Well?
In light of yesterday’s carnage in Oklahoma, I can only think of a line that I read recently (I forget where):
If god ever comes to Earth, he’s got a lot of explaining and a lot of apologizing to do.
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My Hero [Sigh]
I’ll admit it, I fall in love like a middle school girl with certain writers, thinkers, scientists, etc. They are my rock stars, my celebrity idols.
For instance, my gush fest over Roger Ebert, both when he was alive and after his death, was as over the top as a Justin Bieber fan’s.
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One of my true-love-forevers is the historian Rick Perlstein, as longtime readers of this fan blog know.
He did something recently that made me swoon even more for him than I had before — and the gaga-ing I’ve done over him normally borders on the embarrassing. But at this point I think I want to bear his child.
The author of Nixonland and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus is gaining a national rep these days as as an expert in all things Republican — how that party transformed itself from the harrumph-y yet fairly innocuous what’s-good-for-biz-is-good-for-America gang to a more wild-eyed, gun fetishist, persecution-complexed, Ayn Rand-ist, Adam-rode-dinosaurs bunch of loons.
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This neo-Republican Party and its house organ, Fox News, want nothing more than to be able to prod Barack Obama out of the White House with the business end of a pitchfork. Ergo, they’ve manufactured a couple of “scandals” to go along with a real one. Their talking points of the last week include lumping together Obama with that king of presidential crookedness, Dick Nixon. Party of God fanatic Peggy Noonan began it all by saying, “We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate.” That wasn’t good enough for anti-tax, anti-government pain in the ass Matt Kibbe, who wrote on Fox News: “Pundits have compared the current scandal to Watergate, but this one, frankly, is worse.”
So, a Fox News producer contacted Perlstein, hoping to get him to appear on the channel for a feature comparing Obama to the most reviled, sneakiest, most paranoid pol in the history of this holy land. Perlstein can take the story from here:
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All I can say about this is Bee-yoo-tiful!
Perlstein simply, quickly, and in no uncertain terms told Fox News to take its big audience and its potential to goose sales of his books to kiss his ass.
What a guy!
Nowadays, book writers, actors, pop singers, and other people who want to sell their wares to the tens of millions waiting in the checkout line at Walmart would happily appear on a panel with Richard Speck, David Berkowitz, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to discuss world events. Pushing units is far more important than decency, tact, dignity, and self-respect. Juan Williams went from being NPR’s token Tory to Fox News’ token commie abortionist because, well, that’s where the dough was, and laying down with dogs be damned.
I don’t know if Perlstein has become a rich man from peddling his books. Probably not. The book racket is geared to reward corporations that own copyrights and a very few “authors” who type a lot of easy words that can be read with a minimum of effort.
An appearance on Fox News would have exposed Perlstein and his titles to countless folks who might be tempted to drop a double-saw on, say, his history of the Nixon years. But Perlstein found it better to tell the Fox bunch to go straight to hell. And he’s proud of it!
I think I’m in love.
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It’s His Own Fault
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In case you didn’t know, this is not a photo of a pregnant girl. It is a photo of a pregnant guy. Photoshopped, natch.
The Chicago Department of Health’s Be You Be Healthy campaign is hanging posters like this one all around the city’s high schools, where teen pregnancy is about as common as forged absentee notes.
It was reported in 2009, for instance, that 115 of the 800 girls attending Robeson High School on the city’s South Side were pregnant at the time.
The absolutely last thing in the world I wanted to do when I was a sophomore in high school was make a girl pregnant. Which is ironic because the absolutely first thing in the world I wanted to do at that time was to have sex with a girl. Fear of conception (as well as my overall squirrelishness) kept me from initiating the zygote process.
Do kids not know about the sperm and the egg? Or do they just not care?
[via Al Jazeera English]
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Rock Star, Part II
I have this inexplicable need to let the world know that the Chicago Cubs have a player named Rock Shoulders in their farm system. Born Roderick D. Shoulders in Tampa, Florida 21 years ago, Rock plies his trade as a first baseman/outfielder with the Kane County Cougars, based in Geneva, Illinois, some 35 miles due west of Chicago.
Solid
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I hope and pray he becomes a major leaguer. If he does make the big show, his moniker will rank with the following for the best baseball player names ever:
- Razor Shines
- Ed Head
- Clyde Kluttz
- John Glasscock
- Johnny Dickshot
- Oil Can Boyd
- Coco Crisp
- Taylor Teagarden
- J.J. Putz
- Charlie Furbush
- Yogi Berra
- And finally (his parents should be ashamed of themselves), Dick Pole.
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