Out of context

I was motoring along the highway today on the way to work and saw a bumper sticker that made me sigh with the silliness of the statement that was emblazoned across it.

"Abortion - The supreme court also said that slavery was legal"

Yes, they did. But they didn't say it was legal just 30 years ago (1973 for Roe vs. Wade). They said it was legal in 1857 thanks to the Dred Scott case. In 1857, while there were abolitionist movements finally taking hold which would eventually sway Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, the negro at the time was considered property and nothing more. The argument of the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case went simply that the justices believed the framers of the Constitution felt that negroes "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it." This was not a strange or uncommon idea at the time. While it would be unconscionable to abide by such a statement today, remember we're talking about a very different time in the world when most level-minded people found slavery to be part of culture. They simply didn't know any better. That doesn't make it right...but they were simply unable to see the forest for the trees.

It would be constructive to imagine - would the supreme court have decided in favor of abortion in 1857? Highly unlikely. While abortions were practiced, most states by 1857 had already outlawed the practice and it would have been quite unusual, given the still somewhat puritanical times, for the Supreme Court to have ruled against the wishes of religion.

Equally, would they have decided that slavery was legal in 1973? Of course not - it would have been unconstitutional to do so.

So for this bumper sticker to proclaim these two items to be of equal merit in an argument is just plain silly. But, the arguments of the conservative right tend to be a bit silly, anyway - though not typically any more silly than those of the liberal left, mind you!

Keep an open mind and you'll be fed endless meals of mirth from people trying to be deadly serious!

Won over by Chicago

Travelogue time!!

Okay, so I've only been out in Chicago for a single evening for about 3 hours, and I only took in a 3 block area of downtown in that time, but the place blew me away. For those in the know of Chicago locales, I wandered out of the wondrous Palmer House Hotel noted in yesterday's entry and found my way to Michigan Avenue. I was heading north to find a pizza joint suggested by Connie which happened to be a mere half mile from my hotel. And along Michigan Avenue were some of the most astounding skyline vistas, along with street musicians, a photographic exhibition, bizarre permanent sculptures in Milennium park, an astounding architectural wonder in the old public library...in the scope of 1/2 mile, I was constantly interested in the surroundings. In the three hours spent wandering, this town easily ranks up there with San Francisco as a great place to be (while I generally can't abide most of California, I love SF dearly...).

As for the pizza, Giordano's stuffed pizza is very good. I couldn't finish a 10" pepperoni pie...wish I hadn't eaten the free lunch provided me here at the conference. Was it as good as Star (in Houston)? Hmmmm...going to have to hit Star again soon when I return to do a quick comparison...it may have been a match, though.

One of the great moments was on the way home - a photographer has an outdoor installation of images he's been taking of families all around the world. The images are very much like Avedon's images of the American public - done against a stark white backdrop...but these images are all in color, in contrast to Avedon's stark black and white. Each image has a small bit of text beneath it to describe the image and the people in it. The plain idea of the installation is to show that while we're all quite different, with different cultures and different goals in life, that deep down, we are very much the same in so many ways.

Some interesting things that stood out...one image of a family in Poland - every child had a t-shirt on that included some kind of image on it having to do with American pop culture (a Chicago Bulls T, a Tom & Jerry T) and each child was wearing athletic sweat pants...all knock-off brands (one in the Adidas script, but spelled "Aisad").

One thing that has always interested me about cultures across the world is how the smile is the universal method of showing happiness. There were lots of smiles. Some quite mesmerizing.

And one thing I loved was while I moved around the installation, viewing the images that were meant to show how all our cultures were so much the same, I never heard a bit of English spoken by the people who were passing by me (there was some nordic language, some Indian, a bit of German, and a couple languages I couldn't place...one possibly Polish). Here we were, a bunch of people NOT in the photos, of different cultures, examining the photos of different cultures...it seemed to be poetic justice as the people in the images looked directly back at us.

I'd love to kill some more time in this town - pity I have to leave tomorrow. Maybe I'll be back someday...but I think I'll keep it to the summer. I've been here in November...and I never left the hotel, for obvious reasons.

Nostalgia - ghosts in the machine...

For the uninformed, I'm spending a few days in Chicago and staying at the Palmer House Hotel, the longest continuously operating hotel in North America. For everyone's info, I did get my stay legnthened, so unfortunately, you won't get a blog entry about my night as a homeless person in Chicago.

I just took a walk around the hotel's lower floors and did a bit of reasearch. The current hotel is the 3rd Palmer House hotel...the first burned down in the Great Chicago Fire (only 2 weeks after it had opened), but was rebuilt across the street. That one was demolished in the 20's and the current one was rebuilt on the same location. Each hotel was more elaborate than the last. I came across a very interesting article in an electricians magazine about the work done on the hotel by the electrical crew - and some of the problems endemic to working in a historic building. The whole place was built with marble and plaster, so there are lots of places where there just isn't a way to run any wire without boring holes through the walls! They have, over the years, dropped a number of the ceilings to accommodate new lighting systems and the electricians note that they've seen up to 3 levels of ceilings above the current ones...some of which are very ornate and worth refurbishing, in their opinion.

Having read this information about the hotel, I now know why the bathrooms don't have exhaust fans in them - how do you create an exhaust system through the plaster??? So, I now forgive them for this and will wipe the fogged mirror without cursing anyone tomorrow morning.

But while walking around through the still very 20's-designed lower floors, the feeling of nostalgia was extremely powerful. This is what I love about old places and antiques...that feeling that these things are a direct connection to the past - a sort-of time machine. When I walked up a spiral staircase at one end of this hotel's immense entry hall, sheilded from most of the hotel guests, I could could sense how someone in the late 1920's could have walked up the same stairway, and there is a connection in time with this simple act since the act itself is exactly the same as performed 85 years ago, but separated only by years. It is a tangible glimpse into the past. The same feeling was felt when walking down empty halls of heavy art-deco wainscot.

These historical moments...they're all so out of place, but at the same time so very welcome. When I think of how Houston (my current hometown) spent most of the last few decades destroying everything old and putting up new, it makes me gag. History in Houston is so very slim, while it stares at you from every angle here in Chicago - and moreso in many other cities (like San Franciso...). Its kinda funny that this US history is so very new, barely 200 years old at its oldest - while in Europe, the tangible history can be of such age, it is difficult to comprehend.

But I wonder at the real use of historical connections of this sort. Are they merely items to induce nostalgia? I walked through Union Station in Kansas City this summer - a giant, beautiful train station that was practically falling down 20 years ago, but that has been completely restored at an enormous cost (and now is in danger of closing since they're having problems funding the place). The restoration is beautiful, but it isn't really authentic...its a close approximation of what was there, but with modern nods to convenience and commerce. The old ticket office, for instance, has become a swanky restaurant. The immense and (strangely) beautiful restrooms have infra-red sensors to turn on the water and flush the commodes. This was false nostalgia.

Just outside of downtown Houston, across from the Amtrak station, is a crumbling building of a style that strikes me as beautiful. Once, when walking around downtown, I happened across a small streetside office labeled "Houston Historic Society" so I wandered in and inquired if they knew anything about the building. They noted that it was an old VA hospital and immediately asked me, jokingly, if I wanted to buy it. They'd been looking for a buyer for some time to save the place. Looking at the building, there's a side of me that would love to see it restored to being a usable entity - but another side of me feels that its current state is far more honest...a true view of the grand thing that it once was. The strikes against it are many - restoration would easily cost millions, it is rather hard to get to, and it is not in the best part of town. I suspect it will remain a crumbling beauty since the land is not particularly marketable in the first place.

But in a town where history is generally considered anything that happened 30 years ago or less, trying to preserve a building from the early few decades of the 1900's seems like something honorable to do. Too many of Houston's landmarks have been destroyed in order to further dubious "progress" while others have been reworked so much that they bear little to no resemblance of their former spectacular selves (consider the Rice Lofts...formerly the Rice Hotel).

A few months ago, while wandering through a resale shop, I came across an unusual divan upholstered in green velvet with light green tassels all around the periphery at the floor level. It was a bit threadbare, but it held a definite aura of nostalgia about it. It was advertised as a divan that was originally in the lobby of the great Shamrock Hotel, one of Houston's over-the-top claims to fame in the 50's (watch Giant to see it...so I'm told), but razed and turned into a parking lot in the mid 80's - I believe the land now sports a rather typical glass and metal office building. This green oddity that stood before me in that resale shop had more power to transport me to the past than any restoration project could. This was the real deal and I let my hand slide across the faded velvet in the knowledge that someone else could have done the same thing 50 years ago. A brush with the past was at my fingertips - much like the brush with the ghosts of the Palmer House Hotel I felt while walking up the spiral stairs this evening. And as far as I'm concerned, if nostalgia is the only reason to save such things, that is reason enough. Its not history, directly - but its power to elicit human emotion is priceless.

Ah, nostalgia.

When you are working for a conference...

...you'd think that, as a travel agency, you'd know that someone who was going to the conference would want to hang around for the whole conference. But the travel agency booking the block of hotel rooms for this portal conference I'm at in Chicago was dim enough to only reserve a room for me for 2 of 3 nights of the conference.

Now, I should have checked over their information when they sent it to me, right? I should have expected that they'd screw things up, right? NO...I believe in customer service and a moducim of intelligence in a company that is working with the folks putting on the event.

So I'm scheduled to be homeless a day before I'm supposed to leave Chicago. Send money.

Seems the night I'm missing is also a 104% occupancy for this hotel. Makes you wonder a bit...104% occupancy? That's a bit scary...even legitimately registered guests can be put out on the street. I suspect the hotel puts them up in another hotel in town and gives them free nights another time.

So far, from what I've gathered on the web, downtown Chicago is not a jumping nightspot. One web site I visited noted that while the bars and clubs are hopping right after work, they become ghost towns by 8 pm. There are apparently a few notable locales downtown, but they sound typical and dull to me. Looks like my chance to say I performed in Chi-town is getting unlikely, though I may taxi my way out to an open mic tomorrow night...we'll see. But I doubt it, seeing I'll be at the hopping conference party! (woo hoo!)

I tried a pizza tonight - it wasn't particularly spectacular...the crust was too thin for Chicago-style and the toppings nowhere near stacked enough. Star Pizza still wins . I'm taking Chicago Pizza suggestions at this point. And if it is a 24 hour place, all the better since I'm going to have to stay somewhere Wednesday night...

But for now, I'm hitting the hay since I like to take advantage of expensing all my meals, and I'm sure not going to miss a chance to expense a breakfast (my favorite meal) by sleeping late tomorrow. I'm sure there will be more drek tomorrow from Chi-town since I have nothing to do but sit in a hotel room. I am actually hoping the conference is a good one...I at least wanted to go to this one, unlike the Microsoft mind meld conference I went to last April.

Ciao, babies!

Remember when the music...

I was listening to a Monkees compilation the other day - I mean, those guys were totally hilarious when I was a kid, and frankly, I still find their show rather amusing when I happen across it. Me, I always associated myself with Mike - which heartened me in later years when it was leaked that Mike was the only musician in the group. Why not the others? Davy was too much of a weenie, Peter too much a waste-case, and Mickey was too scattered.

In any case, the Monkees were arguably the first cardboard-cutout musical marketing tool in history. And while listening to the compilation of tunes on this retrospective, it was painfully obvious that the songs were attempting to mimic hits of the day. Granted, they did it very well and the tunes were actually hits - who hasn't heard "Daydream Believer," "Last Train to Clarksville," or slightly lesser-known "I'm Not your Stepping Stone?" The songs, on their own, seemed to stand alone, but when put into a retrospective, one right after the other, the varying production for each tune made it plain that they were shooting to mimic something that was already out there...to cash-in on what was currently already cashing-in for someone else.

Granted, this is what music is all about today in the pop, rock, and alternative world. Cookie-cutter bands that all sound alike shoot for that top spot on the sales charts. Frankly, I don't really find this all that horrible - its a business model that works for them and the public seems to like it...they're fed something they enjoy, so no big deal. There are musical genres out there that don't bow to the corporate monster (folk, singer-songwriter stuff) and that's where I like to hang out.

But what was really brought to home to me by this musical melange of Monkee-dom was how amazingly dynamic the world of music was in the late 60's and early 70's. When you talked about "a new sound," you REALLY WERE talking about something nobody had done or heard before. It had to be an astoundingly wonderful time for music and musicians as walls were torn down and genres were created. The last time I remember thinking "wow...that's something new" was when rap first made a blip on the collective consciousness in the early 80's. Since then, nothing new has really come about.

Sure, there have been tweaks to existing genres; the (finally) excellent heavy metal production sound of Metallica...before them, heavy metal was produced like the singers were all standing in a muddy room; the early days of Alternative, which was just a case of the punks learning to play their instruments. But now, anything new (if there is such a thing) is considered too much of a risk to spend money on by the record companies.

Where is the next musical revolution going to come from? Where are the Beach Boys, Roger McGuinn's, and Beatles of our day? I think someone must be grabbing them, taking them out back, and shooting them, if they exist at all.

sigh.

Sordid conversations about Sex?

Actually, I have a problem with sex being considered sordid in the first place. Let's examine some definitions from Dictionary.com so I can make fun of a comment left on a previous entry about sordid sex:

1) Filthy or dirty; foul.

Sorry, but I tend to shy away from sex if it is filthy or dirty. Just not my cup of tea...I like clean sex...a nice sensual bath is a great way to start things off, for instance. Foul sex? I guess really bad sex could be considered foul...or sex with say, oh, Bill Clinton? (sorry...I promise not to get political for the rest of this entry...)

2) Depressingly squalid; wretched: sordid shantytowns.

If sex is depressing, then there are problems with the relationship. I have to say that yes, I have had wretched sex before...and yes, it was due to a bad relationship...but darn if I want to talk about that when sex is far too much fun and exciting to dwell on the bad experiences.

3) Morally degraded: “The sordid details of his orgies stank under his very nostrils” (James Joyce).

Wow...a quote from Joyce to support a definition. Knowing Joyce, there's no telling what he meant by the term sordid! Just spend a few hours with Finnegan's Wake to understand what I'm talking about...

Morally degraded, eh? The problem here is that I don't tend to accept the typical moral structures of society. Morals are quite personal, though most people tend to define their personal morals via a higher authority (religion, typically). Anyway, in my world, any sex I'd want to talk about wouldn't be morally wrong since I don't accept those morals dictated by those higher authorities. Mind you, there IS morally wrong sex (sex with a child, for instance) - but I have no interest in talking about that, unless I get pissed-off enough about some situation where it is occurring...

4) Exceedingly mercenary; grasping

Oooh...that's a good one! Frankly, any sex that can be described like this must be describing as sex done by a sex mercenary (a prostitute). Not my cup of tea - I prefer believing my partner is having a good time and I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to think that a prostitute is really having a good time. Same problem for me at strip clubs - I know the almighty dollar is the focus of that woman shaking her money maker(s)...and that she doesn't give a damn about performing for me unless it makes her some green.

And speaking of that...I was amongst a group of slightly drunken revelers the other night and they decided that we all should go to a strip club. I figured, "why not?" But I was really annoyed by what I saw there - the art of stripping is nonexistent! The women would gyrate to a song with their dress on...then when the song ended, they'd walk off to the side of the stage and uncermoniously strip to a G-string, then go back to dancing. It was horribly un-sexy! These women looked like they were sleep-walking through everything in a grindingly mechanical manner. I'm amazed anyone was turned on...maybe I needed to me more drunk...

So, sordid - no. At least not for me. Mind you, the person who posted the request for sordid sex info has a moral structure that is based on more mainstream codes than mine. So sex may very well be sordid at times for them. In all honesty, I'll bet that makes it more exciting in a way...

What (this) Dad Thinks

So for the balance of my kiddo's school years, the wife and I have home-schooled my two daughters. Since both my wife and I are certified teachers, with experience teaching elementary through high school, the reason for doing so was simply to provide the kids with a more level and complete education.

However, as they made more and more friends with regular-school children, my yard-apes decided that they wanted to go to public school. We weren't going to keep them from it if they thought it was where they wanted to go...so yesterday, they headed to their new classrooms to begin a more typical stage to their childhood in the 4th and 5th grades.

Honestly, I think the schools will do a fine job of teaching them what they need to know. That's not all that big a deal to me. The problem I have with it is that my wondrously individual daughters will have to be sucked into a world where individuality is not particularly prized - where sameness and "fitting in" is what its all about. I'm frightened that my kids will end up as just another couple of schoolgirls.

My first example of this was provided when they returned from school yesterday afternoon. My children have never been fans of jeans - you'd have to make a deal with them to wear anything but shorts or something fancy. But after a day at school, they were clamoring for a new wardrobe of jeans and t-shirts since everyone else wore jeans and T-shirts. Also, they asked to buy tennis shoes. My kids have never wanted tennis shoes - preferring sandals (flip flops, usually) or even better - NO shoes. But tennis shoes? "It's what everyone's wearing," explained my eldest...who posesses the most wonderful individuality of any 10 year old I know.

Maybe they'll just do what is necessary to fit in, but not lose the magic beings they've come to be. I worry about what I heard a friend once say about not wanting to have to ever go through school again as a girl - how one loses one's own personality in order to fit in...to attract boys...etc. Sure, its a stage...and in college, they can reassert their personality, but it would have been nice for them to never have to lose it in the first place.

Oh well - kids change. We all change. But I'm in mourning for my daughter's rapidly fleeing individuality.

The weaknesses of the flesh

Its a better title than blog entry, I'm afraid. I've been nastily sick the last week and it just got worse over the last few days. The last thing I've been interested in doing was spewing out words into the ether - that would require putting hands to keys which was just too taxing. However, my mind is beginning to clear today and I'm able to sit vertically at a keyboard without wanting to list to one side, so you can be sure more biting commentary will be showing up soon. Perhaps I'll write something on this wondrous title as sex seems to pull people in from all sides. When I started this blog, I told some friends that I really should put things like "sex" and "fuck" and "Britney Spears Nude" in every message I write to bring the Google crowd in.

Welcome Google crowd!

Democracy-fu

Election years never fail to amuse me. They always tend to bring the weirdos out of the woodwork. People you never heard say a peep in the elevator are now willing to spout their political philosophy, even if it is in the form of a grunt as they're listening to another pair of people talk about the wonders of the Democratic convention.

Elections are a great engine for dividing the country. The political camps circle their wagons and lob flaming epithets at each other as if they honestly believe each camp is trying to lead the country down into the flames of damnation. Interesting that once the dust clears after the elections and the losers have conceded defeat and shaken the hand of the victor (promising to work for the common good together), we all go back into our shells and pray for a white house sex scandal.

I am also regularly amused by the local press. While our big-city newspapers have to be careful about what they print in their attempt to set the agenda and keep their readership happy, the local free press that is tossed into my driveway each week has no such worry. It is the closest to the true form of journalism where checks and balances are examined by the "Fourth Estate" without worry that some big advertiser is going to get annoyed. Take this last issue that I glanced through - in the letters to the editor section, there was a letter from a disenfranchised voter who was ranting that he wasn't planning on voting in the presidental elections this year because he felt that by doing so, he'd be committing an act of violence. Now, he didn't explain particularly well WHY he considers it an act of violence (something about how supporting the state is supporting an institution that wages violence on its people...I suppose one could say that - if you stand on your head and squint just right...or again, if you're a minority, you've got the argument hands-down), but that this local community newspaper would print the letter at all heartened me to the realm of journalistic integrity.

Mind you, this paper in question isn't some left-wing tabloid...it generally reports community news about taxes, or how some high schooler won some national award, or how some church helped someone - generally it publishes very positive information in a down-home, local sort of way. Its quaint, though often short-sighted.

So, here we have an extreme left wing letter...then a little further down the page is an extremely conservative letter about the evils of the library (discussed in my first blog entry). Both positions were completely at the radical ends of the spectrum, but I silently smiled and gave a mental pat on the back to the editor for such tolerance of views. While I'm afraid my blood doesn't run red, white, and blue, I'm still quite happy to be in a country where such different views are allowed to be spoken - largely because they amuse me. I mean, having to tow the state line all the time just isn't much fun. Its getting further away from us all the time, now, but some of us still remember pictures of eastern bloc countries and the people there...geez, nobody ever smiled!

But back to elections - in this wonderful little paper, there was an editorial by one of their regular columnists (actually, their movie reviewer) where she attempted to regale the youth vote for the upcoming election. I'd have to say, she did a very good job with the editorial with excellent reasons and didn't use any worn-out cliches to try to rally the troops.

But I've never heard anyone be as wonderfully succinct about why one should vote as a political science professer I had back in college by the name of Richard C. C. Kim - (go buy his book, its wonderful). He laid out the situation with the presidential election...it was possible that the person with the least votes could actually win...the electoral college messes with the final result anyway...you could have your chad get hanged...blah blah blah...so why vote?

"Because its fun!" said Dr. Kim.

I mean, really - the old style voting booths where you poke the paper is a gas. Its such a satisfying sound when the paper gives way . I've not tried one of the electronic ones, but that's got to be at least as fun as goofing-off with my ipaq. Hey...you, by yourself, are not going to be the one to decide who is the future president, so don't delude yourself - just go and have fun with it. Have a few drinks with friends and go as a group...you'll be glad you did.

Need some reasons either way?

The power of a mob

How about a little glance into the past...

I was recently reminded about something my grandfather told me when I was young.

Back during World War II, he was a member of the Knights of Columbus - and he went to one of their regular meetings one evening. During the meeting, one of the members was called out of the room for a moment. After the person had left the room, the evening's speaker began to tell the group that the person who had left the room was recently discovered to be a Nazi spy. Mind you, America during the war was a Nazi hate machine, just as it became a communist hate machine during the McCarthy trials and many other kinds of hate machines during its torturous travels to today.

The speaker provided "evidence" of the spy's doings and by the time the man came back into the room, the mob was ready to tear him to pieces. Remember that the Knights of Columbus is a Catholic men's organization...

When the mob had siezed the traitor, the speaker let the cat out of the bag - it had all been a setup. The man wasn't a traitor...never had been. He was just another K of C member who agreed to go along with the little ruse - to prove a point. The mob rules, if you let it. These peace-loving Christians were ready to kill someone because they were acting as a group...

This affected my grandfather deeply - deeply enough that he desperately wanted me to understand how he had been duped by a powerful speaker and a united group of people. He was plainly wanting me to beware of such things.

According to my grandfather, they were sworn to secrecy that the event had occurred. But when he told me about it, he noted that the message was too important to hide, and was many years gone anyway.

Don't let the mob rule. Make decisions for yourself. Otherwise, history may repeat itself.

Don't believe the mob rules? Think again...

Why the right-wing always messes things up

There's a movement here in Montgomery County by some concerned citizens to address how books are being shelved in our public libraries. Now, I think this group is actually going about things in a good manner - they're not advocating censorship, nor are they wanting books pulled from the shelves...they'd just like some say in how the books are shelved so that things like a story about a gay little duck that appears to be for juveniles doesn't get put into the juvenile section. Personally, I think every juvenile should read positive stories about gay ducks to help us all live together in harmony...but I know that's not how the rest of the world thinks. ANYWAY, this group is proposing that they have a direct way of suggesting things to the library board as well as possibly start a way of putting ratings on books. I think this is a reasonable way to meet in the middle of the road between those who tattoo the first amendment onto their chest and those who'd prefer to take the evil books in question and burn them on the lawn of the library while dancing about with glee at how they are keeping the morals of their community upstanding by limiting information to its lowly flock of poor sheep who just don't know any better.

So...in theory, I don't mind this group - they've appeared to have done their homework and seem interested in just increasing information and opening channels of communication while trying to bridge a gap between the right and left wing.

However, the folks who like burning books, they've also embraced this group and have begun their own rhetoric in the local press about how horrible the library is, and how these books are eroding our society's morals, and that we need to put books into the libraries that tell how horrible homesexuality is (because there are NONE right now...how unbalanced a view is THAT?). So these right-wing kooks (who probably still think that homosexuality is a choice) will continue to divide the issue by embracing a group that was attempting to do something with forethought and planning - but will only have all that forthought and planning shot to hell by the bible-banging right-wing book-burning homo-hating hate-mongers.

One of these right-wingers wrote a letter to the local paper and even quoted George Washington (um...didn't he die more than 200 years ago?) while noting how shocked he was that there were such horrible books on the shelves of our libraries that were plainly eroding our morals which will in turn erode the very foundations of our community and eventually our democracy (this is something old George apparently said, the bit about morals and democracy - I mean, he may have been one of the founders of our country, but he was a politician after all).

So now, the group with the good, though admittedly waffle-y ideas, has become a tool of the right-wing conservatives - at least as far as the right-wing conservatives are concerned...and likely as far as the left wingers are concerned as well ("Hey look - the book burners love 'em...so we must be against 'em!"). Its enough to make a peacemaker throw one's hands up in defeat, put their sandal on their head and mutter, "mu," then walk off into the sunny distance.