Department of Book Reports 12th Generation

Kinfolks: falling off the family tree: The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors. By Lisa Alther, (Arcade Publishing, $25.00)

I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic.
Lisa Alther, in Kinflicks, 1975



Lisa (pronounced 'Liza") Alther has given us a memoir of her times. Lisa was one of the most influential authors I read in my young womanhood, along with Cynthia Heimel. I actually got to sell Cynthia a copy of Coffin for a Cutie and when I remarked to the disheveled red-head that it reminded me of a favorite book, she replied, "I love it too! I had the art department put the shoes on my first book!" We both said Sex Tips for Girls! in unison, and I was able to gush on and on and generally make a fool of myself.

I have not had the opportunity to genuflect before Lisa till now. I was the paperback sales rep for New American Library back when her novels Original Sins and Other Women were published so I was evangelic about Lisa's work to the greater Northwest.

In Kinfolks, she looks back at the times of her life that produced those novels, and gives us a generous history lesson along the way. In tracing her families' genealogy, she takes a side excursion into the history of Appalachia, both the southern end she grew up in Tennessee and Virginia and the northern reaches of the mountain range in Vermont, where she raised her children. Comparing the Church announcement boards in the south to the northern bumperstickers, she picks daily winners, "Give Satan an inch and He'll become your Ruler" "Silence is Golden, but Duct Tape is Silver".

Along the way, we meet snake-handlers and the blue-blooded members of the Virginia club, whose members must have been born in Virginia and meet mostly to discus the inferiority of the Tennessee they reside in. Just up the road is Erwin, TN, where the circus owner hung his elephant in 1916. At Lake Champlain, the entire Alther family saw the elusive "Champ", the sea serpent supposedly descended from plesiosaurs.

Tracing the 1539 discovery expedition of de Soto, we find perhaps some of the early forebears of the Melungians. This is a wonderful overveiw of the southern wilderness before the establishment of the Roanoke colony. It's whet my appetite for taking on the volume Rev. Jerry praises so highly, 1491.

Lisa first heard of the Melungians from a babysitter who once told Lisa and her brother that "The Melungeons has got six fingers on each hand...They grab mean little chilrun and carry them off to their caves outside of town." Thus lasted a childhood fear, that would turn to curiosity when an un-known fourth cousin published a book about their Melungeon ancestry. Even the details of the minutiae of genealogical research are laced with wicked humor. It takes modern days DNA testing to provide some answers, but it also brings even more questions.

democommie™™™™®© could not help on this book report because he has absolutely no Melungeon ancestors.


Kinfolks is available at Jackson Street Books and fine independent booksellers everywhere.

--SeattleTammy

DUBAI

A dispatch from Stinkeye:

The always lily-livered MSM would have you believe that the Middle East is in utter shambles. Such screeds of woe, misery, and horror bore me to tears. Sheesh. Get over it, already. Move on. I have. It’s a month since I started serving at the pleasure of Halliburton and I can tell you that the Middle East is to die for! Dubai is fantastic! My decorating gig for Halliburton Corporate is gushing pure oily gold. A couple of weeks ago CEO Dave Lesar, the maestro at moving on, domestically and Iranily, said, “ stinkeye, what’s say you do more than shmooze around here?” ‘Not to worry, Dave’, I told him, though I didn’t take his meaning. ‘Not to worry, Dave’ is what everyone says to him. So, I decided to schmooze around other speculators at the Nad Al Sheba Racecourse on March 31st. Gambling may be illegal in the emirate but the Dubai World Cup is a $6,000,000 race, savy? A sadder but wiser stinkeye knows not to place a ‘prediction’ with Sheik Yerbouti. Ah well, win a little, lose a lot. Wait just a slavering nanosecond, sister, that’s not the way a real Dave Lesar groupie thinks. Hmmmm…Eureeka! I remembered that exactly a year ago that ghoul, Senator Dorgan and that creep, Congressman Waxman, were gnawing on some of that a woe, misery and horror vis a vis Halliburton’s outstanding support for our troops. As I’ve said, such screeds bore me to tears. However, my reaction was considerably more visceral when a Halliburton alumna put things in perspective.

One short year later? KBR? Who? Never heard of 'em. Suckers. The California Leftist Waxman can pound sand. Hah! The United States has no extradition treaty with the United Arab Emirates! You go, Dave! I’m not worthy, I’m so not worthy. In synergizing blasto mode, the latest stinkeye crude came a bubbling to the surface; WATER, my friends!

'Waste not, want not, except in no bid contractual agreements, of course, hah, hah, hah' is the whispered code when Halliburton gives you the secret handshake. Well, all that old spew in Iraq was 50 gallon drummed here before Dorgan’s co-bozos could start messing around with their own litmus paper.

I'm calling it something simple, 'W'.
Leftists are enamored with such minimalism and they’re my target guzzlers. They think stinky cheese is delightsome and they pay through the nose for it. Why not stinky H2O? Hmmmm, maybe I can get a no bid water contract for all the VA hospitals. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! Stinky ’Wet n Wild’ is in the chute. Jenna and not Jenna will be endorsing it. Can’t you just smell the money?

Ain’t war great?

The liberal soul shall be made black: but she that watereth shall be watered also herself Proverbs. 11: 25

Barry White: Public Enemy Number one

I told you abstinence education programs can't succeed until Barry White is marginalized.

My Naughty Chekist

Miss jaamtoo4
Thurston County Sheriff's Office
Olympia, WA

Dear Miss jaamtoo4,

I know it's been a while since we last chatted. I didn't know how to get a hold of you after I was banned from the Jackboots & Stiletto Heels Chatroom over the "virtual cantaloupe" incident. Who knew it was a French fruit?

But even after all this time, I haven't forgotten the good times we had playing cyber games like The Stormtrooper and The Hippie Girl and The Naughty Chekist. Thinking back on it, I'd have to say, it was the happiest 173 hours, 43 minutes, and 13 seconds of my life. I hope you feel the same

So you're probably wondering how I found you. Well the other day, I was on one of my reconnaissance missions where I scout out possible gathering places for America's internal enemies. I'd chosen to surveil the San Francisco Street Bakery in Olympia on the basis of its name (very French, very Pelosi), and boy did I hit pay dirt. It was an enemy recruitment station, enticing good, normal, god-fearing Americans with the smell of freshly baked bread and then subverting them with foreign temptations like cream cheese danishes, strawberry croissants, ruggala, sandwiches made with vegetables and goat cheese, lattes, and, worst of all, baba ganoush and hummus.

There I was in the heart of enemy territory, and suddenly, I felt very conspicuous in my camouflage (why don't they make camo with doughnut or maple bar patterns) and buzz-mullet haircut. Seeing a stack of newspapers, I quickly picked one up, hoping to fool everyone into thinking I was just like them, a consumer of the printed news.

I almost dropped it in disgust when I saw it was a leftist rag called Works in Progress, but then I saw your name. It was part of an email address, jaamtoo4@gmail.com. It was in an article about the mistrial in the Oly 22 case. Apparently, the protesters' trial was ended when it was learned that an undercover secret agent for the Thurston County Sheriff's Department, jaamtoo4@gmail.com, had penetrated an email list the defendants used to discuss legal strategies with their lawyers.

"That must be my beloved jaamtoo4," I thought, "the name is just too unique for it to be a coincidence." No wonder your knowledge of the Terrible Strap-On Nightstick of Submission seemed so authentic. You're a domestic secret agent in real life, a secret agent who spies on our internal enemies and their lawyers in the defense of our constitution.

And I learned that your name is Detective Mike Hirte, and that you look like a man--you're at least a three on the manly scale of absolute gender. And for a moment, I felt a little weird about being so turned on by you, but then I decided it must be something else about you that's awakened my little soldier from his long, long slumber. Maybe it's the handcuffs or perhaps the way your magnificent, luscious, hairy, round breasts strain against the fabric of your dress shirt. I don't know.

But that's not important, Miss Mike. I'm just glad I found you, and now that I know you're a real secret agent, I'll let you be the chekist the next time we play cyber games.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Thanks

Thank you Nez and Democommie for covering for me with such great, albeit treasonous, posts. And thanks to Stinkeye too, who would have posted but I think her permissions got screwed up in the switch to new Blogger.

Dr. Noel Uvellotte-Mordaneux

Post by democommie™™™™®© who lost his keys, Grafix by Nezua

---

Gently scrambled readers:

I must apologize for my tardiness in taking up my duties as guest-poster here at Jesus General. It’s not as if I had a long way to go to get to work. The motor pool is a scant 2.5 miles down a well maintained private drive through the Blood-O-the Lamb™ vineyards from the General’s Spartan--by GC(Cubed)R standards, anyway—28,000 square foot Bunker and Spa. I do always like to check in with ofJoshua to make certain that she is not pining, in the General’s absence; but, as always, his great good friend, Mr. Garcia was keeping her company. They do get on—she was in good hands.

You may be wondering why I’ve been using this semi-posh tone in writing, today. Truth to tell, I was too. Fortunately I’ve received the answer. I had my regular appointment, yesterday, with my psychiatrist, the eminent Dr. Noel Uvellotte-Mordaneux. He said that after nearly two years of our weekly sessions he had a diagnosis for me—Multiple Personality Disorder. I was shocked, I can tell you!

I asked him if he meant there was more than one “me” in me. His dry, but warm reply was that “Ze ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ vas less crowded zan your head, nutboy!”. But he quickly allayed my fears by explaining to me that I should take advantage of the situation, or as he said, “Ven life is geeving you citron, make citronella.” He advised me to let my inner Frenchman as well as the inner chef, poet, male exotic dancer, doyenne of etiquette and the rest of the crew pick up the slack when my inner grease monkey was stuck on something.

I’ve put his suggestion to good use already. First thing this morning I wrote some sonnets, baked a lovely brie en croute, tuned up the new prototype command vehicle (an Abrams tank that we made into a ‘rag top’) as well as writing these bons mot. My inner exotic dancer danced his ass off last night at “Beefcake & Brewskis”, (almost $5 in tips!) just down the road, so he’s sleeping in.

My inner Frenchman would like to say that, having read the posts re: Mr. Don Imus and his unfortunate choice of words describing those fine young female athletes at Rutgers that perhaps it would just be best if he went down to the men’s locker room and addressed them as “nappy headed pimps”, in the interest of fairness and sexual equality. I’m sure the gentlemen there would show him a rollicking good time!

I am deeply indebted to Seattle Dan & Tammy for their assistance in preparing this missive. If it hadn’t been for their endless patience, boundless good humor and firm but gentle pressure (in holding me down while the Doc No’s P.A., Igor, applied the electrodes to my temples and testicles) I would never have been able to finish this drivel.

It has been my great pleasure to serve in the capacity of Guest Poster and I shall be ready to serve again, at the General’s pleasure. Sign me as.

Miss Goody2shoes—

unless you fuck with me; then it’s Ilsa-she-wolf of the SS in her Prada jackboots, mofo.

And so on.

VAYA CON DIOS, Kurt! You were a storyteller, a teacher, and a friend.

The world won't be quite the same without you, amigo.

---

nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez blogs as The Unapologetic Mexican and like kurt advised, is here to fart around.

Oliphant's Children

I'm on the road for the next couple of days--thanks in advance to Stinkeye, Democommie, and Nez for volunteering to cover for me--and I wasn't going to post tonight. But sometimes my inner Frenchman demands that I grant him an opportunity to speak his mind, and tonight is one of those times. So here he is.

As sickened as I was by Imus's remarks, I'm more disgusted by how some of our leading media figures, people like Tim Russert and Howard Fineman who like to think of themselves as serious opinion leaders, and professed progressives, like Tom Oliphant, reacted to it. I've never been a fan of sycophants, but to watch these people kiss that racist pig's ass in the service of their own naked ambition introduced me to a level of disgust I didn't dream existed.

I have two daughters. They're now both older than the young women, many of whom are still teenagers, who play basketball for Rutgers, but I can imagine how my daughters and I would have felt had they been singled out on a popular radio and television program and called "Jew-nosed sluts." These young women didn't need to be degraded in that way by Imus, especially on the day following their greatest achievement thus far, taking second place in the National Woman's College Basketball Championship. They were terribly wronged. Not only were they insulted in one of the most vile and despicable ways possible, but it may have very well ruined one of the greatest moments of their lives.

I doubt Russert, Fineman, or Oliphant give a damn about these women's feelings. The Rutgers players can't help them sell their books or promote their projects like Imus does. But god damn it Tim, Howie, and Tom, these women are human beings. Really. They're actual people with the same feelings as the rest of us.

Take a look at these beautiful, accomplished young women and think about the violence Imus and his toadies committed against them:


DEE DEE JERNIGAN
Sophmore
Daughter of Kurtis Bond and the late Regina Jernigan and sister to Donnell, DeJonrell, Katrina and Antaneah.


ESSENCE CARSON
Junior
Music Major
A gifted musician who plays the piano, bass guitar, drums and saxophone
Gold Medal winner With Team USA
Daughter of Stacey Robinson and the late Joseph Carson and second of three children.


EPIPHANNY PRINCE
Sophmore
Daughter of Jerry Prince and Kathy Williams-Prince and sister to Emeek.


KATIE ADAMS
Junior
4.0 GPA
Psychology Major
Daughter of Ted and Donna Adams. Has four brothers and one sister.


KIA VAUGHN
Sophmore
Daughter of Aja Ellington Has seven younger brothers.


HEATHER ZURICH
Sophmore
Daughter of George and Lorrie Zurich. The oldest of three children.


MATEE AJAVON
Junior
Majoring in Africana studies.


MYIA MCCURDY
Freshman
Academic All American
Daughter of Donald and Paula McCurdy. Sister to Philip.


JUDITH BRITTANY RAY
Freshman
Daughter of Allan and Larnel Ray. Sister to Celtics Guard Allen, Kendrick, and Aaron.


RASHIDAT JUNAID
Freshman
Daughter of Fatai Junaid and Carmella Burrell. Sister to Leah, Serifat, Kafayat, Jamaal, and Marcus

Now, go do something about it.

The kind of creative thinking got Gonzales where he's at today

In a surprise move designed to confuse his Congressional enemies, Inquisitor General Gonzales brought charges against himself for being an Ecuadorian hitman.

Screencap from the DOJ web site:

Imus and The Sad, Sorry Plight of the White Christian Male

Wan J. Kim
Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
US Department of Justice

Dear Mr. Kim,

I really appreciate all you've done to turn the Civil Rights Division around. Six years ago, it was a festering pustule of racial hatred where decent heritage-minded white men were persecuted for upholding the education, housing, voting, and employment traditions their fathers and grandfathers fought so hard to keep on the streets of Selma, Birmingham, Little Rock, and Oxford. Today, it stands as a bulwark against the oppression of the white Christian male. The numbers speak for themselves. In the last five years, you office has prosecuted only one discrimination case on the behalf of a black person while performing a full court press against "reverse discrimination" and Bible reading bans in our schools.

Still, as the ongoing Don Imus controversy illustrates, there is much more work to be done. Here we have a respected white broadcaster (and, like Our Leader, a true cowboy of the city, a Marlboro Man for the new millennium) who is being castigated for telling a joke employing an old slave era stereotype about promiscuous black women and the racial inferiority of their hair.

And it was a very funny joke, the kind of joke that regularly has the boys at my heritage defense association laughing their butts off. They just love him. Indeed, our kleagle won't allow us to light the heritage cross until after he's retold a couple of his favorite Imus jokes--the one about the money-grubbing Jews and another about Hitlery getting cornrows and gold caps on her teeth so she can get the black vote.

Unfortunately, black people's sense of humor isn't as highly developed as ours. They were offended by Imus' joke and are writing letters demanding that he be fired. That's a form of employment discrimination, isn't it? I think it's time for you to step up and arrest them for violating Imus's civil rights. That'll teach 'em for oppressing the white man.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

From the people who brought you the Morning Zoo

It's no secret that I think Sam Seder is one of the most dangerous people in America. That's why his show on Air France, The Sam Seder Show, is the only radio program I monitor every day. It's how I stay abreast of what the libislamunistfascists and Congressislamunistofascists are up to.

Thank God I won't have to do it anymore after Friday. The "radio people" saviors the Greens hired to resurrect Air America killed his show. Obviously, since these folks are "radio people," it's a very wise move. After all, these are the folks who united America by making us all listen to canned nationally marketed formats like Morning Zoo, The Breeze, KISS-FM, and Stimulating Talk Radio. They're also the same kind of people who brought us the Pig-Vomit-produced Jerry Springer show. You can't beat that for entertainment.

Hmmm. I wonder if Seder would still have his job if he called a women's basketball team, a group of "nappy-headed hos."

You can let Air America management know what you think of their decision by writing:

Scott Elberg
Chief of Operations

David Berstein
Program Director

Army of Bens

I've been waiting for the Army of Bens to make their mark on this country. For those of you who aren't familiar with these kids, they're people like Ben Domenech, Ben Fergeson, and their Jewish cousin, Ben Shapiro. They're the generation of Americans who received all of their education from conservative homeschools, Christian elementary schools, Christian prep schools Like Patrick Henry Academy, Colleges like Pensacola Christian College, and law schools like Regent University.

To be honest, I didn't expected the Army of Bens to start influencing society until sometime in the next decade, but with 150 Regent Law grads serving in the administration now, the Army of Bens is a force to be reckoned with.

I'm very pleased with this development. Take a look at Regent's first year law requirements and you'll understand why:

Detective Neptune Returns

Long-Time Readers may remember that I linked to the first half-a-dozen or so episodes of MJS's blasphemous Detective Neptune in "Christ, the Screaming Avenger". I can't overemphasize just how dangerous this series is--it's so well written, it's guaranteed to send passels of good people to Hell.

You can read them all, including his latest episode, here.

War as an Expression of National Spirit and Manly Power

_{Image © Austin Cline
Original Poster: National Archives
Click for full-sized Image}

Now that Iran has released the British prisoners, and without anyone having to go to war over them, it's possible to direct some sober and critical attention to some of the "advice" being given to American and British leaders by America's neoconservatives. There is a clear, unmistakable theme running throughout their commentary that revolves around the contrasting concepts of power and impotence — usually focused on a need for America to demonstrate how powerful it is and, at the same time, how weak everyone else is.

Glenn Greenwald dubs is it the "Abu Ghraib Theory of Foreign Affairs," but I think he's being a bit too kind in labeling it a mere theory. It's not simply an idea, but the basic underlying principle of neoconservative political policy and should be treated as such: Bush's Abu Ghraib Doctrine of Foreign Affairs. On one hand you'll see the promotion of "manly virtues," almost all of which are related to a willingness to engage in violence and humiliation towards others; on the other hand, you'll see the denigration of everything which makes a culture or nation weak — like, for example, an unwillingness to use violence to degrade and humiliate others.

Newt Gringrich said to a fawning Hugh Hewitt that the goal should be to "to show the planet that you're tiny and we're not." Mark Steyn asked: "Would 'deploring' persuade Tehran to release the sailors while 'grave concern' lets them humiliate them for another few weeks?" National Review's Mario Loyola said: "Iran's humiliating abuse of the sailors provoked outrage in Britain . . . the outrage has manifested mostly in a despondent impotence. . . How sad and humiliating for the British."

Contempt for the British sailors for cooperating began appearing even before they were released. New York Post columnist Ralph Peters called them "wankers" and that U.S. Marines would have "resisted collaboration" to the last. National Review Online contributor John Derbyshire agreed with Peters, deploring the "cowardice" of the British sailors and marines and expressed the hope that they would be court-martialed and given dishonorable discharges.

In both of the above paragraphs, we have a contrast between America being touted as a nation that should use violence to humiliate others, then criticism of Britain for being too weak to do the same. Compare such attitudes about the need to project power and strength to the words written by Thomas Mann in his book Doktor Faustus, an allegory of Germany's intellectual fall and corruption in the 1930s. Here, Mann describes the general spirit in Germany in 1914.

We were long since a great power, we were quite used to it, and it did not make us as happy as we had expected. The feeling that it had not made us more attractive, that our relation to the world had rather worsened than improved, lay, unconfessed, deep in our hearts. ... War then, and if needs must, war against everybody, to convince everybody and to win. We were bursting with the consciousness that this was [our] century, that history was holding her hand out over us, that after Spain, France, England, it was our turn to put our stamp on the world and be its leader; that [this] century was ours.

Throughout all of this, it's important to remember that it's never just about politics — it's also about culture. America is strong so long as its culture is strong and manly; in order to keep America strong, neocons and religious conservative attack internal movements or forces which seem to threaten to weaken America's manly, violent resolve. Americans who dissent or who "abuse" personal freedom threaten the nation's unity. Those who criticize the war are helping America's enemies by attacking America's willingness to use violence to humiliate others.

This is why religious complaints about America's so-called "moral decline" are inextricably linked with political complaints about liberal treason, and both are fundamental to efforts to keep Bush's failed war policies going. In fact, the relationship isn't even one way: just as dissenting forces at home are derided as unmanly in order to promote war, war itself is pursued as part of an effort to suppress political and cultural dissent at home.

Anatol Lieven, in America Right Or Wrong: An Anatomy Of American Nationalism, quotes the above passage from Mann because it sounds remarkably like something which an American today might feel. Here, Lieven explores some of the disturbing parallels the above attitude has with the spirit of some in contemporary America:

[T]he heightened culture of nationalism in the European countries prior to World War I was in part the product of deliberate strategies of the European elites to combat socialist movements and preserve their dominant positions by mobilizing mass support in the name of nationalism. But the resulting nationalism was a cause for which the sons of these elites, the officer corps of old Europe, sacrificed themselves in uncounted numbers and with sincere faith.

Self-sacrifice is admittedly not a thing for which America’s right-wing nationalist elites have shown much appetite; but their discourse has some sinister echoes of their European predecessors. This is especially true of two linked obsessions: with cultural and moral decline, and with domestic treachery. Both have very old cultural, racial and religious roots; both were reshaped, strengthened and perpetuated by the Cold War; and both have attained new force as a result of 9/11.

So, conservative elites pump up nationalist feeling and embark on foreign wars of aggression, at least in part in order to preserve their political, cultural, and social dominance as well as to combat populist movements at home. In Europe, this helped lead to the demise of the conservative elites; in America, conservative elites seem to have learned their lesson and have been avoiding participation in their wars since the 1960s at least.

The importance of decrying a “cultural and moral decline” cannot be understated: it plays a fundamental role in agenda of the Christian Right as well as neoconservatives generally. Without the belief that both America and Christianity are experiencing a decline — a decline that includes a loss of manliness — neither fundamentalism nor conservative evangelicalism would be nearly as attractive. The Christian Right needs to preach that there are serious moral problems in order to convince people that it has the solutions. Neoconservatives need to preach that there are problems of character and virility in order to convince people that they have the solutions.


This image was originally a recruiting poster for the Marines. The title here is the same as the original, with the bottom reading "Fly with the U.S. Marines." I altered the face, of course, as well as adding some manly enhancements.