Tales from a Wingnut Family

I'm in North Carolina as we prepare for my stepfather's funeral on Tuesday. (I've been asked to sing "Amazing Grace" at the services, which should be interesting. If you hear of lightning striking a church in eastern North Carolina on Tuesday, now you'll know why.)

I knew it would be a challenge dealing with my wingnut family -- especially the Chief Wingnut, my aunt -- but it's happening far more quickly than I expected. First, the beach house where my kids and I are staying had every television tuned to Fox News when we arrived. I blame my aunt. Turns out she watches almost nothing but FNC ... like, that's the background noise in the house at all times. Now, we're not staying with her, but I'm worried the insanity will affect my kids by osmosis or something. Jeebus.

Then, just got off the phone with my mother. We were chatting about the record heat this area is experiencing, and I made a remark about global warming. I shouldn't have. Mom explained that, well, it's been hot before and will be hot again, and the earth is just going through a natural cycle. (Her bachelor's degree, I should note, is in speech, not anything scientific ... but I digress.) But here's what really got me: she said "it's like they were saying" [no idea who "they" are] "since volcanic ash cools the earth so much, what we really ought to do is create more smoke and soot and that will keep temperatures down."

[pause to let that sink in]

I think she was serious. My brain hurts.

UPDATE (11:06 pm 6/8/08): For the record, yes, I know that the so-called "global warming" phenomenon really should be termed something like "global climate change," since it involves extreme changes in weather beyond just warming. But I just didn't feel that pedantic today.

However, I did attract the attention of a global warming climate change denier, which is hilarious. Dude has a degree in electrical engineering, which I guess makes him think he's qualified to arrive at the "scientific" conclusion that greenhouse gases have no effect. Kind of like my mother's speech degree, I suppose ...

And by the way, not to cast too many aspersions on the guy who derisively linked me up, but how many people with graduate degrees do you know who still boast that they were a National Merit Scholar? That's a high school distinction, dude ...