I've been reading some of the comments over on Democrats.com, and it is not exaggeration to say that I haven't heard such hysterical hyperbole since Pat Robertson accused feminists of "[encouraging] women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Like Robertson, the following web denizens have gone around the bend.

I guess I'm just ranting at this point, but [West Virginia Democrat] Sen. Byrd's statement in regard to not supporting the filibuster makes me feel ill... Which part of HE'S A FRICKIN' NAZI! don't you understand, you hoary old fossil?

I emailed [Byrd]; I told him he'd might as well put his pocket copy of the Constitution in a glass museum case, because Alito wants to toss the Constitution onto the ash-heap of history. I also reminded him that the miners who just died in that recent accident, had died because of the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress had lowered safety standards. [DM: Actually, mining fatalities have gone down in every year of the Bush Administration.]

Here's what I sent out to the 18 [Democrats who voted against the filibuster], after a few beers and a fair number of tears:

     You are a worthless, spineless worm, and I am never, ever going to forget it...
     I hope avoiding an unpleasant confrontation on the cloture vote was worth selling my children's future down the drain. May you rot in hell.

I think all these Democratic Senators who voted for cloture are TRAITORS. They know very well how poor people are getting screwed methodically by Bush and his cohorts.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!! I'm tired of these LOSERS!! Even though we rightfully WON the last 2 presidential elections, these so-called Democrats put their tails between their legs and went and hid in the corner while the real loser of the elections took the throne!

Are we not becoming another country like Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, etc. that's controlled and run by religious fanatics?

I also checked the forums over at Democratic Underground, but no one actually posts messages over there. Just topics, with nothing in the body of the post. Boring.

Here's what the ultra-left sounds like when they don't get their way. The current cause of their increased blood pressure is the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court following the rather decisive failure of attempts to orchestrate a filibuster.

3:30 pm: The Gang of 14 went into closed-door meetings to stop our peasant uprising. Alito's personal trainer, Lindsay Graham, will lead the charge against a filibuster. How many of these media-adored "moderates" will vote to help Alito nuke the Constitution?

5:00 pm: 18 Democrats betrayed all of us by voting with 55 goose-stepping Republicans to defeat the filibuster.

Democrats.com

24 Democrats (plus [Vermont independent James] Jeffords) either understood why Alito was a menace who had to be stopped at all costs, or were willing to be persuaded.

Democratic Underground

Tomorrow, the Bush illegal domestic surveillance scheme comes front and center. We'll see what the folks who thought discussing Alito was too much of a bother have to say about the theory of Bush as King.

The Daily Kos

Chief Justice Roberts will swear Alito in, in "a private ceremony later in the day."

This will be "in plenty of time" for Alito to be used as prop by Bush tonight at the State of the Union speech, where we can expect him to tout his victory that will have dire consequences in the future, on the lives of Americans.

The Democratic Daily

Please, stop. It isn't that you aren't highly entertaining. But you're embarrassing yourselves. The sky isn't falling. Stop the whining.

Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

George W. Bush, addressing a joint session of Congress
September 20, 2001

Thus proclaimed the President of the United States more than four years ago, and though that remark was directed toward "every nation, in every region", you don't have to go far to find an individual for whom the words are equally appropriate. Here's the latest real-life example of what Bush was talking about.

Twenty-four hours after Osama bin Laden told the world that the American people should read the work of a little-known Washington historian, William Blum was still adjusting.

[ . . . ]

From Blum's end of the conversations, you could tell the reporters were expecting him to express some kind of discomfort, remorse, maybe even shame. Blum refused to acknowledge feelings he did not have.

"I was not turned off by such an endorsement," he informed a New York radio station. "I'm not repulsed, and I'm not going to pretend I am." He patiently reiterated the thesis of his foreign-policy critique -- that American interventions abroad create enemies.

In other words, "See, I'm right! Osama himself agrees, and if Osama says so, that's good enough for me.&quto; Not exactly what most sane people would consider a desirable endorsement, but when you hate the U.S. that much, bin Laden must start to look like he just might have a good reason for having his minions fly commercial jets into buildings, if you think of it from his point of view.

Even the English didn't hate the French enough to side with the Nazis and the fascists in World War II. But the English were on the whole more sensible than today's obsessed Bush-whackers, who decided about 20 minutes after Al Gore conceded the 2000 election that Dubya was evil and should be impeached and still haven't let it go. Not that they're a one-trick pony; the impeachment campaign hasn't prevented them, for example, from offering money to Photoshop artists who can manufacture a believable photo of Bush with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Resourceful little imps, aren't they?

Anyway, in reading the entire transcript of that presidential address several Septembers ago, I came across something Americans probably need to hear again, to refresh our short memories and temper our stubborn desire for quick fixes even if they don't fix anything.

Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.

An overwhelming majority of Americans lauded that speech and the long-term commitment it articulated. Now, many of those same people demand tangible, measurable, public results. They are decrying the use of "every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement"—even those they never objected to when previous presidents invoked the right to use them broadly.

It's different, of course, when it's Bush, because Bush Is Bad and even if he takes the same actions as a previous president who was good, Bush's Reasons Are Bad and consequently he must be opposed. This isn't "he's guilt because what he did was wrong"; it's "what he did was wrong because he's guilty."

Now this is America and you can believe whatever you want, even if you end up contradicting yourself. But speech and actions have consequences, and while no one gets executed in this country for speaking against the government, that doesn't mean we speak and act in a vacuum. Words and actions, even if constitutionally protected, have consequences, and no intelligent person should make ridiculous claims of censorship when they find that not everyone agrees with them. The constitutional right to freedom of speech does not come with a constitutional responsibility for anyone else to agree with you or even to listen to you. More importantly, if your actions cause a particular result—intentional or not—don't expect everyone to ignore your complicity.

Is William Blum with us or with the terrorists? Osama bin Laden has given us a pretty clear answer, and Blum agrees with it. Say what you want about Blum; he is more honest than all those "dissenters" who believe what he does but will never admit it.

I just heard about an event coming up next month in Worcester, Massachusetts—just a block away from the Den Mother's office, as a matter of fact—that has stirred up a big o' controversy in these parts. A Mr. Hetero pageant-style contest is scheduled for February 18 at a posh downtown concert hall, and the local gay community isn't too happy about it.

According to the web site for the event, which was thought up by a minister of some sort, Mr. Hetero is a response to a "Mr. Gay" contest that recently took place in San Diego. My research found a Mr. Gay USA and a Mr. Gay International, which seem to be two phases of the same contest, analogous to Miss USA and Miss Universe.

So what exactly is the Mr. Gay contest? It appears to be a fairly standard pageant-style contest, with swimsuit and apparel segments, a talent competition, and a personal interview. It doesn't seem to be after tawdry entries, explicitly banning thongs from the swimsuit competition. As far as I could see, neither web site mentions anything disparaging about heterosexual men or asserts, explicitly or implicitly, that homosexuality is superior to heterosexuality. The Mr. Gay organizers don't seem to say anything at all about heterosexuality at all. In fact, nothing in the contestant rules and regulations even requires a contestant to be gay, not that I can think of a reason why a heterosexual man would enter the Mr. Gay contest.

It is in response to that contest that minister Tom Crouse is having the "Mr. Hetero" contest. One might expect a similar event but for heterosexual men. But that isn't all it is. Rather than being merely a contest for fun and prizes, this one is, according to the web site, "a celebration of God's design (and other politically incorrect activities)" whose purpose is to "glorify God in every way" and celebrate "God's design of Heterosexuality". In terms that Mr. Crouse himself might use, Mr. Hetero is deliberately designed to flaunt the sexual orientation of straight men.

Now I personally find exclusionary contests—the Latin Grammys and Miss Black America, for example—distasteful, and a "Mr. Gay" would certainly fall into that category. But those events can say in their own defense that they are not designed to put down Anglo musical performers or white/Asian/indigenous women or straight men. If people of certain affinities want to have special events celebrating what they have in common, without putting down others, them I am hard pressed to complain too much.

But Mr. Hetero is obviously different. It is designed to proclaim that homosexuality is unnatural, inferior, and deserving of mockery. That's why it merits all the opposition it gets.

Labels: local

And how did I miss this from the (in)famous New Orleand Mayor?

"I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day," Nagin said in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech. "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."

The backpedalling soon followed.

"How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about," he said.

This man cannot possibly be as bumbling and tactless as he keeps acting.

Jesus' message of love and redemption notwithstanding, God is evidently vengeful after all, and s/he's ticked off at America and blacks. That's why s/he sent hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

So spake New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the very same Mayor Nagin who blamed the feds, not the Almighty, in the immediate aftermath of Katrina's devastation. His latest revelation came in an imaginary conversation with slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday was observed as a federal holiday yesterday.

"I said, 'What is it going to take for us to move on and live your dream and make it a reality?' He said, 'I don't think that we need to pay attention any more as much about other folks and racists on the other side.' [Dr. King] said, 'The thing we need to focus on as a community—black folks I'm talking about—is ourselves.'"

Nagin told the crowd that he also asked, "Why is black-on-black crime such an issue? Why do our young men hate each other so much that they look their brother in the face and they will take a gun and kill him in cold blood?"

The reply, he said, was, "We as a people need to fix ourselves first."

Such an exchange sounds consistent with what Dr. King was known to advocate: personal and community responsibility as a necessary part of building a better society. As far as I could tell, the spirit of Dr. King told Mayor Nagin nothing about the wrath of God. His Honor the Mayor apparently came up with that part all by himself.

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," Nagin said as he and other city leaders commemorated Martin Luther King Day. "Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."

Ah, Iraq, the cause of all calamity that befalls the United States. The Mayor clearly opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq, and if he in his wisdom opposes it, then naturally God does too. He may be comforted to know he is joined in his opinion by the Reverend Pat Robertson, who is equally sure that God is pissed, but for different reasons.

We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America. I was reading, yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he used the term that those who do this, "the land will vomit you out." ... And this author of this said, "well 'vomit out' means you are not able to defend yourself." But have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected in some way?

So which is it, Iraq or abortion? Maybe it's neither. The members of Topeka, Kansas' infamous Westboro Baptist Church, whose idea of the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ is somewhat unconventional, have the real answer, not just to the mystery of hurricane Katrina but to any tragedy visited upon any American anywhere. (Sorry, folks, but I refuse to link to their site. If you want to check it out for yourselves, you'll have to look it up.) The "church", whose web site domain is an especially crass perversion of an Old Testament bible verse regarding homosexuality, pickets at the funerals of fallen service members in what is an increasingly personal crusade:

Thank God for IEDs
(Improvised Explosive Devices)

American bombed our church with an IED made by fag students at Washburn U. in Topeka. In his retaliatory wrath, God is killing Americans with Muslim IEDs... God Almighty killed [service member's name]. He died in shame, not honor—for a fag nation cursed by God... Cast into Hell with his soldier pals.

Their rhetoric displays varying degress of ire, but here is what Nagin, Robertson, and the un-Christians at the Westboro Baptist Church have in common: they all believe that they know the mind of God, that they have the power to speak for God, and that their beliefs are God's and move God to exact hateful revenge on their behalf. For no other reason than their arrogance, reasonable people—especially those who worship a loving God—would do well to ignore them.

Don't forget to read the fine print.

By this time tomorrow, Scott should be on his way home. He spent the last year in Iraq, arriving back to the U.S. just before Christmas, but apparently he had many demobilization duties down in Mississippi that delayed the final leg of his return.

I didn't know Scott before he went overseas; we "met" when my mother, who worked with him, started forwarding his interesting e-mail updates and musings. I suggested he post his writings to a milblog, which I subsequently designed and maintained. We met for the first time in September when he was home on R&R.

While maintaining his blog, I learned a lot about how our military and the Iraqi people (military, police, and civilians) interact. I was most struck by his stories about the children he encountered. From his descriptions, they seemed trusting, accepting, and willing to see the good in others—things we adults tend to forget.

I hope he will choose to keep his blog online now that he is home, so that people can learn a bit about Iraq through the eyes of someone who was committed to serving his country in the most honest and honorable way he could.

Labels: local

According to Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume the other night (sorry, no link—I saw it on television), a pro-abortion organization whose name this week is "NARAL Pro-Choice America"—they're on their fourth name, you know—launched a drive to collect 500,000 signatures on a petition opposing the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Alas, they fell a tiny bit short of their goal. But their massive action mobilization effort did manage to garner...

2,000 signatures.

Wait, I'll do the math for you. That's less than half of one percent of their goal.

It works out to an average of 40 signatures from each state.

This from an organization whose most recent name change was designed to create the impression of widespread support from across the country. At the moment, they are more likely experiencing widespread embarrassment. Abortion has been the most prominent issue raised in media coverage of the Alito nomination, so it isn't like abortion proponents had to spend a lot of money getting the word out.

Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that you can no longer find any mention of the 500,000 signature goal on either NARAL's main web site or their petition page. The number used to be there, though; I saw it earlier today on a Google search which I have preserved for posterity.

Our goal: 500000 petition signatures to the Senate.
(NARAL Hub Homepage)

Our goal is to get 500000 petitions to the Senate.
(Tell-A-Friend petition page)

2,000 signatures. Oops. Maybe public sentiment just isn't what NARAL wants us to think it is.

Just as I planned, I watched the new NBC mid-season replacement series, The Book of Daniel, on Friday night. I was prepared to like it, especially after hearing all the blustering from right-wingers who slammed the show based on the commercials.

To say I was sorely disappointed doesn't even begin to cover it.

For those of you who didn't see it, it's the story of an Episcopal priest, married with children, who deals with his and his family's problems in part by talking to Jesus, whom he imagines sits besides him and engages in conversation. I found the brief dialog between priest and savior to be very authentic, probably not unlike that which many of us would have if we could receive counsel from Jesus face-to-face. Daniel wants Jesus to spring to the rescue with simple answers, while Jesus stresses the value of struggle and cautions Daniel against relying on the quick fix. It's essentially the old adage that "God helps those who help themselves", and it is the only good part of the show.

The rest of it is, well, overkill. Not only does every character have some problem or issue—like we all do—but it is dealt with in virtually every scene. The characters are flat, each without personality except as defined by her or his particular issue.

• Daniel, the priest, is addicted to Vicodin, which he was prescribed for back pain.
• His wife deals with every wrinkle in her life with a martini.
• Their daughter is an aspiring cartoonist who is arrested for dealing pot in an effort to raise money to buy software to ply her trade. While fulfilling her community service sentence, she hooks up with another teenager whose offense was software piracy. They decide to swap contraband.
• One son is a gay but not yet out to his extended family, who won't stop playing matchmaker with the latest pretty girl.
• The other son is adopted, of Asian descent, and likes to joke about how he's the outsider, even though no one in the family treats him that way. He is also boinking the daughter of one of his father's church's benefactors.
• Said church benefactor is doesn't hesitate to wield his financial resources and fundraising skills like a weapon to keep Daniel in line.
• The benefactor's wife, the stereotypical rich bitch, prohibits her daughter from dating Daniel's adopted son because she doesn't want any "little oriental grandchildren".
• Daniel's brother-in-law, who is in charge of the parish's finances, embezzles millions from the coffers and ends up dead.
• In order to find the embezzler brother-in-law, Daniel enlists the help of a friend, an Italian Roman Catholic priest with family in the mafia.
• The embezzler's wife, who is Daniel's wife's sister, reacts to her husband's crime and subsequent death by realizing she is a lesbian and beginning a relationship with the church secretary.
• The church secretary may or may not have been involved with the embezzlement (that point was fuzzy).
• Daniel's mother is succumbing to dementia and frequently does not recognize her own family.
• Daniel's father, an Episcopal bishop, is distressed by his wife's deterioration and seeks comfort in the bed of another bishop, the one under whom Daniel serves.

That all happened in the pilot episode, a two-hour special.

Some of the characters are sympathetic. It is heartbreaking to see Daniel's mother fail to recognize her family, and even more heartbreaking to watch her family try not to be hurt by it. Daniel's attempt to salvage a deteriorating relationship with his teenage daughter rings true to many parents who fear their kids are headed for disaster. The gay son is probably the most real of all the characters because he doesn't seem defined by his homosexuality, with which his family is nearly obsessed.

Overall, the program reminds me of another controversial series that hit TV almost 30 years ago: Soap. The two series approach a similar degree of absurdity, but at least Soap didn't try to pretend it was anything but farce.

Alas, though it may please the windbags at the American Family Association, I must give a big thumbs down to The Book of Daniel, which spends so much time showcasing the foibles of each and every character that it fails at what should be its greatest strength: showing how a man of God tries, with the help of the Divine, to deal with all that life throws at him.

New Mexico's Judge Daniel Sanchez will be glad to know there is a judge in who may actually be a bigger dunce than he is. At the opposite corner of the country, in bucolic Vermont, sits a Family Court judge who feels sorry for child rapists.

34-year-old Mark Hulett was sentenced to a paltry 60 days in jail after admitting he raped a young girl for four years beginning when she was 6 years old. He could have received a sentence as severe as life in prison. Prosecutors asked for at least eight years. Instead, Hulett's victim gets sentenced to unknown years of fear that he will hurt her again.

As if it wasn't bad enough that she was repeatedly raped, Judge Edward Cashman decided to victimize her further. He didn't want to incarcerate the confessed rapist if the prison wouldn't provide him with sex offender therapy, so his solution was to give him mere days in prison and then make him get therapy as a free man. The fact that Hulett might be subject to life in prison if he doesn't get treatment does nothing to protect his victim or potential future victims. Contemporary study shows an astronomical recidivism rate among sex offenders, and even with offenders who get treatment, there is no way to tell which ones will re-offend and which won't.

Some sex offenders will inevitably commit subsequent sex offenses, in spite of our best efforts to identify risk factors and institute management and treatment processes aimed at minimizing these conditions. Likewise, not all sex offenders who have reoffense risk characteristics will recidivate.

Studies may not agree on which types of sex offenders are most likely to offend again and with what frequency, but they all show a risk to reoffend that makes long-term incarceration not only appropriate but the only responsible sentence for a reasonable judge to impose.

Besides, Cashman ignores the three-fold purpose of incarceration: not only rehabilitation, but also deterrence and punishment. Thanks to Cashman's boneheaded decision, every sexual predator in Vermont knows that he can rape or molest at will with virtually no consequences. And Hulett gets by with a mere slap on the wrist rather than paying the debt that he can only begin to settle by forfeiting his freedom for a good long time.

This story has been all over the news—I heard it this morning on sports radio, of all places—so I would imagine Judge Cashman has gotten an earful about this. If you'd like to add to it, feel free.

Judge Edward J. Cashman, Presiding Judge
Grand Isle Family Court
P.O. Box 7
North Hero, VT 05474
Phone: 802-372-8350

Give him a call, and pile on. You know you want to. And you know the judge deserves it.

Doing something for the primary purpose of ticking someone off may be a sin, but I'll take my chances. I plan to spend tomorrow evening glued to channel 7 in Boston for the premiere of NBC's mid-season replacement series, The Book of Daniel. The program piqued my curiosity when I first heard about it, but it's the subsequent uproar on the part of "Christians" with thin skins that has me really excited.

The program, which has stirred up some controversy, deals with Rev. Daniel Webster, the title character described by his portrayer, Aidan Quinn, as "an Episcopalian priest who struggles with a little self-medication problem, and I have a 23-year-old son who's gay, and a 16-year-old daughter who's caught dealing pot, and another son who's jumping on every high school girl he sees, and a wife who's very loving but also likes her martinis." Some people (read hyper-traditionalist Christians who haven't seen the show) are objecting to the series' purportedly "bigoted" portrayal of Christianity.

"Bigoted" is probably an overreaction. "Exaggerated" may be more like it. I doubt there exists anywhere an Episcopal priest whose every family member is embroiled in some sort of controversy. But aren't all television programs notoriously unrealistic? Sure they are, but most of us wouldn't watch them if they weren't.

That isn't to say that there isn't something to object to in any given program. My mother, a registered nurse for 45 years, can't stand watching ER because she insists no real hospital could function with so much personal melodrama, professional malfeasance, and general chaos going on. My co-worker Nancy, a former Navy lawyer, has said that JAG bore no resemblance to any of the mostly mundane work she did during her years of service. My friend Bruce, a retired federal agent, once told me that he drew his gun in the line of duty fewer times in 30 years than the average TV cop does in one episode (and he never fired it off the practice range).

The difference is that the American Nurses Association, the Pentagon, or the FBI don't call for boycotts on the grounds that such dramatic misrepresentations disrespect their professions. So why would anyone expect The Book of Daniel to be any truer to the life of a real Episcopal priest than any other show on the air?

Better ask the American Family Association, a group whose designated issues include "Culture & Society", "Gambling", and "the Homosexual Agenda". They've been on a rampage about Daniel since they heard about it. Not since they've seen it; no one has seen it yet. But that hasn't stopped the AFA from vilifying it. Their own press release bashing Daniel seems as distressed by the fact that the series' writer is "a practicing homosexual" interested in reincarnation than by the content of the program itself.

I admit that I find the American Family Association to be ridiculous. Even on the issues with which I agree with them, abortion and euthanasia, going off track as they did with their recent boycott of American Girl dolls and books. The American Girl company is apparently associated with Girls Inc. whose web site describes a program "for girls who choose to be sexually active to have access to necessary reproductive health, testing, and contraception services." It isn't just that the AFA objects to the abortion reference; they don't support birth control either.

But back to The Book of Daniel. I figure that any television show that has drawn the ire of reactionaries deserves a look. If I find it offensive, I'll stop watching. But I suspect it will be an entertaining and thought-provoking portrayal of one particular man of God doing his best to face the challenges in his life, as we all must.