Democracy's lexically transmitted disease

One of the more entertaining cues to watch for as to what's important to a given political actor (particularly one not known for eloquence) is when he, she or it suddenly turns into a dictional stickler.

The most obvious example at the moment is the overserved dispute dawdling in the elite echo chamber over whether Iraq is really a "civil war," or just "violent factional skirmishing," or "an inordinately raucous orgy of freedom," or something else entirely.

But examples are all around. Take the bill that recently passed in Congress making it a crime to "threaten or intimidate" medical researchers who use animal subjects, deemed the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act:"

"The frightening thing for me is that it heavily criminalizes civil disobedience, and just for animal rights activists," said Lori Nitzel, a Madison attorney and executive director of Alliance for Animals, a statewide group that pledges nonviolence.

Yes, forget, "Go limp!" and sit-ins, apparently "civil disobedience" burns considerably more calories these days:

During the protests, which were carried out at seven homes over four nights, about a dozen activists broadcast test-lab footage from the video truck and yelled epithets through bullhorns. They distributed fliers to neighbors with the researchers' photographs, addresses and alleged misdeeds, and they left sidewalk chalk markings such as "monkey murderer."

Well, I'm sure that will compel those simian scourges to pack up their probes and go home, and take a meaningful chunk of the medical research establishment with them.

Protest wisely applied is all well and good, but when dissidents elect to disseminate their message so offensively, they rarely affect any good and merely poison the well against their own causes, however righteous, with their misdirected and often harmful actions.

Granted, given how it's been tainted in recent years, perhaps "terrorism" was not the best term to affix to this particular effort. But then again, what else do you call attacking private citizens attempting to live their private lives based on their relatively low-level association with an ideological evil you sincerely believe it's your moral obligation to combat?

Besides, take it from Dick Cheney, stem-cell research proponents, carnivores and just about every other seemingly disparate interest you can think of: One person's "torture" is just another's "getting tough with the few to benefit the many."

That's the beauty, power and absurdity of words, able to turn us all into open books.

How else do you explain the $500 million price tag now reportedly affixed to the George W. Bush Presidential Library? The man has to have some shot at a tangible, decent legacy, after all.

And, you know, all those back issues of Highlights and Weekly Reader aren't going to catalog themselves.

Fowl affairs

This holiday, we all have something, however simple, to be thankful for. Katie Couric has her Dunkin Munchkins, Barney and Miss Beazley have their festive Hawaiian leis and, after being blessed with the annual presidential turkey pardon (at least until they meet their premature ends in sugar-coated squalor and wind up forgotten footnotes in some PETA press release), Flyer and Fryer have their lives, such as they are . At the very least, you're not this guy.

Take a moment to reflect on whatever you have that keeps you going in this creepy world, even if it tends to come in bottles or on hangers. Or hell, just enjoy this awesome picture in which it totally looks like President Bush is strangling a turkey:

"Who you callin' a lame duck, turkey? Heh."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fresh from the Disgruntled Dissident Test Kitchen

I think I know what my grandma is making for Thanksgiving dinner this year:

BOGOR, Indonesia (AP) – A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before he drank the "potion" and smeared some on his face.

"I am doing voodoo, because other rituals would not work," Pamungkas told reporters after he conducted the gory ritual.

I guess we'll know the hex is kicking in when Bush starts busting out death metal or Dixie Chicks tunes or something similarly sinister on his xylophone.

Hey, at least it's more creative than trying to poison the Supreme Court with yet another tired batch of D-Con Death Snaps.

But still, I much prefer Wal-Mart's approach to expressing political discontent via snooty, middle-school-girl-style press releases. Take this one the company issued after a staffer for everyone's favorite populist dreamboat, John Edwards, mistakenly went to one of its stores to get the boss a Play Station 3 the day after Edwards held a conference call with an anti-Wal-Mart group to criticize the retailer:

... while the rest of America's working families are waiting patiently in line, Senator Edwards wants to cut to the front. While, we cannot guarantee that Sen. Edwards will be among one of the first to obtain a PlayStation3, we are certain Sen. Edwards will be able to find great gifts for everyone on his Christmas list - many at Wal-Mart's "roll-back prices."

Yeah, that's far more refined and civilized.

No wonder there are so few evangelical PR firms

David Kuo, author and deputy director of the Bush administration's Office of Unconstitutional Pandering Masquerading As Altruistic Public Policy – er, I mean "Faith-Based Initiatives" writes in today's New York Times that evangelical Christians might finally be leaving the politics to the secular conniving professionals:

Beliefnet.com's post-election online survey of more than 2,000 people revealed that nearly 40 percent of evangelicals support the idea of a two-year Christian "fast" from intense political activism. Instead of directing their energies toward campaigns, evangelicals would spend their time helping the poor.

Why might such an idea get traction among evangelicals? For practical reasons as well as spiritual ones. Evangelicals are beginning to see the effect of their political involvement on those with whom they hope to share Jesus' eternal message: non-evangelicals. Tellingly, Beliefnet's poll showed that nearly 60 percent of non-evangelicals have a more negative view of Jesus because of Christian political involvement; almost 40 percent believe that George W. Bush's faith has had a negative impact on his presidency.

Gee, that couldn't possibly be because the most visible examples of "Christian political involvement" aren't ambitious and non-denominational initiatives to combat war, poverty, social injustice, disease, genocide or any number of blemishes on humanity any serviceably ethical person could get behind. What's not to love about divisive drives to take away rights, legislate personal matters with moralizing condescension, obstruct or censor intellectual and scientific progress and dole out funds and tax breaks like communion wafers to religious groups?

Though Kuo claims that, instead of trying to prove us cynical heathens wrong for once, evangelicals are just going to pack up their tracts and go home, I would bet on their savior returning before they'd ever get out of politics, even if they ultimately end up taking the policy-through-private-philanthropy route like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.

Politicking seems not just a compulsion but an essential act of being for evangelicals, who are what they are as opposed to merely "religious" or "spiritual" precisely because they believe their faith is not something that can or should remain personal and be discovered by or revealed to individuals, but something to which they must actively recruit converts. How else but through politics are they going to make news and target people who necessarily would not otherwise hear their message?

The problem they repeatedly encounter is that any good they attempt to do for the larger body politic always has to bear their overt signature and come with sectarian strings attached. To secular, agnostic and apparently even moderate observers, it looks like they're just furthering their own freakshow aims instead of letting even genuine good deeds ride on their own moral merits.

Take the simple matter of donating to Toys for Tots. Could faith-based groups perhaps just contribute stuffed animals or art supplies or some other, universal tidings of comfort and joy and be content with the knowledge that they're brightening strangers' seasons? Nope, they've got to bust out the creepy talking Jesus dolls, then take it to the cold-hearted, godless press when their "teaching tools" get rejected, then accepted.

Forget common notions of propriety in a diverse society – if you're on the list to receive toys from a charity, isn't your holiday season bad enough without waking to find that under your already presumably sorry sapling on Christmas morning? (But hey, at least you're not "hungry" any more, just experiencing "very low food security.")

I know, I know, you're giving the gift of god on (what at least used to be) a religious holiday and all that – but honestly, does this brand of evangelism ever work? I can't imagine someone who was previously uncommitted would just up and decide to convert to a different belief system and worldview upon hearing the right sales pitch or getting the right free gift, unless they're already favorably predisposed to the idea or have some other issues in their lives making them amenable to any ideology they happen to encounter.

Evangelicals just aren't saying anything to their target audience of non-believers – it's like speaking in a foreign language and just hoping that if you harp long, loud and obtrusively enough that they're suddenly going to understand and start speaking it back.

It's also a personal mental space issue. If we find something intriguing or resonant, we'll get closer to it on our own. It's not as if we're wanting for information or opportunity to access it. In the course of our average days there are, if you will, attractive, intriguing, characters on the ideological spectrum with whom we find discourse novel and on some level enjoyable; and then there are the much more proliferate human magpies squawking away at maximum volume next to the Jabba the Hutt dopplegangers mouth-breathing on us in a near-empty car as we're just trying to snatch a few moments of precious peace with our books on the train to work.

Which is precisely why few among us, especially materially disadvantaged children during the time of year they're most reminded of just how materially disadvantaged they are, need any more evangelizing.

Take it from one who knows – when you're poor and unwanted, the last thing you need is another empty lecture from another plastic and unappealing source. Most of the time you just want something soothing or stimulating, as the spirit moves you, that won't give you any more crap. Or, you know, take out a restraining order after it finds itself tied to your bathtub with a poison dart in its neck.

Regardless, if they can ban political robo-calls and restrict telemarketers and spammers without running afoul of the First Amendment, when are we going to get a national "do not evangelize" registry?

A proper lady doesn't practice tacky punditry

While many of us are still either cheering Rick Santorum's departure or adjusting to living in perpetual fear that at any moment he's going to pop up with his own TV show, some commentators are turning their decidedly narrow gaze elsewhere on the Congressional landscape. Take this excerpt from Judith Warner's New York Times column that ran Thursday:

While the excitement over Nancy Pelosi, most likely to be our first female speaker of the House, is still fresh, and while those of us who care about these things are still bubbling over the election of the highest number of women to Congress in history, I’d like to issue a challenge: Ladies, step up to the plate on behalf of the rest of America’s women — and their families. ... if Ms. Pelosi’s experience of motherhood is to have any meaning for the rest of us, or any relevance to her life as a politician, we’ve got to see some follow-through.

Pelosi's "experience of motherhood" should not have any relevance to either. And the fact that supposed female opinion leaders continue to focus on "family issues" is precisely the reason gender is still an issue in discussions of politics and professionalism. Yes, ladies of Congress, step up to the plate – give me free shit because I have a functioning uterus, too!

See, when male politicians set policies that benefit only others just like them, it's sexist and elitist and corrupt. When women do it, it's apparently being a good representative – not to a constituency of actual, diverse people in a physical district someplace, but to some over-arching, dated and delusional ideal of what it means to be an authentic woman.

But despite her (Warner's, now, not Pelosi's) calls for mandating "paid family leave" and legislation "to provide low-income parents with subsidies to stay at home and care for their infants themselves," Warner assures us, just in case we had any doubts, this is not, in fact, part of a "radical leftist agenda:"

In fact, there’s no better antidote to the selfish individualism and empty materialism that Americans of all political stripes say is corrupting our country than policies that allow families to spend more, and better, time together.

And what better way to accomplish that than by handing out entitlements to selfish individuals who happen to have kids so they can stay home and have it all in greater empty, materialistic comfort.

What grates me about arguments like these are that they're so often advanced as representing the middle, the mainstream, the average American with a basic set of scruples – or just everyone who happens to have two X chromosomes. But you're not arguing equal pay for equal non-work, something we could all get behind with gusto, you're arguing for us to pick up your slack.

Working mothers, you are a special interest just like any other – the difference being you're only concerned with your own nuclear family. How is that not the apex of selfish?

Witness Elizabeth Vargas using her first report back on "20/20" ( set your TiVos, kids) to oh-so-altruistically present "a segment on the plight of working mothers, beginning with herself."

For the "20/20" piece airing Friday, Vargas examines the lives of three working women with children, interviews politicians and serves up a slew of statistics on the problems faced by working mothers. As an example of public attitudes, she cites a Cornell University survey of undergraduates who said that if they were employers, they would offer women with children $11,000 a year less in salary than childless women, and be 44 percent less likely to hire those with kids.

"There is still in this country real discrimination against working mothers," Vargas says.

Uh, "discrimination" is paying someone less for the same work due to factors that should be irrelevant to job performance. When you're not there half the time because Kayleigh has a cold or Dakota has an early interpretive dance practice, that's hardly irrelevant.

But Warner managed to find a study to cite in arguing that "workplace inflexibility, the lack of family supports and workplace bias" are creating a crisis and "forcing American mothers out of the work force -- whether they can really afford to 'opt out' or not."

This comes on the heels of news articles showing how working-class moms are putting their youngsters in all-night child care, and how couples are increasingly enduring split-shift work schedules — putting their health and marriages at risk — to avoid the costs and anxieties of day care.

Gee, I must have missed those articles. I did, however, catch the ones about how married couples are now officially in the American minority. And the ones on how wages aren't keeping up with inflation. Oh, and this one from Warner's own paper the very day before it wasted post-election op/ed space on her, on the latest trend among these woe-ravaged mothers: "martini play dates."

These women are not out to get drunk, they say. And they insist they are not drinking out of need. Rather, they are looking for a small break from the conventions of mommy-hood — a way to hold on to a part of their lives that existed before they had children and to bond over a shared disdain for the almost sadistically stressful world of modern parenting.

How is it possibly news that people are turning to alcohol for relief from their alternately boring and stressful lives? Oh, but when single or child-free people drink, socially or alone, it's immature, slutty or pathetic. When "working mothers" drink, that's a cry for help to this hostile, cruel society from its selfless perpetuators that deserves collective attention and sacrifice to remedy.

"Giving up a career (and a piece of my identity) and boredom were the core reasons I drank," said Jennifer Ramsey of Sacramento, Calif., in an e-mail message, explaining how being a stay-at-home mother contributed to her alcoholism. "I know that this isolation and need to appear like the perfect mom are stressful for many women."

Key phrase: "Giving up." Despite my still lingering irrational fears from that waste-of-my-elementary school time catechism class (hey, I had my own imaginary friends to hang out with, thanks), I and many other females have managed to avoid spontaneously waking up one day to find ourselves with child. Women choose to have children (and just looking at the fate of all the anti-abortion measures on state ballots this election cycle, we want to keep doing so). Women choose to stop working. If women choose to try and "have it all," they either have to make priorities or deal with the conflicts.

As a woman, I don't assume this country owes me a career, a significant other, kids, friends, and the financial and material security to indulge any other wants I might have, all with a side of sunshine and serenity – I just want a career, money and a goddamn hot man, but I've not got a single one of those. Where are my government subsidies? My perk-plated job offers? My own personal diplomatic exchange program with one of the less corrupt and destitute eastern European nations? I would surely be a more productive member of society if I had any one of these things – so come on, female representatives, get crackin', you owe me.

At the very least, everyone should take a lesson from Katherine Harris. I know, I know -- but you don't see her whining about being out of a job, do you? She just does her own, independent thing, despite you know, all good sense and reality, and the tailor-made offers still find her.

All-Night Election Night Extravaganza!

Seeing as how I'm working anyway...

• Most novel "voting irregularity:" No votes were lost, but a Pennsylvania voter faces felony charges after he "entered an Allentown polling site, signed in and proceeded to smash the screen of one of the electronic voting machines with a metal cat paperweight."

• Fox News reported at 9:48 that senior White House staff "just ordered chicken tenders," anticipating a long night. Personally, I think chocolate desserts and beer better complement tears, shame and self-loathing, but whatever gets you through.

• I've got a virtual cookie for anyone covering Rick Santorum's concession speech who uses the phrase "flanked by his crying children" in print.

• Whomever thought to enlist Dan "four-dollar gopher in a two-dollar pelt" Rather for "The Daily Show's" Election Night coverage is my personal hero. Who else is going to tell a knowledge-thirsty electorate that Hillary Clinton "ran away with it like a hobo with a sweet potato pie"? Or that, "if you ain't got the yolk, you can't emulsify the Hollandaise"? (Hello, band name.) And, truly, how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

• Dear Missourians: "Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's disease... and I love you." And a grand total of perhaps four people get that reference.

* Dear Wisconsinites who are not rural, social conservatives: I know there are a lot of you. I've seen you. I've lived among you. What the hell? "House" didn't start until after the polls closed -- how do you explain letting the marriage amendment AND that ridiculous death penalty referendum pass? Forget activist judges, where's the outcry against activist voters?

At least the lot of you had the sense to keep Gov. Doyle so capital punishment won't come to pass even if the Legislature goes insane. And props to those of you in District 8 who traded in state Assembly Speaker John Gard (R) for a Democratic allergist, because that's just plain awesome.

And better luck next time, Robert Lorge. Maybe your peculiar charms will enchant more than 30 percent of the electorate next cycle. You can at least console yourself with the knowledge you did better than Katherine Harris. Oh, wait...

Because crazy cat ladies vote, too

Direct from the Senate district that spawned me, check out this ad from Robert Lorge, the Republican challenging -- and, according to the latest poll, only trailing by a piddling 55 points and pulling in a formidable 14 percent of likely voters -- incumbent Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.).

But this pearl of political persuasion is sure to turn that race around. Or just haunt my sleep-deprived psyche for weeks.

It starts out cheesy but innocuously enough, but watch out. Dear god, watch out. Seriously, W-T-F-ing-F is this:


Who's doing his media consulting, here, John "Just Stop It, I'm Begging You" Kerry? That poor cat looks like the product of some kind of radiation-infused, gene-splicing free-for-all with a Spongmonkey, Cy the Cyclops kitten, Gizmo from "Gremlins" and the creepy old pedophile who used to live at the end of everyone's street.

If you've got that malformed specimen of felinity firing canned political barbs at incumbent senators from your kitchen counter while you sit around in your geezer coffee clutch as if nothing were out of the ordinary, shaving a few bucks off your already entitlement-inflated prescription tab should not be your primary worry.

And I think I speak for everyone in your district when I say I wouldn't particularly fancy sharing a representative with you, either.

Though that cat is slightly more cuddly than a visit from Dick "Son of a Bitch" Cheney, just imagine the better uses to which the money and manpower that's gone into Lorge's campaign could have been put.

But, then again, you've got to give the man points for trying -- rare and lucky are races that don't have to concoct their own comedy.

God can't even spring for a form letter?

It's been a rough day for the religious right: First one of their own gets caught allegedly paying for sex with a side of meth from a male prostitute, then comes this headline -- looks like their supreme being is taking a page from the post-Foley primer:

Letters to God end up in ocean, unread

Hey, can you really blame him? If I were a benevolent and infinitely perfect deity, I wouldn't want to retain a record of correspondence with this lot, either. Way to kill your career.