My Sunday Feeling

As I write this, I am sitting out here on my porch swing. I am wearing shorts and a golf pullover. I am drinking ice water. This is crazy. It is January for God’s sake. Arkansas weather is notoriously unstable and often dangerously so. But try as I might, I cannot remember a longer stretch of warm weather (it is 73 degrees right now) in the dead of January.

It feels like March except that it can get pretty cold in March. The wind is howling out of the West. It is coming at 25 miles per hour easy. The little girl across the street is helping her mom throw out the Christmas trash. She was almost rendered airborne while carrying a large cardboard box.
Weather like this makes one-or me at least-start thinking about the Spring even though I know that we can expect to be pimp slapped at least a couple more times by Mother Nature before the President throws out the first pitch. Still, it is nice to know that sooner than later we will be gearing up for Little League, doing stuff to the house and the yard and watching the NCAA Tournament. These are the thoughts that get a man through winter. If we were actually having winter, that is.

Pat Robertson- This week Rev. Robertson interpreted the stroke sustained by Ariel Sharon as a sign of God’s displeasure with him for returning Gaza to the Palestinians. Earlier this year he allowed as how Katrina was also dialed up by a vengeful God who was all angried up by abortion on demand and the general climate of wickedness that obtains in the greater New Orleans area.

Look, it has long been my belief from over here on the porch swing that Pat Robertson is smooth running crazy. I was no more surprised when I heard about his latest pronouncement than I would have been if he had gotten up there back in September and tried to pray Katrina out of making landfall.

Wait. I forget. He’s already done that. Maybe that trick only works if a hurricane is about to hit Virginia Beach.

About all I have to say about this foolishness is that there are folks out there more worthy of a good smiting than Ariel Sharon. Osama comes to mind along with any of those like minded clerics over there that are whipping up impressionable fools into a suicidal frenzy. They got it coming, big time. You could make a good case that Bill O’Reilly and any of those other lying gasbags on Fox could use a good smiting, if only to shut their asses up. Having said that, it would trouble me not a whit if Jehovah or one of his designees would open up a can of smite ass and spray it all over Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan.

Tom Benson, the owner of the New Orleans Saints, should be smote twice for attempting to use the greatest disaster in American history as an excuse to move the franchise away from their rabid if long suffering fans. Maybe he should be smote or maybe he should just be stuck with Aaron Brooks as his quarterback for the rest of his life. Whatever God ordains in this matter will be just and fair and it is not for us to question. Marcus Vick should be smote for being a dumbass, although it would be my hope that God, in his mercy, would let his brother Michael do the smiting via a size 12 boot up his ass. And speaking of Katrina, all of you con artists that are scamming FEMA for disaster benefits, may God smite you and consign you each and every one to the hottest Bunsen burner in Hell.

I’m sure that you all have your own particular candidates for divine punishment and maybe you should pass them along to Pat Robertson who would probably give them prayerful consideration if you were to sufficiently grease his palm for his trouble.

I just have this bit of advice for the good Reverend. Since he obviously believes in a God that strikes down those that displease Him, maybe Pat had better hope like Hell that God never grows tired of mouthy has-been televangelists lest he someday acquire a headache that BC powder won’t cure.

And speaking of Cindy Sheehan- One of my best friends is a woman I grew up with who now lives in Seattle. Annette is a flaming liberal. This is a characterization that I don’t think that she would seriously take issue with. In fact, she is damn proud of it. Anyway, she is always forwarding stuff to me from the Internet that is of a left-wing political bent. She recently sent me an open letter to- President Bush I guess…I don’t remember- written by war protestor Cindy Sheehan. When I allowed as how I really didn’t think that Sheehan was a particularly credible person, she accused me of “talking like a Republican.” Not only that, she voiced the dark suspicion that my view of the matter had been colored by exposure to conservative commentators.

I have a defense to the latter charge: I don’t listen to conservative commentators.

But what struck me about this exchange was how much it exemplified what passes for political debate in our time. Remember, this was not written by somebody in a chatroom or something. This was written by a woman who loves me. Hell, her mama loves me. I just checked on her the other day to see that she got all signed up for Medicare D.

What I think is really dangerous and poisonous about the political climate that we are in is that any sort of nuanced view of an issue is looked upon with suspicion. I think that you can be opposed to President Bush’s prosecution of the war in Iraq and still support the troops. I believe that one can think that just because Cindy Sheehan lost her son in combat doesn’t give her any greater moral gloss than any other parent whose child has fallen. It certainly doesn’t make her views on policy any more relevant either. That doesn’t mean that you are a Republican or that you have been hijacked by Fox News.

People can hold more than one thought in their heads about the issues of the day. And maybe it doesn’t mean that you are liberal or conservative. Maybe it just means you are thoughtful.

But enough about this. It is way depressing.

I would rather contemplate the spring. My buddy from Baton Rouge will be here then. We will play golf and drink whiskey. He will bitch about the cold. My friend is somewhere to the right of Attila on most issues. He also watches Fox News. He takes special delight in trying to goad me into debating him. This is mostly after he has had 3 or 4 glasses of Knob Creek. You know, to ward off the cold.

And this is how I handle him. I just tell him that it is impossible to argue with a sick mind. And I tell him every year that if he doesn’t put a goddamn lid on it he can go stay at the La Quinta down the road. Which he never wants to do since they don’t serve Knob Creek for free over there like I do over here at the Hillcrest Liberal Sports Bar. There are some principles that transcend politics. Or Bill O’Reilly even.

Can’t we all get along?