Sometimes I think World Net Daily was made up just for me.
For my entertainment. For my edification. For my sense of superiority over the gang of lunatics that puts it out.
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Maybe this is what I’m missing out on by not being a sexist slob or a racist. Scads of folks across this holy land seem to feel they are better than others simply because said others either possess vaginas or dark skin. It must feel good to know in your heart that women are weak and stupid and blacks are criminal and lazy — and you’re not one of them.
Superiority must be a trip, right? Otherwise, what’s the point of being a sexist and/or racist?
So yeah, I feel superior — moral- and intellectual-wise — to the jabbering chuckleheads who populate the WND universe.
The WND pantheon includes busts of that great philosopher Chuck Norris, who has fap-fantasized about becoming the president of the Republic of Texas after it secedes (oh, please!), and the redoubtable Jerome Corsi. You may recall Corsi swearing up and down during the 2004 presidential campaign that John Kerry had faked his Vietnam wounds. And, more recently, he has posited that Barack Obama is some kind of a Kenyan fag abortionist or something.
Chuck Norris And Friends
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The WND faithful also are regularly treated to the screechings of Phyllis Schlafly and David Limbaugh (who almost makes big bro Rush sound occasionally sane).
Yeesh.
WND is chock full of ads for gold (the preferred safe investment harbor for survivalists), magical vitamins and elixirs, fountains of youth, and even for the newly-martyred Paula Deen. The fly on this pile of horseshit is none other than former baseball pitcher John Rocker, who pens a regular op-ed column for the site.
John Rocker, for chrissakes!
Anyway, wouldn’t you know it, last week’s US Supreme Court decision to coerce all good, white, straight men into butt sex has the WND crew all aflutter.
Some self-described Christian lawyer named Matt Barber, a regular WND contributor, is convinced he’s going to be imprisoned sooner rather than later as a direct result of the gay marriage ruling. And you know what happens in the joint, don’t you?
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Anyway, Barber recounts a hand-wringing email exchange he had with another self-avowed Christian lawyer, who remains nameless in his Monday column. After speculating that the gay marriage OK will lead to the obligatory state-sanctioned unions of brothers and sisters (ick) and rampant polygamy (just a tad less ick), Barber’s pen pal pronounces:
In my 35 years as a Christian, I never seriously believed we might end up in prison for our faith — except, perhaps, for something like a pro-life demonstration. This is the first time it seriously occurs to me that the trajectory of the nation is such that it is possible in five to 10 years.
Because, as you are well aware, the Christians are such an oppressed minority in this country.
Barber couldn’t agree with his friend more. He writes:
Do I believe Christians will face real persecution, such as loss of livelihood, civil penalties, physical abuse or even jail? Absolutely.
So, there you have it. Gay marriage equals Christian concentration camps.
And, yeah, I’m superior to these howler monkeys, moral- and intellectual-wise.
It does feel good. Thanks, WND.
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Borrowers, Lenders & The Mob
Margaret, the Big Cheese at the Book Corner, Bloomington’s only independent bookseller where I peddle ’em Mondays through Wednesdays, will probably clunk me in the head for this one but, I gotta tell you, I’m becoming addicted to the library.
Not The Library
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I’m reading a couple of books a week now, mainly because I’ve been borrowing from the Monroe County Public Library. I have zero idea why I haven’t done this before.
Think of it: your town or big city has within it a system wherein you can take books, CDs, or DVDs home for your personal use — for free. All you have to do is flash a library card.
You may say, Sure, Big Mike, we know all about it, but when’s the last time you did it?
I mean, even the fire department charges your survivors for sending an ambulance over when your heart explodes from a lifetime of sliders and Pop Tarts. The library doesn’t charge you a penny. How can it be that there isn’t a line around the block when the place opens in the morning?
Anyway, I’m just finishing up a book called When Corruption Was King, written by Robert Cooley with help from former Chicago Magazine editor Hillel Levin. Cooley was a mobbed up, kinky lawyer who was in bed with legendary Chicago First Ward bosses Pat Marcy and Fred Roti, who did the bidding of the city’s Outfit.
Alderman Fred Roti
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The Outfit, of course, is Chicagoese for the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, wiseguys, goodfellas, or whatever Hollywood wants to call organized crime. According to Cooley, the Outfit, through Marcy et al, controlled Cook County’s courts, much of the Chicago Police Department, and too many city agencies to list here. Suffice it to say if you wanted a quick building permit, a zoning variance that the neighbors had been fighting tooth and nail, or just to get your teenaged kid off for denting the skull of some hapless Puerto Rican with a baseball bat, your lawyer paid a visit to Pat Marcy and slipped a nickel or a few dimes into his pudgy hand.
A nickel, in Chicago parlance, is $500. A dime, natch, is a grand.
So, the First Ward boys were the extra-legal funnel through which all smart city business flowed. Marcy and crew took care of the average citizen in the know as well as the big boys who ran the city’s gambling, vice, and narcotics operations, among other colorful pastimes. Most Chicago crime experts believed Marcy was a “made guy,” meaning he was an officially approved member of the Outfit. And, no, the Chicago mob didn’t have any elaborate ceremonies and rituals, the likes of which were portrayed in The Godfather and every other crime movie made since. In fact, the Outfit was an equal opportunity employer, welcoming members of every ethnic group imaginable into its ranks, so long as they were good earners and were willing to snap a guy’s thumb when called upon to do so.
Fiction
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Cooley revealed the fixing of murder cases and the buying of state legislation through efforts of Marcy and his guys. Big circuit court judges who’d previously nurtured reputations as law-and-order hard-asses were in truth, Cooley and Levin wrote, guys who’d fix any case for a buck.
See, Cooley was a big player in these shenanigans until, he says, he got fed up, had a change of heart, and walked into the US Justice Department’s Chicago office unannounced and told the feds he wanted to play ball with them. Cooley then wore a wire when he did business with the First Ward boys. The evidence he amassed led to dozens of arrests and convictions and the eventual dismantling of the First Ward pigsty.
Cooley’s no Raymond Chandler or even John Grisham but his story is as riveting as anything they could come up with.
And, by the way, the kind of pervasive corruption that Cooley helped bring down in Chicago’s First Ward may be a thing of the past now but it was built upon the passing of cash from one hand to another.
The last I heard, cash still buys things. Enough of it can still buy permits, justice, and legislation. Only now, the system is nationwide, or even global, as opposed to Pat Marcy’s petit-realm. Look at the so-called Monsanto Protection Act for proof.
We need a new Robert Cooley.
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