Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Caputo Uses Recording of Granddaughter to Ask for Votes

I just got a weird phone call — a recorded message from a little girl identifying herself as Chuck Caputo’s granddaughter asking me to vote for him.

Chuck…dude…that’s just creepy. Politics is like pornography. You should keep it away from kids.

I’ve been to your web site, Chuck, and I see that you’re a Democrat and you’re running against Chris Craddock. That alone makes you worth considering. I have to tell you though — it’s very hard to get a sense of what you’re really all about from your site. You’re big on education. That’s good. But… who isn’t?

At least Chris Craddock tells me where he’s at: he wants to continue to deny equal rights to gay people and he’d like to make abortion illegal.

What’s your stand on these issues, Chuck?

Gonzales Pushes for FBI Anti-Porn Crusade

Recruits Sought for Porn Squad

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

What a waste of time and money THIS is. Or, perhaps it might be better called a fucking waste of time and money. It’s one thing to chase after the people who create, buy, and sell porn that involves children — stuff like that doesn’t even deserve to be called pornography. It’s just plain obscene and the people who deal in it should be punished severely. Really really severely — you know what I’m talking about?

Stuff between consenting adults, though… why is this even an issue? There are lots of reasons for why an adult might enjoy pornography and very few of them are ANYONE else’s business. Frankly, what really offends me is that any part of the government should think it could possibly have a legitimate interest in this.

Pornography is funny stuff, for the most part. Unless you’re in just the right mood for it, it’s pretty much ridiculous. I saw a picture once… and I want to preface this with a strong disclaimer: I was not at all turned on by what I’m about to describe and I only looked at it because I was curious. (Hey, I’m a curious kind of person… what can I say…) Anyway, I saw this picture once of a woman having sex with a large dog. The dog did, in fact, appear to be enjoying himself — so that aspect of the scene wasn’t a problem. What really got to me — I actually laughed out loud! — was the outfit the woman was dressed up in. She had on these black high heels and this lacy black and red bustiere type thing with garters and stockings. It was hilarious! Like the dog would really care what the woman was wearing! I’m just imagining the dog’s agent telling the woman’s agent: “And make sure she doesn’t wear that black vinyl thing again. Rex just can’t perform when she’s wearing that kinky fetish stuff.”

They’re Just Tits

Topless Women Take on Nudity Law
“This thing should be dismissed outright,” [the attorney representing the women] said. “But if it isn’t and these young ladies are found guilty at a trial … if we have to go to the Court of Appeals, we will.”

Young ladies??! The women were aged 61, 54, and 40. Hardly young ladies. I suppose it’s all relative, though. Maybe their attorney is 80 years old.

Why do people in the US have such a weird-ass attitude towards nudity? Europeans aren’t so goofy about boobs. Look, I’m not saying that people who are naturally modest like me should be shamed into flashing their tits. Not at all. Only that if there are people who do prefer to wander around naked, we should really just get over it already! Nudity doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s not even necessarily erotic.

Heavenly Blue and Firey Thorns

Here are a couple pictures from my garden this afternoon.

First, the Heavenly Blue Morning Glory. These were an unexpected autumn treat. First, I didn’t plant morning glories this year! The Heavenly Blue volunteered from seeds dropped by plants I grew last year. The volunteers were doing fine until early summer when they were attacked by aphids. Bad aphids, bad! I would have sprayed soap on the plant to get rid of the aphids BUT I saw there were about a zillion little ants tending them and I didn’t have the heart.

It’s an interesting thing with ants and aphids. Aphids emit a sweet substance from their bodies that ants like to eat. The ants gather the sweet stuff from the aphids — which doesn’t hurt the aphids — and will protect them. This, as you might imagine, works out pretty well for both the aphids and the ants!

Unfortunately, not only did the aphids pretty much kill the morning glory but a bunch of the ants found their way into my living room!

Hmmm… You try to be nice to some ants and this is how they repay you.

Anyway, a month or so ago I noticed that yet MORE morning glories were popping up and this latest batch didn’t bother trying to climb the net I’d put in place. Perhaps that’s how they survived long enough to bloom! So, here’s the Heavenly Blue that beat the odds:

The next picture is of the ripening berries on my small pyracanthus. Pyracanthus, as you’ve probably already guessed, means “firey thorns.” These berries are a nice additional food source for some birds. I’ve seen cedar waxwings eat them.

An Epidemic of Rudeness

Okay, so I’m going to be cranky this morning.

I’ve been really noticing over the past few years how rude people are becoming.

I think it’s based in a kind of essential self-centeredness. More and more people seem to have little ability to see (or concern for) how their behavior affects other people.

It’s not just the woman at the gym who got in a minor snit over me asking her to please move her stuff so I could sit down. It’s EVERYWHERE.

You see it in the way people drive — people who won’t lift their foot off their accelerators for one second to give you a space to safely merge on the highway.

You see it out on the public sidewalks where groups of people are walking abreast, taking up the entire walk so no one can get by them without having to step into the street or the mud or whatever.

You see it out at restaurants with people who let their little kids run around and throw stuff on the floor.

No concern — none whatsoever — for how what they’re doing is affecting other people. In fact, if you were to suggest to most of these people that they might not be doing the right thing, they’d accuse YOU of being the rude one! “Why should I adjust my behavior in order to make you more comfortable?” they ask. “If you don’t like it, YOU can just go somewhere else, find a different gym, eat at a different restaurant, drive on a different road.”

You see this sort of thing ALL THE TIME. It’s really quite discouraging and, considering how courtesy is really the glue that holds a society together, this epidemic of rudeness is kind of alarming.

You even see it more and more in church. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t get anything meaningful out of a church service anymore because of the number of small children making noise. It’s not the fault of the little kids, of course. They don’t know any better. It’s the parents. Rude parents. Our church, King of Kings, has a nursery available at every service, staffed by lovely volunteers, but almost none of these people ever take advantage of it. Instead, they let the little ones yammer away during the service or, like this morning, bang their feet repeatedly on the pew. And most of them don’t do a thing to stop the kid other than a few half-hearted “shh”s. If they finally do get up and drag the kid out, it’s inevitably long after the service has already been pretty much completely ruined for many of the people who were forced to endure the kid’s noise.

It’s getting worse and worse and it’s really enough to make me not want to go to church because the service has been reduced to little more than an exercise in learning to hold my temper. Not exactly what I’m looking for in a church service. It’s really difficult to know what to do about it. Churches need young families in order to keep growing. They need the money and they need the enthusiasm. I presume, though, that most churches also value their older, childless members. (And the younger members who’ve either taught their children to be quiet or have taken advantage of the nursery — I can’t believe those folks aren’t also peeved by the noise.) So.. It’s probably not a good idea to get those rude people pissed off enough that they leave. I presume the church leadership doesn’t want people like me to leave either.

Maybe an “adults only” service is the answer?

When I lived in Minneapolis, I was a member of St. Olaf Catholic Church downtown. The head priest there at the time — Monsignor Fleming — had always made it fairly clear that he didn’t particularly like small children and he REALLY didn’t like them interrupting Mass. As a consequence (and because it was a downtown parish), St. Olaf was always pretty much an “adults only” kind of parish.

It was wonderful.

The Invisible Poor

Salon.com | Blame God, not me
When T.D. Jakes, Bush’s handpicked preacher for the event, reflected on the story of the Good Samaritan, the story could have been illustrated in many minds with images of New Orleans residents left to suffer by the side of the road as rescue passed them by.

But you know, it’s not even so much that the suffering people were seen and intentionally left behind. More often than not, we simply don’t even see the poor in this country. They live in areas the rest of us avoid. They don’t shop at the same grocery store we use. They don’t even drive on the same streets we use because, well, if you’re poor you likely don’t have a car.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

That’s not an excuse, by the way. City, state, and federal governments are supposed to be in the business of taking care of those who don’t have the resources to take care of themselves. Every level of government failed in this case.

And what about the average comfortable citizen? Shouldn’t we make an effort to see these invisible poor? To do something for them? Certainly — those who are inclined towards personal acts of charity already do so. I don’t want to get into a whole soul-searching thing here: why-oh-why am I not more inclined to help poor people? why am I such a selfish bitch? But…damn it! I pay taxes that are supposed to be used to help poor people! If it’s done right, a government program with lots of money can do much more for people than the charity of one person.

Argh… this is all starting to sound an awful lot like a scene from The Christmas Carol. Isn’t there a scene where Scrooge says something very much like that and Marley intones “Mankind was your business!”

Garrison Keillor — Litigious Asshole?

Man, those are two names I’d never think to put together — but get this:

MNspeak.com – Trial Of The Century: Keillor V. MNspeak.com
Let’s quickly review the situation: Garrison Keillor — a liberal comedian! — is threatening to sue MNspeak — some blog! — that uses a t-shirt to poke fun of his mega-gigantic media empire. You’d think we shot Guy Noir or something.

What the hell is he thinking?? Does Garrison Keillor really think the average person who might see one of these “A Prairie Ho Companion” t-shirts wouldn’t realize it’s a parody (and not even a very funny one) of “Prairie Home Companion?”

Garry, Garry… get a grip, man. You’re being a jerk. You’re being one of those cranky old men you’d tease in a monologue. Stop it. Or no more fresh lefse for you.

Rebecca’s Rules of the Gym

Inspired by Valerie’s Rules for Train Riders, and by a woman sniffing at me indignantly today when I asked her if she could please slide her stuff down further on the bench in the locker room so I could sit down in front of my locker to put my shoes on, I have developed my own set of RULES for reasonable comportment in the gym and locker room.

1) The benches in the locker room are there primarily for people to plant their asses on when they’re getting dressed. They are not your personal cosmetics and hair accessory launching stations. Do not spread all your crap out over an entire bench while you wander off to admire yourself in the mirror. Move that shit off the bench and your gym bag out of the aisle.

2) Don’t toss your disgusting wet towel into the towel bin from a distance when someone is standing right next to it, please. Your aim isn’t as good as you think and NO ONE really wants to be hit in the side of the head with your towel.

3) Which reminds me, jeez… put your towels in the bin when you’re done with them. Don’t be such a fucking slob. You think the towel ladies really enjoy retrieving your dirty towels from under a bench?

4) And close your goddamned locker door when you leave. What were you? Born in a barn??

5) Up in the gym itself: Wipe down the equipment when you’re done with it. Men in particular seem to have a problem with this one. Your sweat is not at all attractive to anyone else.

6) And pick up your towel and other crap (newspapers, empty water bottles) when you’re done using a piece of equipment. I really don’t enjoy moving your damp towel out of the way when I want to use the ab bench.

7) And SHUT THE FUCK UP. I’m trying to listen to the “Old Hippy 3″ playlist on my iPod and the constant yammering of you and your big-haired pal is drowning out Led Zepplin. And I’ve got that sucker turned up pretty loud, too, just to drown out the piped-in music the gym has always got playing.

God, people are so annoying.

Note to self: Must finish work on Disintegration Beam.

Kooks on Parade in Charles County

Conservatives Ascendant in Charles Schools
“Why is it that it’s all right for the liberal viewpoint to expound the Darwinian theory of evolution, which is just a theory, but it’s not all right to have the conservative viewpoint of creationism?” said [John F.] Warren, of the Calvary Gospel Church.

Why? Why??

This is why: Because the so-called “liberal viewpoint” isn’t really a “liberal” viewpoint at all. It’s the view of science. And your so-called “conservative viewpoint” has nothing really to do with genuine political conservatism. Creationism is a religious concept. Science belongs in a public school curriculum. Religion does not. This is a principle that is basic to the way we run our country. You all know the tune, sing along with me now! It’s the “Separation of Church and State” rag!

And don’t you just love his little “which is just a theory” comment? It’s the classic sign of a person who doesn’t understand what “theory” means in terms of science. John F. Warren: Religious nut and idiot! He’s two, two, two kooks in one!

Believe it or not, I once identified more with conservative politics than with the liberal sort. You know what I’m talking about: small government, states rights, stuff like that. Since the religious nuts have taken over American conservative thought, though… Jeez! How do the normal people who still identify themselves as Republicans stand it?! (It’s impossible that the entire Republican Party has gone insane… isn’t it?)

Well, anyway, this interesting Washington Post article is about the religious nuts who appear to be taking over the Charles County (Maryland) School Board. One of them, Mark J. Crawford (not to be confused with our friend, Mark W. Crawford), says “Public schools should be teaching students humility and to distinguish between right and wrong.” Uh, Mark? Isn’t that the job of the parents?? What about reading, writing, and arithmetic? Crawford also advocates prayer in the schools, saying “there are of course legal limitations in public schools, but not nearly what we’re taught to think.”

Uh oh. Watch out, citizens of Charles County.

Petrotheism

Mark Fiore’s got a great animation up on his site about the new national religion, Petrotheism, and the insidious blasphemy* (of which we shall not speak) impotently challenging it.

*conservation