Exactly what I just said when I heard!

Fuck yeah. Sorry for his family and loved ones and all the rest. But he should spend all eternity in the basement of the Alpha Phi Alpha house at Southern University.

The best word on the subject, except I think a simple equality-of-opportunity level playing field would be enough.

OT: Apparently Beutler's going to have bills to pay. If anyone has spare money, they can visit spackerman's site and dontate via PayPal. [Insert joke here about spackerman stealing the money to pay for hookers.]

Or they can "donate." Whatever.

If only Jesse could have hung on for a few more months, until about January 20th, 2009...

Eh, there's still time for Democrats to snatch defeat etc. So I'm glad he died when his hope had run out.

3: Hey! AWB made that joke right here this morning!

!!

Is there a Wikipedia page for "most useless Wikipedia categories"?

!>

I know we can't masturbate to Jesse any more, not that anyone ever did, but can we masturbate to visions of him roasting in hell?

Yes, until he stops roasting there.

10: hott.

w-lfs-n suggested a crossroads, but forgot the stake, the holy water and taking the pennies off the eyes. If people don't take precautions, Chthulu knows what damage a revenant could do.

Clearly, Jesse needs to be part of a NASA experiment to probe the sun.

max
['Dropkick me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Hell']

Speaking of which, does Jesus do write-offs?

'Not worth wasting the resources of Hell on, that one.'

And also: is this part of the Tim Russert Trifecta, or do we get a new Asshole Politician Trifecta?

max
['N-Pod maybe?']

Tim Russert may have embodied most of everything that is wrong with American journalism, but even if he'd spent the last ten years kidnapping and raping babies, he couldn't have even approached Helms' level of pure evil. I'm guessing David Duke gets hit by a bus to complete the Thurmond-Helms axis.

Helms apparently referred to UNC as "the University of Negroes and Communists." Some headlines from the less polite among us: Jesse Helms Dies, Civil Rights Live, Jesse Helms Celebrates Independence from Life and Jesse Helms Finally Dies

Was looking for a Hunter Thompson quote on Helms, but could only find this reference from the Charlie Rose Show:

We have this subequent mess where it's all left in the hands of Nazis like Starr, Jesse Helms, these people should all be hung by their heels like Mussolini.

Jesse Helms hated HTML.

16 is just such a wonderful image. It makes me all misty.

Jesse Helms = Mr Republican since around 1976. There used to be Goldwaters & Bob Doles, who never really were bearable enough to redeem the party, but now they are all Tancredos anf Cornyns.
God, what a country that displays that plurality.

I'm guessing David Duke gets hit by a bus to complete the Thurmond-Helms axis.

Duke is small potatoes... besides he reformed, I think. (Or 'reformed' at any rate.)

Trent Lott, in the lavatory, with the baseball bat...

max
['...up the ass.']

When we got the news that G.G. Allin had died, oudemia and I had the same one word response: "good."

I've always assumed that no one else would be vile enough to merit such a response. We have a duty to see the best in people. I would like to be more like Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. I won't say "good" to the death of Helms. Unlike Allin, there isn't the relief that comes when a harmful person dies before he can do more damage. Still. I can't think of a thing good to say about the man.

Unlike Allin, there isn't the relief that comes when a harmful person dies before he can do more damage.

However, this would not have been true if Helms had died while in office.

would you say "Good" if Dick Cheney died?

23:I don't mess with the IRS or Secret Service.

If Cheney died today, the Republican memory machine would turn him into a martyr by Tuesday. And we'd have to listen to Obama talk about what a great guy he was. Ack, better Cheney should live a few more years.

25: Something similar came up in the discussion of the Right Wing Authoritarian test. Does it help to isolate and discredit leaders of authoritarian movements? (as the guy behind the test advised.) Well, authorities are vital to such movements, but there is always a new leader waiting in the wings. Really this is an empirical issue. We ought to be able to resolve the issue accordingly

26: You're making sense to me. Do you think you can get funding for a double-blind study?

You make a good point. Really, almost any leader is replaceable unless he is uniquely charismatic, which Cheney is not.

HOWEVER: exceptions include the US Senate. If Helms had died in 1981, someone else would have held all the unique positions he did over the next 15 years which enabled him to prevent all kinds of obviously good things from happening. Even if an equally terrible person had replaced him as Senator from North Carolian, said person would not have been head of the Foreign Relations committee, would probably not have been as obsessed with shutting things down single-handedly, et cetera.

||

I have now bicycled to every existing town within 15 miles of Wobegon. I have also bicycled to 3 of the 4 nonexisting towns mapped within 15 miles of Wobegon. Keep in mind that only two of the existing towns have populations bigger than 329.

The bar-hopping part of the tour is incomplete because I went through two towns when the bar was closed, and because on two other occasions I didn't feel that a beer was advisable. At a later date I will visit the three bars and also the nonexisting town I missed. This part of my mission is, however, substantially accomplished. Next task: 20 mile radius.

The highlight of the day was the skunk family. A mother and four skunklets walked across the road 30 feet in front of me, the skunklets single file in a tight line like ducklings.

Their bright white and glossy black fur rippled in the breeze. All five tails stood erect, and the cute little skunklet's tails jiggled as they trotted to keep up. They were as happy and proud a family as you ever will see. Skunks do not need self-esteem counseling. They're right where they want to be, right now, thank you very much.

I've been given to understand that some of you young folks think I'm "putting you on" with this shit about carp and so on. But trust me, a skunk family is a sight to see. And if you didn't knwo they were skunks, you'd just adore them.

|>

||

I can announce that, after having spent the day working and experimentally abusing a friend's Ritalin prescription, I do not have ADD. The Ritalin didn't do a damn thing for me, focus wise -- my difficulty getting stuff done is apparently a character defect rather than brain chemistry. Drat.

|>

At a later date I will visit the three bars and also the nonexisting town I missed.

You're an inspiration, John. A gentleman and a scholar, and not only a great man, but what's more important, a great American. I suspect you are sincere about the carp, but I'm a bit naive like that.

I think that Helms was both peculiarly effective and peculiarly nasty. Either a more ineptept nasty conservative, or a less nasty ept conservative would have done less harm. His courtliness was taunting.

Few have what it takes to visit all the nonexistent towns without neglecting even one of them. But I'm one of the few.

"Great American" is of course barbed, coming from an alien of MC's sort. But I'm too big to acknowledge her ineffectual gibes.

This movie about G.G. Allin (Hated) came out in, oh, the early 90s, when I had several friends working at an independent theater where it screened. Night of the premiere, GG's brother showed up. "GG Allin," he said, "was a junkie and a sellout." True? I dunno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hZXWb68Lwo

"Great American" is of course barbed, coming from an alien of MC's sort.

Well, I'm just a humble colonial, of course. But on this day especially, I wanted to do my bit to honour the spirit of proud independence, and also of can-do optimism, that has made your country what it is today: a global leader in the production of corn as a cash crop, and a net exporter of reality TV.

29: John, I'm envious. Let's go bike riding next time I'm in the state.

"GG Allin," he said, "was a junkie and a sellout." True? I dunno.

Not for any value of "sellout" I've ever heard. not that that word means anything, so the statement is both true or untrue.

My Brit friend messaged me today to say that they're done being mad at us and will take over governing us again if I want. I emailed him back to say "yes, please."

39:Seconded, tho I might prefer an EU occupational authority.

40: Can they at least monitor our elections?

BTW, I am surprised at how little press the re-franchising of felons in Florida has gotten. That changes the electorate a lot.

B, if you can make it up here bikes can be rented and the wildflowers should be out until late September.

39: Wrong answer!

29:My dogs have killed three skunks, I am embarrassed to say. Delong thought he was being funny, implying his Labrador would run from the musk. I have seen the female's snout turn all bright Kelly Green, and still digging.

I can pull the male off.

Give Christ some credit. For all I know he's a total shit, but refranchising felons is 180 degrees from the R's voter-discouragement game plan.

Well, that didn't work. Trying again: wrong answer!

45: Not to mention that he clearly believes in gay marriage.

How's that Lisbon Treaty working out? Going to keep making the Irish vote until they come up with the right answer?

Couldn't Ireland be repopulated?

I have no real opinion on the EU, I just wnated to say that.

Sure - we could move the Catholics to the West Bank and the Protestants to Israel, and put the Palestinians in Belfast and the Jews in Dublin. What could go wrong?

Isn't there room for the Kosovars and the Kurds?

51: Naah, they're stuck where they are. If Turkey joins the EU we can talk. Off to drink beer and watch fireworks. Also what MC said in 31.

My five-year-old son had a bunch of questions for me at bedtime tonight.

Son: "Daddy, who's Jesse Herms? And why were you talking about him at dinner?"

Me: "Helms, honey. And, he was a Senator, a lawmaker, who died today."

Son: "Oh, was he friends with Barack Obama?"

Me: "No, he believed that black people shouldn't be able to do the same things as white people, like using the same drinking fountains or going to the same schools or restaurants. So he certainly was no friend of Barack Obama."

Son: "I don't think I'm sad he died then. Is that okay?"

Me: "Well, usually we try to think of something nice to say about people who have just died."

Son: "Why?"

Me: "It's a custom, something people do to honor, um, remember the best parts about the people who died."

Son: "Okay, then maybe I think he should never have been alive."

At which point I found myself way out of my epistemological depth and suggested that we begin reading Harry Potter.

50: We could move the whole of Israel to the Canadian territory of Nunavit, and probably nobody would even notice. World peace! and at a discount, and no doubt the Israeli armed forces is well equipped to take on the challenge of the Danes.

Nah, that would just set us up for fifty years of "what can we do about the Israeli-Inuit conflict?"

How like the Canadians to shrink in the face of world-historical conflict. Denmark is now torn between Christofascists and Islamofascists, you know, who only disagree about which form of tyranny to impose on the prostrate body of Canada.

There are about 50,000 Faroese, and when you consider how well the 300,000 Icelanders did once they liberated themselves from the brutal Danes, perhaps the time for Faroese independence has arrived.

Bjork, however, will almost certainly assign Hans Island to independent Greenland, which wil proceed to occupy all of Nunavit.

I have now bicycled to every existing town within 15 miles of Wobegon.

Did you go to Sinclair Lewis' hometown, the apparent model for Gopher Prairie? I was sorry I missed that when I passed through your way. Garrison Keillor entirely lacks Lewis' bitter edge, although he is simultaneously less naive somehow.

How's that Lisbon Treaty working out? Going to keep making the Irish vote until they come up with the right answer?

I'm rooting for the European gente in their attempt to throw sand in the gears of the onrushing bureaucratic superstate. EU as loose confederation of separate nations, good, anything more, bad.

46: I sent that along to my friend. If war breaks out, you're to blame.

34: A decade or so ago I spent an extended period working with a retired behind-the-scenes guy from local TV as part of my major. He had worked at the station where Helms got his start doing televised editorials. I asked my friend about Helms and without hesitation he launched into a diatribe; he told me the worst thing about Helms is that he's never had a sincere belief in his life, that he simply went out hurting people to get a paycheck. "It was just a meal ticket to him, all that pain he caused." I'll never forget how angry that guy was, like I'd flipped a switch. I don't know if that characterization is true or not but it certainly seems true of the most prominent members of the Republican party he's shaped.

Fun local factoids:

According to the local independent weekly he and his wife are the worst of Raleigh's incredibly terrible slumlords.

He lived down the street from the local theater that does the weekly showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. For decades now he's had kids in drag milling around loudly near his home every Friday night.

John, I used to see families of skunks in the neighborhood where I grew up, in Pasadena CA, and agree on their attitude. And yes, the young ones are really cute as anything. I just learned early to watch from a respectful distance.

Be it noted that baby skunks are both much cuter than Young Republicans and vastly more useful in a healthy ecosystem.

Baby skunks are the cutest things on earth.

I yearn for Brussels bureaucrats to grind the Irish under their heels. Is that wrong?

We could move the whole of Israel to the Canadian territory of Nunavit, and probably nobody would even notice

Mary Catherine is really Michael Chabon?

BP is an agent of George Soros.

The British financial oligarchy is desperately committed to annihilating all forms of sovereign nation-states from the planet, most importantly, the United States, and George Soros is their chosen hit-man to accomplish the fact.

From Lyndon Larouche, who gets beneath the surface of world events to what's really going on.

It's Nunavut, guys.

Anybody know if that Michael Chabon Israel-in-Alaska novel is any good? Been meaning to read it for ages and I still haven't got round to it.

66: yes, very.

57: Sauk Centre is one of the two towns within 15 miles with more than 329 people. I've been there several times. My goal for Sauk Centre is to stop in all 6 of the bars clustered on one block of Sinclair Lewis Avenue, though not on the same trip. I've done 2 so far.

Stalin did establish a Yiddish homeland called Birobidjan in Siberia. It was not a concentration camp. According to this story, it's actually reviving a little.

"Fifteen years ago Jewish life here was disappearing", said Valery Guryevich, the deputy head of the Jewish Autonomous Republic of Birobidjan. "This year for the first time we have more Jews coming back from Israel than leaving."

Isa Promushkin, 68, and his wife, Tsila, 65, are among 300 emigres who have returned this year. They left with their sons, Roman, 42, and Misha, 40, five years ago but became disillusioned with the Israeli jobs market, the lack of security and the gap between their Yiddish cultural roots and Hebrew-dominated Israel.

Mr Promushkin said: "There we lived in a one-room flat. Here we had a three-room flat. In Israel people just sit on benches all day. They don't know what it is to pick berries and mushrooms. And the climate is better here."

And the climate is better here.

Smart folks.

62: I really did expect AWB to be a skunk-lover. Don't ask me why.

You skunk lovers can feel free to curse my semi-feral dogs. I curse them myself, having spent many hours sweltering on my front lawn, washing them down with bacterial goo.

Curses from cat & raccoon fans are also appropriate. I try to train them, these wonderful Carolinas have their faults, just too few generations from the swamps.

53: Among his other crimes, I heard that Jesse defaced all the hermai right before we got into Vietnam.

An alternative logo for AWB, should she get tired of bears.

Anybody know if that Michael Chabon Israel-in-Alaska novel is any good?

Eh. It's alright.

Skunks are adorable, period. The way they waddle as they go!

Via Sadly, No, details of Helms's death according to Wikipedia.

"Soon after the Senate vote on the Confederate flag insignia, Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.) ran into Mosely-Braun in a Capitol elevator. Helms turned to his friend, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), and said, "Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries." He then proceeded to sing the song about the good life during slavery to Mosely-Braun (Gannett News Service, 9/2/93; Time, 8/16/93)."

I'm celebrating my independence from you, you dumb, dead, son of a bitch.

Sad.