I blew my fuse!

Mommie Dearest sends me a lot of the right-wing emails she gets; I think she likes to antagonize me when she hasn't heard from me in a while. After I get enough of these messages I blow my top and respond with an insulting screed against the stupidity of the message and then she'll tell my sister I think she's stupid or I hate her, trying to guilt me into calling and apologizing, and round and round the cycle goes. This is why I see Mommie Dearest four or five times a year at most, even though she's only 40 minutes away.

I used to see the same behavior in my great-grandmother and grandmother. I'd tell great gramma something gramma had said about her, hop on my bike and get back to gramma's house to find her waiting on the porch after having just hung up the phone. "Did you tell great gramma that I said X? She just called me and told me you said I said X..." Of course she DID say X but never intended it to be heard by its object, but mysteriously she would start claiming to have never said X, or that I had misunderstood what she meant to say. All hard to reconcile, perhaps, with her devout Evangelical Christianity (the "false witness" and "lie" Commandments?).

In a way these games are fun;I'm as guilty as any of my family members at provoking people. My excuse is that I only do so when prompted. I tend to stay out (and away) from the family business as much as possible.

Tonight's email forwarded by Mommie Dearest was written by someone claiming to be a Viet Nam vet. He wanted Americans to consider how wealthy John Kerry was, and how the Secret Service would have to provide 5 agents 24 hours a day at all five of the Kerry/Heinz properties. Then the argument was expanded to question why a rich guy would want a Senator's and then a President's salary--the conclusion: "Because he wants all the American people to serve him. He doesn't have any other interest in the job because he obviously doesn't need the money, so it must be power he's after." Think about how much the Secret Service will have to spend to protect President Kerry! Oh my God! I never considered that before. Bush has blown the budget beyond Reagan's wettest jelly bean dreams, but we have to worry about the Secret Service budget if Kerry wins.

You can only imagine the email I sent in response. Basically I implied that my mother was a simpleton, a dupe, even a moron for giving credence to this sort of bullshit. I reminded her the Bushes are wealthier than the Heinz-Kerrys and that they have numerous properties in numerous states that the Secret Service has to guard (not to mention the Bush twins, whose epic partying keeps the SS busy). I also pointed out that the Bush clan has made their fortune bilking the taxpayers into buying weapons for the wars they fight. Sure, they made some money off oil, but Panama and Gulf War I really increased their family wealth a great deal (not to mention banking scandals, shady Saudi-financed deals, baseball stadium boondoggles, selling arms to Hitler, etc).

I don't like Kerry much but he's so obviously superior to the dimwitted proto-fascists currently in charge that I actually feel physically ill when I talk to people who still support W.

Perhaps it's because I'm reading the really acerbic



I find Miller's new "no-holds-barred" tone really refreshing. At last, some righteous indignation! At last someone who thinks these guys aren't simply corrupt, a bit idealistic, and kind of simpleminded--Miller is willing to speak up and say "These guys and their agenda are downright SCARY."