It took a couple of days, but I have figured out what the right-wing apologists remind me of, those who are so busy claiming that their murderous rhetoric had no connection to the killings in Tucson.
(Just incidentally, I would like to see them quote some example of equivalent rhetoric on the left besides the president's bringing a gun to a knife fight metaphor or the "dead to me" comment by someone on the DailyKos, or forty-year-old evocations of leftist militants--in case no one remembers, there were not many such and they were widely disdained by most war protesters--or lies about all the terrible things Democrats did to Bush. Why, a reasonable person would almost think they were having trouble coming up with examples.)
I lived in a southern city for many years, one which Dorinda Fox knows well but which I will not name. The whole area was infested with cockroaches. It didn't matter how much money you had or how upscale you were. You could shroud your house in an exterminator's tent and poison them all, and a week later they would be back. They lived in grass and trees, and as soon as the house was clear, they would be back.
As I say, no matter what you did, they took over. Move a painting on the wall, and behind it you would find a discolored square dotted with cockroach feces. Their fetor was everywhere.
When I would go into the kitchen at night and flick on the light, hordes of vermin would scuttle for cover behind the refrigerator, the stove, cabinet doors, whatever, and hordes of others would drop fluttering from the walls. The sight always made me shiver with disgust.
That's what the apologists remind me of.


Salon.com
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Dorinda Fox cockroach expert chiming in here. Borac acid will hold them back for awhile. However no state grows cockroaches like Florida where those suckers fly and land on one's head. I once walked into a barn with a Coleman lantern on after nightfall and hundreds of them swarmed at me. Felt like I was in a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds but it was WORSE. Interesting the folks who are being compared to cockroaches here often reside in unnamed city's state or Florida. Boric acid. It helps ;0)
Randy: Many thanks as well. I often make typos like that in my letters and postings, and they bother me, too. Not to fret.
Mal: Thank you, and good to hear from you again. What continues to surprise me, though it shouldn't, is how the very people who strive to be the most offensive hasten, when something bad happens, to claim that they are not responsible. Me, when something bad happens, I wonder what I did wrong, even if I was not involved at all.
Anyway, it's not surprise at how they continue to act, but moreso the bafflement that they can't think critically when it comes to self-critique. As for wondering what we might have done wrong (myself tilting similarly), I sense a bit of that southern baptist preacher influence, no? It's the sirens' call of judeo-christian morals. ;-)
I will admit to seeing some mighty big critters down around South Ringo during my misspent youth. They may have been roaches. They may have been lobsters. It's hard to say. But they were nothing compared to the rats I've seen across the river in Levy on a Saturday night.
Mal, I understood your meaning, and appreciated your comment. I was making fun of my own religiosity, though I agree that if more people were that way, this would be a more civil society.