At 5:20 a.m., my neighbor goes out.
“Vroom!” goes the full-size SUV under my bedroom window, open to the cooling breezes of late spring.
At 5:30 a.m., someone drops off a child across the street; this neighbor baby-sits. The two adults stand in the driveway having a conversation. Their voices aren’t raised, but in the still morning they might as well be in bed with me.
Ten minutes after this, an automatic sprinkler system erupts. Sure, we’ve had rain out the wazoo these last few days, but those things are on timers and not easily overridden. “Hisssssss,” goes the sprinkler head. “Ticka-ticka-ticka.”
Sometime after that, my neighbor returns from his morning errand. The V-8 conquerer of highways comes back up the driveway. And a few minutes after that, my mattress dips. It’s my wonderful child, crawling in for five minutes of cuddles before we both have to get up, because it is, after all, a school day. Time to get up.
I have to change my life. Have. To. Change. By Thursday I’m so sleep-deprived I’m nearly hysterical. I feel as though I spend my life catching naps, which are invariably interrupted. You might have read about recent storms in the Midwest? Storms are followed by chain saws and wood-chippers. You’ve heard of the green revolution? That means three rounds of big trucks rumbling through the neighborhood on trash day (garbage, recycling, yard waste). Every lawn service uses gas-powered blowers, edgers and weed whips. Don’t get me started on the ice-cream truck.
And on those days when everything comes together for me, when I can sleep through the sprinklers and the SUV and everything else? Sometimes this requires me to go sleep in the guest room on the other side of the house. Those neighbors have a sprinkler, too, but sleep later. But there’s a line of arbor vitae along that side of the property, excellent nesting habitat. One blue jay greeting the day is all it takes.
Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just ranting. And starting tomorrow, my life will be changed. Yes, at long last, EndofSchoolFest 2008 is over, and I can sleep until I feel like getting up. Learning effectively ended a week ago, and since then it’s been party, party, party. Today, the last day, is a half day — it’s all over at lunchtime.
“Why are they even having school today?” I said over raisin bran at 7:30. Grumpily. (Yeah, go figure.) “What on earth are you going to do?”
“There’s a breakfast, and then a helicopter lands on the playground.”
Jesus Christ, and then what? Hannah Montana steps out and plays a four-song set? Bill Graham presents the Playboy Bunnies? No, it lands, everybody gets to look at the instrument panel and ask questions, and it takes off. One of her classmates’ father is a Coast Guard officer on the rescue chopper, and it’s just a treat for the kids. This is its second visit in three years. I talked to the Coastie’s wife at a school function a while ago. What sort of missions does that thing fly? I wondered. She said they evacuate a lot of sailors with chest pains from Great Lakes freighters, a procedure that, if you did it to me, would push me from mere chest pains to a full-blown heart attack. Nothing like being hauled up to an orange chopper in a basket to make a day interesting.
The promotion ceremony was sweet, though. And no one said a word about the flip-flops.
So, bitching aside, howzabout some bloggage:
Michelle Obama, “baby mama.” Yup. First the crazy negro fist bump, and now this. That clip of the Fox News host asking if the Obamas’ knuckle punch was “a terrorist fist jab” is overused — find it yourself on YT; I’m sure there are eight billion copies up there — but it reminded me of the first thing I ever read about this greeting. It was a story in which some baseball player was quoted as saying his secret to toughening up him mighty man-paws was soaking them in his own urine. The team’s manager was asked for a response, and he said, “Oh, no one really cares. Although no one shakes his hand anymore, either. We mostly just give him the fist.”
Personally, I’m all for handshake alternatives. In the labs at the Centers for Disease Control, I’m told, it’s considered very bad form to offer a handshake; the preferred greeting is the elbow bump.
Of course, if Fox News existed in Canada, we could fine them into the stone age. Not a good idea.
Bobby Jindal rides the Catholic Crazy Train all the way to Exorcism Station:
Whenever I concentrated long enough to begin prayer, I felt some type of physical force distracting me. It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe. . . Though I could find no cause for my chest pains, I was very scared of what was happening to me and Susan. I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.
Now I kinda hope McCain does ask him to be his running mate; this could be fun.
Guess what I can hear? A helicopter! Time to get to work:
moe99 said on June 12, 2008 at 9:58 am
Well my youngest graduated from high school, Tuesday night. I organized a dinner for 32 people–my son’s two best friends and their families and ours. All 3 families divorced and the two friends come from blended families.
The ex shows up and hands out donation envelopes to the adults sitting at my table. He’s running for state Treasurer in our state and as a Democrat. I thought that graduation night was supposed to be about the kids. More than one reason he’s the ex.
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Dorothy said on June 12, 2008 at 10:22 am
You need to get one of these: http://www.naturestapestry.com/whitenoise2.html
A couple of months ago I was being interviewed on campus for something I applied for (not a new job, but a volunteer advisory sort of thing). I had to go to the Health Center. While sitting in the waiting area, I noticed they had one of those white noise things going. The receptionist told me it was to cover up any voices that might accidentally be overheard in the offices. (I had sort of already figured that out on my own). She said it helps them protect privacy, etc. I thought it was a grand idea. It might help you – try it!
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Sue said on June 12, 2008 at 10:39 am
1. Moe, I think I’ve asked you this in the past: when is your book coming out? Really. It demands to be written.
2. Not that I’m defending fringe Catholicism or anything, but as an ex-Catholic I want to come to the defense of my mainstream Catholic pals. The two kernels of Catholicism in the Jindal story need some explanation: most serious Catholics are trained in prayer. You are supposed to strive for a deep state of meditation, a shift in your brainwaves, almost; an indication that you are closer to Christ. The Rosary is not just a bead necklace, folks. I don’t understand Jindal’s comment about concentrating enough to BEGIN prayer, I always understood it to be a process in which the beginning of prayer also begins the transition toward a meditative state of mind. And exorcism? You are supposed to stay far, far away from that. You open yourself to danger if curiosity and inexperience draws you toward that aspect of the church. Playing at exorcism and then pridefully taking credit for banishing a demon AND curing cancer should get you such a smack from the nuns that you’ll be able to stand forward and look backward for the next six months.
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john c said on June 12, 2008 at 11:07 am
I’ve never been pulled off a boat by a helicopter. But I once hitched a ride back from the Mackinac race with a fellow sailor and doctor who told me this story. He was crewing on a race off Key West on a very large boat. 70-something feet. He was on the foredeck and began to feel lightheaded, tight in the chest, heart fluttering, etc. He notified the captain, who called the Coast Guard. They got on the radio and said they could take him off the boat by helicopter. The doctor wasn’t sure. Maybe he was feeling better. Then the Coast Guard asked the skipper if his boat was prepared for handling a corpse. Okay, okay. The doctor said. Take me off. Firstly, it’s not easy to take anyone off a boat. Large racing boat becomes very small when compared to the ocean (did I mention it was very bad weather?). Then there’s the 90-foot mast pitching and rolling. They finally got the doctor friend in the harness and started winching him up. He was almost there when someone released his line. Down, down, down he went into the chilly waters. Voila. Heart fine.
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nancy said on June 12, 2008 at 11:19 am
I bet they did that on purpose.
As for exorcism: Maybe a little explanation is in order. The new traditionalism movement in Catholicism took me by surprise; I wasn’t aware of it until I started reading Amy Welborn’s blog some years back. These are the folks who are bringing back the 12-child families of my youth, but without the liberal Democratic politics that went along with it back then. (And that’s a gross oversimplification; they really sprawl along a fairly wide spectrum.) But one thing I noted when I started reading their blogs and comments and so forth: Lots of these folks loves them some exorcism.
And I’m sorry, but even though I got off that train several stops ago, this is the point where I want to blow up the tracks and derail it entirely. I think a central tenet of modernity has to be that when people start acting “possessed by a demon,” the proper response is to call a psychiatrist, not a priest. Growing up Catholic, I always understood Satan to be a metaphor for evil, not a guy in a red suit and a pitchfork.
When I was a columnist I wrote a lot about untreated mental illness, and I’m astonished by how prevalent the devil-possession idea still is, not just among Catholics but across the range of Christian faiths. The mental health people said they have to hold workshops for clergy and try to get them to understand about brain chemicals and antipsychotic drugs, and still some of them just flat refuse.
So when you tell me Jindal, a freakin’ Rhodes Scholar, is a participant in this b.s., I think this is simply a deal-breaker. I respect his faith, but when it goes this far it can, literally, affect public safety. (The guy who shot up the Congressional office building a few years ago was an untreated schizophrenic.) Follow the link to the excerpts of Jindal’s essay: He talks about “sulfuric smells” surrounding his friend.
Prayer I have zero problem with. Intense prayer I have zero problem with. Casting out demons? Problem with.
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Joe K said on June 12, 2008 at 11:36 am
N,
I frequently see the coast guard practicing when I go into Traverse City. They get up and hover and practice all sort’s of maneuvers. Looks like there just playing, but if my boat was sinking or my plane was going down in lake Michigan or Erie or St Clair, I would be glad that they practiced their search and rescue. Let the kids look and enjoy, If I see a kid hanging on the fence at a airport I always try to go over and get them to look at my bird. The look on most of their faces are incredible. Liked the You tube clip from Apocalypse’s now. Weird how they dubbed in the spanish voices and actually changed the music from CCR to someone else. Must have to do with rights.
Joe K
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Sue said on June 12, 2008 at 11:47 am
Well, as I noted, I am an ex-Catholic, and not just because I don’t like to go to Mass. Perhaps I should have elaborated: no, I’m not willing to go back to the days when mental illness was less well understood, and I don’t think demon possession explains schizophrenia, etc. But last I heard exorcism is still a recognized part of Catholicism, and the emphasis has always been that it is considered a professional matter: not every priest can do it, and lay people are supposed to avoid it completely.
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coozledad said on June 12, 2008 at 12:01 pm
When my mother was dying of lung cancer my aunt was at the bedside screaming that “she HAD to have a tombstone” because “the Bible said if you don’t have one you’ll go to hell”.
My wife was a Bible school groupie (before the hard sciences set her onto the path to damnation) encouraged by the spirit of Mammon and the prizes they handed out for memorizing verses. She can still raise her arms heavenward and start reeling ’em off like she’s the living vessel of John Brown, just to make me uneasy. The fact she looks a little like Cissy Spacek adds immeasurably to the effect.
Anyway, my wife felt sufficiently emboldened to tell my aunt she was full of shit, but diplomatically, of course.
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nancy said on June 12, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Oh, I agree, Sue. Funny, though, how often the “specialist” priests tend to be a little wack themselves.
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LAMary said on June 12, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I remember the Coast Guard being the people who didn’t wait for orders before rescuing people from rooftops in New Orleans. They just did what was obviously the right thing to do.
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John said on June 12, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Every time I hear of Bobby Jindal, all I think of is Bobby Boucher.
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Catherine said on June 12, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Maureen Dowd irritates me. But, I think she has a point that the coming attacks on Michelle Obama are in some ways similar to those on Hillary. Personal smears in politics are part of playing in that game; using gender as part of that is the twist we’ve seen play out in a big (bad) way this year.
I’d start getting fired up about this if it weren’t Thursday and I wasn’t hysterical with fatigue, as Nancy so eloquently put it. Maybe Monday I’ll pick up my cudgel…
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Hattie said on June 12, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Well, Nancy, suburban noise is 365 days a year in my neighborhood, plus which we are right under the flight path for our airport. But I kind of like it, because it masks the perpetual ringing in my ears!
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Danny said on June 12, 2008 at 1:49 pm
‘Chelley O’ needs to change her demeanor. If she keeps coming across as perpetually pissed off, people will not like it.
Any Republican that unfairly attacks her deserves all of the derision that can be heaped. That said, if she keeps giving speeches, the content of those speeches is fair game. N’est-ce que pas?
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velvet goldmine said on June 12, 2008 at 2:06 pm
When my grandfather died, he was visited by my cousin and his wife, who are into one of those no-drinking, church-in-the-house deals. Cousin’s wife kept pestering Grandpa if he had his relationship with Jesus in working order. My grandfather is a Unitarian, which he once explained to me as kind of like Christianity in that they believed in a lot of the same things, with the exception of considering Jesus “no big whoop.”
But he was patient about it for a long time, deflecting her questions like the gentleman he was. Finally, the only way he could shut her up was to gently tell her that he never discussed religion, politics or whether New England or Rhode Island is the perfect clam chowder.
That’s how I try to live my life, although I often fall down on the third one. C’mon! New England every time, and don’t even try to insert Manhattan into the discussion.
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Danny said on June 12, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I do not doubt the veracity of the Gospel accounts nor those in the Book of Acts. All but one of the Apostles was martyred, and unlike modern martyrs, if the Resurrection were a lie, they would have had to have been in on the fix and to have known that they were dying for a lie.
But regarding exorcism, though I believe in such a thing as demonic possession, I do not truck with it. Undoubtedly, the proper balance is that it is the exception and not the rule and that it is best left to professionals.
I’ve heard a few brief, reserved, first-hand reports from people I personally know and who are not given to sensationalism and hyperbole, much less insanity. The common theme is that it happens, it is foul and that it is suffcient to know just that. Not a subject for idol curiousity.
EDIT: That said, Bobby Jindal sounds unbalanced.
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Sue said on June 12, 2008 at 2:37 pm
The urbandictionary.com definition of Baby Mama:
“A term used to define an unmarried young woman (but can be a woman of any age) who has had a child. As mentioned before in another definition, most of the time it is used for when it was simply a sexual relationship, compared to ex-wife or girlfriend. Usually this has a negative connotation, a lot of baby mamas are seen as desperate, gold digging, emotionally starved, shady women who had a baby out of spite or to keep a man. Sometimes they may act like this because of missed child support payments, unfulfilled promises by the father, or convenient sex by the father. Either or both may exist in any situation.”
Don’t know why Michelle O would be pissed off by that term. I mean, at least Fox didn’t call her his ho.
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Dexter said on June 12, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Chris Wallace, guesting on Imus In the Morning, said that dumb ass Fox News woman apologized already. I was shocked to hear that woman say that. I wish she could have seen the rituals performed by the African American soldiers during the Vietnam war days. It was a bitch trying to get through the mess hall chow lines as the line moved so slowly due to the long ritual greetings. As time went by, something new was added. Each greeting took longer and longer and once the group became larger, the area became a big cluster-fuck of complicated handshaking and twisting and slapping hands and entertwining elbows, and everything sort of ceased. Eventually the chow line started crawling again, and in fifteen minutes the action shifted to the exit, where we’d stack our plates in a window for the KPs to wash. The exits became impassable as the handshakes and gyrations resumed. It was a real brotherhood, and nobody ever said a word to the fist pounders.
Terrorist fist pound my ass. How’d that goddam maroon ever get hired? And how did she keep her job?
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Dexter said on June 12, 2008 at 3:17 pm
A helicopter picked me up from a remote area and flew directly to the airbase at Cam Ranh Bay. I was put on a manifest and after four days waiting, I was called to board a Flying Tiger jet plane to Tokyo. I flew a lot in helicopters as a medic, and no ride was sweeter than that last one to the Air Force base.
Now I am less than a half mile from the heliport for the local hospital, and I hear choppers flying overhead at all hours, and it is the most comforting noise I know.
It’s just a gratitude check for me; 37 years since my last ride and I don’t mind the flashbacks to my last ride at all.
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Danny said on June 12, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Fox needs to come correct on this. This is just BS.
I went to Malkin’s website to see what she had to say. From her site:
I did not write the caption and I was not aware of it when it ran (the Baltimore studio doesn’t have a monitor). I don’t know if the caption writer was making a lame attempt to be hip, clueless about the original etymology of the phrase, or both. But I do know that it was Michelle Obama herself who referred to Barack as her “baby’s daddy” and has used the phrase “baby daddy” to describe Barack while on the stump this year.
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MichaelG said on June 12, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Well, if Barack isn’ her baby’s daddy, who would be?
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Jolene said on June 12, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Yeah, Malkin is trying to obscure the difference between “baby mama” (an attribute of the mother) and “baby’s daddy” (an attribute of the father, as described by the mother). I’ve never heard anyone say “baby daddy,” and it seems a little unlikely that Michelle would have referred to Barack in this way.
Malkin is easily one of the most unpleasant people in the blogosphere. I don’t follow her, but I see her stuff occasionally, and I always wonder how she manages to stay alive given her perpetual outrage, which must surely be bad for her blood pressure.
I wish Obama didn’t have to keep saying, “I am not a Muslim.” I keep thinking of all the Americans who are Muslims and how they must feel every time they hear it.
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Jeff said on June 12, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Unitarian — someone who believes in no more than one God!
(I think that was Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it’s a good quote whomever said it.)
Possession by demonic forces is something i keep an open mind on, such as with ghosts and UFOs, but not so open as to let my brains fall out. Those who profess to have God’s ATM number and personal pin for either a) success or b) casting out said evil are almost certainly claiming more than is theirs to claim.
What i have seen, do see, are people who are emotionally and/or mentally unstable who get picked up by lasting eddys in the popular currents of the day, are spinning themselves and sucking others into their dizzy pointlessness. This can be charmingly eccentric (8,000 beanie babies) or utterly deranged (stalking behavior and worse). There are times when a person is clearly seized by forces beyond their control, and our ability to break the cycle with meds and talk therapy is quite limited. So . . .
So . . . i don’t exorcise or date girls who do, but i can see where it could be a useful adjunct for aiding a person, and even a pretty fair description psycho-socially of what someone’s experiencing — clinically useful, no, but how much of life fits clinical categories, anyhow?
What’s problematic for me as a person of faith is that those who get “into” exorcism become like that famous young fellow with a hammer: the whole world starts to look like a demon’s head, and they’re gonna whack it, and whack it hard.
I’m more of an adze & planer kind of guy when it comes to smoothing out the bumps found in any typical spiritual life, but others like power tools.
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Jeff said on June 12, 2008 at 5:06 pm
By the way, thanks for all the kind notes re: this — http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/12/severe.weather/index.html
We have one more day and then tomorrow night with the Cub Scouts here in central Ohio; i’ve never been to this camp in Iowa, but couldn’t even count how many pre-summer camp JLTs i’ve helped lead over the years, and it just breaks my heart for those families. It sounds like the surviving young men were just absolutely awesome, and knew exactly what to do, for which i am proudly leaking tears right now over this keyboard.
“Be Prepared.” Because you never know what you have to be prepared FOR.
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MaryC said on June 12, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Re the Maclean’s hearing, as a Canadian I cringe to see it despite my dislike for Steyn and the remora that swim in his wake. His “The Islamonazis are coming” shtick is hateful but I want to say to the Muslim groups who brought this to court: Write something that proves he’s wrong. Live your lives so that you prove he’s wrong. Make fun of him. But don’t make the majority of Canadians, who don’t agree with him, take his side on this one.
The Keegstra case that the NY Times mentions was a difficult one but the same applied: Fire him for teaching his students that the Holocaust was a Jewish hoax but don’t jail him for it, you only create a martyr who doesn’t deserve the attention. What really made the case so awful is that he did this for years without being stopped. He taught in a little school in an isolated rural area where he was the only authority students had on history. There was no-one to contradict what he said. And of course kids love conspiracy so what’s not to like about a teacher who lets you on the secrets of Zionist world domination? Of course if it hadn’t been an isolated rural area this whackball wouldn’t have had a job as a teacher anyway.
About helicopters, I worked in a job where I took one every week. Our major client had an office on an island off the coast and it was faster to take the helicopter commuter service than the ferry. Depending on how many passengers were traveling, they’d bring out the helijet that seated 40 passengers in luxury or the little one where up to 12 passengers could be crammed in. I loved the helijet and dreaded the little one. It was so small that you could touch the pilot from any seat and if you were at all claustrophobic you were in trouble. But I did love the feeling of rising straight up in the air on takeoff – never got tired of that.
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Dave said on June 12, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Bill Graham introducing the Playboy bunnies, Nance? As in Fillmore West Bill Graham? He’s long departed the scene. In a helicopter crash. I wasn’t sure with the way you phrased it, mentioning Hannah Montana and Bill Graham like that, whether it was to be funny or if I’m being silly to even bring it up.
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nancy said on June 12, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Oh, I know. But that’s him in the movie clip, a great little cameo in “Apocalypse Now.”
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Deborah said on June 12, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I’m a big Obama fan and I love Michelle, but I heard her with my own ears refer to her husband as “baby daddy”. But that’s OK because she’s the one who said it, it’s her culture. Not Fox’s.
On another note I have a theory that the Republicans are doing these attacks on Michelle strategically to call off the dogs from Cindy McCain’s drug abuse and stealing drugs from her own charity which she was caught doing. They know that Obama would not stoop to using that against McCain and they want to make damn sure that nobody else does. By pre-empting with attacks on Michelle and having Dems object strongly, they can call the Dems on hypocrisy later if anyone tries to mess with Cindy.
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basset said on June 12, 2008 at 10:47 pm
the way I heard it, if you want to run a Unitarian out of town you burn a question mark in their front yard.
I can say that, I was married in a Unitarian church not long after a tornado came through town and took out, among other structures, several churches. so some or all of them, I don’t know which, went in together on a plain, cinderblock temporary building and put all their stuff up in the sanctuary for use at their various service times.
On the wedding day, my seventeen-year-old brother was rather confused by the variety of signs, equipment, and so forth around the room. then again, we were raised “unchurched,” as the Baptists say it, so what do we know?
Scouts… my son is an Eagle and taught younger Scouts at the district camp east of Nashville last summer. I can only hope he would do so well in a dangerous situation.
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Dexter said on June 13, 2008 at 1:50 am
The Fillmore West in San Francisco was legendary, but by the time I got there, I didn’t know how to act. Joy of Cooking opened and the headliner act was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Both groups were really jammin’, and I just wanted to move around to the beat , you know—like people DO at concerts, right? But the Fillmore crowd just sat on the floor absolutely motionless—damn did I feel out of place. I was celebrating being released from from my military service active duty and I wanted to get loud and party…but that place was like a morgue. At least I got there once.Oh…more than likely no one remembers Joy of Cooking…as I recall, three girl guitar players and great vocals .
Graham had Fillmore East in NYC, too, I believe, but I never made it there.
And if anyone missed it, Apocalypse Now was re-released several years ago as Apocalypse Now Redux, with more scenes which never should have ever hit the cutting room floor.
There is a dinner scene on the rubber plantation which spells out the true nature of US involvement over there.
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coozledad said on June 13, 2008 at 6:32 am
Speaking of apocalypse, our weather forecast here today calls for “smoky”. There’s a 40,000 acre wildfire in a pocosin some 200 miles east of here, and the smoke is so thick people are having to burn their headlights as far west as Raleigh and Greensboro.
I thought the guy on the next farm over was burning a stack of tires. It’s reassuring to know he’s not that big a dipshit.
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LA Mary said on June 13, 2008 at 9:53 am
I went to the Fillmore East, Dexter. I saw Jethro Tull there, and the Mothers of Invention. Edgar Winter, Humble Pie and Albert King too. There were others but for some reason my memories are foggy.
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Danny said on June 13, 2008 at 9:54 am
Smoky, eh? I know that forecast. That’s when it’s October wildfire season in So Cal.
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Danny said on June 13, 2008 at 11:15 am
I have Allman Bros Live at the Filmore East on my song rotation for bike rides now. It’s actually the complete Filmore concerts. A re-release.
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velvet goldmine said on June 13, 2008 at 11:47 am
When I saw Cindy McCain on something or other last night, this and an earlier NN.C post popped into my head and I wondered if the caption might read “Plastered-on c**t.”
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Dave said on June 13, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Wasn’t familiar with the Apocalypse Now reference, quite frankly, I’ve only seen that movie once and that was a long time ago.
Joy of Cooking? Now there’s a name I had completely forgotten but somewhere around here, I’ve got a Quicksilver album.
When I was in high school, every Monday morning I’d go to the school library and read the New York Times entertainment section, just slobbering over the entertainment ads for who was playing in NYC. I did get to New York, finally, but didn’t make it to the Fillmore East, come to think of it, Fillmore East probably wasn’t open yet the first time I was there.
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Mosef said on June 14, 2008 at 12:44 am
I think it is interesting that there are 36 posted comments and only one that addresses the Maclean/Steyn trial. It is a kangaroo court that strikes at free thought and attempts to criminalize opinion speech. (BTW, MaryC, I’d be interested in any direct quote from Steyn’s piece that you believe illustrates his hatefulness.) I would think that the journalist in Nancy could muster something stronger than “Not a good idea”. Ya-think??? Where’s the outrage against these “Human Rights” tribunals? Note to the thin-skinned: Freedom from offense is actually NOT a human right, but free thought and speech is.
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