Posted on

The media is the (message) lunatic fringe

Anchor babies, that Muslim Obama born in Kenya who happens to be a socialist anti-Christ. These are just some of the totally ridiculous assertions made mainly by the political right in our country over the past couple of years.

The “anchor babies” I refer to are products of  the mind-bogglingly stupid charges made by some of the real out-there politicians including Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle and U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert. Both are, not surprisingly, Republicans. Riddle was caught looking awhile back during an interview with Anderson Cooper, where Mr. Cool actually showed some cojones as an interviewer. The Texas House member had been spreading a story based on what she said was from conversation with FBI officials that pregnant women are being sent by terrorist organizations into the U.S. to have their babies. That way, when the children are older, they can be sent into the U.S. with no worry because they will be American citizens.

Cooper also nailed right-wing hack Gohmert, who had made a speech on the U.S. House floor about the anchor baby subject.

If this stupidity does nothing, perhaps it does furnish a context to the “Birther movement,” those who believe President Obama was born in Kenya despite his producing a birth certificate and a proof of a birth announcement in a Honolulu newspaper.

Such ridiculous rumors would have been laughed off or faded years ago. But these days because of 24/7 cable news, the Internet and a well-oiled right-wing propaganda machine, the rumor mill continues to run wild. Check out this story regarding a poll that 18 percent of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim.

There is no direct proof as of yet, but it seems much about which Americans get up in arms these days is fueled by that propaganda operation. The right has become the loudest among the media these days, thus they get their opinion blasted like a foghorn out as fact. It goes via talk radio, through Fox News and other News Corp. outlets such as the once respectable and conservative Wall Street Journal. Finally, cable news gets their ratings because they have found people screaming at each other is what their viewers presumably want. Why News Corp’s fatcat owner Rupert Murdoch doesn’t even have to hide his affiliations and feelings these days. For instance, how about a nice $1 million for the Republican Governor’s Assn.? Fair and balanced? We report, you decide? And if you believe that, I’ve got this nice, peaceful little mountain home high in the mountains of Afghanistan I’ll sale you, cheap.

It would be inaccurate and rude to call those who believe the anchor baby stories, that Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya, etc., sheep. Some are sheep who worship at the throne of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the rest of the sordid right. Most, however, are just caught in the trap of hearing arguments tainted through filters that really don’t look at the facts involved but instead at emotion.

I still believe, somewhat, in Karma. I also firmly believe in gravity. What goes up must come down. Eventually, the lunatic right will finally nail themselves to the wall. Unfortunately, it might take a civil war or perhaps a world war led by an American fascist version of Adolf Hitler to precipitate their fall. Still, even something such as beating the Tea Partiers and other fellow travelers like a rented mule at the ballot box this November may finally demoralize this fringe. Then they can go back to wearing tin foil on their head and receiving signals from Alpha Centauri and beyond. It is where they belong.

Posted on

Getting one’s butt kicked in a battle with Mother Nature. Again.

Why, after all these years, do I think I know more than nature?

I failed to bring my umbrella with me when I returned to my office this afternoon after being out in the field. We have an average somewhere around 50 and 60 inches of rain each year and some of it comes this time of year when it’s hot and a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico interacts with the heat. We get thunderstorms like yesterday, which started more like a dust storm.

The air was full of dirt and sand prior to the big thunderboomer yesterday. It wasn’t enough to hinder vision, but it nonetheless seemed odd. It was followed by a big moomba choomba. That idiotspeak for thunderstorm. The electricity was out when I got to the VA clinic yesterday afternoon. Many people had to reschedule their appointments. I don’t know if the people who work there had a difficult time today being backlogged. If so, I don’t envy them.

Yesterday’s storm was enough to tear off some signs and pieces of housing here and there.

It was not unexpected that we’d have another event this afternoon. The low pressure system that was once the tropical depression in the Gulf is somewhere near the “L” in Louisiana.

I just thought I could beat the storm this afternoon. I couldn’t I was “trapped” in my office until it passed, unable to work. I am not allowed to work when I am not on duty. Imagine that! Too bad, I could have finished some work and would have been ahead for tomorrow on which I will be working a tight deadline. But rules are rules.

Next time, I will bring my umbrella. That’s what I always tell myself.

Posted on

How close to Ground Zero is too close for Muslims?

A Mormon, a Baptist and  a Muslim goes into this bar. Wait! What’s wrong with that line?

Nothing really. People of such faiths aren’t generally known as the biggest drinkers of the religious world. That’s not to say they don’t drink, even if they may preach against liquor. The fact is that only their personal beliefs and their local laws are all that might prevent them from going into that bar where they may become the butt of some joke. It’s called “freedom.”

Freedom is bandied about and is talked of in grand and florid terms by politicians and all other of the Americans who feel, for whatever the hell reason, that their freedom is being taken away. I bet many of those would be really pissed off if steps were taken which restrict their Constitutional right to freely practice their religion.

Yet some of these who speak so grandly seem not to have any worries about restricting a church from being built a couple of blocks from the scene of the largest mass murder and terrorist attack in American history. It is the latter, they say, that supposedly compels them to demand the church built somewhere else. Muslims want a mosque — okay people are saying a community center, whatever — there. Granted, the Imam seems to have a shady past but some of our great religious leaders have also cried out: “I have sinned.”

President Obama made a remark and later clarified that remark saying he believes the mosque has a right to built wherever it is able to be built because of the religious freedom in this country. He isn’t the only politician to share that view. New York’s Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg agrees. Bloomberg’s fellow Republicans, though, have decided to seize upon this issue and use it to their advantage politically. When such a disagreement is used for nothing more than political gain, it seems to really lose meaning of the bigger picture.

The picture: Religious freedom and freedom in general. First, one wonders how far away the Muslims, who are only being targeted because some of their own who have perverted their religion perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, have to move? Two blocks, four blocks, six blocks, a dollar, every one who thinks Muslims should not have their mosques within a 50-mile radius of the World Trade Center stand up and holler!

Just which religions can have their churches within a few blocks of this hallowed site? Baptists? No, not them. They dunk children into the water. Mormons, like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is facing an election against a real nut job and so he has decided to part ways with Obama on this one? Some say they are really a cult. Jews? My God, look at what they do to little baby boys!

Do you see how ridiculous this whole argument over restricting one church’s religious freedom in the United States of America is? I hesitate to say it, and that in itself seems wrong, but it does make you wonder just what would Jesus do? Well, I guess that all depends whether you are Old Testament, New Testament or No Testament. Or whether you read the Koran, Talmud, The Book of Mormon or none of the above for that matter.

The greatest point about the freedom to worship in this country is that you can or you don’t and you can worship whomever you want or not worship anyone or any faith at all. If you can find anything in the U.S. Constitution that says this nation was meant to be a theocracy then please let me know because I must have missed it.

So, we will listen to the people raise their voices in disgust — aided and abetted of course by the mighty Republican propaganda machine — and we have another ridiculous argument to distract discussion on real issues and real problems in this country. Tell me, Mr. GOP politician, what would you do to ensure the Muslims or any other religion offensive to you don’t build two blocks or four blocks from the World Trade Center? What’s that? Nothing, you say? That’s kind of what I thought.

Posted on

Fame is when the JumboTron goes viral

One might think of Andy Warhol as a prophet or at least a good guesser when considering his statement that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

A couple at a Houston Astros game the other night stands as the latest example of a vote for  Warhol’s vision (or guesswork) after it appeared that Bo “The Bailer”  Wyble dived to avoid a foul ball that ended up whacking his girlfriend, Sara “Not so Smiling” Saco-Vertiz on the arm. They later announced on morning TV that they had broken up, though supposedly not because of the errant fly.

It is kind of ironic that Warhol himself may be as famous, if not more famous, for his quote about the future state of fame than his art including his most famous soup cans.

Posted on

Rand Paul and the war of the NoZes.

Politics have obviously long been a passion in my life. It has truly become a love-hate relationship though. Politics these days have become so visceral that it really isn’t as much fun as it is a struggle, an ugly wrestling match with faux wrestlers if you will.

I may have fantasized during portions of my life that I would some day run for office. It was never really serious because I had seriously engaged in the study of fun as a younger man. I was never in serious trouble. Nevertheless, there was a time in my life during college when folks at the little country store up the road told people who were looking for my place that they only had to drive for about a mile and look for the house with people on the roof. In other words, I never thought I would ever be elected to any serious office. I did think about running for the archaic office of Inspector of Hides and Animals here in Jefferson County — a non-paid, unfunded, position with no reason for being these days — but the county already had an inspector and the office was soon rustled off to oblivion by the Texas Legislature.

There was no way I thought I could ever pull the wool over anyone’s eyes that I had a good time as a younger guy. But apparently some politicians think they can do so. Some pols think they could go to college in one state, party like a big dog, throw furniture and TVs out hotel windows at Spring Break and 20 years later get elected in another state. This seems the mindset of Kentucky Tea Party senatorial candidate Dr. Rand Paul, according to an article on GQ magazine’s Web site.

The article reports that an unidentified woman said Paul was a member of the locally infamous “NoZe Brotherhood” at Baylor University. The brotherhood is a secret society that pretty much has dedicated itself to having fun and raising Hell at the nation’s largest Baptist university located in Waco. However, the GQ story reported that actions of Paul and another student seemed to go a little overboard when they purportedly kidnapped a woman who was acquaintance of Paul’s and tried to force her to smoke bong hits of pot as well as worship the “Aqua Buddha” at a creek outside of Waco.

This was all in 1983, about the same time I was having a lot of fun my ownself. The woman involved in the incident said it has been blown out of proportion and that Paul and his friend was just “messing” with her even though she described what happened as being “hazed.”

I never ran for office because I used to party a bit. Here is Rand Paul running for office even though he apparently did some partying too and perhaps even went over the line at least once. Who knows where the truth is in all this. When someone runs for office with a big-time following a lot of money can help make old hurts hurt less. I’m not saying Dr. Paul did. It just seems like politics has to be  taken with a big ball of perspective, much more so these days than in days past.

One wonders if Rand Paul is elected to the Senate he’ll show up to an office party wearing his old fake nose disguise from his days as a member of the NoZe boys?