June 12, 2004 by s.z.

Other People Died This Week Yes, death did not take a holiday in honor of Ronnie.  Check out Rittenhouse Review for Jim's story about a death close to home. 6:48:43 AM

Family Circle Values The Cartoon (You can see it here): Jeffy, a dirty plate and bent fork on the table in front if him, is standing on his chair.  He is in what looks like a modern dance position, with one arm held stretched out behind him, and one arm held out in front (his front hand seems to be pointing at his fork handle; that hand also seems to only have 3 fingers.) Jeffy's half-moon mouth is open so he can say: "I don't know my left from my right." Analysis: Jeffy suffers from a form of dyslexia, not being able to tell his left from his right.  Plus, he lost a couple of fingers in a fireworks accident last July.  He will always have trouble with reading, and won't do well in math (thanks to those missing digits).  So, frusted over his lack of academic success, he'll drop out of school to become a street criminal.  His parents know this, and have decided that it's just not worth the effort to feed him -- which is why he only gets to lick Billy and Dolly's empty plates.  But Jeffy will show them all, overcoming his learning disabilities, his deformity, and the assorted pathologies present in his home of origin.  He'll conquer his left/right handicap and then realize his dream of becoming a dancer on Broadway -- THEN they'll be sorry! Prediction: Keane read that Broadway's Best Shows Too Risque for Republicans ("Gay puppets, transvestites, assassins and a pedophile child killer piled up Tony honors on Sunday but those shows will be shunned by Republican delegates at the political party's convention in New York this summer.")  Today's cartoon is predicting that some of the delegates will watch the Broadway shows anyway, become corrupted by them, and then vote to legalize gay marriage.  Some Republicans will even marry puppets.  One Party official will give up politics to become an assasin.  Ed Gillespie will become a transvestite/pedophile child killer.  Well, that was my interpretation.  Here are some other, better ones: The undecided voter does not now left from right, liberal from conservative, but knows ups from downs. And will thus know that we have been steered into a ditch. Keane predicts a Kerry victory. And of course this delightful little moppet subconsciously wants to hve sexual intercourse with his grandmother. That should go without saying. The Freudian context is ill-concealed.  Thersites  Keane is alerting us to renewed drug use by GWB. Pills and powder on the plate, washing it down with alcohol. Based on Thersites comments I have to wonder if GWB lusts for his mother. It's hard to imagine anything lusting after her though.  Susie Dow   Left and right politics don't matter, but the ups and downs of economics and justice do, symbolized by the food and the chair. It does seem childishly easy I admit, but if so, why does half the population not get it?  Alison   And I'm sure there will be some equally fascinating ideas coming up in the comments section.  One of these theories HAS to be the truth -- you just have to figure out which one, and then base your life on it. 6:28:06 AM

Succession Planning As you know, America's Worst Mother (trademark of Tbogg-O Corp) has been postponed due to Ronald Reagan's deadness.  So, I tried to find a back-up Meghan.  I read the work of several alleged humor columinsts whose claim to fame is that they are stay-at-home mothers (and all of whom are called "the new Erma Bombeck").  But since their columns actually seemed to have a point, some were actually amusing, and none of their sons were named after French cities, it just wasn't the same.  But here's one that will have to do for today: Lori Borgman.  So, let's hear a little about my nominee for America's Second Worst Mother®. She worked as a photojournalist in North Dakota and as a reporter, news editor and photojournalist in Oregon. When Lori and her husband started their family, she traded in her camera bag for a diaper bag and ventured into the mysterious world of mothering where you work with pre-verbal creatures that have a habit of exploding at semi-regular intervals. (So it wasn't all that different from working for a newspaper after all.)  Ha ha.  No wonder Lori was given the honor of talking to Erma Bombeck's mother in a restroom in Dayton. Those three kids that have provided column fodder for years, are older now. Two are in college and one is in high school.  Uh oh!  Lori's kids are getting too old to lisp adorable sayings that teach us valuable conservative family values lessons about stuff.  Whatever will Lori do for materal?  Well, this week she thanks God for The Gipper (not the real one, the movie one). His optimism that the glass was half full, not half empty, inspired the country and muted what had been a growing cynicism. His enthusiasm was so contagious that newlyweds such as ourselves began thinking this might be a great time to have a kid. Or two. Or three. Might even be a good time to buy a house and hang a flag on the front porch. You know, I was alive in the '80s, and I never saw Ronald Reagan on TV and thought, "Hey, he seems pretty cheerful -- I think I'll have three kids."  But that's probably just me. Reagan was the president of our children's youth. Our oldest was in kindergarten when he wrote a letter to the President. Along with a reply, he received a photograph of the President wearing a pale blue Western shirt, light colored jeans and brown boots. He is riding a black horse on a trail lined with sage and brush at Rancho del Cielo. For some it would have been a photo op, but for Reagan it was the real thing. Yes, it wasn't a photo op, but somebody just happened to take a photo of him on the horse, and somebody else just happened to mail that photo to every constituant who wrote to the White House.  Probably God. Reagan was a president you were proud for children to know. You could point to Reagan and say, "That is the President. That is what a President does, how a President speaks and how a President leads." You never had to lunge to mute the television set or change the buttons on the radio when Reagan was in office. He was dignity and class all the way.   Unlike Bill Clinton, who was always having oral sex with interns on the radio, or Jimmy Carter, who always cussed up a blue streak in his TV appearances.  And really, that's all we look for in a President -- somebody whom we can point to when there are children around. Well, I think that's enough of Lori -- she's got her own wingnutty charm, but she's no Meghan Cox Gurdon.  If Meghan isn't back next week, I may have to try out the mother of triplets or the  fathers' issues guy. 5:43:49 AM

You Knew It Was Coming   Limbaugh, third wife getting divorce WEST PALM BEACH -- Rush Limbaugh, the Palm Beach-based conservative talk radio icon, announced Friday that he is getting another divorce. It was the third marriage for both Limbaugh, 53, and his 44-year-old wife, Marta, a native of Jacksonville. Limbaugh's latest marital difficulties come while he is under investigation by Palm Beach County prosecutors over allegations of illegal doctor-shopping for painkillers. [...] Limbaugh and the then-Marta Fitzgerald's love affair began in 1990 on the information superhighway. Going by the name of the "Jacksonville Jaguar," Fitzgerald contacted the talk show host through the CompuServe message network to ask his advice on how to challenge her President Reagan-bashing professor at the University of North Florida, where she was a student. Reagan had once called Limbaugh "the No. 1 voice for conservatism in our country." So, apparently Marta only stayed in the marriage for the sake of the Reagan -- and once he was officially buried, she felt free to file for divorce. Fitzgerald's husband at the time, Tom Fitzgerald, said Limbaugh didn't respond to her first query. She got angry when she heard Limbaugh respond on the air to some flight attendants who had written wanting to meet him. So she wrote Limbaugh a scathing letter, calling him pompous and telling him he was wasting his time, Fitzgerald told The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. This time, Limbaugh responded. If there are any ladies out there who are looking to hook up with this re-single multi-millionaire, you now know the secret of capturing his heart: write him scathing letters telling him what a pompous jerk he is.  You might also threaten to to get Abu Ghraib on his ass -- that's the kind of stuff that turns him on. "That's how the whole relationship got started,'' Fitzgerald said. ''They started corresponding back and forth.'' Limbaugh escorted Marta, who was divorced from Fitzgerald in 1992, to the 1994 Super Bowl, Israel and New Orleans. So, Rush broke up Marta's marriage.  No wonder Ronald Reagan called Rush "The number one voice for conservatism." The two were wed May 27, 1994, at the Virginia home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who officiated. Attendees included former Education Secretary William Bennett, another family values advocate who later admitted to a multimillion-dollar gambling habit. This gives me an idea for a fun new game show: "What's My Vice?"  Every week a noted conservative would be introduced to a celebrity panel, which would attempt to guess the conservative's secret sin in 20 questions or less.  Our first guest: Clarence Thomas (I'm betting that his secret has something to do with porn. Limbaugh's divorces haven't stopped him from dispensing marital advice. "If you want a successful marriage, let your husband do what he wants to do," he once said. He recently even corrected Dr. Laura's marriage advice -- but that was probably just so he could hit on Rebecca Hagelin, who wrote that he "ranks up there with Superman." So, the big question is: what broke up the Rush/Marta union?  While the drug addiction couldn't have helped, I suspect that hearing Rush tell the world about his familiarity with gay porn ("If you look at these pictures you cannot deny that there are elements of homoeroticism ...  yeah, I've seen things like this on American websites. You can find these if you have the passwords to these various porn sites") was the last straw.  Or it was that little hussy Kate O'Beirne. 3:26:26 AM