McCain/Palin Victims of Brutal Attack?

(Jivester News, Lmtd.) Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, along with his running mate Sarah Palin, claimed during a Halloween press conference that this morning they were robbed, pinned to the ground and branded with the letter "B” on their faces, in what both are saying was a politically inspired attack by a black man. Palin, who said she was not raped but "...would have the baby if she she had been raped, and would have positioned her hips in such a way as to protect the nascent fetus immediately after the rape" pointed to the "B" on her face as proof of the late election season attack. She then winked a bunch of times, and spoke in "Tonguenese" a spiritual language said to have no meaning at all, though her mumbled "...yabba dabba doo" was vaguely familiar.

McCain, interviewed as he was returning from casket shopping, said he was attempting to take cash out of an ATM with his own check card when attacked, and Sarah just happened to be there clubbing to death a service dog when both were brutalized by "a very brown man of suspicious browness." Police who questioned McCain quickly discovered it wasn't his card but rather his wife's debit card, and it wasn't an ATM machine where the alleged attack occurred: it was a gaming table at a casino in New Jersey. And he wasn't attacked. And the "B" looked a lot like the "B" showcased on fake victim Ashley Todd's face in last week's absurd news cycle, now that I think of it. As a member of the media, I'm almost certain this means something. Almost.

Was this demonstrably false story a last ditch attempt by McCain & Palin to gain sympathy, inspire voters, whip up reflexive racist sentiments in an increasingly agitated public, frighten white women, get free candy on Halloween, make clowns cry, or perhaps a noble effort to defeat the insidious encroachment on our liberties by perfidious entities bent on destroying our way of life by taxing billionaires? Or was it all just my friend Barry doing a simple cut and paste bit of business with Photoshop? Only the grim march of time will tell...

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Virtual face make-up of McCain/Palin performed by Barryshap. Heh-heh.

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A real Obama Witch

Join Me, my Inner Frenchman, and the rest of the Cafe Wellstoners at Wellstone's Donkey in Second Life on Election Night. Gonna be a great party unless Satan wins.

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Palin's GOTV strategy

Prophets and prayer warriors are seeking the only vote that counts:

In 2000 we actually lost the popular vote and won the election-talk about grace! Please pray for this grace to be released again…

Please understand what I am saying: if we engage in this battle and do what I am asking-in mass-we will win; if we do not, we will lose. I, for one, don’t intend to allow the latter. I am in Washington , D.C. now (October 20-22) with Lou Engle and a team of prayer leaders from around the nation to war for this election. Join us! Lose some sleep, miss some meals-pray! Pray like never before for these elections. And as you do, involve yourself not only in petitioning prayer but also in spiritual warfare. Use your God- given authority over the plans and strategies of satan’s kingdom. Bind all witchcraft that is working to control the outcome, including occultic powers that are suppressing truth. Release Christ’s Kingdom rule in every way the Holy Spirit leads you.

But the Enemy is vicious:

…I had a vision earlier this year. I saw Barack Obama in this vision. He was speaking to a large crowd and being broadcast on television. He was speaking incredible words of unity, peace, and bringing all sides together; the words were elegant, the words were comforting, and the words were inspiring.
But while he was speaking I saw all a powerful spirit of violence coming out of his spirit feeding into the spirits of those that were hearing him. That spirit of violence was directed at anybody who opposed what he was saying. Those who heard his words and received it had the spirit of violence being implanted inside of them. It was a rage like I have not seen before.

[...]

These people who are under the influence of this demon spirit of rage desire to completely destroy this man because he dared to question Barack Obama.

And he is using witchcraft:

Bree Keyton went and visited Obama’s tribal people...

She said Obama’s grandmother sacrificed a black and a white chicken to the “goddess of the river” so both whites and blacks will vote for Obama...

The occultists are "weaving lazy 8’s around McCain’s mind to make him look confused and like an idiot". Bree K. said we need to break these curses off of him that are being sent from Kenya.

Thank God we have Sarah:

Just a few minutes ago Eleanor Roehl, a powerful Eskimo intercessor and prophet, called me to say she senses an imminent attack against our nation....

She received the scripture Gen. 50:3,"A period of NATIONAL MOURNING". She then saw Sarah Palin standing alone and she was mantled with the American flag. The flag was upside down because things are inverted (upside down) right now. I knew she was stepping into an office that she was mantled for."

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Spermatazoan-Americans back McCain

Hopeful that the Republican Party plank supporting the Human Life Amendment will finally end the Tubesock Holocaust, Spermatazoan-Americans for McCain launched the following ad supporting the Palin/McCain ticket. They did so even though some Spermatazoan-Americans expressed concern that millions of their brethren are murdered every time Rich Lowry sees Gov. Palin wink.



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Doc going down

Remember Doc Hastings, Tom Delay's hand-picked Ethics Committee Chair; the guy who submitted his own quotes to Brainyquote.com; they guy who was given the nickname, "Doc," because he looked like one of the dwarfs in Snow White? He's in trouble, and TV is cheap--$25 a spot. Give now.

WA State Democrats:

New polling shows George Fearing (D) is within 5% of unseating incumbent conservative Doc Hastings! The poll by Bainbridge Media Group reads:

On the question of whom to support, 52.5% would vote for Doc Hastings; 47.5% would chose George Fearing... The data demonstrate that there is little question Democratic Congressional Candidate George Fearing may defeat 14-year incumbent Republican Congressman Doc Hastings.

We anticipated that George was close and we are now making a final push to remove Doc Hastings from office.

Please go online right now and give a donation to help George win. The Fearing Campaign is buying their weekend media blitz tomorrow and needs your help.

The State Republican Party is terrified of losing this seat and is using every trick in the book to keep George's message from the airwaves. They are violating our first amendment rights and demanding that the local cable company pull George's ads. The Republicans know how close the race is!

Every $1000 will buy 100 radio ads. You need to know that you can really make this race happen, so please go online right now to help!

When radio ads cost $10 and TV ads cost $25, your money will make a huge difference. Please donate just $10 or $25 today.

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The Ghoulish Olde Partay!

Come with me to the pumpkin patch
And see what is most scary!
The GOP turns ghouls to glee
And bites off the heads of fairies!

The moon is waning in the sky
The leaves, they skitter in the dark
The wind molests you in the night
The trees all bleed from in their bark

What monsters will thee yet encounter
What demons foul will rake your skin?
Potions, witches, wolves of Satan
Pocky flesh, wages of sin

Run you must! To safety fly!
Gain the porch and turn the key!
Rush inside and lock the door!
The hounds of hell have broken free!

Arise! Arise! All that lives will die!
Arise! Arise! The End is drawing nigh!

Nail the boards across the windows
Dim the lights and catch your breath
Pray the Lord to make you safe now
Save you from the hateful Death!

Ah, that's better, things are normal
Rest you well, your fears unfounded
Laugh and gain composure's harbor
Have a drink, perhaps get pounded

Find a spot upon your couch
Wave your remote just like a wand
Conjure up some infotainment
Just be aware you might be conned

Arise! Arise! All that lives will die!
Arise! Arise! The End is drawing nigh!

Oh my God! The Gays are coming!
That guy on FOX said it is true
With cunning knives and color swatches
They're coming after me and you!

Oh, my God! They've kidnapped Marriage!
The Sacred now is made profane!
The Bride and Groom must run for cover
The Gays ride brooms filled with propane

Beware, your vows now wholly threatened
Your pledge to duty, love all stained
Hie thee unto Satan's Love Shack
The doom of Man is on the way!

Arise! Arise! All that lives will die!
Arise! Arise! The End is drawing nigh!

Did the curtains billow thusly?
Are there voices in the yard?
Such wisps of worry are but trifles
Come watch the FOX, who works so hard!

Oh, my God! Creeping Socialism!
It's crawling up your very street!
Healthcare for our nation's children?
The flames of Satan burn our feet!

Oh, my God! On the horizon:
The Middle East destroys the calm
We must attack! We must destroy them!
Fuel up the jets, let fly the bombs!

Arise! Arise! All that lives will die!
Arise! Arise! The End is drawing nigh!

The whites aren't making enough babies
Brown hordes invade us from the south
Stem Cells melt as little snowflakes
That Demoncrats toss in their mouths!

The Constitution must be gutted
It could rise and kill us all!
Beware the People, they will get us
For, like Adam, we must Fall

God must once again rule mankind
Not the Jew one, and not Allah
Let Jesus slaughter all who tremble
And so and so, and blah, blah, blah

Arise! Arise! All that lives will die!
Arise! Arise! The End is drawing nigh!

The GOP has lost its mask
Grins from its skull beneath the earth
Full of dirt and grit and insects
It's waiting for its Second Birth

For just like Jesus, who was risen
The GOP, though dead, will fly
And cast its shadow on the prison
It has made for you and I

Take comfort on this Halloween
And tuck your worries into bed
Everything is out to get you
And will not stop until you're dead

Arise! Arise! All that lives will die!
Arise! Arise! The End is drawing nigh!

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Image from El Laberinto del Fauno...or, in english, Pan's Labyrinth, a film I heartily recommend.

Author's Note: This was originally posted one spooky year ago at my old haunt...

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Fetus-Americans for McCain

A helmet tip to Lindsay.

The Heresy of the "Male G Spot"

Robert Irwin
Author
Sexual Skills For The Christian Husband

Dear Mr. Irwin,

It's come to my attention that you discuss something you call the "The Male G Spot" in your book on Christian sexual skills. You might think you're fooling people people by calling it that, but we both know what you're really talking about there. It's the naughty button men have up their butts. And I have to tell you I'm shocked. No decent Christian man would allow anyone to stick their finger or anything else up there to push it.

I mean, my gosh, what would Jesus do? 

Well, he sure as hell wouldn't be doing that. I mean, hey, you show me a single place in the Gospels where it says:

And Jesus showed unto Simon, the Fisherman, the finger trick in his secret parts. And Simon rejoiced and shoutethed hosannas for he had comethed. And then Jesus spake, "Come Simon and do unto me as I have done onto you." And Thomas saw the reach-around and it was good.

No, you won't find that in the bible because it ain't there, Mr. Squirrely-Shorts.

That's why I rebuke you in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Heterosexually yours

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

She winked at me!

I'll take that over than economic expertise any day.

God Hates Barack Obama and HOV Lanes

Janet Porter
Faith2Action

Dear Mrs. Porter,

Thank you so much for weighing in on the presidential campaign by declaring that Obama voters are going to Hell. I know it isn't easy being God's campaign surrogate--one major gaffe and your ass will be eternally roasting on a spit as a host of fallen angels chant, "I want mine, medium rare."

But shouldn't God's endorsement list be a little bit more ambitious? After all, the presidential race isn't the only thing on the ballot. What about the other races, initiatives, measures, propositions, and referenda? What has God got to say about them?

I know that a lot of us here in Washington State would like to get God's backing on Initiative 985--the elimination of HOV lanes. Lord knows He'll appreciate it if his return requires him to drive that stretch of I-5 between the Tacoma Dome and Seattle. Even the Prince of Peace is bound to succumb to road rage if he's sitting still in his Hummer watching all those packed Priuses go zipping by in the carpool lane. Think of all the needless smiting He could avoid by simply declaring that HOV supporters are going to Hell.

I think it's worth a shot. Can you talk to Him about it?

Heterosexually yours in a chaste and Biblically appropriate kind of way,

Gen. JC Christian, Patriot

The Wit and Wisdom of Rep. Doc Hastings

Rep. Doc Hastings

US House of Representatives (WA-04)

Dear Rep. Hastings,

Life is short, but words and ideas live on forever. We see proof of that every day when we pick up a book by Twain or hear a quote by Euripides or one like this, by a former resident of your district, William O. Douglas:

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

Douglas lives on in that quote, even though we lost him many years ago. It is his legacy, and we we remember him, because his words were so prescient.
That's why I was so happy to learn that you've submitted a page of quotes to brainyquote.com. At least, I'm assuming you submitted them. I mean who else would? You're not exactly known for your wit or intelligence--I'm told your own staffers call you Congressman Moron.

There's nothing wrong with that. You have other strengths that have served you well--blind, slavish loyalty for instance. We all witnessed you applying that attribute during the Abramoff scandal. As Chair of the House Ethics Committee, you successfully prevented the committee from issuing even the meekest rebuke against Tom Delay and the others (including yourself) who were involved.

Anyway, I was thrilled to see that your quotes were submitted to brainyquote.com. Like the Douglas's thoughts, I'm sure your words will live on for decades, and probably centuries, providing you with the legacy you deserve. After all, what future historian, orator, or author could resist repeating such an insightful and moving phrase as this:

V-J Day, or Victory in Japan Day, marks the date of the Japanese surrender that ended fighting in the Pacific.

Now, that is a quote for the ages. It sums up the whole of the human condition--especially the ennui that ensues from endlessly confronting the obvious--in one short declarative sentence. No wonder you are so proud of it.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Protecting the Sacred from the Profane

Growing up as a Mormon, I was always told that the reason the scriptures never mentioned God's wife, Our Heavenly Mother, was because God thought she was too sacred--God didn't want people mocking her or using her name in vain. That certainly makes sense. One can imagine how bad Jesus might feel if people were running around dissing His mother with cries of "Heather H. Yahweh" every time they hit their thumbs with a hammer.

I think that's also why John McCain and Sarah Palin aren't mentioned on the GOP home page. People would just mock them.

Best Damned Election Party Ever

Next Tuesday, I'm hosting the greatest election party of the century to celebrate the success of my candidates, Angry John McCain and Sarah "Bible Spice" Palin... stop laughing...it ain't funny...shut up...commie...terrorist...witch!

We're holding the party in Second Life at my Inner Frenchman's place, Wellstone's Donkey. I want you all there, so sign up for Second Life today (it's free). Then attend one of our events this week, and we'll show you the ropes and give you a ton of Obama gear and/or a special John McCain avatar (complete with three nipples, a g-string, and a GOP logo butt tattoo).

We're working on getting a video stream, but you're always welcome to watch your own TV and chat with us. In any event, we'll have audio coverage via MSNBC and constantly updated graphics showing the status of all the races. If you'd rather chat while dancing and listening to commie music, we'll have a place for that too.

So sign up today, contact GenJCChristian Homewood, in-world, and we'll set you up.

News from the Real America

From that coffee place:

An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.
The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club, police Lt. Lawrence Vallierpratte said.

Police said the boy, Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn., was with a certified instructor and called the death a "self-inflicted accidental shooting."

***

And this from the Kansas City Star:

John Toplikar's [R] politically embarrassing YouTube Moment came over the weekend. It could (and should) help cost him re-election as a Johnson County Commissioner.

Olathe police have charged Toplikar with stealing campaign signs of his 6th District opponent, Calvin Hayden.

The Hayden campaign has posted video of the event, and part of the police discussion with Toplikar, here.

Conservatives in Olathe and western parts of the county have elected and re-elected Toplikar.

Sarah Palin Clarifies Response to Stevens Conviction

Please welcome Gov. Palin back to Jesus' General --The General.



Earlier, when asked about Sen. Ted Stevens's corruption conviction, I responded that the Senator should "do the right thing." Some of you are wondering what I meant by that. Communists are even going so far as to say the statement meant nothing and wasn't very mavericky.

Darn it! They're wrong! My statement was mavericky as all heck. I'm sure you'll agree after I explain what I meant.

By asking Sen. Stevens to "do the right thing," I was inviting him to join me and my spiritual warfare advisor, Mary Glazier, in a prayer assault against the Obama-supporting witches who put free furniture in his house and made his remodeling payments disappear.

And while we're at it, Ted, Mary, and I will also ask God to punish the Obama witches who caused poor young Levi's man juice to shoot out his little goalie, through his jeans and onto Bristol's shoes where it crawled up her leg to her sacred place and did a little nasty dancing with her ovum-American.

We'll ask God to curse all them Obamunists with blindness and cancer like he cursed that Alaskan Corrections Division witch we prayer assaulted. Or better yet, give them all hemorrhoids in their secret parts like He did to the people of Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron. That'd teach them.

Thandie Newton IS Sarah Palin

A helmet tip to WI³AI.

Red Alert! America to be Attacked--Sarah Palin will Save Us

Mary Galzier, Sarah Palin's mentor in spiritual warfare, issued a RED ALERT after receiving a prophecy from Our Lord, Jesus:

Those of you who know me know that I am conservative with warnings and careful about what I release for prayer. That being said, at my prayer meeting last Friday, two of my very trusted intercessors both received warnings of an attack that would cause national mourning. Neither shared it with me until this past hour. In the meantime my daughter Kat and I both were hit with travail on Saturday afternoon (9/20/08). There was a tremendous weight on our hearts as we felt a death was going to happen. We prayed that afternoon and evening. This past Friday through today, I have an ALARMING sense that we are about to experience a terrorist attack that will launch our nation into a season of deep mourning.

Just a few minutes ago Eleanor Roehl, a powerful Eskimo intercessor and prophet, called me to say she senses an imminent attack against our nation. Then Karen Fink came into my office to share the following revelation she had this past Friday with increasing weight on her heart ever since:

She received the scripture Gen. 50:3,"A period of NATIONAL MOURNING". She then saw Sarah Palin standing alone and she was mantled with the American flag. The flag was upside down because things are inverted (upside down) right now. I knew she was stepping into an office that she was mantled for."

Seductive Lies Spread by the Godless

It's always a shame to hear a fellow Christian promoting extra-biblical approaches to sex. It's even worse when they try to gloss over all the vomiting and crying with claims that women enjoy it:

I collected and devoured all of the available sexual performance and pleasure resources. I bought every single book in the "sex life" section of my local book stores. I ordered research papers over the Internet. I spent thousands of dollars on therapists and counselors.

But as much as I want to please my wife, I also want to please God.
So, I also spent quite a bit of time with Pastors and other
Christians that specialized in the sexual area of marriage.

I had the Song Of Solomon practically memorized.

My bookshelves were lined with books, manuals and medical journals.

These became practically unreadable they were so covered with underlines and highlights.

Over the course of that year, my wife and I tried hundreds of techniques, products and devices that might have the potential to improve our sex life.

I compiled all of the best, most effective techniques and secrets into several thick binders filled with notes.

So overcome with pleasure... she cried.

And then...

For the first time, my wife had an orgasm during intercourse!

She was so overcome with pleasure and joy that she... cried! She told me that she had never imagined that pleasure could be so... overwhelming.

Until I discovered the amazing secrets of sexually skilled husbands, I had thought that her lack of interest in sex was her fault...meanwhile, her lack of sexual interest was really my fault...it was caused by my lack of sexual skill!

This was just the beginning of a journey that has led us, finally, to sexual pleasure and fulfillment greater than I imagined possible and I am now sharing what I discovered so that you can experience...

Sexual sensations that are intense, frequent and spiritual...
including orgasms that are so overwhelming that you will both be amazed that such pleasure exists in this world...

Socialism for Mavericks: To Each According to his Greed

_{Image © Austin Cline
Click for full-sized Image}

I suspect that the cry of "socialism" may be John McCain's final attack on Barack Obama. There is plenty of time left to try something else, and the strategy with the best chance for actually achieving something is probably the promotion of a "divided government" rather than a government dominated by Democrats (just look at how well McCain's own "divided campaign" is working for him). As far as more personal attacks go, though, I believe that calling Obama a socialist and his policies socialism mark the McCain campaign's last gasp. It's not necessarily a futile one, though, because it's an accusation that resonates deeply with Americans.

As an aside, can anyone name a single criticism made by John McCain against Barack Obama which can qualify as substantive and issues-based? McCain and his minions have, directly or indirectly, accused Obama of: being a socialist, consorting with terrorists, supporting infanticide, being inexperienced, being elitist, being a Muslim, being Arab, being the Antichrist, and so forth. These are all ad hominem attacks and none speak directly to how Barack Obama will or will not perform as President of the United States. I read or heard somewhere that conservatism was supposed to be about ideas, but these are "ideas" we can do without.

Just about every Republican political campaign accuses Democrats of socialism and communism in some fashion, though they rarely come out and actually use such labels anymore. Instead, they usually rely on codes like "big government" and expect voters to get the message. Now that the alleged virtues of "small government" are out of fashion, new words for the same idea have to be found. What makes this attack interesting is just how bizarre and contrary to reality it is – not that any of his other personal attacks have exactly been "reality based," but the charge of socialism is so much further removed from reality that it almost makes all his earlier campaign moves seem rational by comparison.

Of course, by any educated and informed perspective (read: elitist, and therefore irrelevant), none of Barack Obama's policies come anywhere close to "socialism." He's just about as far removed from socialism as John McCain himself is, but that doesn't matter. Few of McCain's supporters actually know what socialism is. This includes the intelligent ones (I recently had a conversation with a man whose career was tied to finance and investments, yet he sincerely believed that socialism and communism were the same thing) as well as the not-so-intelligent ones (I saw a man interviewed by the BBC who said America had been fighting against socialism "since 1776"). They also don't care.

For conservative Republicans, "socialism" isn't so much a label for a particular economic theory or a set of economic policies as it is a code word for godlessness over Christianity, racial and economic equality over white, Protestant domination, collective action over individualism, internationalism over American exceptionalism, and so forth. Earlier, related complaints about "welfare" had the added benefit of being implied attacks on racial equality and giving blacks a chance at getting out of poverty.

Communism is generally taken to mean about the same thing, only a bit more extreme in terms of being anti-American, so I'm surprised that Obama hasn't been more explicitly labeled a communist as well. Trashing others as "red" in some fashion is an old and reliable Republican tactic that hasn't been made explicitly in many years. Maybe McCain is pining for the good old days when open, unapologetic red-baiting was more commonplace?

This is certainly why it doesn't matter to McCain that he hasn't pointed to anything in Obama that is "socialist" which hasn't also been promoted and/or supported in the past by Republicans like Ronald Reagan and...John McCain himself. John McCain derides tax credits as "socialist" even though Ronald Reagan described the Earned Income Tax Credit as the "single greatest anti-poverty measure" in America (and so increased it). John McCain's own health care proposals rely heavily on tax credits. Progressive taxation has been a feature of the American income tax system since there has been an income tax, and taxing the wealthy more than the poor is neccesary to any just political system. But so what?

Complaints about "socialism" aren't a serious, substantive criticism of any of Obama's policies. And frankly, I doubt many conservatives know any more about those policies than they do about socialism; instead, they are just an attempt to attack Obama as "the other" – liberal, educated, black, concerned about poverty, concerned about race, etc. Accusing someone of being a socialist is a means by which conservatives can give the impression that they are making a serious criticism while in reality just attacking someone for being too "different."

Conservative voters aren't really fooled by this; on the contrary, they are fully complicit in the tactic by not caring whether those being attacked are genuine socialists and simply responding to the dog whistle as their political masters have trained them to do. They don't want to like people who are too "other," and they certainly don't want to vote for them. Conservative politicians give them the perfect excuse with complaints about socialism or welfare: voters have the opportunity to vote their baser, bigoted prejudices while pretending that they are really moral, decent citizens.


Note: The General wants you to know that he can in no way be held responsible for the material contained in this post. I, Austin Cline, have to take sole responsibility for this sermon. The General only let me start posting here to give you a chance to find me (that, and because of those photos I have safely locked away in a safety deposit box), but after two years you still haven't succeeded, have you? Hah!

Vote

Especially if you live in WA.


A helmet tip to SLOG.

Does Palin support the aerial hunting of witches

From Talk2Action:

On July 13, 2008, at a conference held at a church in Everett, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, Mary Glazier told top leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation that at the age of twenty four, a young Wasilla, Alaska woman had joined Glazier's prayer group which was later to become the Alaska "spiritual warfare network". Mary Glazier is the Alaska Director of the Global Apostolic Prayer Network, originally founded in 1990 as the "Spiritual Warfare Network".

Gov. Palin's witch-fighting network had its first big success in Alaska, five years later, when they took on a witch who worked in the Alaska State Prison System. Here's how Gov. Palin's witch-fighting mentor, Mary Glazier, describes their victory:

As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft, her incense
altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left
eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer.

McCain-Obama Dance Off

Wazzup 2008

Twittering with John

It's training night at McCain HQ:


And the campaign is ready to go once you're ready to put the training into action.

Heart of Dorkness (The Horror)

It was the nooses I noticed first. they were hanging from trees, signs, awnings any thing with an overhang. He was close now. 

Then came the effigies. The nooses were no longer empty. We had arrived. McCain-Palin Headquarters stood before us.

Grabbing my Bob Dole pen I headed for the entrance. Joe Lieberman intercepted me at the door. "Why are you here," he asked.

"I'm here to see Sen. McCain," I answered, showing him the pen.

Joe replied:

Hey, man, you don't talk to John. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say "Hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? 'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,'"

I mean, I'm no, I can't-- I'm a little man; no, I'm a great man; he's... John's a great man too. But not as great as me. I should be president. It's my turn. The Democrats conspired against me, casting their votes for John Kerry and Howard Dean. And the bloggers, the bloggers, man. They called me droopy dog. THEY CALLED ME DROOPY DOG!

But John, it's like he should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas. What the fuck does that mean? What the fuck am I talking about? I don't know, but John, I mean, what are they gonna say about John, when he's gone, huh? What are they gonna say? Are they gonna say "he was a kind man?" "He was a wise man?" "He had plans?" "He had wisdom?" Bullshit, man! What are they gonna do when he's gone? What? Are they gonna turn to me? I mean come on, look at me! I'm a god damned laughing stock.I won't have a committee, and they called me Droopy Dog, god damn it! THEY CALLED ME DROOPY DOG; THE FUCKERS! Am I gonna set them straight, NO...You...

The nooses. You're looking at the nooses and the effigies. I, uh--sometimes he goes too far, you know--but he's the first one to blame it on Obama! You have to give him that.

With that, I shoved Lieberman aside and pushed my way into McCain's office.

It was dark inside. It took my eyes awhile to adjust, but finally, I saw him. He was sitting cross-legged on a carpet remnant. It was a lime green shag, straight out of the Seventies.

He was naked. Someone had taken a marker and drawn eyebrows over his nipples and lips around his navel.

He was speaking into a microphone, recording the message for a robocall:

We encourage College Republicans to hold "immigrant hunts" and "affirmative action bake sales. But our consultants won't allow them to write "nigger" on their rally banners because they say it's racist!

I watched hedge fund managers riding on the back of Joe the Plumber as he crawled along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. It's my very happy, very erotic dream. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor … and the hedge fund managers survived!

So please remember to join the millions of Floridians who'll be voting against The Black and casting there ballots for me, John McCain, on November 4.

Seeing he had finished, I introduced myself, "Hi, Sen. McCain, I'm Gen. JC Christian."

"Yes, yes," he replied, "you're the guy who sends me pictures of goats dressed in fishnet stockings--it's nice to finally meet you."

"Well, maybe not," I responded, a bit sheepishly, "Bob Dole sent me."

Handing him Bob Dole's pen, I continued, "He asked me to show you this as proof that I am the bearer of his message; The RNSC wants you to drop out of the campaign so Bob Dole can step in. You've gone too far. You've gone beyond using racist dog whistles; your campaign's hate speech is explicit. It's killing our chances."

Anger and indignation flashing over his face, he began jiggling his gut so that it appeared as if the hand-drawn lips around his navel were speaking and said,

The party has no right to condemn me for being overt in my racism. They have no right to ask me to step down because of it. They have no right to do that, not after four decades of the Southern Strategy, not after the horror of the South Carolina Primary in 2000. They have no right to judge me.

The horror you've seen. The horror we've all seen.

I remember the South Carolina Primary in 2000. Seems a thousand centuries ago. Rove's people spread the rumor that my adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually my black love-child. And I remember...I ...I...I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget.

And then I realized, like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond, a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, "My God, the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure."

And then I realized they were stronger than me, because they could stand the horror. Rove's men were not monsters. These were men, trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love, but they had the strength, the strength, to do that. If my campaign had those men, then our troubles would be over very, quickly. You have to have men who are amoral, who are able to utilize their primordial, tribal instincts to destroy an opponent without feeling, without passion, without judgment...without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.

I hired those same men who sought to destroy me in 2000. They work for me now. They will bring me victory in Pennsylvania. They will bring me the electoral college. They will bring me the White House.

Sen. McCain was cut short when his office door swung rapidly open, hitting the wall with a crash and Sarah Palin strode angrily into the room. McCain slid back to furthest edge of his carpet remnant when he saw her. It was the kind of motion that becomes automatic when one is conditioned with fear, like the cowering of a whipped dog or the inevitable rant by Pamela Atlas Shrugs whenever an Arab is interviewed on television.

"I've been listening," she began, "I've heard every word."

She continued:

Take your pen back to Dole and McConnell. They are irrelevant, now. The Party is irrelevant. John McClain is irrelevant. This campaign is about my return in 2012, when I redeem the Party and the nation and usher in an era of Biblically-based free-market-oriented governance.

But the Party must die first. It must be purged of those who gave us that ancient pile of festering anger you came to depose. It must also be cleansed of the Giulianis and Romneys and others who worship at the false alters of idolatry.

That is what this election is about. That is what this election will be, the Republican Party's apocalypse. I will return after the cleansing and preside over a rapture of the righteous, raising up the most worthy to lead a new Republican Party into victory.

Will you be among those I rapture, General?

Rarely, is there a moment when a person, faced with a decision of tremendous consequence, is blessed with a clarity of vision that allows him or her to choose a course with out doubt or reservation. This was my moment. I was Paul on the Road to Damascus.

"Yes, my Lord," I replied, tearily, "show me the way."

Heart of Dorkness Index
1. Prologue
2. The Mission
3. I Love the Smell of Vaseline in the Morning
4. Never Get Out of the Pinto
5. The Horror

After our white women

So the B looks like a mirror image, maybe the mugger was dyslexic.

So the wound looks a bit too superficial to have been made by an angry mugger with a knife, Maybe he was only a little angry, very weak, and used a butter knife.

So there is no swelling around the eye, Well, uhhhh, maybe it's a non-swelling kind of black eye.

I don't know why Michelle Malkin doesn't believe her. When did she start hating America?

Update: The police are in on the conspiracy:

Police planned to administer a polygraph test to Ashley Todd, 20, because her statements about the attack conflict with evidence from the Citizens Bank ATM where she claims the incident occurred, police said

.

Update 2: She made it up.

Police tell KDKA that a campaign volunteer has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

I hope this courageous College Republican gets what she deserves.


.

Heart of Darkness (Never Get Out of the Pinto)

The drive following The Great Rebuke was pure Hell. Rep. Bachmann cried for hours as she called pastor after pastor, searching for one who would say Plan B was a contraceptive and not an abortifacient. Her sobbing was even more nerve-rattling than the long rambling word salads she muttered over the first few days.

Everyone was on edge. Malkin wasn't waiting for rest stops to find victims anymore--she was biting us. Rep. McHenry couldn't shut up about what he saw as the distinction between heterosexuals and homosexuals. "It's OK to taste a guy's man-sausage if you're straight," he declared repeatedly, "doesn't mean your gay; no it doesn't, so fuck you...yes fuck all of you...mmmm"

The cramped quarters added to the tension. A Ford Pinto isn't made to hold five adults. That's especially true if one of them is plagued with gas. Jonah Goldberg's Mountain Dew and Cheetos diet played havoc with his gut. He was constantly farting. And the smell, oh God, the smell--methane with a sickeningly sweet hint of Cheetos--was unbearable.

But we had a mission to complete, so I endured it all, distracting myself by thinking about McCain. We were getting close now. I could feel it. The smiles on those we passed were more toothless than before. We were seeing more Waffle Houses than Starbucks now. Our mission was coming to an end.

"I want some fucking beef jerky," Mrs. Malkin shouted suddenly, "I want it now!" Her outburst startled every one. Bachmann started crying louder. McHenry looked over at me and began masturbating furiously. Goldberg farted. I needed to get out of the car.

"God damn it, Jonah," I shouted, "pull into that Shell station." Jonah complied, and Mrs. Malkin and I entered the store. I made a beeline to the beer cooler. I needed a drink.

I had just grabbed a big can of Keystone when suddenly I heard a series of screams. Turning around, I saw Malkin throwing everything in reach at the counter clerk. "What is wrong," I yelled as she clocked the clerk with a bottle of Planters peanuts. He immediately dropped limp to the floor.

Fearing she had compromised our mission by killing a counter clerk, I grabbed her by the arm and drug her to the car.

"Goddamngoddamngoddangoddam," she cried as Jonah got us the hell out of there. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfickin brown, fuckin brown, fucking brown people in the store," she continued, "fucking brown people...never get out of the Pinto...never get out of the fucking  Pinto...fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck."

Tomorrow: The Horror

Heart of Dorkness Index
1. Prologue
2. The Mission
3. I Love the Smell of Vaseline in the Morning
4. Never Get Out of the Pinto
5. The Horror

Jesus Christ: Wrong for America

Heart of Dorkness (I Love the Smell of Vaseline in the Morning)

Sen. Gordon Smith took me down to meet my crew. There's something very fishy about that guy. He's always looking around as if he's afraid someone might spot him with Republicans. It's as if he's ashamed of all the success we've achieved over the last 4 years. I was relieved when our stroll down to the crew ended.

They were standing next to an old, beat up Chevy Suburban. It was covered from bumper to bumper with faded bumperstickers from the glory days--declarations of "Remember Ruby Ridge," and "Communists Fluoridate," that kind of thing. This, I soon learned, would be our ride.

My crew was as sorry-ass a bunch as you'll find anywhere. They were led by a Congressman, Patrick McHenry, the kind of man who layers his nipples with gauze in a vain effort to hide the tell- tale shape of nipple rings. Such subterfuge never works with a man like him. The padding only accentuates the enormity of his manbreasts, drawing attention to them and the unmistakable bulge of, well, nipple rings blanketed with gauze.

My driver was Jonah Goldberg, a guy who fights fascism wherever it isn't. He's cognitive dissonance personified and stuffed in a bottle of Mountain Dew and a dishevelled bag of Cheetos. Hopefully, it won't be lunchtime when the shit hits the fan.

Rep. Michele Bachmann is riding shotgun. Her main job is to point at people and scream, "WITCH."

Michele Malkin is in the back with me. As far as I can tell, she's there to inspire fear and to bite things and people.

Introductions were brief, then we hit the road. Now a Suburban is a big, roomy outfit, but I quickly learned not big enough if you're stuck in one with Rep. Bachmann. She never stops talking, yet, she never really says anything either. It's all just a word salad: "communists unamerican demons kielbasa homosexuals afro-americans Bobby Sherman." She was like that for hours. It put Malkin so on edge we had to stop at every rest stop so she could bite someone.

Rep. Bachmann finally shut up about 40 miles out of Colorado Springs. It was there that the Suburbans neglected engine finally burned up. Apparently, checking the oil seemed a bit too much like regulation to the RNSC, so they refused to do it on principle.

We had the truck towed into town and got an estimate from the mechanic. It seemed steep, but we wanted to get back on the road so we handed over the RNSC credit card. He ran it, looked at the receipt that printed out, reached into a drawer, pulled out a pair of scissors, and cut the card in half. "The bank told me to do this; you should pay your bills," he said.

So there we were, stuck in Colorado Springs without a car or money for food and lodging. All seemed lost until Rep. Bachmann started screeching. "Call Dr. Dobson," she said, putting together her first complete sentence of the trip, "call him, call him, call him!" So I did. He seemed a little reluctant to help at first, because I'm a Mormon--or whore of Babylon as he called it--but then he asked me about all the giggling and squealing. When I explained it was Rep. Bachmann, he said he'd come straight over and pick us up. Apparently, he's a big fan of Bachmann's.

"I'll get you a car," Dobson promised upon arrival, "but you have to let me see Rep. Bachmann rebuke some sinners; I've read all about her; now I want to see her in action."

After explaining that our new vehicle would be delivered at our destination, Dobson drove us to a club named "The Wild Worm," where a dancing group called "The Chippendales" were appearing. They were unlike any dancing group I'd ever seen. Each dancer would come onto the stage dressed like a cop or a fireman and strip down to nothing but a tiny bit of cloth against which his massive member strained mightily.

The moment she saw the dancers, Rep. Bachmann fell to the floor ,and her body, filled with the Holy Spirit, began writhing and shaking in time with the heavy bass beat of the music. Grinding her pelvis against the floor, she began rebuking the dancers. "Rigid rods of unrighteousness," she screamed, "Hard harbingers of Hell bearing Beezlebob's boners!"

The Holy Spirit became stronger within her as she issued her rebukes and soon spread to the rest of us. Mrs. Malkin lunged at a dancer, biting him on the thigh and Rep. McHenry stripped down to his briefs and began anointing another with oil, or actually, Vaseline since that's all he had.

Dr. Dobson stripped off his belt and began rubbing his manparts frantically against a table while shouting, "go my wicked little dachshund, rebuke them with all thine might or you will feel the lash of my terrible belt!"

Jonah headed straight to the bar and started downing ever bowl of rice snacks in sight.

All this rebuking, biting, anointing, chowing, and threatened dachshund discipline didn't go down well with the wicked. They began wrestling us and tearing off our clothes. Soon, we became little more than a huge greasy ball of naked flesh, flailing belts, and probing man-poles-- all in all it was the most wondrous rebukement I've ever experienced, but we were soon spent.

We laid on the floor for awhile catching our breath and listening to the music and the steady cadence of Jonah's grazing. 

Dr. Dobson spoke first: "Smell that? You smell that?"

"What?" I responded.

"Vaseline, son," he continued, "nothing in the world smells like that. I love the smell of Vaseline in the early morning. You know, one time we rebuked a leather festival for 12 hours. When it was all over, there wasn't a single person who could sit. The smell, you know that petroleum jelly smell, the whole club reeked of it. Smelled like... the Rapture. Someday Jesus's gonna come."

Here's the keys to your new car," he concluded, "it's a '74 Pinto; you'll love it."

Tomorrow: Never get out of the Pinto.

Heart of Dorkness Index
1. Prologue
2. The Mission
3. I Love the Smell of Vaseline in the Morning
4. Never Get Out of the Pinto
5. The Horror

Minimum Wage Laws are for Sissies

An aide to GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi rebukes a minimum wage supporter.

Heart of Dorkness (The Mission)

I wanted a god damned mission and, now, God's cursed me with one.

Two large, but flabby, warbloggers found me passed-out and pantless in the sheep pen this morning. At first, I thought they were Jehovah's Witnesses, so I fought like hell, but then I noticed their Cheeto-stained fingers and the sallowness of their complexions--it was the kind of greenish-gray paleness that can only be acquired from years of living in your mothers basement--and, at that moment, I knew they were on our side.

After hosing me off in the yard, they blindfolded me and drove me to a trailer in an undisclosed location where I was greeted by some of the most beleaguered members of the Republican senatorial establishment. Mitch McConnell was there. So were Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith, Saxby Chambliss, and Elizabeth and Bob Dole.

Sen. McConnell began the briefing, saying, "General, we're getting our asses kicked out there."

"That's right," Elizabeth Dole interjected, "Pat Roberts is already at 55%. He's creaming me."

"Jesus H. Christ," McConnell responded, "how many times do I have to explain it to you? You live in Kansas, so Roberts is your senator, but you are North Carolina's senator, and therefore, your opponent is Kay Hagen. Now enough of this bullshit; let me brief the General."

It was then that McConnell slid a folder over to me. A photo of a man , a very angry man, was paperclipped to the front of it. There was no confusion about who it was. The furious wrinkles between eyes tearing with rage, the teeth gritting angry resentment, and a countenance of evil spite were all there to see. It was one of their own. It was Sen. John Sydney McCain.

"This is your target," McConnell continued, "he's dragging the whole ticket down. You've got to stop him. You've got to bring him in."

"But what does that entail, 'bringing him in," I asked, "what are you asking me to do?"

All eyes turned to Bob Dole. "Get him to drop out of the race; Bob Dole will take his place. Take Bob Dole's pen. He'll recognize it and know you're speaking for Bob Dole. Bob Dole had to stab him with it once when he attacked Bob Dole for taking the last bowl of lentil soup in the Senate dining room. It was Bob-Dole-defense; he was trying to kill Bob Dole."

There was no way I could back out of this. Bob Dole had asked me. You don't say no to Bob Dole.

Tomorrow: I Love the Smell of Vaseline in the Morning.

Heart of Dorkness Index
1. Prologue
2. The Mission
3. I Love the Smell of Vaseline in the Morning
4. Never Get Out of the Pinto
5. The Horror

Heart of Dorkness (Prologue)

Tremonton. Tremonton. I'm still only in Tremonton. Every time, I think I'm gonna wake up back at the campaign, but I'm still here, in the trailer. 

When I was back at the compound after my first rally, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. I wanted to be there, watching gladiator movies in my underwear, but when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the campaign. 

I'm here a week now--waiting for a mission--getting softer. Every minute I stay in this basement, I get weaker, and every minute The Donkey canvasses in the neighborhoods, he gets stronger.

Heart of Dorkness Index
1. Prologue
2. The Mission
3. I Love the Smell of Vaseline in the Morning
4. Never Get Out of the Pinto
5. The Horror

Tomorrow: The Mission.

White Pride, Party Wide

It's getting so a proud whites-first Republican can't get a break anywhere these days. Take Utah State Senator Chris Buttars for instance. He makes a few comments about The Black, and and all the tolerancislamunistofascists from Tremonton to Panquitch get their asses in an uproar. 

One of his constituents claims to be so embarrassed by him, he or she created a web site called "Save Me From My Senator." There's even a place there where you can get "Save Me From My Senator" banners.

I don't get it. Why would anyone be embarrassed if their Senator made comments like these:

This baby is black, I’ll tell you. This is a dark, ugly thing.

As you can imagine, that comment didn't go over very well with the more tolerance-minded and they let Sen. Buttars know it. Here's his response:

I thought … the first couple days, 'Well you’re getting beat up but you deserve it, you made a mistake.’ But then they started getting meaner and meaner and meaner to the point it is just a hate lynch mob.

Some might say it's stupid to counter anger about a black-babies-are-dark-and-ugly comment by calling it a lynching, but Sen. Butters thinks otherwise:

Lynch mob is a Western term. You wouldn’t find one person in 10,000 in Utah that thinks that’s a racist term…. That’s not a racial term in my opinion.

Who'd have thought that response would get him in even more hot water? Well, it did. But the Senator was ready and countered with this.

How do I know what words I’m supposed to use in front of those people?

In the end, it was all good, at least it appears so from this account of a meeting with the Senator:

We were all surprised. It ended with Senator Buttars making it clear to us that he is powerful; he could repeat the 'black baby' remark and that he was untouchable. He said, 'If they wanted to get rid of me they would have done it in the primaries, and they didn’t. I am here to stay.

But Sen. Buttars being Sen. Buttars, there's always another quote to anger the tolerant:

Well, I think Brown v. Board of Education is wrong to begin with. That's a whole other subject.

We can all be thankful that these controversies don't affect his "get er done" attitude about legislative committee work. Here, he's responding to a fellow senator's suggestion that they get more information before they pass a bill out of committee:

We get bound up here all the time on "we don’t understand this." Well, there’s a lot of things we vote on that we don’t understand, but I would rather stand on the principle of "let's go for it."

And finally, let's not forget he'll never bow his head in the servitude on monkeys:

The divine design is a counter to the kids' belief that we all come from monkeys.

So there you have it. Sen. Buttars is a conservative's conservative and a Republican's Republican. Heck, he's almost Palin-like in his views. Why would anyone be ashamed to be represented by him?

White Pride, Campaign Wide

The latest ad from Passionately Credulous Bigots for McCain.

Sexual Politics of Sarah Palin: Sex Sells, Even with Anti-Sex Authoritarians

Note: As much as I'd like to take credit for this, it was written by Austin Cline. I've tried to move the authors info to a spot below the headline, but for some reason it doesn't take. That leads to some confusion.

He's an incredible writer and I'm glad to have him post here every Sunday morning. If you want to read more of his work, go to his blog at about.com.

--patriotboy

_{Image © Austin Cline
Click for full-sized Image}

Would it be sexist to discuss Sarah Palin's sexual politics — not so much her sexual positions (er, I mean positions on sexual issues), or at least not directly, but how Sarah Palin's sexuality is being implicitly used to counterbalance her position on sexual issues? To what extent is the anti-sex party selling their anti-sex policies by using sexy women like Sarah Palin to deliver the sex-is-bad medicine with a wink and a nod? And just how many times will I need to use the words "sex" and "Sarah Palin" before this post hits Google's front page for what must be a very popular search right now?

Perhaps it is a bit sexist because we probably wouldn't be discussing the sexuality of a Steve Palin, but then again, I didn't pick Sarah Palin, did I? There would be something wrong if I couldn't point out the barely-repressed sexual tension surrounding a right-wing authoritarian candidate who keeps telling people to "just say no" to sex. This is, in fact, where a good part of the tension lies: a stern old man lecturing us about evils of sex would just be boring, but a pretty woman who knows when to wink can attract a lot more positive attention, though not necessarily for the right reasons.

Sex sells, and apparently it can even be used to sell anti-sex ideology — at least to a point. Conservative evangelicals have eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Modern Culture more than they realize. They use modern marketing techniques rather than the gospel to promote their churches. They organize mega-churches instead of small community churches, much as big box stores have supplanted corner shops. The employ every bit of modern technology they think they can use even as they decry the science behind it. And, finally, they employ the prettiest faces and the sexiest spokespeople to make their anti-sex ideology a little more palatable.

When looking around for ideas about how to best structure and phrase these thoughts, I found I wasn't the first to have them — no surprise there, though my reaction is a little conflicted. It's nice to have an original idea occasionally, but the fact that others are talking about it at least reassures that I'm probably on to something legitimate. Tom Perrotta calls this phenomenon the Sexy Puritan, and since I can't come up with anything more clever or descriptive (though it does sound like the title of a soft core film for Cinemax, which might be appropriate after all) I'm happy to follow suit. Perrotta writes:

Sexy Puritans engage in the culture war on two levels—not simply by advocating conservative positions on hot-button social issues but by embodying nonthreatening mainstream standards of female beauty and behavior at the same time. The net result is a paradox, a bit of cognitive dissonance very useful to the cultural right: You get a little thrill along with your traditional values, a wink along with the wagging finger. Somehow, you don't feel quite as much like a prig as you expected to.

Conservatives don't choose representatives like Sarah Palin by accident. They know what they are doing, and it's not simply the knowledge that putting a pleasant face on a product helps make the product more attractive. John McCain and his campaign revealed that they knew what they were doing when they registered the domain name "VoteForTheMILF.org" and directed to the Sarah Palin page on McCain's campaign site (until they were caught, that is). Her campaign theme song had been at one point Shania Twain’s “She’s Not Just a Pretty Face," but seems to have been changed to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely? At least they don't go so far as to drape her in revealing clothing, but that's not necessary.

Pundits and voters like Rich Lowry are clearly getting the message when they imagine that Sarah Palin is winking at them personally. Even if they aren't actually masturbating to images of Sarah Palin, sexual fantasies are being tied to sexual repression in a manner that must make the authoritarian repression of sex seem sexually attractive in itself. This creates fantasies that are easy for outsiders to buy into. No one is going to make (INCOMING MESSAGE FROM THE INTERNET: WARNING! TURN AWAY NOW OR WE'RE ALL DOOMED!) a John McCain sex doll or a videos about masturbating to John McCain (TOO LATE, YOU READ IT! RULE 34 INVOKED! OH, THE HORROR...), but they sure are doing it with Sarah Palin.

How do you undermine something like that? You can mock people who demand respect and thereby undermine their perceived authority. You can sexualize prudery and thereby undermine the attempts to shut out sex. When it comes to prudery that comes wrapped in a tacitly sexualized package, though, all the bases seem to be covered. De-sexualizing it (like portraying Sarah Palin in a burqa, the theological end of such faith-based anti-sex ideology) may jut be giving in to the prudery. Over-sexualizing it (like with Sarah Palin sex dolls) makes the sexualized packaging seem even more normal and thereby further blinds people to the truth of what's inside.

Sex is being separated from Sexiness, which shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Being sexy isn't an invitation to sex and sex can be enjoyed without conforming to society's standards of sexiness. This separation isn't being done, though, to free people from impossible standards of sexiness but is rather exploiting and reinforcing those standards for ideological goals. This separation isn't being done to protect women's choices about sex, but rather to limit their choices even further.

The question before us, then, is how to properly challenge this without on the one hand reinforcing the tactic in ways that might make the anti-sex brigades' job easier or, on the other hand reinforcing some of society's notions about sex and sexiness which should be reformed anyway. Indeed, I can't even be sure if I'm not inadvertently making this worse in this sermon, but we need to have a discussion about this even if it means fumbling about with it at first.

You are the 10 millionth visitor to Jesus's General

Well, someone today was...probably around noon...probably me...maybe CIFA.

Department of Book Reports: How I Met SeattleTammy

When I encounter one of my fifteen readers, I am often asked, "Say, SeattleDan, is it true that you met SeattleTammy in a bookstore?".

Well, it is true. In fact there is video (in two parts) of that meeting:





Rest assured, I returned and, dear reader, I married her.

Admittedly, Howard Hawks used the footage for his film The Big Sleep, and cast your usual Hollywood type actors to fill in for us. My favorite story behind the film was of William Faulkner calling Raymond Chandler while writing the screenplay (which he did with Leigh Brackett) to ask him who had killed one of the characters from the book. Chandler didn't know. Adding to the hilarity of the story is that the phone call came late at night, and both Big Bill and Ray were known to have a few nightcaps now and again.

Chandler remains one of the greats of the American mystery novel, along side Dashiell Hammett and Ross McDonald. Chandler's character, the detective Philip Marlowe, can take his place among the other unforgettable characters, like Ahab, Robert Jordan and Huckleberry Finn. If you have never read him, do yourself a favor and get a copy of The Big Sleep (Vingage Books $13.95, used copies everywhere).

démocommié™™™™™©®ç åü courant is still waiting for me to ship him his copy of Ben Hur, the 1863 edition with the duplicated line on page 116.

Your local Fine Independent Bookstore would love to show you more! Jackson Street Books may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and opening soon.

What's on your night stand?