Nancy Pelosi: Idiot

House Speaker and professional sparrow impersonator Nancy Pelosi recently made a tearful plea to dial down the rhetoric in this country. I'm assuming she was talking about the semi-literate shouting, racist message board posting, and unintelligible grunting of those Republicans, conservatives, Libertarians, Baptists, tax burdens, automotive refueling specialists, chiropractors, and fake eyelash models who choose to voice their displeasure with the Obama administration and the work of the Democratic congress in the most witless and quasi-threatening ways possible.

"I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance," she said. Redundancy aside, this statement is simply deplorable coming from an elected official. There is no "balance" between freedom and safety. The two aren't mutually exclusive, despite what Pelosi (or Dick Cheney, for that matter) would have us believe.

She went on to talk about the rioting and killings she witnessed in 1970s San Francisco, when political and religious hatred culminated in the deaths of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. She described the time as a "climate in which violence took place". But she doesn't seem to understand that just because there is a climate where violence takes place, that doesn't mean the climate caused the violence.

I absolutely believe that a large part of the TEA party protests, health care reform hysteria, and Obama backlash in this country comes from a place of vile misinformation and even outright racism. I live in Louisiana, and I'm surrounded by some of the most disgusting "rhetoric" I've ever heard. I've received chain emails at my office address whose only punchlines are about how much Michelle Obama resembles a gorilla. On the day after the election, I was forwarded a Photoshop job of Air Force One decked out in flashy rims and gold trim. I was asked face-to-face by a colleague why any white person would vote for Obama.

But Obama didn't create racism, just as Harvey Milk didn't create homophobia. The problems are already there, and the crazies already exist. They have a louder megaphone right now because they have an identifiable target. But words, no matter how loud, how stupid, how crass, or how horrible are protected in this country.

Pelosi said that people are free to speak, though she was quick to add, "...I also think they have to take responsibility for any incitement they may cause." This is dangerous territory. To blame a criminal's violent actions on the speech of those with whom they agree ideologically isn't only anti-liberty, it's also condescending to the sanity and intelligence of the public at large. Of all the people who bought anti-Obama t-shirts depicting him as Curious George because they believe there's no difference between a black man and an ape, how many took the extra step to hunt Obama down and shoot him like an animal? And if that had ever happened, would the t-shirt printer be to blame? Or what about everyone who wore one of those shirts?

Nancy Pelosi doesn't believe in free speech, or she wouldn't toss it into the pile of liberties that have to be "balanced" with security. She would instead rather equate idiocy with criminality. And in the process, she won't have to defend her position with anything like reason or facts. By discouraging her loudest and most self-destructive opponents from speaking, she's handing them a victory in the court of ideas.

For the record, I voted for Obama. While I'm disappointed in his failure so far to live up to promises about repealing anti-gay policies, rolling back anti-liberty Bush-era laws, and aggressively prosecuting human rights violators at the highest levels of government, I do generally support the health care reform measures being proposed by the Democratic party. I've resigned myself to the fact that while Democrats tend to promise things I want and fail to follow through with them, Republicans promise things I often despise and have a habit of making good on those promises.

So while I'm not in the corner of the gun-toting, face-reddening racists and paranoid conspiracy theorists who seem to have gotten Pelosi's goat, I'm not in favor of implying that they're too stupid or insane to not resort to violence when they hear Obama's a secret Muslim terrorist or the Antichrist or a commie Marxist fascist. As Pelosi herself says, this is rhetoric. It's empty posturing. And allowing it to continue embarrassing itself in the public sphere is the only way to shut it down for good. Being afraid of it only gives it legitimacy.*

*As a nod to the possibility that this post may rise above the usual discourse on this blog, I can only offer the following words: Poo-poo pants.

Lips off the Blood

Twice a year, the blood of St. Gennaro which is kept in a glass phial in Naples, Italy is said to miraculously liquefy. As far as miracles go, this seems pretty underwhelming, especially since it probably wouldn't take much more miracle magic to have the blood glow bright orange, fly out of the phial, and travel the countryside curing cancer. Still, it's impressive to a lot of Neopolitans, who look forward to the biannual festivals where the phial is brought out for public kissing. Only the local authorities have banned kissing the phial this month, fearing all that spit swapping might lead to a fatal case of swine flu. Italy had its first H1N1 fatality only recently, but no saint stepped in to stop it. That's a bad sign. Still, the locals are pissed. One politician says the ban will only contribute to swine flu hysteria, and others believe that if the blood isn't seen to liquefy, it'll be a bad omen for Naples. Scientists and other curmudgeons believe there's nothing miraculous about the liquefication of the blood, hypothesizing that moving the phial around causes the dry blood to get all moist due to a process called thixotropy. As compromise, the people of Naples will be allowed to touch the phial with their foreheads, since you'd have to be an idiot to think that could spread germs. More details here.

Super Beach Bug

The beaches of Puget Sound aren't just for getting your surf on and thinking about finally going after that foul beast what swallowed your hardy crew. No, they're also a fine source of potentially fatal multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, bacteria that are immune to any attempts you might make to stop them from killing you. MRSAs are often found in hospitals, where they can infect people with severe illnesses. But University of Washington researchers found the bacteria on several Puget Sound beaches, with no obvious source. Since MRSAs are salt-loving, it's not unusual that they would thrive in ocean water, though they aren't naturally occurring. The good news is that most people are able to survive MRSA infection. The bad news is that some people aren't able to survive MRSA infection. Swim at your own risk. More details here.

Totally Overlapping Magisteria

Cash on Deliverance
by Christian Walters

Recently, Brian castigated me on the podcast for not having written in too long. Maybe if I wasn't so busy fielding calls whenever he has three Red Bulls and rollerblades through town naked looking for "Romanian cootchie", I'd have more time to write. I have to maintain my day job just to keep him supplied with bail money and hand lotion.

It occurs to me if I were rich, I could lose the day job, write more often, and hire an assistant to pay the hush money to the Bucharest Daily Telegraph. It's foolproof, except for that one small hurdle of finding a giant pile of money. I need to start a cult.

Looking around at the current cults, there appear to be two types that would put me on the fast track to wealth:

Self-Help Bullshit Cults

This is appealing because you can claim absolutely anything is the path to enlightenment, or immortality, or gives you a window seat on the Holy Starship when it has defeated the Giant Space Weevil and comes to bring us home. The more insane your claims, the better. You'll get a few skeptics warning people that all they will get from my one-on-one services will be cold sores and a rash, but we don't truck with those Priests of Sciencism, those Popes of Proof.

First step is to get a wealthy, stupid celebrity to champion your cause. It's tempting to go for Oprah Winfrey, but she's far too diversified with her self-help bullshit. She lacks the laser focus we'd need.

My choice: Jessica Alba. Why Jessica? She's rich enough to afford to tithe. She's attractive enough that the media will listen to her. She's a shitty actress, so there aren't any non-porno roles written especially for her, giving her free time for church duties and making me sandwiches. Judging from her interviews, she's brick stupid. She's portrayed a woman with gonorrhea of the throat, so she is already familiar with the new church's rituals. And she's a mom, so she can claim that "mother's intuition" crap when cornered.


Unfortunately, I will declare mesh tops an abomination and confiscate them immediately.

Drawbacks: Just one. Starting up a cult this insane will get me sued by the Scientologists for copyright infringement. Together, Jessica and I are powerful, but not powerful enough to defeat Jenna Elfman and Chaka Khan when they start throwing lawyers at us. Two places I do not want to be are prison and Clearwater, Florida, and this scheme might get me in both at the same time.

Prosperity Cults

This is a little more like it. It's no less insane than the Self-Help Bullshit Cult, but the cash starts flowing immediately. It's a tasty blend of Christian fundamentalism and pyramid schemes, whipped into a giant cash mousse, waiting for someone to bring a nice long spoon. For those of you not familiar with how a prosperity cult works, let me describe the most famous example: World Changers Church International.

This hallowed institution is founded by the Rev. Creflo Dollar (no, really), right here in Atlanta. Their motto is "You can be rich, healthy and trouble free. Jesus was rich and God wants you to be rich." This is demonstrably true with one look at the Rev. Creflo Dollar (if you can spot him before he jumps into his Lear jet), but this truth is less obvious among the congregation, who are gently reminded to tithe with the friendly "be a shame if something happened to your grandma" approach you normally see from extortionists.


"The Lord has declared I need more champagne in my jacuzz--... what do you mean I'm being sued for fraud?"

I'm not sure where the health part comes in. After you've been getting all prosperous with Rev. Dollar for awhile, you spend your non-church time rooting in the dumpster behind a Red Lobster. I suppose that's the path to health in a sort of tangential, non-medical way?

I don't want to get away from the point here: LEAR JET.

These people are eating this shit up faster than a half-chewed crab cake. They might as well be stuffing bills into your pockets. The World Changers Church only has 15,000 members. I doubt that even scratches the gullibility surface in Atlanta. I have a venue picked out: Philips Arena.

Philips Arena is home to the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Thrashers. So there are always PLENTY of empty seats to have a nice Prayer Shakedown. Thrashers season-ticket holders are right in my target demographic, too: disposable income, full of false hope, and comfortable with disappointment. Of course, there are concerts too, which could get crowded, but look at what's coming in the next few months: Sesame Street Live, Metallica, and Miley Cyrus. Cha-ching.

Drawbacks: There are a couple of big ones.

One is that prosperity cults are getting glared at by the government just now. Killjoys at the IRS are suspicious of Rev. Creflo zipping around in a Lear jet as the head of a tax-exempt non-profit religious institution.

Also, prosperity cults may have destroyed the world. These congregations were convinced the Lord wanted them to have big, expensive houses, and he cleared the way for them by helping them qualify for sub-prime mortgages. Five years later, the Lord decided he did not want them to have such a big house and cleared the way for them to default on their mortgages. Pretty soon they were fighting for a dishwasher box with the same ex-banker that gave them the mortgage to begin with. It's because of this that I have a Google alert set for "Creflo Dollar Drawn and Quartered."

Lastly, for this to work in America, you have to surround yourself with fundamentalist Christians. That's quite a sacrifice on my part just so Brian can get a job as a balance beam for some Romanian gymnasts.

In Conclusion

I have left out a couple of popular cults: death cults and suicide cults. These have their charms. The sense of power you get from standing in front of a room full of followers as they poison themselves while you chant your manifesto... that's got to be a rush. But it's not going to make you rich. Eyes on the prize, people. (It might be a good exit strategy when you get sick of running your prosperity cult, though. Remember which Holy Chalice contains the antidote!)

The more I think on it, the more I think I'll skip the cult idea. The downsides are too steep.

Sorry, Brian. I know you're tired of the endless visits from 60 Minutes. We'll move on to Plan B, but you're going to have to release those Cub Scouts.

Christian Walters lives, loves, and drives in the Atlanta area. He's a technical writer by training, and a Rock Band Adonis by nature. He has honed his reviewing skills on bad movies, which are as rare as pollen grains these days. He has always been a fan of science, and has studied it as much as he could by flinging a Frisbee around campus while getting a liberal arts degree. You can find his personal blog, The Man Version, right here.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

Australia's Heart Research Foundation has just completed a major study looking into the physical effects of sudden grief brought on by the death of a loved one, and it turns out a person can die from a broken heart. Or more accurately, a person may die from the increase in blood pressure and heart rate and changes in the immune system suffered during mourning. People who had recently lost a spouse or child were six times more likely to have heart attacks in the first several months after the death. However, the elevated risk disappeared after about two years. Which just goes to prove another old adage: time heals all wounds. Well, time and medication. Mostly medication. More details here.

Hero

Prof. Norman Borlaug died earlier this week. In the early '60s, Borlaug created a genetically modified strain of wheat that grew with a shorter stem, freeing up energy to produce larger heads of grain. This short-stem wheat contributed to the doubling of food production worldwide in the thirty years after it was introduced and saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people who would otherwise have starved to death. For his efforts, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Short-stem wheat doesn't occur anywhere in nature. It's a product of scientific tinkering and a humanist desire to make life for human beings better than nature would otherwise allow. If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of morons who believes no one should produce genetically modified crops, please take this opportunity to go fuck yourself. More details here. And thanks to Adonaj for the link.

Idiocy Turns off the Radio

Members of the Earth Liberation Front (or "ELF", if you want to be all Middle Earth about it) aren't incredibly united on what exactly it is they plan on liberating Earth from. They usually commit grand acts of larceny, arson, and vandalism against those they think are polluting the planet or otherwise abusing natural resources. And perhaps this wouldn't be a totally unreasonable position if human lives weren't endangered in the process or the fumes from all the tractors they've set aflame didn't create even more pollution. But every now and then, an ELF cell goes off and does something weird. I guess that's the price you pay for being a leaderless organization of absent minded trust fund babies. Case in point: the destruction of two AM radio station towers in Washington state. You might think AM radio waves aren't much of a threat to Earth (unless, of course, you're talking about stations that carry Glenn Beck's show), but ELF disagrees. Or rather, ELF agrees with some other nutcases who think AM radio waves cause cancer, hurt animals, and fuck with your phone line. It probably goes without saying that there's no evidence to support any of those claims. But what does that matter when knocking down giant radio towers is so damn fun? More details here.