and using as evidence a speech Obama never made. Typical Rush stuff and typical Limbaughian attempt to weasel out of it.

Humor he said, needs to have a grain of truth in it and this is humor, which of course wasn't identified as such until it became clear Rush was a victim of an amateur hoax, and that truth is provided by our inner knowledge that although Obama never ever said it he somehow has inner knowledge that Obama was thinking it - as has not been demonstrated. Get it? That's right. Rush is a mind reader and therefore can be excused for denouncing someone for something he never said or did. You can't beat that and since we know Rush is a Satan worshipping prophet of the Auntie-Christ who eats cute puppies, has sex with dead goats, is an admirer and homosexual lover of Slobodan Milošević and has a secret collection of Nazi memorabilia in his attic that he wears on Jewish holidays -- since we know it, we can sell it as the absolute truth and claim that it's journalism. That's Rush.

You can't beat it.

Nothing too shameful

There are a lot of Facebook and web pages and blogs from all kinds of people and organizations and it's nothing all that unusual to find something racist, something disturbing something shameful in all the vastness: the enormity amongst the enormousness, for those of you who still make the distinction. I'm quite old enough to remember segregation, Jim Crow, miscegenation laws and even the outrageous Coon Chicken Inn, something that would shock most of us today, and I remember who supported the civil rights we now take for granted and who opposed it.

We have come a long way, or at least most of us have, otherwise there would be more widespread laughter at the audacity of the RNC Facebook page now showing off Susan B. Anthony and Abe Lincoln as GOP heroes. A few years back they were trying to sell Martin Luther King as a Republican hero and some continue to portray Jesus as a Conservative.

Neither audacious or shameful adequately covers posting racist pictures a short time ago, including this one of the President of the United States eating fried chicken and demanding repeal of Love Vs. Virginia that in 1967 locked the intrusive government and its God fearing Southern Conservative bigots out of deciding which races could marry which. It was only a few years after they were forced to stop telling us where we could eat or sleep or live or ride or swim or picnic or find a bathroom or go to school, based on our race. Obviously some Republicans haven't forgiven us for it. Evidently the GOP has done little to excommunicate or even to censure such people. Indeed many of the Republicans I know think such things are funny.

It remained up on the RNC site until those pesky and humorless liberals complained. Disgusting, but typical, and all the sniping from the snarky, snickering anonymous trolls won't change that fact.

Look, up in the sky. . . it's a bird, it's. . . .

I'm constantly accused of making gratuitous and unfair fun of religion. Whether or not that's fair to say, I couldn't begin to approach the creativity of some pious people who having no sense of humor, much less the knowledge or ability to see their creations in the context of history, in giving us their truly American and truly hilarious concept of the holy.

I'm indebted to Libby at The Impolitic and Gymo at The Spork for pointing out the work of Merritt Ministries of Tracy, California who found a unique, reverent and authentic way to represent the love and compassion of Jesus as he descends from the clouds on his apocalyptic mission, (which includes the horrific immolation of Jews and other infidels) with "compassion and love."

And what better way to do it than to flip the bird at the Second Commandment by making a likeness of the heavenly Jewish offspring, with Northern European features and straight, chestnut brown hair, wearing purple and gold robes like a the Roman Emperor under whose auspices Jesus was tortured to death? And what better likeness than a huge hot air balloon to provide that reverent touch? After all, if you're going to create God in your own image, isn't hot air the perfect filler for this flying apocalyptic cream-puff?

Just as the secular right finds all they need to know of the Constitution in the Second Amendment, all a large segment of the Religious Right requires to serve the needs of 'authenticity and reverence' is the Book of Revelation, written far away and in another country and selected for the cannon almost a quarter of a millennium later by the high priest of Sol Invictus.

I'd love to see this catch on though. I'd love to see the sky filled with lighter-than-air deities of all sorts, from YHWH blimps to Buddha balloons; soaring Shivas and zooming Zoroasters and gas-bag Ganeshas. Launch them all and let the real God sort them out!

Not All Protests Are Created Equal

Background.

No exit, no return

I like pawnshops. I've been a fan of the recent History Channel series Pawn Stars featuring a 24 hour pawn shop in Las Vegas and of course I like to hunt for treasure at flea markets. The local B&A flea market isn't so great and is only open on weekends, but since the economy tanked, every day is like a bad day at the crap tables and cool things do turn up at pawnshops. So yesterday I happened to be passing one on US1 in a shabby strip mall between CW's Barbeque and a vacant storefront and having little else to do, eased the Red Rocket into a parking spot right by the door next to a badly repainted yellow 50's pick-up truck and stopped in.

Yes, they sure did have more stuff than last time, which was a few years ago. The walls were festooned with T-shirts comparing Obama to Mao Zedong and a whole pandemonium of tyrants. One showed some Greek columns and read "Obama -- molon labe" a reference to the words the Spartans supposedly said to the Persians when asked to turn over their weapons: "come and get them." Tools, motorcycles, construction equipment, raggedy stereos, drum sets, guitar amplifiers and shelves full of stuff to the point where I could hardly walk -- and guns: lots of them.

A large plasma TV had Fox news blaring out the hysterics of the day and the friendly pistol packin' proprietor oversaw a forest of racked long guns and glass cases of overpriced handguns.

"You can't trust the government to do anything" he was saying to a couple of camo hatted compatriots. "Except maybe to run an army"

"Not even that!" replied one. "They should just tell the generals what they want done and then let them run it the way they want."

I feigned interest in an 1851 Colt Navy revolver with all the original finish gone (I'm quite sure it was a fake) while the conversation shifted to why they weren't racists for hating "that SOB" it's just that he's such a far-left radical and why any competent president would have restored the economy to it's former glory under George Bush - he's had months, after all.

I grew up on science fiction and I'm used to stories that begin with someone walking though holes in space-time into other universes. I thought maybe I'd just walked into the fantasy universe of the Republicans but I'm not too sure what I walked back into is real either. In the "real" world, there's a new video game out, I read today. It's another alternate reality where "patriots" can compete to capture Obama before he can:

"toss out the Constitution, ban guns and merge the U.S. with Canada and Mexico into a 'North American Union.' "

As with science fiction, the stuff I liked best had some degree of possibility attached to it. This thing only stinks of stale sweat, damp basements, fear and industrial disinfectant -- like a madhouse: like America.

GOODBYE SOUPY!

Some readers may not be familiar with Soupy Sales, a childhood icon for some of us. I remember sitting in front of the TV as Soupy performed this magical feat asking, “Kids, can you rub your belly and pat your head at the same time?” I STILL find that hard to do.

And, there were the pies in the face, of course. Soupy will probably be best remembered for not only the pies thrown on his show at his face but for all the celebrities that took a pie in the face for Soupy that included Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis.

He was once suspended for a week for telling kids to empty their Mommie’s purses and send all the green pieces of paper with presidents’ faces on them to Soupy.

Something I didn’t know was that he was once a fill in host for the tonight show – being a kid, I wasn’t allowed to stay up that late.

Soupy made us laugh and he lived a productive but quiet life. No front page pictures of Soupy with other women or falling down drunk. I think maybe he was just happy being able to make money doing what he loved.

He died Thursday night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York at the age of 83.
Goodbye Soupy, and thanks for the memories!

Internet Freedom Act and Net Neutrality

No, no, no. The Internet Freedom Act isn't about freedom for you as an internet user and you should know by now that when a Republican uses the word Freedom it's about corporate control over your options. John McCain's "freedom act" appears now, after we've just begun to recover from eight years of the Bush FCC acting as a wholly owned subsidiary of big communications corporations; fudging the science and ignoring its own rules with impunity. Under Michael Powell and Kevin Martin, the Commission has stifled, hidden and falsified studies concerning the adverse effects on the public airwaves and even disaster relief services, of using power lines as a conductor for broadband internet and has made censorship of "indecency" a prime directive. It's high time they were prevented from protecting the public interest rather than the power of the telecommunications industry and the religious right.

If McCain's legislation is passed, the Internet Service Providers will have the power to limit your web bandwidth and mine and give preference to - you guessed it - the people they like, the people they own and the people who say what they want said. Have a blog that criticizes Comcast? Back to the days of 300 baud for you old chap! Fox News can blaze along at any speed they like with all the streaming and screaming video and Glennbeckery they can produce and the FCC won't be able to represent you. The freedom of giant corporations and puritanical moralists to censor you -- that's the kind of freedom John McCain thinks is worth fighting for!

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK

A homeowners association wants to evict a 6-year old child. Too heartless, too outrageous to describe, just watch the video.

Glenn Beck, Performance Artist

Remember that focus-group we heard about the other day? The one that basically says today's conservative movement is a cult, and Glenn Beck is the cult leader?

Two aspects of the discussion on Beck among conservative Republicans were particularly noteworthy. One was a common fear among the women for his personal safety, a belief that his willingness to stand up to powerful liberal interests was putting his life, as well as the lives of those working with him, in danger. Of course, his willingness to face this danger head on only adds to his legend.

As it turns out, Beck was spotted with an armed bodyguard that very same day:

Guests at the other day's preview of Broadway musical "Memphis" noticed Beck was closely accompanied -- even to the men's room -- by a bodyguard with a gun partially concealed under his jacket. Beck, who famously accused President Obama of being "a racist," tweeted after the show: "Just got back from 'Memphis' on Broadway. Amazing cast & music. 2 songs abt Hope & Change. rlly? Only 2?"

Beck's performance art has spilled out of the studio and into the New York gossip pages. Which is not to say that Beck doesn't receive death threats; I'm sure he does -- but from under-medicated lunatics, not "Obama goons." As I've demonstrated before, the "goons" are products of a lunatic imagination.

I'll go further and say this "bodyguard" is another plastic frog. A fake. A fugazi. There is no such thing as a "partially-concealed" firearm; the gun was another ostentatious show in a very public setting. Beck is actively courting his cult status.

We need a name for his cult. I'm going with "Beckies" right now. Any nominations?

Adding: "Beckentologists"?

RECOGNITION FOR (O)CT(O)PUS

About a month ago, I received an invitation from Change.Org to participate in Blog Action Day, an initiative to build awareness for global climate change on the web. I registered for the event and posted my contribution on October 15, 2009.

According to the organizers, 12,000 registered bloggers contributed 32,000 trackable posts reaching 17 million people. Among those contributing: Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK, the government of Spain, and President Barack Obama’s White House blog.

Non-government contributors include: The Economist (magazine), Google, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Federation, and The Nature Conservancy, among others.

Late last night, I received e-mail from Michael Stickings of The Reaction who brought this to my attention: Benno Hansen of Novo Nordisk, posted his review of the submissions. It is a hierarchy ranging from the Ugly and the Bad to the Good and the Best. If you scroll down to the best, you will find my article, Energy, climate change, and the indignant desert birds of willful self-destruction.

The article was also cross-posted at The Reaction where the Blog Action Day organizers found it.

This is the second nod this year. A few months ago, an editor in Toronto noticed my Michael Jackson article and asked permission to include it in an anthology of essays. This book should be out in a couple of weeks.

Not bad for a primitive cephalopod.