I haven't updated my blog for a while

 You see, I had a death in the family and had to drop everything and run down to suburban Virginia to be with my family

 This past sunday, I had to take a trip further out in rural VA to take care of pending business out there.  It's a part of the state that I haven't visited in over a decade.  We're talking way west, close to the border with West Virginia.  The parts of the state that the likes of Sara Palin would refer to as the real Virginia or the real America.  A place I had fled as a young man only to realize now, that despite time and other factors, things are exactly the way I left them.

Driving on small beautiful country road towards my destination, I passed town after town all sharing the same attributes.  Churches galore, dixie flags, gun stores, and plenty of billboards and signs with biblical passages and right wing one-liners.

 I felt sad and disgusted at the same time.  Here, less than ninety  minutes from the nation's capital was a place that, despite all advances in communications, seem to still be living in a bubble fueled by ignorance, religion, and the powers that prey on their status.  Here, conversations will ultimately lead to religion, conspiracy theories, the feds, and an upcoming combination of "white" revolution, the rapture, ot both. Here, the animosity against the rest of the country, and urban areas in particular is shockingly on display.  The hatred of all things academic or intellectual is bragged about, while racist and homophobic attitudes are second nature. Oh, and most people here happen to be armed to the teeth.

This is the America that Sara Palin and McCain was hoping would deliver the presidency to their failing campaign.  This is also the region that many in the Republican party feel ought to be their backbone.  It's that exploitation of ignorance, as opposed to confrontation that bring out the disgust.

While, indeed, there is a left and a right in our democracy, some thoughts and ideas are too stupid and too dangerous to be accepted and celebrated (or even exploited) by any party.  Now that the election is over, we need to look back at some of the ugliness that was on display, the animosity that is still out there, denounce and confront it.

 There is nothing real to this part of America, nothing that reflects the ideals that have brought many of us to this great nation. It is just plain wrong.