What's In That Snowball, Crispus Attucks?

Thanks to Tam and a chain of wookie suiters, just saw this interesting advertisement:





I find it particularly hilarious that at 2:32, the ZBV is about to drive across the site of - wait for it-



the BOSTON MASSACRE.



I recognise it from July 4 2009, when I stood right there, listening to the Declaration of Independence being read for the 209th consecutive year and crying like a baby.

(Yes, I know it was a bogus street riot inflamed by insurgents and that the soldiers and their officer acted with great restraint. But it's an iconic event in U. S. history none the less under that name.)

Take THAT, Winston Churchill!

The Spitfire Factory is DOOMED !!!

My Ground Zero Mosque Rant...

"Behold, Aziz! The Americans prattle about freedom of religion and private property, but as soon as the Faithful try to exercise those rights, the Crusaders go crazy! How easy it is for us to tell our people that the Christians are bigoted against us, with this example to point to!"

If the Methodists could do it, the Moslems can.

I have layers of problems with the whole thing. First is being irritated that they even need permission. Private property, remember? If this were something we liked, that is the first argument we'd use.

And whether we like it or not, Islam is a religion. We may despise its filthy tenets, but they qualify just like Hasids and Carmelites.

I think what bothers me the most about this is that by opposing it, we accept a very basic cultural outlook of our enemies. I mean the permanent enemies of liberty, not the current Moslem ones.

Yankees forget, this country is already full of explicitly triumphalist memorials specifically designed to humiliate defeated Americans . Placed on the exact spots where the victories occurred, constant, daily reminders, to those who personally bore slaughter and defeat of their loved ones.

White Folks forget too, and not just down South.

It seems to be a tool of tyrants to keep this sort of eternal, collective, multi generational, distracting enmity going. Look at so many hell holes of the world, and how often you find people fighting about something that happened before they were born. No one needs a list of these permanent blood feuds.

The English- following their own Civil War, and the Anglo/ Americans, following their Civil Wars in 1782, 1814, and 1865, decided not to make those hates permanent and active parts of their futures, and by and large did that. In America, from the start, the tolerant (and therefore forgetful) spirit marched, even when Englishmen still disabled Catholics at home. The old country hates didn't survive very well in the free soil here. (Sure, we talk sometimes, but Irishmen don't murder their English landlords, or Moslems blow up Jews, here. At least not wholesale.)

We despise irredentism, Balkanisation, and grudge baiting when our enemies do it, because they are poison to free people.

We're better than that generally. And we're better than that specifically, too. Stopping this mosque won't change our enemies.

Let them dance in the blood of innocents. It won't alter what happened on September 11.

And it reminds us of what they did that day, and what they remain.

Sorry, that's a lot of talk. But I really think we're fundamentally wrong by opposing this, and playing into their hands besides.

Is Bill Haslam Muslim?

So today I was hailed down by some politically active Tennessee Democrats. Because I grew up in Bill Haslam's neighborhood and know him and his family, they asked me the BIG QUESTION:

"Is it true he's a Muslim?"

"I heard the real name is Has-salam". Et cetera.

My responses, some voiced, some not:

1. This is America, and that's not an American question.

2. Article IX, Section 2 of the Tennessee Constitution, trash. I don't speak for him, but I expect he might say that he supports that part of the Constitution, too.

3. What difference would it make, religious bigot from the party of diversity and tolerance for people we already like?

4. I suppose even bigoted voters should know the truth. So no, the Haslams are as racially pure as the driven snow, jackass. If you can't tell by looking at that English face, do five minutes of research. The name comes from hazel trees, dufus.

5. They also profess the Christian faith, and actively attend a congregation thereof. My dam long attended the same Church.

6. You are really stupid. Not as stupid as the lawyer who once tried to get a pathologist to say that Novocaine would produce a positive on a test for Cocaine because they were "Both from the CAINE group, aren't they?" (What, like candy cane? Michael Caine?)

7. Actually more evil than stupid, because you are looking for a tool to appeal to and encourage religious bigotry. There are really good reasons why that's not an American question.

(I'm all pi$$y about gossip today.)

Mistresses and Skin Deep...

In a conversation the other day in which the subject of how people denigrate those who trade on their looks came up, and the phrase "beauty is only skin deep" was used.

Now to start with, that disregards bone structure, muscle mass, and grace of carriage.

But there's nothing wrong with skin deep sometimes:

A few years after my father died, his best friend told me a story. Father, at this time approaching 40 (and unbeknownst to himself sudden death) , was visiting Friend in another State. Father was of course married to Mother, who was like Father and his Friend attractive, clever, and a serious person. Her brilliance and drive fit poorly with the life choices she made, and she was difficult.

Accompanying Father was a girl, about 22, who struck Friend as being dim though gorgeous. At some point, Friend taxed Father about this.

"Staghounds Sr., I know she's pretty and all that. But she's ignorant and stupid with it. What on earth do you talk about?"

"Friend, you are right. She doesn't know nothin' about nothin'. And some weekends, that's exactly what you want."

And sometimes it's not just skin deep, either:

I once knew a professional Mistress well enough to talk to. Her paramour hunted, and she and I became friendly. She was also gorgeous, poorly educated, pretty ignorant about things in newspapers, and just as nice as could be. Once she talked about her choices with me. At the time she was about 27.

"Look, I flunked Algebra. I know I'm no genius. What am I going to work my way up to, assistant manager at MacDonalds?

When I go back home at Christmas, all my friends b!tch about their lives. They live in trailers. Their husbands hit them, cheat, or have just run off. They have squalling babies, they are fat, they have never been any farther than Florida. Most of them work, and teller at the bank is the best job they will ever get.

I haven't punched a time clock or paid a bill in three years. I have a nice little house in my own name, and he's making the payments. I've been to Paris and Rome and New York and Hawaii. I have $15,000 because I never quite spend everything he gives me for clothes and jewelry. It's in good investments because I listen when he talks to his friends about that stuff. I'm having this pleasant conversation with you on a Thursday morning in Somerset, England, watching a crack pack of hounds.

He treats me good, doesn't cuss or hit me, and we both know that when he gets tired of me he will set me up in a job I can do. I'm not smart, but I'm smart enough not to sell what I have cheap."

No one gives Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, or any random construction worker grief because they use the physical part of their DNA to make a living.

Just a strange paradox.