And this morning we had a very frank conversation…
Ruby: Mama, you need to brush your teeth.
Me: I already did that, honey. It was the first thing I did when I got up, before I got dressed.
Ruby: You need to brush your teeth again because your teeth are really dirty.
Me: My teeth are not dirty! My breath probably smells like coffee, though…
Ruby: Well, what are you going to do about that?
Me: (…) I think I’m gonna drink some more coffee.
“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.” -The self-absorbed asshat, in light of his other dalliances that didn’t cross “the ultimate line,” which I can only presume—given the Governor’s record on social policy—is anal sex.
How many more crocodile-tearful press conferences, do you think?
How do you solve a problem like Maria? Governor Sanford does it by writing her emails, like this one in which he bloviates on becoming one with the earth and imagines what it must be like to be a man who works with his hands:
“…I went out and ran the excavator with lights until the sun came up. To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the back ground, the tranquillity that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds - and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt.”
Certain things frighten me to such a magnitude that they disrupt the normal motility of my colon. Reality television, Mustangs, mullets, self-inflicted penile injuries and the county fair all make the list. There’s vomit, Smucker’s Goober PB&J, The Jonas Brothers, suburbia and Dora the Explorer. Victoria Beckham’s boobs, pickled herring and the fact that a book in which the Pope fathers a love child spends years on the New York Times Bestseller list all blow the springs right off my We-Are-So-Completely-Fucked-O-Meter.
Add to this horror show Crocs, Mickey Rourke’s new face and 8-percent pay cuts at UCSD and I’m throwing back shots of Benefiber like Patron Gold on May 5. I’ll go ahead and add terrorism and global warming to the above list just to be PC, but in all honesty, I’m way less scared by all those things combined than I am by racist dipshits. Hands down, it’s hate that makes me think I’m staring into the abyss of End Times.
Last week, two GOP semi-nobodies put on a comedy show for their fellow Americans. Rusty DePass, fundraiser and former chair of South Carolina’s state election commission, used his Facebook page as a platform from which to compare our First Lady to a gorilla. Not one day later, an administrative assistant to Tennessee state Sen. Diane Black was outed for having sent a photo of all 44 U.S. Presidents to some friends via e-mail. In place of Obama’s image was black space with two white googley eyes peering out. The photo was titled “Spook.”
Both of these individuals offered tepid apologies that betrayed their true beliefs: DePass laughed off his gag as “clearly in jest”—clearly—and then went on to blame the victim (“The comment was hers, not mine”). The senatorial staffer, Sherri Goforth—who sent her missive using a computer at the office of an elected official during business hours—was even more impressive when she claimed regret for having sent the image to the wrong group of people. Presumably, the right group of people never would have forwarded the funny to the wrong group of people, and then Goforth wouldn’t be in this conundrum of feeling “very sick” about not being able to take it back. I wonder if her faux pas caused her tummy to hurt like mine does.
Everybody—but especially Republicans who shouted for eight years about the treasonous act of criticizing a president during wartime—should be denouncing DePass and Goforth. Yet, beyond the wink-and-nod wrist slapping, things are fairly crickety over there on the right. DePass has pretty much gotten a pass, and despite demands, Goforth has not been fired. As of this writing, there has been no response—shocker—to a letter I sent to Black’s office and the office of Tennessee Gov. Phil Breseden.
More disturbing than what either of these people did or said individually, though, is the collective hurrah from woodwork-dwelling, racist whack-a-doos who live among those of us who yearn for a true post-racial America.
Comments left on the Free Republic last week reflected a disagreement with DePass’ armchair genealogy: Michelle Obama didn’t resemble a gorilla, they said, but, rather, a howler monkey, a mandrill, a baboon. It was suggested by one person that an apology to gorillas everywhere be forthcoming.
Another bigot, hiding behind the screen name Thor, posted a response on a comment I left at Newscoma, pointing out that I must not “know the White race has been targeted for extermination, and if nothing changes, the last White person is predicted to be born in Iceland in the year 2,200.” He makes such an extinction sound downright Utopian.
“Why didn’t you adopt a baby from a White girl who was about to have an abortion you frickin idiot?” he continued. “You think you are a good person because you went along with the plan to destroy your culture?” Umm—if you represent my culture, then, yes!
But I don’t need to rely on cyber-strangers to say such vile things. While in a heated e-mail exchange recently with another local writer—and I use that term lightly when referring to him—he suggested I try finding out “why black kids sit in cars, with their stereos blasting, as if they think everyone else wants to hear 50 Cent. Or, why they sit in movie theatres making noise, talking on cell phones or at the screen, as if they are Chris Rock.” Never mind that it was largely white middle-class teens who made rap mainstream. This guy can scribble the dots, but he can’t connect them. “I’m sure you’ll get to deal with all that fun,” he wrote, “when your little one grows up.”
People like Thor are the extremists. His is the irrational vitriol of an angry and somehow marginalized white man. He is the dangerous, terrifying—probably mullet-wearing—person I hope never to run in to. He’s the one you can’t reason with because his frontal lobe has atrophied from lack of use. To be sure, he is in the minority.
More ubiquitous are the fly-under-the-radar bigots like DePass, Goforth and the writer. They’re the ones who run in the some-of-my-best-friends-are-black crowd, who know their attitudes are wrong and who bank on never getting called out when they’re caught expressing them.
Pete Kotz, a writer for the Nashville Scene, argues that firing Goforth “only picks off a middle-aged lady,” a low-level pencil pusher in a cabal of unscrupulous policy-making bigots. “It does nothing to heal the greater wound, which is composed by the creeps, racists, half-wits and professional victims who make up the Tennessee legislature. They’re the real affront here, the wound that will become terminal if left unchecked.”
He makes a point, but only to a point. I say: Change happens from the bottom up. So why not start with the lowest common denominator and some Metamucil on the side?
I spent the entire weekend in a Target Focus Training course and after being thrown around for two days and after throwing around other people as well, every joint in my body hurts. But! I can take down any human being in a matter of seconds. Hopefully, I’ll never have to.
In the meantime, I put up a bunch of mancake over at The WC. Check it out.
Is it really Monday already?
Shit.
So much for “Obama deserves my silence.”
This today from our former leader who left office with abysmally low approval ratings: “I told you I’m not going to criticize my successor. I’ll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don’t believe that persuasion isn’t going to work. Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists to change their mind.”
Number 1: Shut up.
Number 2: Did he mean that he doesn’t believe persuasion is going to work? Or did he mean that he thinks persuasion might work?
Number 3: Who is sending terrorists to therapy? Is that part of the proposed Health Care Reform plan?
Number 4: Trotting out this guy means the Republicans are definitely wandering in the dark.
Number 5: My mother taught me it’s never polite to say “shut up.”
Number 6: (Because I like bookends) Shut the hell up.
I have a new piece up at the WC. Mrs. G has some good stuff going on over there if you haven’t checked it out yet. I’m a relatively regular contributor of both new and regurgitated stuff but there are many talented contributors and a little something for everyone. Stop in a say hello.
***UPDATE: Diane Black’s website has been taken off-line and her staff is not answering either of the phone numbers I provided. Innundated is the word that comes to mind. And while the Tennessee Democratic Party has called for the firing of Goforth, Black was on CNN defending her earlier today. To have your voice heard, email is the best avenue here. You can cc Tennessee’s governor at: Phil.Bredesen@tn.gov. Please spread the word.
Thank you.
__________________________________________________________
Sherri Goforth, an executive assistant for Sen. Diane Black of Tennessee, sent the following “Historical Keepsake Photo” to people in her email list:
This time, the apology was for sending the photo to the wrong email list. “I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth said. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”
Very sick about it. Hmmm. I’m not quite sure I know what she’s talking about.
Sherri Goforth has been reprimanded but is keeping her job. It’s what I like to call the wink-and-nod reprimand. I personally think it’s worthy of a quick email or phone call to Ms. Black’s office.
Here. Let me make it easy for you:
sen.diane.black@capitol.tn.gov
You can even contact Ms. Goforth, should you be so inclined.
Nashville Address:
5 Legislative Plaza
Nashville, TN 37243-0218
Phone: (615) 741-1999
Fax: (615) 253-0207
Staff Contact: Sherri Goforth
Research Analyst - Valerie Yancey
Caucus Press Secretary - Darlene Schlicher
The true colors of a certain group of Americans are coming into ever-clearer focus through an almost daily litany of public comments. Look at this beaut from a GOP activist out of South Carolina, who has some thoughts about the genetic relationship between an escaped gorilla and our first lady. But it’s okay, right? Since he only meant it as a joke. And he’s so sorry if he offended anybody. And now that he’s apologized, everyone can go on about their business guilt free in that Sunday-confession-whole-bunch-of-Hail-Marys sort of way.
I’m guessing he’s actually sorry he got caught and not at all sorry about what he said. But thanks to a publicized screen-grab of the indecent status update on his Facebook account, and–dagnabbit!–the poor bastard has no choice but to make the apologies sound heartfelt, no matter how much teeth grinding he has to endure.
People: We must be vigilant when it comes to white right-wingers who perceive themselves to be increasingly marginalized. These people walk among us, work with us, pass us in the produce section at the grocery store. I’ve seen them. They lurch toward me wide-eyed, with arms outstretched to touch my kid’s hair without asking.
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