It's a Major Award!

Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmyGOSH! I just don't know what to say! I mean, I didn't prepare an acceptance speech for being the very first Asshat of the Month over at MilitaryPundits.com -- I mean, with so many asshats out there, I never thought I had a chance! -- but here goes anyway:

Oh! I'm so out of breath ... just tell the orchestra to wait a minute, okay? I have a lot of people to thank ...

First of all, thank you Mom and Dad and my whole family. Your hyper-conservative views caused me to open my mind up in college and see the truth and learn the facts and ... well, you know, just thank you. You really made all this possible. Oh, um ... thank you, Miss July -- as always, you are the wind beneath my wings! Thank you to my beautiful children, Jr. and Jrette., just for being you.

Let's see ... I'm so flustered! *giggle* Thank you, Wes Flinn, my blogfather, for getting me started on this silly blog thing that ultimately led to me being named -- wow! -- Asshat of the Month! Of course, thank you, Al Gore, for inventing the Internet and blogs and computers and electricity ... thanks to Keith Olbermann for putting my video on your show -- you're the greatest, Keith! EEEEEEEEEK! Thanks to Troy and Jeremy the microphone guy and all you teabaggers in Pensacola and everywhere for helping this dream become a reality!

Who am I forgetting? OH! Thank you, MilitaryPundits.com for bestowing this AMAZING honor on me! I'll always be the very first Asshat of the Month! I'm so proud and excited ... wow! And thank you especially to Andy "Brick" Wahl of MP. You, sir, are the visionary behind this, the producer, the director, the writer ... you took what started out a simple disagreement about political and economic issues and made it personal in your own special way ... YOU made this award happen, Andy! YOU came over to MY blog and insisted I'd planned the whole video thing even when I hadn't, and you just couldn't let go -- and I'm the lucky beneficiary of your thought and hard work! Thank you SO MUCH!!

Thanks to all the teabaggers -- oh, wait, I already said that! *giggle* Well, thanks to everyone in the wingnut blogosphere for continuing to support and prop up the crazed nutjobs who are making you obsolete! Teabags today, tossed salads tomorrow!

Oh, no, there's the orchestra -- you ninnies! Anyway, I just know I'm forgetting someone ... oh, thank you God, Buddha, Vishnu, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and all you other AWESOME deities ... and thanks, President Obama, just because!

Thank you! Thank you all! I'll treasure this always!

Blast Off! Radio today at 4:00 pm EST: November may be over, but the election goes on

It's December already? Who's responsible for this?

Wow. Time flies when you're being snarky. And, as always, there's no better place for snark (and the occasional rant) than Blast Off! Radio. Today promises to be no exception, as I welcome as my guest regular caller, fellow snarkmeister, and my blogfather Wes Flinn, proprietor of the blog Walk In Brain. Wes lives in Georgia, a state where the 2008 election isn't over yet: tomorrow is the big U.S. Senate runoff between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss (booooo!) and Democratic challenger Jim Martin (yea!). I've asked Wes to give us a report "from the ground" on how things are going with the runoff and what could happen tomorrow. Will the Democrats pick up their 59th Senate seat (and, in the process, kick out a truly despicable person)? Or is Georgia still too red? Tune in this afternoon and find out -- we can even take calls during Wes' segment, so please feel free to chime in.

Of course, we'll have plenty more to discuss during our hour together, including laughing and pointing at the antics of Palm Beach County Republicans, marveling at the power of wingnut welfare, and considering further the Cabinet choices of President-elect Obama. All this plus your phone calls and the ever-entertaining Chat Room!

Here's how to listen ... and participate:

TIME: 4:00 pm Eastern TODAY

Click here to listen

Call in number: (646) 716-7543

E-mail: blastoffradio-at-gmail-dot-com

Remember, nothing says "I'm a DFH and proud of it!" better than listening to Blast Off! Radio! Catch you this afternoon ...

Halloween brings out the wingnuts

Four years ago, I told you about an old friend of mine from college, who, somewhere between 1987, when I last was acquainted with her, and 2004 went completely off the deep end. I mean, big time fundamentalist batshit crazy, especially with Y2K.

Now a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, my classmate Shaunti Feldhahn, right (far right), continues to write some really unbelievable stuff, as my blogfather Wes at Walk In Brain reveals. This time, Shaunti takes on Halloween -- you know, that horrible Satanic/Pagan/Wiccan holiday:

One of the biggest misconceptions about Halloween is that it is “nothing but innocent fun.” Now, children getting excited about trick-or-treating is innocent and fun, and a blast - which is why my husband and I allow our children to participate. But we are also very aware of a dark side to the holiday that is anything but innocent, and are very careful about steering clear of it. For us that includes no scary costumes and no haunted houses. But many parents prefer to avoid Halloween altogether.

[...]

[Many have] continued to celebrate Halloween for dark purposes. Today, that has translated directly into very real, very evil Oct. 31 witchcraft and Satanic ceremonies, which I have heard something about from two friends who were raised by Satanist parents. As Steve Russo, author of “Halloween: What’s a Christian to Do?,” described in an interview: “There is a danger to being desensitized to evil. And Halloween is one of the eight high holy days for Satan worshippers and those that practice Wicca. So that means that there are all kind of things that go on unbeknownst to the average person. I am not anti-Halloween or pro-Halloween, but I do want to provide answers for parents.”

First of all, equating Satanism with Wicca is the height of irresponsibility and ignorance. I have Wiccan friends whose religion is, to be perfectly honest, pretty alien to me -- nevertheless, even a neophyte like me knows that it has nothing to do with Satan.

Besides, as a commenter on that AJC column pointed out:

you know, there are some people who use dinner parties to practice partner swapping, so does that taint all dinner parties?

there are some people who use New Year’s Eve to practice debauchery and drinking (NO! say it isn’t so!!), so does that taint all NYE celebrations?

criminey, not letting children participate in what is a fun rite of childhood just because of what a small number of people do - and which doesn’t involve the children in question - is not just silly, it’s downright asinine.

Fundamentalists have this annoying tendency to extrapolate to the point of absurdity, and clearly my old friend is no exception. One of the great joys of the imminent Obama presidency for me will be not having fundies in and around the White House anymore, at least not in a decisionmaking capacity.

Meanwhile, enjoy your Halloween, everyone. And don't let the fundies spook you ...

Thoughts on 9/11

Okay. It's the seventh anniversary of arguably the most tragic day in American history. I suppose I should say something about it.

Like many of you, I remember exactly what I was doing on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was working in my office at a small university in north Florida and, as I often did back then, IM'ing with my good friend, fraternity brother, and blogfather Wes. I remember chatting about nothing in particular until Wes, who was watching TV at the time, wrote, "Hmmm. Plane hits World Trade Center." We chatted for another hour, then two, then three, as the news grew increasingly dire. When we finished chatting, around noon, as I headed to a meeting at work, I had the foresight to print out a copy of that chat transcript. I still have it to this day.

It was an incredibly wrenching time for all of us. Only later did we learn that Drunky McStagger was warned of an imminent attack more than a month earlier ... yet he did nothing. Only later did we see the political party in power behave not in a way that would make us safer, but rather in a way that they felt would keep them in power. Only later did we find out that our leadership was focused on their own welfare, not that of the nation.

And today we find Huggy Bear and his campaign using the slogan "Country First." Irony is not dead! Would that Huggy's BFF and their pals had put the country first for the last seven years! Instead, they've lied and obfuscated and exploited the tragedy and enriched themselves beyond anyone's imagination. And today we still see nearly half the country blind to the Republicans' selfishness and treason ... including my family and many of my closest friends. How disappointing. How sad.

Eschaton commenter Terry C perhaps put it best when contemplating 9/11: "It makes me sick that the very people who could have prevented it have done nothing but exploit it politically."

Betrayed by my alma maters

It's bad enough that I've already decided to withhold my pledge of financial support to my undergraduate alma mater until that right-wing asshole Michael Powell is no longer chairing their Board of Visitors. After all, he orchestrated the departure of a fine president purely on the grounds of his (the president's) leftward ideological bent (and don't tell me it's for non-political reasons, because those reasons are wholly pretextual).

Now, thanks to an e-mail this morning from my blogfather Wes in Cincinnati, I have learned that the university where I earned my law degree has, in short, lost its collective fucking mind. Not only is Washington University in St. Louis offering an honorary doctorate to rabid anti-feminist lunatic Phyllis Schlafly, but their commencement speaker this year is none other than Tweety himself: MSNBC's Chris Matthews, the Most Ignorant Person in Broadcasting. (One presumes Tweety will add to his collection of honorary degrees, er, I mean, "Ph.D.s" -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge -- as well.)

According to the Facebook group, No honorary doctorate for anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly:

This is the woman who lives the hypocrisy of having a career that takes her around the country lecturing "family values" groups on how women should stay home.

This is the woman who said of husband-wife rape, "By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape [sic]."

This is the woman who described sex education classes as "in-home sales parties for abortions." Do her views fit with the future the men and women of Wash U's graduating class see for themselves and their peers? Probably not. Then why honor her with them? Wouldn't having someone like her in the midst of Wash U's female graduates be incongruous at best, offensive at worst?

E-mail Chancellor Wrighton and let him know what you think! Wrighton@wustl.edu.

There are few people, let alone women, so unalterably deluded, so utterly and completely misogynist, so reprehensibly self-loathing as Phyllis Schlafly. How in the world can a person so anti-intellectual be invited to receive an honorary doctorate by a heretofore prestigious university? What, wasn't John Hagee available?

And speaking of "anti-intellectual," Tweety is pretty much the poster child for brain-dead America. His speech is likely to be full of platitudes and anecdotes about his unrequited man-crush on Drunky McStagger or how his $5 million annual salary allows him to understand exactly what working class America thinks and wants. Yeah, right.

This is ludicrous. More than that, this is embarrassing. And it leaves me with just one unsullied degree left ... wondering what that school is going to do to piss me off next.

UPDATE (3:01 pm 5/8/08): One thing that just occurred to me: I wonder whether Wash U's longstanding connection with the Danforth family (e.g., U.S. senator and ambassador John, professor and Wash U chancellor emeritus William) has anything to do with the Schlafly decision.

Congratulations, Wes

My blogfather, fraternity brother, occasional guest blogger, and dear friend Wes Flinn of Walk In Brain just got himself a new gig at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), one of the most prestigious conservatories in the country and where he's finishing up his doctorate. I couldn't be more excited for him and his lovely bride (not to mention their Menagerie).

As soon as Wes is done with the Ph.D., he'll only be 15 shy of Chris Matthews.

Congratulations!