I'm Back

Read my blog if you want to live... OK, OK, I obviously can't help myself at this point and I'll be honest: I was genuinely touched by the outpouring of support and positive words I received in my ostensible last post. I really did appreciate it and I must admit that blogging can be a fun enterprise as long as one does not put too much pressure on one's self to produce, so here's the deal: this blog will remain up and active but I make no promises about either content or frequency. I might post ten times in a day or just as easily let it lie fallow for weeks at a time; I might rant lengthily about how the Senatorial filibuster has paralyzed that deliberative body or I might just post a video of a cute kitten trying not to fall asleep (note: there will be no videos of cute kittens, as an addendum to my long-standing rule banning lolcats). Basically I'm reprioritizing several things right now and while the blog isn't going to the back of the line it has lost some prominence in my everyday life. So that's it. Thanks again to everyone who reads what I write here. I'm gonna get some lunch now.

Brain Fatigue And Rage Deficiency

My sincerest apologies to anyone and everyone who comes here to read this blog on a regular or even semi-regular basis and a special thank you to those who have emailed me to make sure that I've been OK over the past two weeks. I'd like to tell you that I've left the blog sitting idle because I've been too busy with various wacky adventures and sexy hi jinks but the truth is that I've recently realized that I'm extremely tired, so much so that I don't think that I can go on any longer. Don't worry, I'm not so tired of life yet that I'm going to eat a bullet or anything like that but rather I'm actually bewilderingly and completely tired of American politics.

I watch and read about the various races across the country lately and I struggle to give even a modicum of a fraction of a damn. Every campaign commercial I hear now sounds exactly the same to me: "I'm tired of career politicians and business as usual in politics. Our elected officials have forgotten who they work for. Help me send a message to Washington that we're not going to put up with partisan politics any longer. Together we can change the tone in D.C. and take our country back." Blah, blablabbity blah, blah, blah. You've heard it all before; I've heard it all before and you obviously don't believe it any more than I do. I consider this type of boilerplate populist tripe to be no more than insultingly simplistic rhetorical masturbation for the ignorant masses (and I hold the entirety of modern media and journalism specifically responsible for this phenomenon, but that's neither here nor there at this point).

"But James", I imagine you retorting to your computer screens, "I thought you were a big supporter of President Obama! He's all about change and ending the partisan divide in Washington. Have you given up on that message and his seemingly earnest attempts to make America a better place?" No I have not, but I have realized that political culture in this country is so disturbingly corrupt and hopelessly mired in a system of failure and inaction that I no longer possess the zeal to believe that it can be significantly changed within my lifetime, short of a national tragedy or a similarly significantly-sized event to shake the average asshole out of their chronic complacency. In short: I give up, and I just don't care anymore. I'm sorry but it's the truth.

I finally understand what so many of my friends and acquaintances have been telling me over the past several years about politics, about how it's just not that important to get so worked up over people and events that are largely and almost completely beyond the control of the average American. I get it now. It's all a game (as so much of life and society is but that's a topic for another time) to make you feel like what you have to say about how this country is run makes a difference and actually matters to those in power. Now I can imagine many of you similarly retorting to your computer screens, "But James, one man/woman can make a difference! The people still have the power of the voting booth!" I wish I could still believe that matters, but I just cannot.

That isn't to say that I'm going to stop voting or anything as ludicrous or ignorant as that. Hell, I've already registered and the county's going to try to nail me for jury duty as a result so I might as well flex my citizen rights every two years but I've realized that the amount of energy and stamina it takes to remain emotionally invested in American politics is hardly worth the meager reward, either emotional or electoral. I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from the movie Blade: Trinity. Blade (who is a vampiric vampire hunter played by Wesley Snipes, for the woefully uninitiated) is in police custody and a government psychologist is questioning him to assess his connection to reality and concurrent level of sanity:

VANCE: What about the President? Do you know who's in the White House at the moment?

BLADE: Some asshole...

Now of course I don't think that Barack Obama is personally an asshole (the movie came out in 2004 so draw your own conclusions as to their nonspecific target...) but it does speak to a larger problem within our society: most people who decide to go into politics are either self-involved assholes or self-important assholes or both. Yes, there are some legitimately good men and women in Washington earnestly trying to make this country a better place but the vast majority of people who eventually gain any significant amount of power there, and thus have the ability to institute any significant amount of change within the system, find themselves so endlessly mired within it that they eventually become everything they ran against, if they even made any attempt to portray themselves as such in the first place. Again, in short (and with all due apologies to Orwell): power corrupts, and I'm finally sick of it.

So, the next obvious and obviously self-involved question here is: does this spell the end of Brain Rage? I would very much like to answer in the negative and say "Hell no! Are you fucking kidding me?!" but the more honest answer is "I just don't know". Continuing on the honesty kick, I have to say that it's been fairly liberating not worrying about what I'm going to write here day to day and it's been even more refreshing not paying much attention to the 24 hour news cycle as if it were my job to do so, despite the nagging voice in the back of my conscience urging me to do just that on a continuous basis. I'd be lying if I said that I don't enjoy writing about current events here but I'd be lying even more if I said that I find the entire enterprise of caring about most of those said events more fulfilling than I do taxing of late.

So again, where does this leave us? And again, I just don't know. I've always been one to follow my intellect over my instincts on most matters because I've realized over the years that my instincts amount to exactly jack shit when compared to my intellect (which definitely says more about my instincts than it does my intellect) and I'm not planning on abandoning that line of reasoning anytime soon but I have been known to change my mind on occasion. Regardless, I plan to spend the vast majority of my time in the immediate future concentrating on real world plans that've been fomenting for some time now outside of the blogging world, i.e. dressing up as a masked crime fighter by night and solving mysteries. So if these are indeed my last words here, many thanks to those who have taken the time to read the meager thoughts I've committed to cyberspace over the past few years and bon chance in your own future endeavours. I'll be around, somewhere.

I remain, as always, James B. Webb. Adieu.

P. S.: I would be remiss here if I didn't take a moment to address my conservative counterpart and constantly comedic foil Donald Douglas of American Power. Don, I've tried to find even an iota of entertainment within your posts or even from one of your sycophantic commenters over the past few weeks as I have in the past but I've woefully come up short on both counts. To say that you're a caricature of your side of the aisle, again as I have many times in the past, is still entirely accurate but unfortunately it's no longer nearly as entertaining. To happily quote one of my fellow nihilistic bloggers: "You're fucking clown shoes". I'll be around two years hence to collect my one hundred dollars when Barack Obama is successfully reelected as our president. Enjoy rhetorically beating off to your big victory this November: it will almost assuredly be short-lived. And good luck with that whole "leftists hate America and are trying to destroy it" schtick. I can think of no more suitable nor entertaining epithet for this blog. Please have someone explain the concepts of humor and irony to you at some point before you shuffle loose this mortal coil. And again, adieu.

[Update: There's no way I'm going out on a down note by addressing Don. Here's something a thousand times more kick-ass: Sgt. Adam Sniffen from the 101st Airborne Division delivering the game ball via parachute before the Michigan vs. MSU game at Michigan Stadium two weeks ago:


Too cool. Adios.]

100,000 Hits

If I can just keep up this pace I should get my first million hits in just under a quarter of a century! Yes, yes, meaningless I know but I suppose bloggers are supposed to keep track of this sort of thing. Thanks as always to everyone who visits Brain Rage; the visitor from Whittier, California has 1 hour to collect their prize.

Brain Rage's Belated Second Birthday

It was actually back on February 20th and I totally spaced on the date this year; it's a good thing I don't have any kids. We've slowed down a bit in our second year (I say "we" because my liberal hate monkey Thade handles most of the complicated IT work; the constant presence of banana peels lying around everywhere is somewhat of a nuisance but the simian really knows his HTML) since I've cut back on the vino and the subsequent alcohol-fueled rants yet our 2000th post went up just a few days ago and there have only been a handful of days over the last two years without new posts.

As always, thanks to everyone who wastes time reading Brain Rage and a special thanks to all those who take the time to leave comments, suggestions, criticisms, etc. Your participation in this virtual community makes this as much fun for me to write as I hope you find it to read, and the fact that I've never had to implement comment moderation is a testament to the civility and manners of the average reader here despite your disparate views on a wide range of subjects. So I suppose I'll keep writing here until I either find something better to do or until I run out of opinions (don't count on the latter happening anytime soon though). Thanks again, Ragers.

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone has a good one. I personally plan to make this year a lot better than 2009. And as always, thanks for reading Brain Rage.

Silence Is The Most Powerful Scream...

My sincerest apologies for the lack of posting over the past week. Although this wasn't a pre-planned break I still should have said something by way of explanation for those of you who are nice enough to come here on a regular basis to read my stuff. It was rude and neglectful of me and I really am sorry.

If I were going to stay true to form as to my past compulsions I'd lie and come up with some type of innocuous explanation for my lack of commentary, like that I've just been too busy with other things or that life has just been so exciting lately that I couldn't make the time to sit here and write. I could lie to you all (I'm actually pretty damn good at it) but none of that would be the truth. The truth is that I just stopped caring. I stopped wanting to write, to rant, to rave, to debate, to piss off other people and to be pissed off myself. My fire went out, and I found myself not giving a damn anymore.

To your collective credit (and frankly, somewhat to my surprise) several of you noticed this change in tone and tenor well before my self-imposed hiatus, emailing me privately to say so and ask whether I was OK or not. I was aware that I wasn't writing much and rather just posting soulless minutia culled online but I guess that I should have given you more credit than that. Some of you I answered and some of you I ignored (again, I apologize for my lack of manners on that count) but please know that I really did appreciate the sentiments and your attempts to reach out. Sometimes people are so much nicer to me than I feel I deserve.

It was recently suggested to me by a friend who knows about such things that I might be manic depressive, and it's a possibility that I've seriously been considering over the past several weeks. It would certainly explain some of the patterns I've noticed over the course of my life: charging headlong into some new endeavour or project, throwing the entire weight of my heart and soul into the breach only to abruptly stop caring at some point and letting everything I've worked towards wither and die while I float seemingly rudderless on a sudden and inexplicable sea of ennui.

And that's where I now find myself: emotionally anchorless, rudderless and every other ship part I can recall from my nautical archaeology courses-less. I'm in a very dark place right now. The future currently appears very bleak to me and I don't see any clear course ahead that gives me any kind of hope for tomorrow. And to be totally honest the Christmas holidays, which I've always eschewed mainly for reasons of blatant consumerism and seasonal goodwill hypocrisy, are not making things any easier. I understand why suicides always peak around this time of year.

And to be completely clear, this is not a suicide note nor is it even a precursor of such an event (although I'd once again be lying if I said that I'd never contemplated that possibility in the past). This is neither a cry for help nor is it a plea for attention. In fact, I expressly do not want to discuss my feelings on this subject nor do I want to engage in any of that other weak, pathetic therapeutic bullshit. As always, I can and will handle whatever life throws at me on my own. This is merely an explanation to those of you who were concerned enough to inquire as to my current state of mind and also to those who were too polite to do the same. I sincerely appreciate that type of personal respect.

So there it is. I hope that this uncharacteristic bout of emotional honesty has not ruined your Christmas holidays and if it has I once again apologize; that was never my intent by writing this. I sincerely hope that everyone reading this has one of the best Christmases ever along with a comparably kick ass new year to boot. Regular posting will resume at some point in the very near future but I'll be honest one more time and tell you that this declaration is neither written in stone nor blood. Happy holidays to you all, and thank you for indulging my wasted intellect and shattered psyche once again. I truly appreciate it.

Joe Legal vs Jose Illegal

Some of you might recognize this email with the same title as this post which attempts to address the problem of illegal immigration here in California. It was forwarded to me without comment yesterday by a friend and I subsequently wrote up a reply to its various declarations. First the email:

Joe Legal vs.. Jose Illegal


You have 2 families... "Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal". Both families have 2 parents, 2 children and live in California.

"Joe Legal" works in construction, has a Social Security Number, and makes $25.00 per hour with payroll taxes deducted.

"Jose Illegal" also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".

Joe Legal... $25.00 per hour x 40 hours = $1000.00 per week = $52,000 per year. Now take 30% away for state and federal tax. Joe Legal now has $31,231.00.

Jose Illegal... $15.00 per hour x 40 hours = $600.00 per week = $31,200.00 per year. Jose Illegal pays no taxes. Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays for Medical and Dental Insurance with limited coverage ... $1000.00 per month = $12,000.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $19,231.00.

Jose Illegal has full Medical and Dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal makes too much money to be eligible for Food Stamps or Welfare so Joe Legal pays for food... $1,000.00 per month = $12,000.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $7,231.00.

Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for Food Stamps and Welfare. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays rent of $1,000.00 per month = $12,000.00 per year. Joe Legal is now in the hole -<$4,769.00>.

Jose Illegal receives a $500 per month Federal rent subsidy, which entirely pays his rent of $500.00 per month = $6,000.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays and gets a part time job after work to make ends meet.

Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his family.

Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same school.

Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while Jose Illegal's children get free government sponsored lunches.

Joe Legal's children go home after school. Jose Illegal's children have an after school ESL program which, again, is provided free of charge.

Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same Police and Fire Services, but Joe Legal paid for them and Jose Illegal did not pay.

And now my response:

It seems to me that the more substantial problem here is not so much illegal immigrants coming to this country so much as it is the companies who hire them in order to save money and boost their own profit margins. If there were no under the table jobs available I suspect that far fewer people would be coming here illegally looking for work. And while I won't dispute the actual numbers included in this comparison (rent, food costs, insurance, etc.) I would take some exceptions to the assumptions made about their application.

If the state and local clinics are comparable to Joe's own doctor and dentist then why doesn't Joe just use them instead? I'd posit that he doesn't do this because they are not nearly as competent and efficient as his own medical professionals, hence Jose gets the level of treatment he pays for but no one is stopping Joe from doing the same.

Jose is also most definitely not eligible for food stamps nor welfare because he is an illegal immigrant. If his children were born in this country (and were therefore citizens) he could apply for food stamps only for them, yet even so millions of illegals who qualify for such do not avail themselves of the program because they either don't know or understand that they qualify or they're too afraid of being caught and deported by the government. But since Jose's kids are taking ESL classes they obviously came here from another country so they would not be eligible either.

Of the 7.1 million people living in federally subsidized housing, an estimated 29,570, or 0.4%, are "ineligible noncitizens." Concurrently, that means that only 0.29% (barely one quarter of one percent) of the estimated 10 million illegals in this country do so.

Working on Saturdays and weekends sucks for Joe but if he had gone to college or some kind of technical school (and he still can, of course) he would most likely have been able to get a higher paying job than construction, and as a U.S. citizen he would be eligible for federally subsidized student loans and grants that Jose would not be. Also, do you know many illegal immigrants who only work during the day Mon.-Fri. and not also at night and on weekends? Because I sure don't.

Jose's children would indeed get subsidized school lunches whether they were illegal or not because that falls under the aegis of the human rights programs we enacted as a country as part of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. And while Joe's kids may not qualify for free lunches there are also many reduced price lunch programs (like I used when I was a kid) that he can apply for.

Are Joe's children barred from studying foreign languages at their school, or from participating in the many after-school programs available to them, or from even joining a sports team that has after-school practices? There are a myriad of free after-school activities that are provided by schools and local neighborhood programs that they could avail themselves of. If they choose to go straight home after school then that is exactly what it is: a choice. And isn't it a benefit to the country as a whole for everyone who lives here and does not speak English to learn the language? I would think that even those vehemently opposed to illegal immigration would agree with that line of thinking.

Since Joe pays rent he obviously does not pay property taxes (which subsidize police and fire departments) so technically he did not pay for those services but if his landlord is making a profit renting out his dwelling (if he isn't, then what's the point in doing so?) then his rent (as well as Jose's) does contribute to the taxes being paid on the property and thus both men indirectly help to subsidize the aforementioned public services they both receive.

Now I freely admit that illegal immigration is a problem that we must deal with as a nation. Millions of undocumented workers pour across our borders every year and despite the extremely expensive and at times draconian security measures that were put into effect following 9/11 the vast majority of the shipping containers entering our ports still go uninspected. And the blame for not taking action on these problems falls equally on both of our major political parties.

The Democrats won't crack down on illegal immigration because Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the country and make up a significant portion of their voting base, while the Republicans won't crack down on illegal hiring practices or insist on thorough inspections of cargo containers because it would hinder and disrupt the business interests of their lobbyists and donors (and each of these reasons also applies to the opposite party, to a certain extent).

The question of how to handle the problem of illegal immigration thoroughly yet realistically is highly complicated and calls for much more nuanced reasoning than this fictional comparison would have you believe. It's pretty easy to blame illegals for most of society's problems (and many do) but the reality of the situation is that we're a vast and populous nation with a highly complicated and interrelated network of commerce, industry, society and culture that makes the impact of one minority group of people rather insignificant as it relates to the comprehensive problems of the whole. I think that despite all of his hardships even Joe Legal would agree with me on that.

My friend is a pretty reasonable and level-headed guy so I doubt that he sent this to me with any kind of malice or prejudice, but rather more likely just to gauge my response (interestingly enough, this exercise very much reminded me of my inaugural post for this blog). And speaking of which: BD, I just saw the comment you left there at the time of this site's one year anniversary. FIRST! I vaguely remembered reading it some time back (alcohol was most likely involved in the level of vagary) but I couldn't find it again. Because of this I never thanked you for the compliments (which I always love) that you wrote at the time but I really do appreciate the words, amigo.

In Praise Of Brain Rage

Regular readers might have noticed a new commenter around here by the name of "Parsley's Pics" (and more recently just "Leslie"). Leslie Parsley of the site Parsley's Pics is a newcomer to the blogosphere from a less than digital generation (I've never been rude enough to ask her exact age but from her comments about the sixties and the addition of "aka Mom" to her signature in her emails I assume that she's roughly the same age as my own beloved momma) whom I've been mentoring a bit on the ins and outs of HTML, amongst other things blogorific.

Well, Leslie was kind enough to write a post in praise of yours truly (in addition to Ron Chusid of Liberal Values) and this humble site entitled "Hot Blogs: Take a Good Look":

Brain Rage is authored by James B. Webb who offers up solid commentary, provoking thoughts and the most amazing graphics I've seen yet. He's a talented writer, he's witty and he loves to throw darts at the status-quo. This is not always a site for the faint of heart but it is definitely worth visiting and taking a tour. Just click here and here and here for a taste of his graphics and videos. For a personal perspective read his Health Care Reform in America. Make sure to read the comments.

Regular readers also know that I'm a sucker for compliments so please forgive my lack of humility by reproducing them here. Leslie, I'm truly flattered, Ma'am. Blog on.

American Power Powers Down

My conservative counterpart Donald Douglas of American Power has apparently laid down his guns as far as our latest blog feud is concerned and I've decided to follow suit. As such, I'd like to offer the following apology: I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry for anything I said to Don or about Sarah Palin or even about any of the photoshopped images I've created over the past few days. I said what I felt had to be said in the face of his lies and personal attacks and I appreciate the solidarity of everyone who had my back when things started to get really vicious.

The apology I'd like to offer is to say that I'm sorry to the readers of this site. This latest rhetorical scuffle between Don and myself was mean and it was ugly and I'm sure that it was hard to read about at times. I'll admit that I wrote some fairly unfriendly words in the course of things but I still feel justified in the stance that I took and I still stand behind every word that I wrote. I realize that by this point in my life I should be able to resist getting dragged down into the gutter by someone with Don's level of intellectual dishonesty in the blogger world but for as long as I can remember I've always had a problem backing down from an argument when I've known that I was on the right side of it.

For those who are interested you can read Don's final indignant words to me and my admittedly long winded reply in this comment section. I've decided to take a break from his site for a while, partly to focus on some more positive and uplifting subjects and partly to test out the veracity of this statement that is not original to just myself:

Without commenters like myself and repsac3 and all of the other "radical, godless nihilists" stating actual opposition to the things you write your comment sections have digital tumbleweeds rolling through them with occasional "Great post, Donald!"s echoing off the walls.

While I do like to stir shit up over at his site it's become quite obvious that the comments left by myself and others with political views similar to my own are really what drive the conflict and discord that Don's conservative readers seem to thrive on. True, there are a few level-headed Republicans to be found amongst the frothing masses but experience taught me long ago that trying to engage most of his readers civilly is an exercise in futility. And since his last post concerning the Palin photoshopping story, the only post to garner more than two comments is a round up of "leftist" reactions to the recent Supreme Court overturn of the Ricci case decided by President Obama's nominee to that court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. It seems that his acolytes were quite happy to swarm all over that one, if only to agree with Don and each other whilst getting their partisan jabs in.

So, it's time here to regroup, recharge and reassess what's going on in the world and why some of those events are important/interesting enough to post and discuss in this forum. As always, thanks for taking the time to stop by and read Brain Rage. I always appreciate it.

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Blogcast...

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. I'm having some issues with my wireless router; this post is going up during a brief window of functionality. You can not imagine how cut off I feel from the world right now. It's actually pretty sad how much I've come to depend on my continued Internet access. Hopefully everything should be up and running smoothly again very soon. Muchos gracias for your patience.

Welcome TYWKIWDBI Readers

Welcome to all TYWKIWDBI readers. I love Minnesotastan's site and am very happy to be amongst his newly formed blogroll (for the uninformed, he's a 2008 weblog awards finalist). Please feel free to have a look around Brain Rage, and thanks Stan.

Redecorating And Spring Cleaning

As you no doubt noticed when you arrived I've finally decided to make some design changes to keep this place feeling fresh after over a year of continuous blogging. So far it's just been the title header and increased width of the body to better showcase pictures and videos but I'll be making other aesthetic improvements as I teach myself more about graphic design and HTML and free time permits, of course. If you have any thoughts or suggestions I am entirely open to any and all opinions. Hope everyone likes it and as always thanks for taking the time to visit.

Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy

At my book club meeting last Sunday evening I had a conversation with several friends about the simple act of appreciating all of the incredible things that we as Americans living in Northern California at the dawn of the 21st century have available to us. And I'm not just talking about how we can drive a few hours in one direction to the snow or a few hours in the other direction to the beach or a few hours in another direction to wine country (all of which is really, really cool).

I'm talking about all of the little things that I personally try very hard to appreciate every time I experience them: going to sleep in a big soft bed with clean sheets every night, taking a steaming hot shower wrapped in clean tile every morning, popping open a nice bottle of Pinot Noir in the evening and taking that first bite of a juicy, medium rare steak minutes off the grill shortly thereafter. Not only will the vast majority of human beings on the planet right now never get to indulge in these seemingly simple pleasures most of us here usually take for granted most of the time, but the vast majority of people to have ever walked the Earth most likely never even knew that such pleasures existed.

And those are the thoughts that went through my mind when I watched this video of Louis CK on Conan O'Brien's show the other night decrying the general ennui prevalent across our great nation in the midst of (despite the narratives being sung recently in the 24 hour news media) one of the most prosperous times in the absolute most prosperous nation ever to exist on this planet:

I can't honestly say that I'm always happy with my life and everything in it but I do try to make a concerted effort to be particularly mindful, and especially thankful, for all of the wonderful things I've seen and experienced thus far with what little time has been afforded to me on this planet. Here's hoping that the rest of you are doing the same.

Brain Rage Is One Year Old Today

Crap, I almost forgot about it. My Sitemeter counter went live on leap day last year but I actually put up this inaugural post one year ago today. Wow. I could probably have written an entire novel with all the time I've spent working on this site but I have a feeling that the same handful of people would still be the only ones who would read it. Thanks again to everyone who wastes time here (and no, I didn't have a cake made; it's just been altered digitally).

I'm 35 Today

If you have a blog I suppose this is something you're supposed to mention. No singing, I'm serious. Thanks to Jeremy and PK for the Super Bowl cake.

Grace Explosion, Departed

I'm sure that many of you remember frequent visitor to this site and all around theocratic loon Grace Explosion (the photo above is a wishful representation on my part) and her colorful yet less than well thought out posts from a while back. For all of you newbies, here's a small taste from about a week prior to Barack Obama's inauguration:

JBW,

Yes, I do view life as having a primary metaphysical component of the battle of good and evil. I define God as wholly good, Satan as wholly evil - and man under the influence of one or the other... acting by one spirit or by the other Spirit. That's how I view life and reality. I see Obama as evil having denied God and ultimate evil as having claimed to be God as a messiah. To me, that's fully satanic and evil and deceptive and subtle, etc... which is why he qualifies for suspicion as the 666 beast of Revelation as he rises to power and seeks to become a world leader while claiming to be God. That's the bottom-line of why I suspect him... and other things appear to be "lining up" in timing, world events, allegiances, etc. Yep, that's my logic... and I can understand why a person who doesn't believe in God, Satan, or the apocalypse would not see validity in my line of reasoning. But a logical line of reasoning based on the premises I've described, to me, clearly exists.

Just makes you want to wrap her up in a warm towel and take her home with you, doesn't it? Well, it seems that about a week ago on my conservative counterpart's site Grace announced that she was moving on to greener pastures and followed those words by removing most of the more interesting and hilarious comments she's left on both of our sites over the past few months (yes, the quote above apparently made the cut as to what was a suitable legacy). So, to mark her departure from our digital lives I've composed a short poem that I like to call "An Ode to Grace":

G is for Grace: that was your online name,
R is for really crazy: that was your favorite game.
A is for Antichrist: we just threw him an inauguration,
C is for cesarean: how you'll birth your Christian nation.
E is for evangelicals: with whom you've chosen to roll,
The only requirement for membership being your everlasting soul.
So good luck dear, or bonne chance chère as they say in France,
If you looked at all like the photo above, I'd have a Grace Explosion in my pants.

I never said it was a good poem. Adieu, Grace: your mere existence has made every other Christian I know seem much more reasonable by comparison.

To The New Year

Thanks to everyone for reading; see you next year. Salut.

Home Again, Home Again

I'm back safe in California from my Washington Thanksgiving; it was an uneventful flight and the American Indian in airport security with the rubber glove was...surprisingly gentle. Hope you all had a good one full of family, friends, food and football. I'll unpack tomorrow: I'm going to bed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone has a good one today; I'm spending the holiday with my friends the Davis clan up here in soggy Seattle, WA. Save me one of the legs and cheer for my beloved Texas Aggies as they face the Texas Longhorn juggernaut in our annual Thanksgiving weekend rivalry game. Gig me!

Have Turkey - Will Travel

I'm winging my way to Seattle, WA today to visit my friends Brent and Joanne and their daughter Anna (previously featured here) for the Thanksgiving weekend. I'm going to try to post a few times over the holidays but don't expect too much action on that front; I'm leaving my laptop at home since it doesn't travel well and I still need to focus on reading "Killing Pablo" for my book club meeting on Sunday. I'm out, bitches.