Rick Perry is a Dirty, Stinking Coward

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThat's right, Perry. You heard me right. I'm callin' you out. You ain't nothin' but a cheap, dirty, rotten, stinkin', lousy, no-good, gutless, yellow-bellied coward.

Where did I get such an idea? The Huffington Post:

During a stop in New Hampshire on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry raised skepticism about the theory of evolution. 

"How old do I think the earth is? You know what, I don't have any idea," said the Texas governor when asked about his position on the issue by a woman and her son. "I know it's pretty old so it goes back a long long way. I'm not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long, how old the earth is." 

Perry regarded evolution as "a theory that's out there" and one that's "got some gas in it." He added that in the Lone Star State both creationism and evolution are taught to students in public schools. He explained, "I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

Now, I'll ignore the fact that Perry was factually incorrect when he stated that Texas schools teach both creationism and evolution. I'm not even going to imply that he knowingly lied about it. To be honest, I have no doubt that Perry is as ignorant about public school curricula in Texas as the average Texan student is about what a High School Diploma looks like. Besides, facts rarely get in the way of political posturing. Perry gets a pass on that one, because we simply don't expect anything better.

But what's with the wishy-washy answer to the evolution question? This is the man who asked the citizens of Texas to pray for rain! The pistol-packing jogger who defied non-Christians all over the state by hosting a "National Prayer Rally" and threatened to "get ugly" all over Federal Reserve Chairman Geithner. This is not a man who minces words, or even gives much thought to what they mean when strung together as sentences.

Yet what does he do when asked about his views on Evolution? It's "a theory that's out there" that's "got some gas in it?" What's this mamby-pampy nonsense? I don't think there is a rational human being within earshot of a political ad campaign who doubts that Perry is firmly entrenched in the Creationism camp. We all know it. Why is he suddenly so shy about praising his belief in God's hand in all things? Who's he afraid of? Pagans? Hippie Atheists? Secular Progressives? The man who shot a coyote in its sleep just for snoring isn't supposed to fear anything. But suddenly, and without any real discernible reason, Perry has sprouted a yellow streak a mile wide when confronted with questions regarding his own beliefs regarding that quaint little evolution theory thing.

That's right. Rick Perry is a coward. He's afraid to stand up for his God's miraculous worth, scared to declare his disdain for scientific research that actually provides empirical evidence of a gradual change in the physical properties of animal species.

I'm callin' you out, cowboy. Show me what you got.

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Errata, by Charles Simic

                                          Image via Wikipedia 
Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin 
Where it says knife read 
you passed through my bones 
like a police-whistle 
Where it says table read horse 
Where it says horse read my migrant's bundle 
Apples are to remain apples 
Each time a hat appears 
think of Isaac Newton 
reading the Old Testament 
Remove all periods 
They are scars made by words 
I couldn't bring myself to say  
Put a finger over each sunrise 
it will blind you otherwise 
That damn ant is still stirring 
Will there be time left to list 
all errors to replace 
all hands guns owls plates 
all cigars ponds woods and reach 
that beer-bottle my greatest mistake 
the word I allowed to be written 
when I should have shouted 
her name 


errata - Charles Simic

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Scalia Defends Cross On Public Land, Demonstrates Own Willfull Ignorance

Image via Wikipedia

Scalia Defends Cross On Public Land, Claims It Represents Everyone

It truly amazes me sometimes how willfully arrogant conservative pundits and lawmakers can be when confronted with the legitimate concern of separating Church and State. During a discussion about the cross that the Veterans of Foreign Wars built 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia whined and complained about not understanding what all of the fuss was about:

"It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead," Scalia said. "What would you have them erect?...Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Muslim half moon and star?"

If Scalia was being even remotely honest with himself and his audience, he would have recognized that drawing a firm line on the separation of Church and State is not only done to avoid the government from offering any direct legitimacy to one religion over another, but to avoid even appearing to do so. Obviously, no one is claiming that the VFW was attempting to force Christianity upon the world. But the government has an obligation to avoid even the unintended suggestion that it endorses a specific religion.

The arrogance, however, comes from the feigned ignorance of why anybody would even complain about it. The argument always goes along the lines of "It wasn't meant to be taken that way, so what's the big deal with leaving it up?" Of course, the question never asked in response is that if it really isn't that big of a deal in the first place, what's the big deal with taking it down? The same people that will fight tooth and nail to prevent a simple cross being removed from public property are the first to act in mock surprise when someone expresses the opposite. Tolerance supposedly only works one way.

"I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion," Scalia complained. Of course he thinks that. And if this was about him, that might mean something. But this is about taking into the consideration the feelings of all the people who have loved ones buried at the cemetary. According to him, forcing some families to mourn their dead under a foreign religious symbol is reasonable, but giving them a neutral ground to do so is somehow absurd.

His argument about an amalgum of all religions in a monument is even more outrageous, but equally as popular. He jokes about the absurdity of trying to represent every conceivable world religion in a monument, purposely distracting from the true point that needs to be underlined, which is that you don't need to represent any religion in order to memorialize and remember those who have fallen in service of their country. To argue otherwise simply because the religious icon be displayed just happens to belong to your own religion goes beyond willful ignorance and arrogance.

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