No Class. No Compassion. No Brains. The "Take Us Seriously" Circus Mocks America and God

What a waste of the public's time. So when will they let us get down to serious business?

Probably never.

I've often said that while you can take away any of America's rights, you cannot take away its right to be entertained. Politicians know that. And that's why politicians - the intelligent ones - make a point of being entertaining. The unintelligent ones don't have to work at it: they're naturals.

But there comes a point when the entertainment becomes mockery. It might seem to be a form of self-parody, but really, it's not. It's just...

MOCKERY

Huffington Post (Geoffrey Dunn) nailed it:

Donald Trump is many things -- a demagogue and a pompous blowhard, a braggart and a race baiter -- but in the end, he's nobody's fool, except perhaps his own. Thus, his recent lauding of Sarah Palin and his hiring of her former Chief of Staff reveal that Trump's campaign for the presidency is, ultimately, more of a circus act than it is a serious endeavor for the White House. If Trump were really serious, he'd be keeping the quitter governor at bay.

Sarah Palin has responded to Trump's flattery with flattery of her own: 

Palin penned an op-ed Friday for the conservative Breitbart news site, slamming Trump's critics and writing that "The elites are shocked by Trump's dominance, but everyday Americans aren't."

"Trump diagnoses our problems as incompetent leadership. Who can argue with that? How many politicians promised to secure our borders? So, why aren't they secured?" Palin wrote.

Now Ann Coulter, the queen of mockery and derision, has jumped on the Trump train:

Coulter (at Eagle Forum’s Collegian Summit:

I would like to be the head of Donald Trump’s Homeland Security,” Coulter said, adding, “I’ll get it all done before breakfast” because she “could kind of guess who the criminals are going to be at least 50 percent of the time.”

And, of course, on immigration:

“We’re assimilating you, you’re here and you’re going to be an American. There will be no celebration of Cinco de Mayo, there will be no Ramadan, in fact there won’t even be a Feast of the Immaculate Conception – we are an Anglo-Protestant country, and you will learn about the Battle of Valley Forge.”

In her typical, backhanded way, Coulter got a dig into previous generations of immigrants, saying they were more suitable because: “people proved their heartiness [sic] to get here by vomiting all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.”

In other words, she managed to mock my grandmother who came across the Atlantic from (the old) Bohemia on the Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse.* 

She sidestepped the sentiment of the Statue of Liberty's "Give me your tired, your poor ..." Desperation to survive fueled these immigrants just as much as today's, but Coulter wants you to know that GOOD immigrants come here to enthusiastically remake themselves in Coulter's image (!?!). 

The Mockery Of The 4Rs

By relegating "everyday Americans" to the rednecks, rubes and the religious right (the 4Rs), Palin, Trump and Coulter are mocking America in a way that shows their disingenuousness. The 4 Rs care nothing for other mindsets, religions or cultures in the way that America was meant to. In fact, the three are so horribly contentious when it comes to foreign relations (and cultures) that they mockingly glorify the "ugly American" with his crude attitude and imperiousness. The "voice" that they give to "America's dissatisfied and disenfranchised" is merely a show of contempt for everything and everyone not "true blue" American (read: WASP).

Trump in particular plays upon the gullibility of the 4Rs with his dazzling display of ostentation, and America looks the more foolish for allowing his ostentation to become a selling point in his bid for the Presidency. He's playing the billionaire counterpart of Lonesome Rhodes, with loud snippets of rage mixed with matter-of-fact "wisdom" and "honesty" - a facade that paints middle America as a country devoid of sophistication (such as his). 

It's a publicity ploy that has worked in the past, and Trump may be laughing that America has little memory of Lonesome Rhodes-like manipulators. 

Trump and God

The circus trio flies in the face of God's tenets of Faith, Hope and Charity.

 I think religion is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion. 

That seems to sum up Trump's faith: no specifics, no hard stances (he's waffled on abortion), no profundities. He goes to church "when he can" (evidently God knows he's busier than God).
Trump, The Philanthropist is also a joke: his contributions to charity are so convoluted that it seems the money goes back to Trump himself. The charities he supposedly donates to, by the way, are not very faith-based, giving the lie to his support of religion. The Christian Right conveniently overlooks his Scrooge attitude because it sees in Trump a wedge for "social conservative" issues like same-sex marriage. 

And, just like prosperity gospel preachers, Trump's lifestyle promotes greed on the basest level.

Coulter's Christianity

Ann Coulter, the uber-Christian (in her eyes) mocks God through her righteous arrogance. Her eschatology:

She then mocked "the message of Jesus...according to liberals", summarizing it as "something along the lines of 'be nice to people,'" which, in turn, she said "is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity". 

Incidental enough for Coulter to mock people, make them miserable, and still go to heaven apparently. 

Her attitude towards evangelism is one of bludgeoning non-believers (especially Jews - she calls it "perfecting" them) into conversion and if gunpoint is needed, so be it. Coulter's religion is one of the Queen Isabella/Thomas de Torquemada kind: believe what I believe or be tortured or kicked out of "Ann Coulter's America."

The Clueless Christian Opportunist

As with everything she attempts, Sarah Palin doesn't know that her actions are mocking anyone or anything: her "Christmas" book (along with her upcoming book of "meditations") only serves as a reminder that Sarah Palin is a struggling opportunist of the Tea Party variety, grabbing at snippets of the spotlight with religion as a prop.

The woman who was "blessed" publicly by a visiting witch hunter never seems to know just how her very mention of religion is an affront to reasoning people ... and God. Her devotion to God is just as shallow as Trump's and Coulter's - she just doesn't know it.

Is It A Race Or A Cartoon?

The run for President has always been entertaining: it is an intense debate of issues, a series of political attacks, a scrutiny of personal lives all rolled into one enormous (and overly long) stream of consciousness presented to voters. It strives for some sort of decorum but rarely achieves it. But through it all, the voters hope that the candidates are at least somewhat sincere. 

Let's face it - the Trump circus train is anything but sincere: with people like Palin and Coulter pandering to a publicity-starved billionaire, sincerity becomes a non-issue, sidestepped by shallow bombast. These three know for a fact that they will never make a significant dent in the scheme of the race. The talk of a third-party syphoning enough votes to skew the election has been rendered moot during the years. These three are poking, prodding the electorate for fun.

Not nice, but then look at them:

Trump. Palin. Coulter. The future of America. You could laugh yourself sick with the very idea of them together trying to cure America's ills. But they do get attention, so I guess the laugh's on us. They are sincere ... in their
 

* In 1911, this was the largest immigrant ship afloat. My grandmother never talked about the horrors of Ellis Island, the "heartiness" inflicted on immigrants which would make Coulter proud. She came here to get married - at the age of 15 - to someone she didn't know. She signed the ship's manifest "Mrs. Frank Vojir" (illegally). In her own way, however, she eventually got back at the misogyny that prompted her crossing:

"He said I was only good for cooking and cleaning and taking care of young Frank. He had woman on the side. Then when I got what you call, ah, tuberculosis, he sent me and Frank to go live back on the farm in Plzen. He gave me tree tousant dollars to live for three years without to work. He did not know that I knew how to play - how you say - black market. Woman who was only good for cooking and cleaning came back with tirty-five hundred dollars. Then I divorce him."

(taken from the play, The Two Mrs. M's, by Dan Vojir)

BREAKING: SCOTUS Backs Marriage Equality. UPDATE: Right-Wing Fake MLK Heads Explode Over Possibility Of Civil Disobedience

Yeah, I know Hannity and Coulter didn't call for civil disobedience - talk about fun with Windows Moviemaker! What a joy to see their heads explode!



Yes, heads are exploding,there is great wailing and gnashing of teeth (dentists: be on the ready), and rending of Walmart garments. Pastors will be thrown into dungeons! Civil war will break out with huge casualties! Texas will secede from the Union (let's hope). Disasters aplenty will devastate the entire earth! Civilization will be ending fairly soon.

From Right Wing Watch:

In anticipation of the upcoming Supreme Court ruling, we’ve compiled a video of the Right’s most dire warnings about a potential decision striking down gay marriage bans, including self-proclaimed “prophet” Cindy Jacobs' fear that gay marriage will lead to natural disasters; preacher Scott Lively predicting a devastating “calamity”; Glenn Beck turning into the anti-gay version of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Tony Perkins calling for a revolution against gay marriage; and Pat Robertson, well, being Pat Robertson.

That's right - Glen Beck will be the next Martin Luther King, Jr! As will Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz ... all the people who absolutely detest the Supreme Court for being so dastardly as to "redefine" marriage. They will lead demonstrations, sit-downs and marches.

Just what city, they'll pick to define their Selma moment is yet to be determined. Charleston? Maybe. After all, same-sex marriage has been blamed for everything, why not use Charleston as a starting point? They could dare to be outrageous and pick San Francisco, but the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence might spoil it by turning it into a fundraiser for the AIDS Emergency Fund.





The Civil Disobedience Schtick
The Southern Baptist Convention closed out this week's annual meeting by issuing a formal call for civil disobedience against same-sex marriage. The statement was issued jointly by current SBC president Ronnie Floyd and 16 former SBC presidents.

However, the SBC has riled its base by trying to ban the Confederate flag instead of the rainbow flag. Not good timing. And a bit confusing for some of the good ole boys who still believe that Jesse Helms was really God.

It's The Stupid Martyrdom, Stupid!
E.W. Jackson:

I don’t know what’s going to happen to us for the stand that we’re taking, but I think I can say for every one of us, we will give our lives standing for the truth.

In the early days of Christianity, martyrdom was considered the fast track to heaven and some people actually sought it out for themselves. After people kept avidly feeding themselves to lions (rhetorically), Christian leaders put a stop to the practice. Legitimate martyrdom became while self-induced martyrdom became, well, stupid. The brouhaha over homosexuals getting married has resulted in a martyrdom of the Christian Right's own making, causing it to look very, very foolish.

Article headlines like the one below have shown how ridiculous CR politicians are willing to look:

President Santorum Will Protect Children From Gay Marriage

Pockets of Violence
Stupidity begets violence, however. And the rhetoric coming from the right comes dangerously close:

Garlow said that Staver, the Liberty Counsel attorney who has called for mass civil disobedience and a revolution to stop gay marriage, will be “speaking on a topic that most of us didn’t want to hear about, and that’s when biblical obedience translates into civil disobedience and we become an underground resistance movement.”

The phrase "underground resistance movements" smacks of violence. The wounded tiger of the Christian Right is still alive. The next media focus will be on the violence that ensues (eventually) in pockets of the country.

Let's hope that the stupidity doesn't last too long.

Exorcising Ann Coulter: Ebola Comments Aren't As Effective As Laughter

"Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy—you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism".
Yes, that's Ann Coulter without air-brushing or the Fox News filter. Yes, that's Ann Coulter sporting her ubiquitous gold crucifix. No, that's not Ann Coulter trying to look human.

There are some things that even Ann Coulter cannot do.

I have been writing about Ann Coulter for over seven years (some posts below). Let's face it, her outrageous comments are infuriating enough to incite riots, let alone acidic prose in response. They are the stuff of righteous arrogance on crack and so stupefyingly mean-spirited as to question one's faith in humanity. All the facets of a contemptuous bitch who perversely considers them virtues.

And glories in the hatred she engenders against herself.

It is perhaps this iron-clad maiden, seemingly without a conscience, always begging for publicity, is too good for even the most blase writer to pass up: an addiction created by hypocrisy and venal interests so blatant that not to address her would seem inhuman. "Lies" "Injustice" "Cruelty" "Hypocrisy." With everything she's ever written (especially tweets), she herself covers the gamut of evils.

Exorcising A Demon Who Mocks God

For this writer, Ann Coulter has been almost impossible to exorcise from the brain: like a horrible image embedded in the psyche, Ann Coulter and her inhumanity can only be removed temporarily.

And concentrating on worst-person-in-the-world comments are not very effective. For example, while articles about Coulter's egregious ebola statements have gotten many page views, Coulter herself remains un-exorcised from my world. The demon who mocks God is a tough one.

And she does mock God: I've long posited that the only reason that crucifix hasn't burned a hole in her chest is because Ann Coulter's righteous arrogance oozes out of every pore in a gelatinous mass, hardening and forming a shield through which neither Jesus Christ nor any of his teaching could ever get through. At church, she tells God what to do.

So I have to pull out the heavy guns of ridicule (laughter) to erase Coulter for even a short while:

On her persona:

Ann Coulter Channels Margaret Sanger
Ann Coulter To Jesus: Fix Bethlehem First!
A Failed Test of Compassion:Whatever Ann Coulter has it's Worse Than Ebola
Ann Coulter's Condition Downgraded To Beyond Useless
Ann Coulter as evangelist: she turns prospective converts away from Christianity and toward a more compassionate ideology, like ISIS
If we took away the right to read, we'd still have to worry about Ann Coulter's fan base

On her vanity:

She can't go to England: Princess Ann would try to ride her.
Looking at her neck it reminds me to defrost the chicken.
Dude! You may look like a lady, but wear a damned turtleneck to hide that adam's apple!
She's what nature abhors - an old maid, a frozen asset.

And one of my own: Ann Coulter and this author actually have something in common: Phyllis Schlafly hates us both. I'm married to a man - and she isn't.

I feel better already.

Ebola As The New AIDS: Will The Wrath-Of-God Syndrome Ever Be Cured?

"Ebola is a plague. Liberians have to pray and seek God’s forgiveness over the corruption and immoral acts (such as homosexualism, etc.) that continue to penetrate our society.” Liberian Council of Churches.

“God does not exist to give us what we want, and if killing off our loved ones is going to help us realize this, then this is what He will do.”

It seems incomprehensible to the rest of reasoning civilization - especially after the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic - that people believe plagues are the "wrath of God." Incomprehensibility, however, often has a hard time coming to grips with reality: in an age that still includes Charismatics and Fundamentalists, the "Wrath of God" is as definite as death. 

WOGS

Of course, many people see this kind of belief system as a kind of disease in itself - so let's call it WOGS, or "Wrath-Of-God Syndrome." WOGS is prevalent among the uneducated, the absolutists, the terminally isolated from reason and is spread by the righteously arrogant religious - often pastors - who need to instill fear to gain control.

The prevalence of WOGS is everywhere and certainly exists in "civilized" America:

Major Warning! Proof God’s About To Pour Out His Wrath: Ebola, TB, Psalm 83 War, Blood Moon Tetrad, Mark of the Beast, NWO, and More Stunning Evidence.

- a recent post on Before It's News

But while many people laugh at it, WOGS is certainly a threat to humanity, perhaps far greater than Ebola.

Origins: Is The Congo The Root Of All Evil? Did The Apes Sin?

Ebola, like AIDS, has now been labeled a "gay" disease in the sense that the country that accepts homosexuality is sinful. No matter where AIDS originated, it MUST have had something to do with homosexuality.

In an analysis of the genetic history of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, the scientists said the global pandemic almost certainly began its global spread in the 1920s in Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Certain researchers have claimed that the AIDS virus began first in primates.* So who were the sinners in this WOGS thesis - gay monkeys or gay Congolese? Yes, it may seem quite disrespectful to put a terrible disease in such a light, but the real disrespect lies in the people who proselytize WOGS - in their disrespect for humanity. 

Researchers also point to the same area - and some of the same primates - as the origin of ebola, with primates being the hosts of the disease. 

Poor Africa, the hotbed of sin and disease.

Ebola As A Weapon - "It's Obama's/Gays'/Liberalism's Fault"

"All the world needs to know that sodomy and homosexuality is more deadly than the ebola virus that is spreading all over the world. Everybody who stands up and embraces sodomy, BE THOU CURSED WITH EBOLA! Cursed be ye for embracing this!" - Pastor James Manning of ATLAH World Missionary Church (Harlem)

Ebola - like AIDS - is now being used as the weapon du jour for many of the Christian Right. No matter that Jesus would have been more sympathetic and forgiving than His Father, GOD WILL STRIKE YOU! And it is being used as a political weapon as well: a hot-button issue to charge President Obama with everything from willful negligence to "intentionally bringing in Ebola to make America more like Africa." (Phyllis Schlafly). Pundits like Ann Coulter** and Donald Trump have shunned compassion for Ebola victims and made medical teams look feeble. 

Ann Coulter's answer to the immigration crisis:

“First thing I would do is infect every one of those kids with the ebola virus,” she told host Sean Hannity. “The reason why people come to this country is because the government gives illegal immigrants free goodies like welfare.
“I say we give them a free case of hemorrhagic fever instead. If we pump every illegal child in this country full of ebola, parents would think twice before sending their kids to U.S. shores."

Seems like the "Wrath of God" has turned into the Wrath of Man/Coulter.

Will WOGS Ever Be "Cured"?

Education as the cure to the Wrath-Of-God Syndrome may seem too simplistic: after all, it has not yet rid the world of superstition, nor has it entirely coaxed man away from the unreasoning side of what we call "human nature." It has made small dents in the armor of Fundamentalist religion, but can it prove enough to stem the current tide? 

Then again, education is our only hope. 

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.

William R. Alger

*The Christian Right interpreted that speculation as a gay airline steward having sex with a monkey. 
** OpEdNews 8-8

Forget EBOLA: The Greatest Threat To Africa's Medical Missionaries Is Ann Coulter!

“If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia,” Coulter wrote in a column.

It's easy to take cheap shots at Ann Coulter these days: Ann Coulter is without a soul. Ann Coulter is heartless. Ann Coulter is evil. Ann Coulter is ... Ann Coulter. "Coultergeist." "Skeletor." OK, this writer has done it because, well, it's easy. Yes, making fun of Ann Coulter is the liberal's easy way of pointing the finger at the Right's misuse of tragedy or disaster. She's the b*tch counterpart to God's Ambulance Chasers. Of course, she doesn't heap Bibles on disaster victims, just disdain on them for being victims in the first place and anyone helping them - causing "dependency." If she is a compassionate mood at all, she might give a victim a used copy of one of her books (it having been paid for, thus no good for more royalties).


That Ann Coulter is one hell of a publicity hound there is no doubt: if you see her on any program outside of FOX News (she lives, apparently, under Sean Hannity's desk) you know that she has a new book to sell. Her outrageous comments are only fueled by the amount of publicity they get, from 9/11 widows who have "so much fun being victims" to tweets about having a "Fathers disowning their Son's Day" (after National Coming Out Day), to mocking Michele Obama's plea for the safe return of the Nigerian girls ("We want our country back."). So it's easy to look at Coulter's latest mockery in disgust as just another publicity grab.

Missionary Position

The grab, however, may have been a bit overreaching this time because her mockery was aimed at the heart of her own self-professed religion: Christianity. And not just any Christianity, but Evangelical Christianity and its missionaries: Dr. Kent Brantly was part of Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse. If Coulter had mocked Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing, she could not have picked a more overtly Christian missionary team to add to her list of enemies. She also compounded her anti-Semitism by insinuating that Hollywood was controlled by Jews who needed to be saved (or rather, "perfected").

Missionaries have always been prey for satirists, depicted as extremely upright and holier-than-thou. The position of Missionaries during times of stress, however stodgy, has always been looked upon as noble and human in the face of adversity (think Katherine Hepburn's Rose Sayer in African Queen). Attacking medical missionaries in any way, is particularly galling, since saving lives (as well as souls) and alleviating suffering was what Jesus Christ did.

Ann Coulter's own missionary position, however, is that opposition to missionaries means publicity. She considers herself, after all, a provocateur. But now even Evangelicals consider calling her something else. Her manner of converting or "perfecting" people seems to involve looking at a loaded revolver rather than hearing the Word of God. No one has told her that forced conversions went out with Queen Isabella and her minion, Torquemada.

But perhaps to Ann Coulter, Publicity is the real God, with book sales being the reward of Publicity's Prosperity Gospel. Poor Ann. Poor greedy, deluded Ann.

Is Ann Coulter Worth The Effort?

Writing about the latest Coulter outrage may seem to be futile since even her supporters know the obvious: Coulter is for Coulter is for Coulter is for Coulter. But oddly enough, she does have followers/readers who live vicariously through her outrage and mockery: most of them do not dare to enact her opinions for fear of seeming too un-Christian or inhuman. Still others, like Pastor James Manning, take comfort that her grabs at publicity overshadow his, or make him sound like more of a cartoon than a Conservative provocateur:

Manning goes on to call on God to give ebola to all homosexuals and their supporters. "All the world needs to know that sodomy and homosexuality is more deadly than the ebola virus that is spreading all over the world. Everybody who stands up and embraces sodomy, BE THOU CURSED WITH EBOLA! Cursed be ye for embracing this!"

Yes, the furthest of the religious "wingnuts" are in fact overshadowed by Coulter (who, by the way, never derides them): sheltered by her outrageous comments in the form of immediate dismissal by the mainstream media.

Yes, a "provocateur" is always worth the effort to focus upon when one knows the people she is provoking.

Stupidity Has Its Loyalty: Cavuto Goes Rogue And Pays The Price

"Now some of you say you will never, ever watch me again for the way I treated a congresswoman who I otherwise very much respect. Well, then I respectfully bid you adieu because if you prefer only hearing the interviews that suit you than let me say good-bye to you now because the time's going to come again when I will probably offend you."  - Neil Cavuto of FOX News 

Michele Bachmann was, in part, created by FOX News and its supportive pundits. What FOX News anchor Neil Cavuto did last week was to remove his support for a creation he "respected" but still termed silly. What he found out almost instantly was that no one at FOX can question - let alone deride - someone like Bachmann, no matter how insipid a political stance she has.

TPM:

The negative feedback was swift and harsh. At the end of that day's broadcast, Cavuto said a "record number of emails" had arrived.
"They go pretty much like this," he said. "'Cavuto, you're a rude ass. If I were Michele Bachmann, I'd have a law against you.' Someone else said, 'Who do you think you are? [Bill] O'Reilly? You're an idiot. Quit blabbering, start thinking.'"

Bachmann Cavuto Overdrive

Even for FOX News, the exchange was testy, with Bachmann (as is always her want), repeating points endlessly, thinking that emphasis would pass for reason. But Cavuto hammered away at his original premise, that the "lawsuit" against Obama spurred on by the Republican party was totally frivolous and a needless waste of time, energy and taxpayer money. Cavuto was anchored in the here and now, while Bachmann was off in Anti-Obama Neverland. The Young Turks (see below) saw Bachmann as a robotic Frankenstein monster unleashed, with Cavuto trying desperately to restrain it, but in the end just saying "you're silly."

Now, calling a monster "silly" may seem silly in itself, especially when FOX viewers have a fondness for Bachmann's brand of "silly." It seemed to many that Cavuto was cutting off his FOX-paid nose to spite his face. But what Cavuto may have done was bring a breath of reality to FOX that was very, very unwelcome: FOX's coverage and support of Republicans on this issue was "silly." FOX's support of Republican agendas was not always right. OMG! FOX News, the ratings king, might be IN ERROR! Cavuto was being blasphemous and apostate!

In retrospect, it's amazing that the emails did not contain death threats.

Tipping Over The Tower Of Misinformation

It has long been understood that ideological news and straight news are two different species, and with FOX News the ideology of the Right is so paramount as to give its sub-banner "Fair and Balanced" a tongue-in-cheek aspect. Hosts like Glenn Beck (formerly at FOX), Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee who depend upon the "opinions" of Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter veer so much to the right, that even treatment of the national and international political scenes is non-existent: at times it just seems like an Obama bash-fest. But the ideological news of FOX also serves another purpose: it keeps the misinformed public misinformed. In a real sense, Neil Cavuto was also challenging FOX the Misinformer, telling viewers to get past the irrelevance of the Republican (FOX News) Party's actions and "move on" to fix things.

The Price Of Going Rogue

As The Young Turks put it after viewing the heated exchange: "Is this FOX News?" FOX has certainly flirted with conflict involving the Republican Party,* but Cavuto's handling of Tea Party icon Michele Bachmann as a near nitwit was certainly far from it's usual right-wing course. Will Cavuto pay the ultimate price? No. Irate emails must be constant and consistant to have any effect on viewership. Cavuto will only be sacked if it's proven that he's slipped in ratings. Or if he spars again, say, with FOX's other darling nitwit:






*Megyn Kelly once remarked to Karl Rove that his projection over the 2012 elections might just be "something you made up to make yourselves feel good."

It's Magdalene Laundry Time Again: Ireland Struggles To Identify The Bodies of 800 Discarded Children.

Writing about this on Sunday - there's definitely a dichotomy: an unholy subject on a supposedly holy day.*

Salon:

They have no headstones, no coffins. No memory boxes of toys and photographs. There are nearly eight hundred of them – and counting. They are the 796 babies and young children aged between two days and nine years whose grave, “filled to the brim with tiny bones and skulls,” was found last week in an unmarked site that once housed a septic tank near a County Galway home for unwed mothers.

The Real Shame of Ireland: The Treatment of Women

When Andrew Sullivan first broke the news about the "800", the most interesting response was from a reader:

There have been small changes in Ireland in the last 30 years, but … there is a place women must know, and it’s weird. It is far different than an American woman’s place.

Children of unwed mothers fare even worse:

However, in the year 2012, I visited relatives in rural western Ireland whose teenage daughter got pregnant. She wasn’t shipped off, she stayed home, had the baby. I came for tea. We talked of everything, but the baby. The baby sat in the room, and no one remarked about it. It was as if there was some creature making a bothersome noise, like an errant animal, and NO ONE TALKED ABOUT HOW THAT CREATURE GOT THERE.

The discarded "creatures" of scorned women. A memorial* to the innocents is already in the making. But what about their mothers?

Compromise

The treatment of women has been a focus of universal concern: from the rape-hanging in India to the kidnapping of 300 school girls in Nigeria, all misogyny seems to be imbued with religion, a patriarchy, and a masculine privilege encouraged by religion around the world. Compromising women has been a millennia-old tradition.

In Clare Booth Luce's "The Women," Mary Haines - a sophisticated woman facing the adultery of her husband - responds to her mother's plea for marital compromise: "Oh, that was alright in your day, mother, when women were chattels, but Steven and I took each other for life as equals, and I won't compromise that equality. It's wrong, shockingly wrong." But later in the play, the street-wise chorus girl, Miriam Aarons, tells Mary that "a woman's compromised the day's she's born."

Miriam's pov is still right today.

What America Has Yet To Learn

Stories from Ireland's Catholic Church and India's rape culture always elicit a "Thank God it couldn't happen here." But what many history-ignorant Americans fail to realize is that it DID happen here: the rape culture was prominent in the South among slave owners and there were actually Magdalene laundries here in the United States. By calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" for merely asking for birth control, Rush Limbaugh showed us that the misogyny of a rape culture still exists, and that women are "compromised" until proven equal.


Today's anti-abortionists have also gotten into the fray of "compromise" by insisting that rape victims give birth to children, fully knowing that those children will be treated with just as much scorn as their mothers, and may be sentenced to a life of a "creature" no one wants to talk about.


And "Duck Dynasty's" Phil Robertson gives little attention to women over 15 as potential wives. What he thinks about unmarried, pregnant girls and their progeny has yet to be determined.

Ann Coulter has posited that most illegitimate children grow up to be criminals.

Compromised women still lead to "discarded" children.



*This author felt compelled to write about it since as many readers know, I was born in an orphanage and possibly escaped the massive Duplessis Orphan scandal of Quebec.


* "It is understood a small financial donation has now been made by the Bons Secours Sisters to help the community build a memorial." The community might react with a large donation of "BFD."

If Ann Coulter Were A Mother

I saw The Bad Seed the other night - a movie some have called the scariest movie ever made: a movie with no blood, no gore, no hideous phantasms, which never seems to lose its horrific appeal upon those who first see it. It is the story of a little girl born without a conscience - and without any redeeming qualities in her soul. She is totally in control of her environment because she puts on a face of innocent perfection, while plotting her next piece of vengeance.

The Bad Seed was very controversial for its time, taken directly from Maxwell Anderson's play, it brought to the fore the theory of nature versus nurture: can evil be inherited? Can it skip a generation or two? Is it, somehow, buried in genetic makeup?

Several years ago, right win pundit and FOX darling Ann Coulter posited in her book Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From The Seventies to Obama that most illegitimate children wind up to be criminals.* And while she seemed to be on the nurture/environment side of the argument, some people (like me) couldn't help but think that she could have been hinting at the nature possibility.

So it makes one wonder: what would a child of The Coultergiest be like? What would the little darling inherit? What "virtues" would be instilled  AC? Think of Ann Coulter as a mother (before breakfast, please).

Comments, please ...

...and try to keep them (relatively) clean.




*I have a confession to make here which might make me slightly biased: I was born in an orphanage - a place called St. Vincent's Infant Asylum and Maternity Hospital in Chicago. I was born illegitimate - a bastard - but to Ann Coulter I'm still a bastard whatever the circumstances. After all, I'm a liberal.

The Irrelevance Of "Screw You": Ann Coulter Panders To Paranoia

"Screw you!" she exclaimed. "You think we don't care about the children? You're the one who won't do anything about the mentally ill."

Does Ann Coultergeist know anything about Reagan's closing of the state mental institutions in California while governor? I think not. Then again, a rant for the sake of publicity coming from her is usually groundless.

The "Screw You!" was done specifically to promote Coulter's new fill-in-the-blanks book "Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From The Seventies To Obama" on Sean Hannity's FOX program.

It's interesting to note that Amazon's listing of Coulter's book pairs it up with Greg Gutfeld's The Joy Of Hate.

Screw You! Ann Coulter!!!

That's the reaction of much of the country to Coulter's scream, since answering back the Coultergeist is a lesson infertility: her hard-as-steel ego is impervious to reason, especially if it comes from anyone slightly liberal. The biggest fault in her rant came when she said:

"The only way to enforce a universal -- the last 0.1 percent of guns that are transferred by collectors and so on is to have universal gun registration," she added. "Universal background check means universal registration, universal registration means universal confiscation, universal extermination. That is how it goes in history. Do not fall for universal background checks."
The jump from registration to confiscation is the kicker, the pandering to paranoia.

I often wonder why gun nuts and the NRA balk at registration and licensing of guns like cars: cars are more lethal than guns in this country, but at least drivers are required to have registration, pass a driver's test, get a license, get plates and have insurance. So here's where Coulter's line of reasoning falls apart: does universal car registration automatically mean universal confiscation of cars? OK. Apples and oranges, you might say, but the fact of the matter is that no one had ever even intimated that registration would be used to confiscate guns. It's never, ever been discussed in Congress. Any confiscation would be done under the aegis of a crime.

Paranoia wins out!


Anti-gun control paranoia has seldom listened to reason. Just read this short bit of prose that promises to be as profound as a rock (emphasis mine)
I don’t carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.
I don’t carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m evil.
I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the world.
I don’t carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m angry.
I carry a gun so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.
I don’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m a cowboy.
I carry a gun because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a cowboy.
I don’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man.
I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.
I don’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.
I don’t carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.
Police protection is an oxymoron.
Free citizens must protect themselves.
Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.
Personally, I carry a gun because I’m too young to die and too old to take a butt whoopin’.


"I don't carry a gun because I'm paranoid." Right.

As a man who lived in one of the worst neighborhoods riddled with gang violence for over five years, I can safely say that I never thought of carrying a gun - ever. Paranoia never took hold. It did not take hold in the apartment building where I lived (even though there were 6 homicides in front of it during those years). We made our children as safe as possible (I started an after-school program, keeping them inside and aiding their education), but never promoted the paranoia that you see today in screams coming from the likes of the Coultergeist.

Ann Coulter has been irrelevant for years. Sean Hannity has been irrelevant for years. Only people who want to hear about paranoia listen to them.