The Pantheon Outcast

Two items have come to my attention in the past couple of hours, and I find it essential to comment on both of them, as they speak volumes about the hypocrisy surrounding the so-called race problem in America. On Thursday, Tennessee State Legislator Stacey Campfield was denied entry into the state’s Black Caucus because he was white. According to Rep. Campfield’s own website , he and the leader of the Caucus, Johnny Shaw, had the follwing exchange: “Back in the spring, I had asked the leader of the black caucus, Johnny Shaw, for a copy of the bylaws. Johnny said he wanted to see a copy of the Republican Caucus bylaws first. I agreed and had a copy sent to him in less than 10 minutes. When my assistant returned from dropping them off, she notified me that Shaw did not want to give me a copy of the bylaws. I called Johnny Shaw back and he said unless I had a court order or attorney general's opinion, he was not going to give me anything.I later asked him again for a copy and was aga

Why are people afraid of the truth? Is it because it stings like being shot in the spine with Double-O buckshot? Every time I read the papers, it seems that someone has made a factually true statement that ends up “offending” one or more groups of people in America. And these days, everyone belongs to a group. You’ve got your “Minorities”, “Homosexuals,” “Women,” “Physically Challenged,” “One-Legged Left-Handed Bursitis Sufferers,” and the list goes on and on. For some reason, the media likes to refer to any group larger than two people as a “Community," as in “Homosexual community leaders staged a protest today….” In order to make a cogent argument, definitions must first be agreed upon by all parties involved. A community is, as far as I can tell, a group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. Levittown, New York, therefore is a community. People who are attracted to members of the same sex, however, do not share a zip code, only a hobby, and can’t

Everything tastes better when it’s free. Especially irony. A 24 year old Hurricane refugee named Don Maurice Airline was found dead in Tennessee last Saturday, apparently the victim of a robbery. He had been shot five times in the head and his Red Cross debit card worth “several hundred dollars” was missing from his body. Now before you start shedding tears or pouring malt liquor on the sidewalk, read the rest of the article to discover where Mr. Airline was just before his untimely death. Was he buying medical supplies for his family? Negotiating the settlement from his insurance company? Discussing his finances with his bank officers? Doing anything remotely related to piecing together the shattered remains of his pre-hurricane existence? No, he was at a nightclub. You know, the place you go to drink copious amounts of alcoholic beverages while flailing your arms around wildly to pulsating bass rhythms and attempting to elicit the attention of the opposite sex? Nightclubs are also t

In addition to being immortal, I have also been blessed with the gift of foresight, which comes in handy on Lottery Night, The Kentucky Derby, and the four hundred college bowl games which all seem to be sponsored by auto parts manufacturers. However, I decided long ago that I would be using my powers of divining the future for the good of the general public and not for monetary gain. That being said, let me reveal to you now what will occur shortly after Hurricane Rita slams into the Gulf Coast with deadly, sardonic precision: Prediction #1: 100 million people will blame the imminent destruction on the President of the United States. 10 million of them will go on to narrow down the blame to his refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty. At least 100 of them will be celebrities who throw cell phones at their assistants when they fail to provide enough backstage bottled water. Prediction #2: Stubborn, ignorant townies will refuse to leave their swampland residences, and will sit on the porch wit

Even in the wake of an unprecedented mobilization of aid and donations, there are still those determined to prove how “wronged” they were. I realize that I had sworn not to comment on any more of the Hurricane Katrina coverage, but this article was too good to pass up. Apparently, the residents of Gretna, Louisiana have become the latest recipients of the dreaded “Racist” branding after it was discovered that after the hurricane, their Police Chief, Arthur Lawson, had blockaded the bridge that connects their city to New Orleans. Gretna , a small, upscale suburb of about 18,000 residents, in addition to having to deal with the devastation and loss caused by the floods, now also has to contend with the angry, fanatical finger-pointing perpetrated by a select group of ignorant but media-savvy individuals, including the mayor of New Orleans himself. Regardless of Newsday’s flawed statistics, the town of Gretna is approximately 50% white and 35% black, numbers that make the town look less

2,749 Americans agree that the next major U.S. military operation should be targeted at 21° 25′ 24″ N 39° 49′ 24″ E using 72 Trident II SLBM missles armed with W88 Nuclear warheads. That's how you show that you've truly "Never Forgotten." Lex Talionis.

An interesting item today from Newsday , known worldwide for having more "I Blame Bush" content than any other newspaper, seems to indicate that New York is currently so free from crime, that authorities can now go ahead and prosecute people who have only contemplated breaking the law. Jan Kabas, a 53-year-old attorney from Jericho, New York has pleaded guilty to “first-degree attempted disseminating indecent material to minors,” which apparently carries with it anywhere from 16 months to 4 years of prison fun and excitement. But the truth shows that he never, according to the letter of the law, did any such thing. Seems that Mr. Kabas, when not committing bank fraud , likes to kick off his shoes and spend a relaxing evening chatting with 13-year old girls on AOL. One in particular caught his fancy, and he spent the next month and a half wooing her in the chat rooms. Ah, but much to his chagrin, the young lady with which Mr. Kabas was conversing for six weeks was in fact an u

(Cartoon Courtesy of Steve Kelley ) I’m getting exceptionally bored and restless with all the over-hyped, redundant coverage of that passing shower Katrina, so this will be the last time I make reference to it. I was trying to come up with a fitting way to cap off all of the maudlin photo-essays, conspiratorial journalism, and whiny race baiting with a solid, keen-edged slash-to-the-heartstrings article, but it seems that I have been beaten to it. Even though I know it’s tongue-in-cheek at its finest, I temporarily take back every negative comment I’ve ever made about Jack Shafer, Slate Magazine’s editor-at-large. In today’s issue, he writes a very compelling argument on why the city of New Orleans should not be rebuilt. Read it and don't forget to take notes! Now here’s the irony: In an attempt by Mr. Shafer at using facts that cast Sin City in a negative light, thereby gaining the emotional support of those who see his article as sarcasm, he has actually done precisely the opp

I thought I’d share with you today a topic that not too many people are aware of, or in the greater sense, “care about in the slightest.” It seems that Anne Rice wrote an open letter to the People of the United States and had it published in the New York Times. We can’t be sure that this letter was actually written by Anne Rice, because the Times has a slightly irritating habit of completely fabricating the stories that appear in its pages. Nevertheless, for the sake of this article, we’ll assume that it is genuine. Her editorial, published in the opinion section, basically lambastes the Federal Government, the American People, and pretty much everyone else on the planet, for not doing enough to save her precious, vibrant city of New Orleans during the hurricane “crisis”. In case you don’t know who Anne Rice is, she is the unquestionable Queen of the Gothic/ Horror/ Homoerotic/ Sadomasochistic/ Guys Who Wear Velvet Shirts and Paint Their Fingernails literary genre. She was famous for

There are two types of people in your world: Those who swallow everything that is fed to them, like the starving dogs that they are, and those who, if someone told them they were on fire, would roll their eyes unless they could actually smell their own hair smoldering. And it’s easy to tell the two types apart, too; just listen to their vocabulary. If someone uses the words “tragedy,” “victim,” “godsend,” “blessing,” or “perspective” more than six times during a normal three-minute conversation, then they are undeniably of the first variety. It’s not easy to be cynical, or as I like to call it, logical. Logical people are pariahs in this society, for the simple fact that they revel in crushing the conventional dreams, beliefs, values, traditions and customs of pretty much everyone who have closed their minds and eyes to the truth and instead elects to be guided by their hearts. Letting your emotions rule your actions is okay for, say, Valentine’s Day, but on a day-to-day basis, it’s as

Because I’m such a benevolent, compassionate soul, I did a little checking around to see what I, as one outcast god, could do to help the untenable situation down in Hurricane Country. I stumbled across this site , which, in the spirit of pretentiousness, was set up to elicit donations to the Red Cross. A noble cause, wouldn’t you say? In the comments section, however, the site’s true colors came out. Seems one poster, a Mr. Rick Blake, was very troubled that the current federal administration was not doing enough to help out all of the black people that are suffering. Let me remind you that 33% of the affected area is white, so Mr. Blake is really only concerned about 2/3 of the victims. His comments are too extensive (and convoluted) to post here, but you can click here to read about Bush, and FEMA, and how the bible all figures into the hurricane situation. I’m not sure what bothers me more, that an idiot like that made such outrageous comments during a time of such widespread cris

Ah…(rubbing hands together gleefully). It’s begun. People, (and I use that term loosely), are blaming the President of the United States for the destruction caused by the Hurricane Katrina. So far, President Bush is responsible for: Muslim terrorists hijacking planes and killing 3000 people Wars in the Middle East that have been occurring ever since Mohammad first crawled out of his cave Skyrocketing gasoline prices Global Warming And now, a Hurricane. Is there nothing this man can’t do? He’s got his finger in every pie! From governing the actions of religious fundamentalists, to tinkering with International Politics, to controlling the world economy, and now it’s been proven that he has dominion over the forces of Nature! I humbly pledge my obeisance before this omnipotent deity .

Tell me again how all people are created equal: This poor woman was dragged out of her car, punched, kicked and throttled by a mob of sub-humans because they suspected her of “ratting out” some local gang of thugs. She later died from her injuries. Apparently, in the criminal community, snitching on other criminals is the lowest form of behavior imaginable. Drug dealing, murder, rape and prostitution on the other hand are the glue that keeps such communities together. So why did a throng of troglodytes beat a woman to death because she dropped a dime? Because their role models gave them the green light. Last year , Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony made a cameo appearance in a underground DVD called “Stop Snitchin’.” The video, in addition to reinforcing almost every known stereotype of black Americans, (you know, doo-rags, finger signs, the ubiquitous use of the word “nigga”), presents one salient point throughout its 120 minute runtime: if any person informs the police of suspec

As I sit here in my ivory tower and count the days until all you mortals finally finish yourselves off in a stunning display of stupidity, I often wonder to myself, “Is there any way perhaps that the process could be speeded up?” Even though the current death rate of the planet is holding steady, it pleases me to see that the principal frailties of the human species, greed and mindless faith, contribute more than their share to the extinction of the planet. Let’s take a look first at the situation in Swaziland , a country primarily known for being completely unknown to anyone who enjoys running water and electrical lighting. Seems that in Swaziland, the time has finally come for King Mswati III to choose his thirteenth wife. Sure, the first dozen are important, as they are to any man, but number 13, that’s the honey pot. And like most swinging bachelors, King Mswati woos his women the old fashioned way: by having 50,000 of them show up topless to his palace to perform the ancient rit

Something occurred to me as I was having a conversation with a friend today, (she’s definitely one of the Outcast by the way), when she mentioned that I wasn’t very “open-minded.” The phrase “open-minded” is perhaps the most aggravating and deceptive American axioms ever invented. Why? Because it’s a trap. The only reason people see others as not “open-minded” is because they are not in agreement about a particular subject. If someone says, “I don’t think the U.S. ever put a man on the moon,” I’d disagree, because there’s tons of evidence to the contrary. But then I’d be met with the dreaded “you need to be more open-minded!” Well, shouldn’t they have the same level of open-mindedness? Of course not. Because in their lexicon, “open-minded” means “believing any old bit of nonsense as long as it goes against tradition.” Cold, hard facts scare these people, so they hide behind the gilded shield of “opinions.” To be honest, I don’t believe there are any such things as opinions. There are f