this bizarre religious shit may fly in louisiana, with all the zombies and voodoo and severed chicken feet, but it won’t play in the heartland!

One of the names that has recently been tossed around as a possible veep for McCain is Bobby Jindal, the current governor of Louisiana. He has a pretty impressive resumé (although honestly, Zombie Hitler With Cobras For Arms probably could have beaten Kathleen Blanco, after the massive clusterfuck that were Hurricanes Katrina & Rita).

More importantly, he’s the son of Indian immigrants and in his late 30s, thereby providing some balance to the “Crusty Old White Man” ticket. Hey, I’m not knocking it. Balance is the raison d’être of veep nominees.

Unfortunately for the McCain camp, it’s recently come out that Jindal is also quite possibly pants-shittingly crazy, having claimed in a 1994 essay he wrote for the conservative Catholic journal New Oxford Review that he once exorcised a female college “friend” with a bunch of other guys and cured her cancer. Why does this sound disturbingly like an excuse for date gang rape? “We swear officer, we thought she was possessed!“

You have to have a paid subscription to read the essay at NOR, but Talking Points Memo has some juicy exceprts, including that Jindal initially began to have suspicions when the woman became depressed after the suicide of a close friend and her own diagnosis of skin cancer. Umm, Bobby? It’s pretty normal for people to act not quite themselves when life throws a double fistful of crap at them like that. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re possessed.

He also claimed to have smelled a sulfuric odor in her presense, and that the exorcism was precipitated by her having a seizure at a prayer meeting. Did we mention the cancer? So instead of calling 911 like rational people, naturally they all decided to dogpile on her and start chanting a bunch of religious mumbo-jumbo. As you do. The fact that she screamed and tried to run away is presented as proof of her demonic infestation, instead of as proof that she was terrified of these freaks who responded to a medical emergency by sitting on her and yelling a bunch of weird religious crap at her.

He’s a saint!

make them start hating their bodies before they’re even old enough to walk

Well, this is revolting: high heels for infants. They’re not meant to be worn, of course. They’re a “joke” item.

But they disgust me anyway. I hate high heels to begin with:  They’re a tool of the patriarchy, meant to limit women’s freedom of movement and make our bodies more appealing to the male sexual gaze. You might as well bind your feet as to wear any heel higher than a couple of inches.

Plus, you know there are people stupid and/or trashy enough to actually put these on their babies. Probably the same people who punch bloody holes in their earlobes before they’re old enough to indicate their desire for such. (And I’ve heard all the arguments about how that can be a “cultural” thing. I’m not a cultural relativist, so you can shut it.) What’s next, fake fingernails for babies? Falsies??

But even if no one is ever actually dumb enough to put these on their babies, or if they never cause a baby who had a pair to grow up into a girl who wants to wear high heels before her bones have even hardened, does the world really need another tacky plastic gewgaw that fills absolutely no purpose, and will eventually spend centuries mouldering in a landfill?

Simplify, people! Useless crap will be the downfall of civilization!

Update: I guess the woman who invented this ridiculous bullshit was recently on a talk show, and apparently they are meant to be worn, which makes my brain hurt. I’ve seen them discussed on other sites, and a very valid point has been raised: If a baby attempts to take her first steps while wearing these, she’s very likely to break an ankle. Hello, lawsuit!

i finally realized who chris matthews has reminded me of this primary season

Surly, slightly unhinged, possibly drunk and asking totally inappropriate questions (“Senator Clinton, wouldn’t your vagina keep you from being an effective commander-in-chief?”)?

 
     Coach McGuirk
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