My boyfriend's a musician. This is NOTHING.

Everyone's getting all hopped up about Edwards's grooming habits. At least he doesn't lick his comb like some people I could mention.

Just a theory

So Gonzalez refuses to fall on his sword, even though he has now admitted that his office misled Congress about how the eight U.S. attorneys were fired. He continues to lie about why they were fired, which was most certainly because they were not obsequious enough to BushCo.

One interesting aspect of this whole deal is that, after briefly considering firing all 93 U.S. prosecutors at the start of W’s second term, they decided instead to purge them one at a time, no doubt hoping to avoid scrutiny by doing so.

But why would they even entertain the thought of dismissing ALL the prosecutors, which would certainly be a huge story, unless by doing so they could hide, or justify, something else they’d been longing to do?

Like the firing of a certain prosecutor that they would certainly never dare fire on his own?

A certain untouchable prosecutor who has shone a teeny tiny little ray of light into the dark chasm of despair that is the Bush administration?

"I am wronged. It is a shameful thing that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits."

So, I know I’m like the last person in the world to see Jesus Camp, but I avoided watching it for a while because I figured it would make me pretty angry.

Mostly it made me sad. I don’t mean that in a superior way. But the kids in the movie, and I mean even little children, are being told by their parents, and by the people in that camp, that the world is sinful, and it is up to them to save it. What’s the big deal about that, you say? Well, the big deal is that the kids believe them. They believe that how hard they pray, and how well they obey the rules that are laid out before them, means life or death for the people of this country and of this world. And that’s not only bullshit, it’s wrong. And if you ask me, it’s criminal.

Those kids believe that they are at war with people who do not believe, and that if they are having some harmless kid-type fun, say, or telling scary stories, or doing anything that is not about praising god, then they are squandering their lives and there will be, literally, hell to pay.

In short, the kids are fucked up. And the parents and the ministers and the teachers in the movie think that’s fine, as long as they are fucked up in the name of god. That’s not hyperbole. At the end of the film Becky Fischer, the woman who is the head of camp, basically admits to a radio host that yes, they are using children to further their cause, but it’s okay, because their cause is righteous.

The other thing that struck me about the movie, and watching how intensely those kids believe, and how convincingly they hurl themselves about and cry and speak in tongues is, I now have absolutely no problem believing that a small group of children managed to bring about the deaths of twenty-four people in the village of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, and ruin the lives of hundreds more. I’m sure those kids believed that every time they pointed a finger, they were doing the Lord’s work. I used to read about the Salem witch trials and think “How the fuck could that happen?” Now I know.