The Middle Distance

Now that hopefully this "birther" nonsense has been laid to rest, I'd like to consider some of the aesthetic reasons that, IMO, it's a FAIL as historical legends go. It's batshit insane, of course, especially as one goes further and further down the rabbit hole trying to explain why there was already an international conspiracy surrounding the birth of some college kids' kid back in 1961. But it's not batshit insane enough--it's not just that it doesn't hold water, but it also doesn't have enough symbolically-resonant absurdity to make really good conspiracy fiction. Even Robert Anton Wilson couldn't have done much with it.

If you want an example of a whackjob theory that has literary legs, this one is just about my favorite:

Is George W. Bush Really a Grandson of Aleister Crowley?

Did you ever lose a night's sleep wondering that? Now you will. You're welcome.

Yes, this is a real thing, as things go: (warning: links lead to crazycakes)
http://truthalliance.net/Archive/News/tabid/67/ID/336/font-color0079D4Is-Aleister-Crowley-the-Father-of-Barbara-Bushfont.aspx
http://www.moneyteachers.org/Aleister+Crowley+Barbara+Bush.htm
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=39&contentid=4506
http://forum.davidicke.com/showthread.php?t=30953


Behold the face of the New Aeon!



Spew What Thou Swilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law


(Now, in reference to this post, if I were writing historical fantasy fiction about the 20th/21st centuries two hundred years from now, this would totally be true in my fictional world.)

So I was walking to my bus route and back, and mentally wanting to put a Molotov cocktail through the window of everyone who couldn't be arsed to shovel or put down salt. Because you might think the ice on your stretch of sidewalk is no big deal. For yourself.

BUT...if you're clumsy and have no health insurance (cause you're underemployed and broke, as many of us are these days)--and are in the US;I'm ranting about Chicago people here--you know damn well that every chance you have of falling and hurting yourself might mean that your parents could lose their house if you wind up suddenly hospitalized. For us pedestrians, it's often safer to walk in the street than on the sidewalks, and even so we have to go slow and grope the iron fences.


Mostly, the worst offenders are yuppie condos. People who have garages right under their lofts, and so have no vested interest in the general communal life of the city, which involves WALKING.

http://www.servicemembersunited.org/survey

This is the survey the Pentagon sent out to service members regarding DADT.

It basically boils down to 32 pages of variations on the theme of:

Q. I will treat other human beings in my unit as human beings if I find out they are gay/lesbian, true/false?

A. (multiple choice):

1. Yes

2. No

3. Maybe, but ICK! I won't like it.

4. I'm too ignorant to know or care.


Yes, I've read the whole thing all the way through, and I would definitely quit any job who thought this line of questioning was appropriate in any way. Yes, I get that in the military it's different, you sign up for a contract and you have to take orders...so isn't it long past time someone with authority stood up and said GLBT PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE AND THEY ARE YOUR COMRADES, SO MAN UP, SOLDIER, AND GET OVER YOUR STUPID SUPERSTITIOUS PREJUDICES OR ELSE?

(And if the Pentagon is so worried about the possibility of people feeling uncomfortable about folks maybe getting checked out in the showers...maybe they might want to do something about the widespread and well-documented rape of female soldiers by male soldiers allegedly on their same side? Cause I can't think of anything more damaging to unit cohesion than that.)

My state's ex-governor's wife ate a tarantula on a reality show yesterday.

His first executive order: Close Gitmo, ban torture.

I feel like I'm waking up from a very, very long nightmare. With one flourish of his pen, millions of Americans are beginning to recover from the oppressive sense of shame the Bush administration's international shitbaggery has brought on us all.

Me? Well, I've been sleep-deprived for four days straight, and I'm just beginning to recover from the oppressive - but FUCKING JOYOUS - exhaustion.

By my calculations, me and a bunch of my Chicago homies walked from RFK stadium to the Washington Monument and back on Tuesday - and not by the most direct route either. I'm guessing, counting all the meandering, it was in the neighborhood of 10 miles. This on two hours of sleep after shaking it in thrift-shop formalwear at the Big Shoulders Ball (we all wore Chicago-flag lapel pins!) Remember, our hotel was in Baltimore. We drove there and back after the ball. ><

For the inauguration? We stood by the Washington Monument in the cold wind, jumping up and down on our toes to catch glimpses of the nearest jumbotron, which was not very near. But the sound system was good, and we heard everything - down to Roberts flubbing the oath, OMG, passive-aggressive much? (Remember, Obama voted to not confirm him!) The crowd? All roughly two million of us? Like Grant Park times 10. Confused, cold, tired, frustrated - and so, SO incredibly joyous and kind to one another. Even the police and military herding us around couldn't wipe off the grins. I'm still wearing mine. I'm exhausted and achy and I caught a cold, but I would totally do it all over again and again and again.

Thanks again to lillithj and her hubby for the hospitality, the kitty and puppy love, the rides to and from the Metro station, and the awesome Mexican food!

Also good news? My parents have wireless Internet now.

Now it can be told: I wrote Seven Signs, Seven Seals (Delivered - I'm Yours!) for htebazytook. She's one of my favorite writers in the fandom, so it was awesome to get to write for her, especially since she offered up a prompt that played right to my weaknesses. Crowley and Aziraphale are unleashed on the 2008 Presidential election.


(I thought this would be super-obvious, especially considering my Yuletide story, but no one guessed it.)

Here's an interesting US politics trivia trend:

Did you know that George W. Bush is the first right-handed US President since Jimmy Carter? (Carter's immediate predecessor Gerald Ford was left-handed as well.)

And that in the 1992 race, all three main competitors--George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot--were left-handed?

If the 2008 race shakes out to be Barack Obama vs. John McCain (which certainly seems to be the way it's going), the next President will be left-handed, either way.

Only somewhere between 10 and 15% of the general population is left-handed. (I'm not, I just find this interesting.) Let the conspiracy theories begin! (or, y'know, not).

Primary in my home state today. Gee, wonder which way it's going to go. (not!)

I had one of those dipshit 3 AM revelations:

Presidents are father figures--the Good Father or the Bad one, either way.

I am NOT psychologically ready to have a President who's only 8 years older than me!

Younger than many good friends of mine. Younger than many I've dated.

I remember the little meltdown my dad had the first time the POTUS was younger than him (Clinton). I think mine will be worse when that happens.

OK, back to my regularly-scheduled delegate-fuzzy-math-geeking.

Semi-coherent conspiracy theory post about rigged elections on one of my political communities. I was willing to play along until I got to this sentence: I believe that's why Barack came as hard as he did in his speech tonight mentioning Karl Rove.

EEEEEWWWWWWWW.

I VOTED.

ursuscelticus will recognize a reprise of some themes, clarified and expanded....


( I made it through the wilderness... )

Whew. It was a harder choice than you might think. But not as hard as it would've been if JE hadn't dropped out.