Invert(e)

Tony Perkins: Rampaging lunatic

As is my wont, I was online reading CNN.com when I came across this story:

Moderates to blame for GOP losses, conservative leader says

Basically, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council argues that moderates never beat conservatives, the Republican Party needs to go back to its roots, blah blah blah.

My response to the story (I couldn't find a way to comment on it on CNN.com) is, "Bitch, is you crazy?!"

Seriously, the fact that someone would call Tony Perkins a conservative leader makes me question their judgment. Perkins and his organization are thinly-veiled theocrats, and it is, in fact, the religious right that cost the Republicans this election.

McCain, had he chosen a strong, intelligent female Republican, may have won. However, they foisted that religious whackjob Palin on him, and it cost them.

The Republicans didn't have enough states in which they could pass marriage ban amendments to bring out the evangelicals, so it cost them.

Basically, pandering to the religious right cost them.

I would very much like to see the Republican Party taken back by Conservatives--the true, capital-C Conservatives--and send the people who think the New Testament is part of the Constitution packing. That's why so many Big-C Conservatives endorsed Obama this year. The Republican Party is no longer run by Conservatives, it's run by religious zealots who have no conception of fiscal responsibility or the sacrosanct nature of the United States Constitution. Anyone who would amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage is not a Conservative. Anyone who would spend money hand over fist without a care where it's coming from is far from bring a Conservative.

Maybe eight years of Obama will convince the Republicans to throw the religious right to the lions, although then PETA would probably start screaming about cruelty to animals.

Devil's Advocate

I really, sincerely, most definitely hope and pray and believe that Barack Obama will be elected president of these United States on Tuesday.

I made use of Ohio's early voting to cast my ballot back on October 15, when I had to attend a press conference downtown. I availed myself of my proximity to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and did my civic duty as a patriotic American, and said, "Hey, fuck you, evil bastards who have co-opted the term 'conservative' and made it into something so heinous, even the greatest Conservative minds of our times are endorsing the schwartze."

Virtually every poll in the nation says that Barack will be our next president. He's leading or in a dead heat in states that Baby Bush took handily (and even legally) four years ago. Barack Obama will be our next president.

However...

I keep having these nightmarish visions of crackers in voting booths suddenly realizing that there is no way in hell they can pull the lever in favor of some black guy whose middle name is Hussein. My mind is filled with feverish phantasms of John McCain keeling over dead from the shock of being elected, and having to witness the hellish reality of the inauguration of President Palin.

I have to say, were that to happen, I would almost welcome an Iranian nuke going off somewhere in my general proximity...

I like to believe the best of people overall, but I have this horrible, terrible sense of foreboding about Tuesday.

Well, at least my mommy has promised that if McCain wins, we'll finally move to Canada. She wants Vancouver (mild winters) but I'm pushing for Toronto (we have family there, and it's TORONTO, for fuck's sake!).

The end of truthiness?

Okay, before we get to this long-delayed blog post, you first have to click on this link:

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2008/10/27/john-hodgson.html

Go ahead, skim through that magnificent interview with John Hodgman that I just read.

Okay, now that you have thoroughly enjoyed its wonderfulness, let me tell you how that ties in with anything.

I have been kind of emotionally exhausted lately, and not really in the mood to do much of anything, hence the lack of blog posts. Today, in a brief squirt of enthusiastic zeal, I decided that I would start putting up word definitions as blog posts, complete with etymology, etc. The thing is, I would make up the etymology, if not the entire definition.

Kind of like what Hodgman does, bless his sexy little nerd soul.

Mayhap I will not limit myself to definitions and etymology. For example, I am always pleased to share with visitors the story of the founding of Cleveland, Ohio.

When Anne of Cleves, King Henry VIII's fourth wife, consented to his request for an annulment, he granted her a generous settlement.

In addition to owning property throughout Britain, she also went on an expedition to the "new world," where she and her party established a small settlement on the Cuyahoga River, at the shore of Lake Erie.

Calling it Clevesland, she divided her time between the frontier and London, and was there when Henry's daughters Mary and Elizabeth rode into town, with Mary as queen. Both young women briefly visited Clevesland, and Elizabeth's fascination with far-off lands led her to patronize explorers, funding many an expedition.

There is a bit of wall near the river in what is now the industrial Flats that is believed to be the only remaining portion of Anne's small castle. Engraved in the stone is her signature:

Of course, over time, the S was dropped and the city of Cleveland was born.

And now you know.

Brains...

Cleveland's weather has delighted over the last few days, once the remnants of Hurricane Ike passed. Monday (or Tuesday--I can't remember which) started out cloudy and gloomy, turning sunny and hot by the end of the day.

Overall, though, there is a nip in the air, and the leaves seem ready to turn their russet autumn hues at the drop of a hat.

The coming of fall brings one thing to the minds of young men everywhere, one seasonal groupthink experience...

IZA.

Impending Zombie Apocalypse.

We all know it's right around the corner. Sooner or later, probably sooner rather than later, hordes of cannibalistic flesh-hungry ghouls will prowl the streets of our cities, our towns, probably even a few cornfields, with one overweening desire: to sink their teeth into arms, necks, legs, buttocks, whatever body part they can get their moldering mitts on.

Now, being the poor child that I am, I cannot afford to stock up on enough firearms and ammunition to stop the undead hordes that will undoubtedly home in on my cluttered apartment, filled with the ravenous need to feed on me and my cats.

In fact, I can't really afford to buy a BB gun to take pot-shots at neighborhood youths, so stopping an undead horde that will undoubtedly home in on my cluttered apartment is probably a bit more than I could comfortable handle.

Of course, even without firearms (and I do have a few cop friends who could probably lay their hands on some in an emergency...), one can still at least make an effort to defend oneself.

I mean, just because you're not Dirty Harry, it doesn't mean that you have to simply give up, strip naked, cover yourself in barbecue sauce and wade into a crowd of shoulder-biters.

Stay the f#*@ outta my way

I am in a bad mood. I am like the thundercloud one can see to the left of these words. The only difference between me and the cloud is I can't smite my enemies with big-ass bolts of lightning. That is quite a pity.

For a change, my mood isn't because of the elections coming up, or the possibility that Middleman, one of the coolest TV shows around, might not be back for a second season.

Despite that, I would like to harness my massive stormy moodiness into a cosmic karmic thing and wish a horrendously large stroke on McCain, a perfectly-timed loss of bladder and rectal control on Sarah Palin, and at least four more seasons for Middleman.

In the meantime, I shall sit here in Ohio and stew angrily.

Just to fuck with the paradigms of blog posting, I'm not even going to tell you why I'm upset. And anyone who contacts me asking why I'm upset will end up in the middle of a McCain-Palin Jedi powers hemorrhage and effluvium sandwich. Call that fair warning.

That is all.

I do so love predictability

Wow, so I'm a little fuzzy on the concept...

(At least that explains that blurry-ass photo of me to the left)

The Log Cabin Republicans are supposed to promote Republicanism in the context of cock-suckery, n'est-ce pas? They're supposed to bridge the gap between the two, which is why they refused to endorse baby Bush for his second term, after he proclaimed his support of an anti-marriage amendment to the federal Consitution.

For once, I agreed with them. It was a warm and sunny day in Tonyland.

Now, of course, LCR is back to their old, familiar stance--the "We don't care how much you hate us, we'll endorse your candidate" platform.

McCain may not hate gay people, but if he's selling his soul to the party in an attempt to become president, he'll profess his hatred.

Palin may or may not loathe and detest us, but if she can claim Republicanism while being a poster child for why abstinence-only-until-marriage education doesn't work, she'll happily throw us off a cliff.

Face facts, your party spelled out its contempt for you in its latest platform: homosexuality is incompatible with military service (tell that to the rest of NATO, assholes); discrimination should be embedded in the Constitution; DOMA is our friend.

With that total disregard for the needs of the LGBT community, to the right is a photo of what the Log Cabin Republicans must be: Elephant dung. Big, heaving chunks of it.

While at some level I can understand fiscal conservatism, even if I don't necessarily agree with it, the Republican Party are no longer conservatives. The Libertarian Party is far closer to true Conservatism than the pachyderms are now. Yet somehow, LCR still justify their own self-destructive tendencies by pointing to financial aspects of the party they so love.

Sarah Who?

So, Herr McCain has selected a running mate and it's... someone nobody has ever heard of.

Unless, of course, they live in Alaska, which nobody does.

In a way, selecting Gov. Sarah Palin is a bold move, totally unlike the Republican Party we know and hate.

It's a woman, first of all, so a whole passel of right-wing loonies are probably going to be asking why she's not in the kitchen, baking pies and looking after her litter of young'ins.

However, it might land McSame those five Hillary supporters who weren't completely enthralled with her speech at the DNCC on Tuesday night and are still threatening to vote for the old coot.

And nobody can easily accuse him now of misogyny, except anybody that remembers his desire to overturn Roe v. Wade, or the fact that the Republican Party is more than happy to have women earn far less than men. In fact, if they (God, Goddess and Cthulhu forbid) win the election, I wonder if Palin will only get paid 70% of what Cheney currently gets from the government (not counting the Halliburton kickbacks, of course).

Between the announcement of Palin as his veep candidate and the frighteningly pleasant ad he took out congratulating Barack Obama on his nomination, I wonder if we're seeing a schizoid split in the presumptive Republican nominee. This could be one of those situations where the good McCain is battling the evil personality for control of his body, like Anakin eventually winning out over Vader in "Return of the Jedi."

Wow, she's less shrill than I remember...

"No way, no how, no McCain."

Ah, le mot juste. That's a cute tagline. Not as good as "Not four more years, four more months," but it will work for the moment.

Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention is actually working for me, which I didn't really expect.

Perhaps, though, I'm simply not giving her the credit she is due. She is a creature of politics, one must recall, so she does what she must and excels at it.

Being an Ohioan (at the moment, anyway), it's gratifying to hear her eulogize Stephanie Tubbs Jones, our representative in Congress who just passed away from an aneurysm. During the video tribute to Hillary before her speech, there were even a couple of pictures of Stephanie and Hillary, two great women.

While I would have loved to hear her specifically condemn any of her supporters who say they will vote for McCain, I will happily settle for her fairly strong words of unity, of her complete support for Obama's candidacy.

And, holy fuck, did I just hear her specifically state the words "gay rights?" Man, she was pretty whack-looking when she was young, but if she keeps talking like that, I'll do her.

Okay, now she's asking, "Were you in it just for me," or for whoever is kept under the heels of Republicans. I'm really digging her speech.

All throughout the primary season, her voice had a really horrifyingly shrill quality to it, and that can probably be attributed to her exhausting schedule. Her throat, I'm sure, was raw. Now, she is at her peak, standing in a stadium full of people who, even though she is not the Democratic candidate, are still carrying her signs.

The daring choice: Joe Biden

Admittedly, I am not a big political wonk. I tend to react viscerally to politics rather than intellectually, because somehow or another, the people running for office are going to fuck me over.

I like Barack Obama. I like him very much. I like his liberalism. I like the fact that he was the left-most candidate in the Democratic primaries with the exception of Dennis Kucinich, who is liberal enough to be Canadian.

I think, though, that he made a regrettably safe choice in his vice presidential candidate. I mean, come on. Joe Biden? He's...
...
...

>snork< Huh? What? Sorry, I dozed off thinking about Joe Biden.

That's the big problem with BIden--he's not sexy. He's not exciting. He's unlikely to put a lampshade on his head at a party and flop his schwantz out of his fly.

I would have preferred someone more daring. Hillary, for instance. I might not be particularly fond of her, and her church affiliations worry me, but that would have been a beautiful trainwreck of a slate. Kind of like watching "America's Next Top Model."

Of course, she might not have been willing to take the #2 spot. We're not privy to those private conversations.

On the positive side, Biden does bring one thing to the table that cuts McCain's legs out from under him: experience. He has six Senatorial terms to three for McCain, who also served two terms in the House of Representatives.

And, to further accentuate the positive, Biden doesn't start yelling at reporters for no apparent reason.

My very first blog post(e)

So, up until this very moment, I have steadfastly resisted the urge to write a blog. Everyone else has a blog, it seems. I know Pomeranians who have blogs, filmmakers, writers, reporters, foodies, bicycle enthusiasts, people and critters of every stripe just sitting in front of their merciless computer monitors, tip-tapping away about their lives and thoughts and what they read and, hey, wasn't Monday's episode of "The Middleman" great?

Now, the pat answer that I give when asked why I don't have a blog is simply that I find them to be incredibly self-indulgent. This is only partly true.

I have nothing against self-indulgence. In fact, I try to indulge myself all the time. Every whim is catered to, if I have anything to say about it.

And really, I don't necessarily find most blogs particularly self-indulgent these days. Five years ago, certainly, almost everyone was electronically picking their navel lint, but with blogs like io9 and Towleroad, my stated perception is well out of date.

Which returns us to the question: Why now?

And finally squeezes out my answer: Why not?

Greg Wharton, the embodiment of all that is fabulous in the world, asked me to, and I figured now was as good a time as any to dip my feet into the world of forcing my opinions on everyone else.

So here I am, take me or leave me, and I will be filling your head with all sorts of inanities on subjects as varied as comic books, movies, music, politics, professional wrestling, and my complete inability to get laid.

Enjoy. You must have done something really horrible to deserve me.