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This blog is not about Dylann juvenile psychopath Roof. It is not about guns and it is not about the Confederate flag.
It is about the mind boggling insensitivity, stupidity, and denial of the Republican party.
Of course, it begins with Dylann Roof. He was no Democrat, I can guarantee you that. Still, what he did, he did on his own. I am not implying that Jeb Bush, Rick Perry or Mike Huckabee would actually walk into a church and shoot 9 people. They might very likely start a war which would kill millions, but actually holding a gun and shooting somebody with it is much harder. Dylann Roof is guilty of that.
All Bush, Perry, and Huckabee did was to try to explain it away. I’m not sure which of the three was the worst. Huckabee is perhaps the most inexcusable.
Being a pastor himself, you would think he’d feel some compassion for the pastor who got shot, but no. He said people in the church should have been armed, so they could fight back. What a nice, Christian thing to say. It raises the issue: Does Huckabee carry a gun when he goes up to the altar? Is his congregation all carrying? What in the hell kind of church is that?
Perry says it was just a slip of the lip when he called it an ‘accident.’ He says he meant to say ‘incident.’ I’m not sure if I believe that. Even if true, the slip is godawful Freudian. Worse, it’s reminiscent of George W. Bush. Everybody had a good laugh with his ‘is our children learning?’ comment, but in fact it was symptomatic of a deeply, deeply stupid individual. Like Perry.
Speaking of Bushes, Jeb, who is quickly moving to let the American people know he is just as dumb as his big brother, said he ‘doesn’t know’ if the shooting was racial or not. Here are some clues, Jeb: The shooter was white. All the victims were black. They were in a black church. He was wearing racist emblems. He left a whole bunch of really racist stuff on the internet.
Of course, at the time Jeb Bush made his insanely moronic comment, he might not have known about the internet stuff.
Maybe he’ll apologize and take it all back.
I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t want to dwell on Dylann Stormfront Roof. Other people have covered him better than I can, and the full psychological profile isn’t really clear yet.
I agree with John Stewart that this needs to make us stop and take a long, hard look at racism. I also agree with many people I’ve read who say that this needs to make us stop and take a long, hard look at gun laws, and mental illness. There are just so many things we need to work on.
But, since I agree with everybody else so much, let me just talk about something else.

It struck me this morning, I don’t remember what triggered the thought, actually; something I read, something she said. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, so far, seems like she’s repeating the mistakes of ’08. Trying to stay above the fray, pressing the inevitability myth – maybe it’s the press that does that – either way, this year is looking a lot like 2008.
On the Republican side, a clown car of candidates. On the Democratic side, Hillary thinking she’s got it in the bag because it’s her turn and she’s owed, and a fresh, young contender (Yes, I’m talking about Bernie, O.K., so he’s not so young, but that’s not the points.
So, since it’s played out so much like 2008 so far, it is likely to continue to do so. After Super Tuesday, Hillary will start to realize she doesn’t have the delegates to pull it off. She will get down and dirty, putting her last, scant hopes of ever becoming president over the good of the Democratic Party.
It is Hillary who will be the first to scream “Socialist!” It is Hillary who will push the fuck out of the lying “Bernie can’t win” meme.
I could be wrong. I sure hope I am. But I think I’m not.

I’ve got a shit ton of writers on my facebook, and a lot of artists, and a fair amount of political junkies, a respectable number of science geeks (when NASA does something cool, I hear about it), but I apparently don’t have enough history buffs. If not for Isabel, who is 8 and I suppose heard it in school, I would totally not have noticed that today is the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo.
It was a long time ago, but that was a big moment in history and could have very easily gone the other way. Would the world be better or worse? Who the hell knows.

We don’t know much yet about the shooter in Charleston, SC. A clearer picture will emerge over the next couple of days, so here are some initial thoughts.
Fox News is unbelievably full of shit. This is not an attack on Christianity. That is absurd and, in view of the fact that 9 people died, who were all black, offensive. Even their regular m viewers, if they had a sense of shame, should be ashamed. War on Christianity, my butt.
I know his family all says he was a normal kid and they’re totally shocked, but his Dad gave him the gun as a birthday present. Also, they named him Dylann Storm Roof. Sounds a little bit like Storm Front to me.
It all sure knocked Rachel Dolezal out of the limelight, though, didn’t it?

I like to think of myself as a writer, although that is not yet the general public perception. So, I’ve got a lot of writers on my facebook page. That’s my own fault.
Of course, a lot of those writers aren’t real writers, either. I assume most of them are at least book lovers. In fact, many of them are quite shmaltzy about it. They go on and on about how much better old fashioned print books are than Kindle, and their favorite places for reading, and their favorite books from childhood, and they suggest little quizzes like “what book would you take on a desert island” and stuff like that.
I don’t get into it much, but it’s harmless. The way I see it, format is irrelevant. Once, books were written on scrolls of papyrus, then they went through several centuries of the bound format, now there is Kindle. I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago who in into audio books. It’s all good.
The book is the story that’s in the book, it’s the words, which themselves are representations of what was in the author’s mind. That’s what counts.
Today, someone posted the meme you see here. Maybe they were being ironic, but I doubt it. Not all people who call themselves book lovers mean exactly the same thing by that term. Apparently.

Donald Trump has announced that he will join the Republican race for the presidency, and reactions range from shocked horror to mild amusement. For those saying “Eh, whatever, he will add a little bit of comic relief to the debates” I would like to say “These upcoming debates were not in any need of any more comic relief. In fact, if Donald Trump thinks he’s going to be Boss Crazy, I think he’s got another think coming.
The Democrats have 4 candidates who’ve announced so far: Hillary Clinton, an extremely intelligent and capable woman with plenty of political experience, Bernie Sanders, an intelligent and articulate champion of the people, Martin O’Malley, who can play Irish Folk Music, which is kind of cool, and Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican who left the party because they are all morons.
The Republicans have 12 candidates so far, and every single one of them is a joke. There is Mike ‘the world is 6,000 years old’ Huckabee, who said he’d like to be a transgender teenager so he could look at the girls in the shower, heh, heh. There is Rand Paul, who is against government regulations, like the kind that say doctors actually have to be certified to work as doctors. There is Ben Carson, who is this year’s Herman Cain. There is Carly ‘demon sheep’ Fiorina who, like Trump, has never held an elected political office. Hey, guys, try running for the state legislature first. If you do all right there, you might get considered for a Senate Seat or Governorship, and from there, we’ll see. There is Rick ‘rape babies are a gift from God’ Santorum, and Jeb ‘let’s raise the retirement age to 70’ Bush. Two of the candidated, Ted Cruz and Rick Perry, are from Texas and both supported their governor’s flirtation with actual secession. They are crazy in lots of other ways, too, but I want to keep this blog short. There is Lindsay ‘never been seen with a woman’ Graham, who loves, loves, loves bombing stuff and making wars, and former NY governor Pataki, who my aunt used to call Kaki Pataki when he was governor, which was about a million years ago. Sooner or later, some smart assed reporter is bound to ask “What have you been doing lately?”. Then there’s Marco Rubio, who is just as pro-war, anti-environment, and all around crazy as any of them.
These are going to be very interesting debates.