I've been so sick of hearing idiot right-wingnuts describing how they saw Bush as some kind of shining saviour, a straight-talking guy with a special kind of magic...they sound exactly like the French going on about what a genius Jerry Lewis is!!

Shock jocks' reason for being hinges on peoples' wanting to be shocked by increasingly offensive statements. When the line is crossed, the Shock Jock's excuse is always that tired old chestnut, "But I'm just saying out loud (hmm..lout loud?) what others are thinking but too afraid to say!" In other words, All who listen to me are complicit. And it's true. These individuals have gotten rich off of voicing what unfortunately all too many think. The listeners often describe hatemongers as a "guilty pleasure" even if they don't "agree with what they say". Well, if you don't agree, find another Guilty Pleasure! Collect Hummelware! Take polka lessons! Order Jim Nabors music! (I do believe the "Heartwarming Magic of Jim Nabors" still comes on 8-track). Once a month, bake a bunch of cookies--madeleines, even!--and eat them all! Are people so unimaginative and bored that they have to be "shocked"?

Addendum--We've come to a sad pass when, whenever someone makes a racist comment, they have to go to Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton and Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson for absolution. We need some really GOOD high-profile American civil rights leaders, and NOW!

Post-Addendum: If any of you can think of more interesting Guilty Pleasures, please share.

Last night--I am not kidding--I had a horrible dream that Nosferatu, wearing a clown wig and a cowboy hat, chased me around with a garden hoe. Has anyone else had Imus nightmares, or is it just me?

Of course, I guess I can just blame my bad dream on rappers--Puff Squiddly Diddly Daddy snuck in my room, put a microchip in my brain, and is now programming me to have bad thoughts and dreams about poor old (and I do mean OLD) I-Man. It's all part of their master plan to...I'm not sure what!

Keep sticking it to Joe, Joan!

Is there a double standard concerning black and white and what they're permitted to say? yes--I'm not saying that ANYONE should use misogynistic lingo, but isn't it a bit like ranking on your mother? One can say what one wants about one's mom, but let anyone else say anything about her and they're asking for trouble! There's also aesthetics to consider...I'm a middle-aged white woman and would look absolutely ludicrous (NOT Ludacris!!) if I tried to act and talk hip-hop. Grampa-from-the Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre in a cowboy hat is just...plain...creepy. Same with the rappin', dancin' MC Rove.

It was painful to find out that Ray Bradbury, whose books I'd loved when I was young, is a total jerk. But I got over it and discovered other writers to love. I never "bought" Castaneda. It was the age-old story: White guy discovers a Native American Teacher who, instead of imparting widsdom to the young of his own tribe, decides that White Guy is a "Chosen One". A Lakota boyfriend told me that thanks to Castaneda white folks were constantly coming to the reservation and bugging the old folks for "knowledge". The younger Indians would have fun with this--tell the visitors to walk thru town in drag to get in touch with their "Other Side", that kind of thing, until the older folks told them to stop. If Castaneda led people to greater learnings, fine--but keep things in perspective. This guy was a minor L. Ron Hubbard and ought be rlegated to the dustbin of history.

...made me laugh myself into a hernia! I enjoyed the whole dialogue. Well, when I was a kid in Naperville, Illinois there was a place called Cock Robin (I kid you not!) that had wonderful ice cream. I'm still trying to duplicate their grape sherbet. And they used square-shaped scoops, which kept the ice cream scoops from falling off each other. Now I live in Norway. If any of you come here, eat Hennig-Olsen ice cream--it's the greatest!

And I'll just have plain old coffee...and I'll stir it with my thumb...