ONE: Big Bung Theory
Creation Museum founder Ken Ham brought tidings of great joy to creationists and non-creationists alike when he announced that on February 4 at the “museum,” he and Bill Nye will debate the question: “Is creation a viable model of origins?” Ham thinks the event will be a chance to “show Mr. Nye and our debate audience that observational science confirms the scientific accuracy of the Genesis account of origins, not evolution.” Personally, I think it will be a chance for Ham to make a fool of himself, though that would hardly be novel.
Ham – who, ironically, kind of resembles the Neanderthal from the Geico commercials, not that there’s anything wrong with that – describes the event as “an important debate to have.” Well, for the Creation Museum, that’s no doubt true; it will put desperately needed asses in the 900 seats of “Legacy Hall” at 25 bucks a pop. Tickets purportedly sold out within minutes, which sounds impressive until you consider that a recent Pew poll finds only 43% of Republicans currently believe in evolution, down from 54% in 2013.
On the brighter side, if $29 million in municipal bonds aren’t purchased by February 6, the Creation Museum’s long-delayed sister project, the Ark Encounter, might run aground. Which is in itself a more convincing suggestion of the existence of God than any of the Ark Encounter’s proposed exhibits could ever be.
TWO: Diet Hard
For all their efforts to stake a claim to the bottom of the political barrel, Republicans invariably find that the territory has already been surveyed and subdivided, by folks like Trestin Meacham. The former political candidate for something called the Constitution Party recently staged a hunger strike to protest Utah’s same-sex marriage prohibition being found unconstitutional.
I’d never heard of Meacham’s party before. And now that I have, I wish I hadn’t. The Constitution Party’s official platform is an eerily calm manifesto of addled extremism, equal parts libertarian gobbledygook and white-picket-fence fascism. The Constitutionists (Constitutionals? Constitutionics?) would ban abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. They want to repeal the 17th Amendment and turn the business of electing the Senate over to state legislatures. They want the Voting Rights Act and McCain-Feingold repealed, and the FEC abolished. They would eliminate the Departments of Energy and Education. They deny global warming and want the Endangered Species Act overturned. And they oppose “any legal recognition of homosexual or civil unions,” which is where Meacham’s little stunt comes in.
Meacham announced his fast with the solemn self-importance of a five-year-old declaring that he’s running away from home. Minus the cuteness:
“I cannot stand by and do nothing while this evil takes root in my home. Some things in life are worth sacrificing one’s heath and even life if necessary. I am but a man, and do not have the money and power to make any noticeable influence in our corrupt system. Never the less, I can do something that people in power cannot ignore.”
Well, “not with standing” his confidence, the people in power “never the less” ignored him for over two weeks, long enough for him to shed 26 pounds. When the Supreme Court conveniently ordered a stay on same-sex marriages in Utah pending a review by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Meacham was understandably quick to break his fast with a bowl of yogurt. But be assured that whatever his weight, he’s still a fathead, as he’s happy to prove over and over again on his Facebook page:
“The homosexual movement is less tolerant than the Nazis and if they had the power of the Nazis, I have no doubt they would not hesitate to march people of faith into ovens.”
Oh, please just go eat it, Mr. Meacham.
THREE: A Star Is Sworn?
In about a year, Arizona will be rid of the term-limited Jan Brewer. The bad news? Her successor might be even worse. For starters, Ken Bennett, Arizona’s current Secretary of State, has made no secret of his interest in the office. Among his many liabilities, if elected he would be the first known birther to inhabit a governor’s mansion.
It gets worse. Oafish action star and non-credentialed law enforcement officer Steven Seagal now says he’s maybe, kinda, sorta considering a run. The idea appears to have originated with Seagal’s crime-bustin’ compadre Joe Arpaio. At least that’s one Arpaio brainstorm that won’t cost Maricopa County taxpayers astonishing sums of money.
From a population of 6,553,255, is Steven Seagal – who probably doesn’t even fulfill the state’s residency requirement – really the best Arizona can do? No, but better alternatives have been slow to present themselves so far. Brewer has even hinted on several occasions that she might challenge the term limit statute. Absent a Democrat winning the office, which is far from assured, it’s more than a little pathetic that the best possible follow-up to Jan Brewer could be Jan Brewer herself.
As far as I’m aware, the only announced Democrat in the running so far is former Bruce Babbitt protégé Fred DuVal, who went on to work in the Clinton White House. He seems like a bright guy, but one who has spent an excessive amount of time and energy pursuing the chimera of meaningful bipartisan cooperation. He also has a clutch of tediously moderate positions and disconcerting ties to that old snake oil merchant T. Boone Pickens.
Arizona deserves better, so I’m just going to go ahead and nominate my sister-in-law Arlene for the position. She’s liberal as all get-out, she meets the residency requirement, and I’ll bet she could snap Steven Seagal’s neck like a twig.
Another celebrity is apparently mulling a political run, this one in North Carolina’s 2nd District, as a Democrat. Clay Aiken, former American Idol runner-up and, from what I’ve read, a good and progressive guy, has quietly been consulting with strategists and pollsters. While his music isn’t my thing, he has a fine voice and I have a hunch he sings hella better than incumbent Republican Renee Ellmers (and presumably has a much more enlightened view of Islam than she does, though of course any civilized person would).
And maybe now’s the time for Harrison Ford, John Perry Barlow or some other Wyoming celebrity to step up and run in this year’s Senate election. The race just opened up a little with last weekend’s announcement that hellspawn Liz Cheney is abandoning her quest to unseat fellow Republican Mike Enzi. Cheney cited “serious health issues” in her family as the reason for her withdrawal. I hope whoever it is – unless it’s her father – gets well soon.
FOUR: “You say you want a revolution…”
Barack Obama’s achievements have been loudly debated for five years now, but one achievement, however inadvertent, is inarguable: the paranoia inspired by this presidency has surpassed that prompted by any previous Democratic administration for sheer luridness, volume, and dank, rank bigotry.
But be of good cheer, patriots. Something called the Save America Foundation intends to, well, save America with a supposedly non-violent “American Spring” uprising, kicking off with a Washington rally on May 16. They modestly envision a turnout of 10 million or so. In an open letter to “All Patriots (black, white, male, female, civilian, military, truckers, bikers, militias, veterans, old, young, every American that loves freedom and liberty)” Colonel Harry Riley explains how the “American Spring” will unfold and who all will be the first to feel its wrath:
One million or more of the assembled 10 million must be prepared to stay in D.C. as long as it takes to see Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Attorney General Holder removed from office. The senior republican in the US House of Representatives will become Speaker of the House and the US House of Representatives will elect a temporary President of the United States…
Those with the principles of a West, Cruz, Lee, DeMint, Paul, Gov. Walker, Sessions, Gowdy, Jordan, Issa, will comprise a tribunal and assume positions of authority to convene investigations, recommend appropriate charges against politicians and government employees to the new U.S. Attorney General appointed by the new President…
Sounds like a cakewalk, doesn’t it? But wait:
Will this be a cake-walk? No, it will be painful, and some people may die because the government will not be non-violent; some of us will end up in a cell, and some may be injured…
Of course that would be just an awful shame. The Save America Foundation claims they already have 1.8 million people “mobilizing and or supporting this effort.” All presumably steaming and/or barking mad about the mixed-race guy in the White House and his white zombies in Congress:
When the government becomes lawless, then “we the people” no longer are obligated to follow the government……there is no law when government picks and chooses for political purposes or personal agenda. At this time the government is performing as a lawless entity……
America will rise up or surrender………for me, I only go to my knees in the presence of God Almighty………..my knees will not touch the surface as a result of some piss ant occupant of the White House or a corrupt legislator, or outside element…I will fall to my death standing if necessary.
Seems to me if you’re still 8.2 million sandwiches short of a picnic, you might want to dial down the melodrama, but I’ve never organized an insurrection, so what do I know?
One high-profile booster of this citizens’ coup is Dr. James Garrow, a serially incorrect Cassandra of the Obama years who recently claimed that the President is trying to kill him. Garrow sat down to talk about the “American Spring” with far right radio host Pete Santilli (the guy who wanted to shoot Hillary Clinton “in the vagina” last summer) and confidently predicted a turnout of 30 million for the May 16 rally. At this rate, by the time the event rolls around it will be easier just to count the people not in attendance.
FIVE: Amiri Baraka
The most compelling story out of New Jersey last week wasn’t about the corrupt, loudmouthed jerk temporarily serving as its Governor. It was the death, at 79, of the extraordinary poet, playwright, Black Arts Movement founder, critic and polemicist Imamu Amiri Baraka, who was briefly the state’s poet laureate.
Caustic, controversial, discomfiting, sometimes outrageous and offensive, Baraka wielded words like weapons. He called for “poems that kill/assassin poems,” and while his own work might not have killed anyone, it could sure sting. It was meant to.
Baraka’s website, to date, mentions nothing about his passing, although the “Contacts” page speaks of him in the past tense. Let these lines from a poem called “leroy” serve as an epitaph of sorts:
When I die, the consciousness I carry I will to
black people. May they pick me apart and take the
useful parts, the sweet meat of my feelings. And leave
the bitter bullshit rotten white parts
alone.
Amiri Baraka was interred Saturday in Newark.
