Jesus Babies: The Real Conservative Crusade

You've heard conservatives lament the horror of Anchor Babies: children born on American soil, making them American citizens, to the parents of illegal immigrants. It's the theme, purpose, and strategy of the immigrants and it must be stopped!

You may have also heard the paranoid rantings of some elected officials blathering on about Terror Babies. These are the Taliban counterparts to their Hispanic compatriots and should completely scare the crap out of us because, um, terrorists, duh!

(Your mission: draw cute, cartoon-y versions of stereotypical illegal immigrants and terrorists - as babies. Awwww...watcha watcha intafada taco? Brrth?)

But the real point of this post is that the sometime raving and ranting on the right over the Anchor and Terror Babies betrays the real reason for their perplexing focus of women's health care and Planned Parenthood: Jesus Babies.

It's the same reason (in my opinion) Christianity and other religions encoded into their doctrines the need to consummate a marriage and avoid birth control: more babies means more Christians. Some estimates have white people as a minority in the USA by 2042, and that scares the shit out of the rich, white right wing. More babies, more Whites, more babies, more Christians.

And yet they're wrong again. The growing secular population in America paired with the growing liberal - moving forward - crowd will actually mean less Christians, less 100% white people. It will mean more abortions - legal or not - and more deaths and more illness and more orphaned children.

In their heads, the brown people are winning the population race. And they don't know what to do about it. So? Apply Christian doctrine to law!

This is just me, but:

"Liberals look back at the last 50 years, figure we've done pretty well moving forward in the rights of women and minorities, but know there's much yet to do. Conservatives look back 50 years and are horrified that it still doesn't look like that now."

-Ricky Shambles


Sorry conservatives, but "Where's Mammy with my mint julep?" is never coming back.

Dear Washington: You're Assholes

You're all assholes.

Republicans: You lie and rely on your crazy wing and AM fakery to scare the shit out of everyone.

Democrats: You fold like a wet card castle and then whine about it.

America: You keep voting for people who want to be politicians.

We need to take representation like jury duty.

Why do things suck right now? WE made it this way.

Star Wars Perspective: Darth & Luke

I was in a client meeting this week that turned into a geekfest of sorts (as is wont with us web guys) and my client said something that I had not really considered before in relation to his son: the differentiation in the view of the six movies that we know as Star Wars.

For me, in my mid-30's, I experienced Star Wars - albeit not all in the theater (I saw RotJ with popcorn when I was seven) - as a wonderful trilogy, an arcing coming of age story of the development of a boy turned man who eventually knew the truth of his past and confronted his father. It was a story about Luke Skywalker. Re-watching this tale on VHS (over and over) only reconfirmed this reading.

When I was out of college and saw Episodes I-III, I saw it as an origin story: these are the tales that lead to the story of Luke Skywalker - and the coolest part is we see how Anakin grows as "The Chosen One" and (we all know) turns to the Dark Side to become Darth Vader. Oh, how wonderfully complex and nuanced! I just about literally drool over the presentation and resolution and composition.

But kids growing up now - or from slightly-pre-1999 on - see this basic culturally-relevant, pop-culture reality in a completely different way. Instead of starting with Episode IV and mulling over it for years, they start with Episode I, with Anakin. And that transforms everything.

In the generation quickly slipping just past me, there is an understanding that these six movies are a tale of Anakin Skywalker turned dark to Darth Vader, his interactions with his son, and, finally, his death. For them, Star Wars is the life story of Darth Vader.

The story had to be told (maybe without Jar Jar), and the younger generation will still get the overriding themes, but when I watched Episode IV, I was watching the beginning of the redemption of a villain. When they do, they begin with some level of empathy and understanding of who this masked man is.

Neither one is right, but I would argue that the original presentation provides a more dramatic experience, and would argue that: if you have children or know children being introduced into the Star Wars cannon, do IV-VI first and then present them with I-III.

And one day, when Lucas realizes the world will not actually end in 2012, perhaps we can look forward to some VII-IX with Leia and Han's kids, and we can all - once again - be children in awe watching this saga unfold.

Conservative Crazy #96: Kill the President?

You may recall I've been monitoring my right-wing email (Human Events) subscriptions for 365 Ways to Make a Liberal Crazy.

Today, I must report, ...shit man. I hate the "Really?" common phraseology, but - Really?

96: Say a Prayer
Dear Lord, you took my favorite actor Patrick Swayze. You took my favorite actress Farrah Fawcett. You took my favorite singer Michael Jackson. I just wanted to let you know that my favorite president is Barack Obama. Amen.

Let's joke about the President's death and pair it with a Christian prayer. Awesome. As always, the lack of understanding of humor and the batshit crazy flourishes on the right.

In Short: Hannity is a Rube

And I don't mean Rube Goldberg.

Today on Hannity's Radio Debacle, he interviewed Vox Day, author of The Return of the Great Depression, and through the process of the softball sales pitch for Vox's book Sean gets more and more "troubled." "Well, I don't know; it's a little apocalyptic," he said.

Sean: Vox Day is the "brilliant economist" that is the basis of the ads on your show with the website address TheEndOfAmerica.com. What the fuck did you think he was going to talk about?

I swear every day is more surreal than the last.