...is fueled by fear. But I suspect that rather than being afraid of Obama, terrorists, blacks,or muslims; what they really fear is that it will come to light that their christianity (and any other religious faith) is, in fact a sham even to themselves. They choose to appear ignorant across the board in order to prevent the necessity of coming to terms with how their brains really work. No one really 'believes' that their precious christ was the result of immaculate conception, that he rose three days after getting himself nailed to a cross or that he is coming back guns-a-blazin' to save them from this wicked world, in the same way that we really do believe that, upon pressing the button on the dryer it will come on and our jeans and t-shirts will tumble and dry and eventually come out free of static electricity and smelling like a mountain breeze (regardless of how the wind in the hills actually smells). Brains just don't work that way.

Is easy to be hateful when you must CLING to superstitions in order to avoid looking at the single most important fact of life facing every living thing: death happens. And most organisms like our species which are able to reflect on our origins and outcomes don't like that fact. A bit. It's why squirrels are nervous; they know that they're close to becoming something's lunch. And that's the rub. In order to cling to that superstition, it's necessary to hold tightly to as much of that superstition's description of your origin and outcome as you possibly can. In the case of those hateful people in fly-over country and everywhere it is surrounded by, this means clinging to the story told by someone with the keys to the granary (or who knew where the good flint could be located or had sufficiently developed math and time-keeping skills to predict the next eclipse) way back before we had light switches or drying machines or the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology to explain things in a better manner. And back then those someones just couldn't stand the someones on the other side of the hill, them Others.

Enki and the World Order

Black land, may your trees be great trees, may your forests be forests of highland mes trees! Chairs made from them will grace royal palaces! May your reeds be great reeds, may they ......! Heroes shall ...... them on the battlefield as weapons! May your bulls be great bulls, may they be bulls of the mountains! May their bellowing be the bellowing of wild bulls of the mountains! The great powers of the gods shall be made perfect for you! May the francolins of the mountains wear cornelian beards! May your birds all be peacocks! May their cries grace royal palaces! May all your silver be gold! May all your copper be tin-bronze! Land, may all you possess be plentiful! May your people ......! May your men go forth like bulls against their fellow men!" (ca. 21st century BC).

(Benito, C.A., '"Enki and Ninmah" and "Enki and the World Order"', Ph.D Dissertation, Philadelphia 1969. Pp. 77-160: translation, composite text, commentary)

They're filled with rage because they know that they're each going to die and there isn't anything that they can do about that. They're filled with rage because they also know that death is going to be completely final. They're filled with rage because they know they've chosen ignorance over intelligence in order to go about their days mostly not-thinking about their own mortality. They're full of rage because it is always just under the surface and the guys or the gals with the keys to the granary or who know where the good flint is or the ability to raise or lower their taxes or the power to stop them Others from doing something they don't like know it is there and how to bring it forward.

They're angry at what they refuse to acknowledge they see.

I'm gonna' dry my clothes now...

Sounds a lot like Indiscriminate Borrowing, which has lately be responsible for some vertical...um...'displacement', yes?

King Philip Came Over For Ginger Snaps!

to

Wilkinson, M. T., and Humphreys, G. S., 2005, Exploring pedogenesis via nuclide-based soil production rates and OSL-based bioturbation rates: Australian Journal of Soil Research, v. 43, p.767-779.

Yeah, what you said.

Diane McWhorter has a nice article over at Slate "A Legacy of Resentment" which nicely delineates what is going on here, and what some of the potentialities are:

"Perhaps I can provide some context that will help McCain finesse a constructive lesson from the painful comparison. In September 1963, Wallace had sent his state troopers to schools around Alabama to block court-ordered desegregation. On Saturday Sept. 7, Wallace delivered the keynote at a fundraising banquet in Birmingham for the United Americans for Conservative Government, the political arm of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. In his speech, Wallace referred to the recent bombings in Birmingham against prominent black citizens, citing the lack of fatalities as proof that the "nigras" were throwing the dynamite themselves in order to attract publicity and money.

Among the 489 attendees that night were two of the seasoned bomb-makers who had given the city its nickname: "Bombingham." One week later, their handiwork blasted a hole in the wall of the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing the four girls attending Sunday school."

I think I lost my swizzle-stick in here - has anyone seen it?