GOP - Great Obstructionist Party

The GOP, which used to stand for "Grand Old Party," has become the "Great Obstructionist Party."  I didn't make this up on my own. I'm using the words of Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. In the August 15th edition of the New York Times, the esteemed Senator said “I wish we had been able to obstruct more," in referring to the Republican party's response to legislation enacteed by the Democrats during the past 18 months.

The Senator could easily argue that I'm taking his words out of context. I would not disagree.  However, I would point out that when President Bush, witth the urging of Secretary of Treasury Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke, asked for emergency legislation to prevent a meltdown of the nation's financial system the GOP as a party said "no."  They allowed enough Senators and Representatives to vote yes to allow for the bailout package, but the party's heart was obstructed.

The GOP will go to the voters this fall and tell them the party tried to stop "bad legislation" from being enacted. However, the GOP cannot tell the voters of any positve actions that the party implemented or helped to enact. In times of crisis, leadership does not consist of "Just saying no."

Sarah Palin: Future President and Chief Science Officer

Former half-term Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, continues to speak, and each time she does so gives more evidence of the vacuous nature of her thinking. She recently opined on how the nation should approach nuclear disarmament. I found this remarkable for a woman who before her nomination to vice-president didn't know the difference between Pluto and plutonium. President Obama respectfully declined her advice and continued to work on plans based on input from senior scientific and political advisers.


Now she has clarified the issue of global warming once and for all. She is "Agin it. You betcha." At a recent Republican convention, she stated:

"We should create a competitive climate for investment in renewables and alternatives, none of this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming, Gore-gate stuff that came down where there was revelation that the scientists, some of these scientists were playing political games."

I can understand people having questions about the causes of global warming. However, her reference to snake oil is a bit odd. Does she think snake oil is a cause for global warming or prevents it? Is it possible the de facto head of the Tea Party has a little too much Kool aid in her tea? If you want to risk brain damage, try reading the second sentence a couple of times.


Tonight, on 60 minutes, they highlighted the finding of a link between apes and Homo sapiens. A scientist found the skull of a nine-year-old child that is 1.9 million years old. Undoubtedly, Ms. Palin will remind us this is more snake oil. She point out the Bible and has everything we need to know about evolution. A long time ago when I was in graduate school, the pastor of the St. Thomas Aquinas Center at Purdue University told an audience that "the Bible tells us how to get to heaven, not how the heavens were made." I wonder how Chief Science Officer Sarah Palin would have reacted to hearing that statement from a Catholic priest.

Unholy Embrace vampire novel by Neil Benson - The vampire as beauty and the beast.

In my vampire novel, Nessa, the vampire, is a beautiful, elegant woman. But as her mortal lover, Frank, finds out early in the novel, she is capable of acts of physical violence he finds difficult to comprehend. Furthermore, when he sees her fangs dripping with blood, the lovely woman he loves is transformed into the hideous, undead creature of myth.

There was nothing startling or revelatory about this kind of change. The duality of good and evil is clearly stated in the Old Testament in the passage that follows.

"I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things. "(Isaiah 45:5-8)

The novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the vile Mr Edward Hyde. The work is famous for its vivid portrayal of a split personality, split in the sense that within the same person there is both an apparently good and an evil personality each being quite distinct from the other. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.

In my novel, Nessa strives deny her vampirism as much as possible. She wants to be the "good human," not the "evil" vampire. However, there are times when circumstances force her to become the lethal vampire in her own self-defense, or to save Frank. Even acting in self defense, her ferocity and physical power enable her to act in a way most people would find abhorrent. There are instances in the novel when her actions go far beyond self-defense, and the crueler, aspect of her nature is revealed.

We all struggle with our own impulses of good and evil. In order to retain our essential humanity it is necessary we keep our evil impulses at bay. Recent history has shown that under certain circumstances "good people" can act in ways that contravene the ethical and moral standards under which we live.

Nessa, despite her desire to be human, is the vampire, the beast. So beauty and the beast reside side-by-side.

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1639917-Unholy-Embrace----First-Three-Chapters

We Are the Vampires by Neil Benson

Vampires are us, not other. When we look into the mirror, they are the twisted reflections of evil within us. This is not to say that all, or even most, people are essentially evil. Rather, the vampire is a metaphor for some of our evil wishes. As much as the myth of the vampire is about sex, it is also about greed. The vampire hungers for the blood of the living and takes it by force, not caring whether the victim lives or dies. Of course, there is the exception. That is when the vampire for personal reasons decides to turn the victim into one of the "undead." Evil breeding evil.


Various legends and myths make Lilith, Adam's first wife, the mother of all vampires or all succubi. According to the myth, Lilith refused to subjugate herself to Adam and demanded to be his equal. She might have been the first feminist. For her defiance, she paid an awful price. The Angels killed her children, and she in turn swore vengeance on the descendent of Adam. There are 4000-year-old stone carvings of Lilith. The presence of the carving does not necessarily make her real. However, for people to have taken the trouble to make carvings of her meant she was of more than minor significance. There are legends of vampires in many other cultures separated from the civilizations that arose in Mesopotamia and its neighboring areas.


I believe one way to look at the vampire is to see the creature as humanity disowning its own evil intent. We invent the creature and give it lust and other qualities we deny exist in ourselves. After millenniums passed, the vampire arrived in literature. First in John Polypore's The Vampyre, then in Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and finally in Dracula by Bram Stoker. It is worth noting that Lord Ruthven in Vampire and Carmilla both appear as "normal" human beings. However, Dracula is described as thin, with a long white mustache, pointed ears and sharp teeth. He is dressed all in black and has hair on his palms. Jonathan Harker notes his "extraordinary" pallor.

I believe Dracula was depicted to make him an evil looking creature, not one of us. A hundred years pass, and vampires are once again indistinguishable from us. In many novels, they are creatures of great beauty and allure. In recent novels, they have been tamed, and were it not for their thirst for blood and immortality, could probably join the Chamber of Commerce. But in 2007, continuing into 2008 and 2009, a worldwide financial catastrophe brings forth a different vampire. These vampires do not take in blood, nor are they immortal and have inhuman strength. Rather, these vampires sucked the financial blood of the nation that a second Great Depression was only narrowly averted. These vampires are bankers, brokers, heads of investment firms, mortgage agents, and a host of others who fed on society's greed for bigger, better houses.


Vampires will always be among us. For they are "us" in our worst aspects. Whether in the form of the myth or the reality of people so greedy they would destroy an economy, they are us.

Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson Bound for Hell

Just when you think you've heard the ultimate insensitive comment from Rush Limbaugh, he shows you that you have underestimated his ability to be less than a human being. On a recent radio show, his Rushness said,

" Speaking on his radio show Wednesday, Limbaugh said the earthquake has played into Obama’s hands, allowing the president to look “compassionate” and “humanitarian” while at the same time bolstering his standing in both the “light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.” He added: “We've already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.”

Conservative columnists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Show said the following.

“They are deeply insensitive,” said conservative commentator Pat Buchanan on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Sitting next to Buchanan on set, host Joe Scarborough called Limbaugh’s comments “deplorable.” “The insensitivity is stunning,” said the former Republican congressman.

How can Rush Limbaugh consider himself a Christian when he says so many vile things, and holds his fellow men and women in such contempt. It would be interesting to see him attempting to enter heaven and St. Peter holding an inch thick file of the venomous things he has said during his life. Get into heaven? No way. Bound for a much warmer climate.

While Limbaugh received a modicum of support, nobody of note has stepped up to defend Robertson’s claim that Haiti got hit by an earthquake because it is “cursed.”

Speaking about the disaster during his program “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson said that when Haiti was still a French colony its leaders “swore a pact to the devil” to get out from “under the heel of the French.”

“They said, ‘we will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal,’”

No doubt Pat Robertson considers himself a person close to God. Once Robertson shuffles off this mortal coil he is likely to find himself heartily embraced by Satan rather than uplifted into glory and heaven. The man is just plain mean. What he says disqualifies him not only as a Christian, but also as a human being.

The NBC Scandal: The True Story

I was astonished to learn there was a scandal at NBC. But if the New York Times says there was a scandal, then there must have been a scandal. In today's New York Times, Alessandra Stanley, wrote the following.

"Possibly the most incisive joke about NBC's late-night meltdown came from Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” sidekick Andy Richter. “It’s been the most fun I’ve ever had in a show-biz scandal,” Mr. Richter said sardonically to Mr. O'Brien on their set on Tuesday.

The NBC scandal isn’t fun exactly, but it is has produced the kind of must-see-in-real-time television that late-night comedy shows rarely offer anymore."

While it would be foolish to challenge anything said in the New York Times, perhaps the above bears some further investigation। According to Webster's online dictionary, the top three definitions for the word scandal are listed below.

1 a : discredit brought upon religion by unseemly conduct in a religious person b : conduct that causes or encourages a lapse of faith or of religious obedience in another
2 : loss of or damage to reputation caused by actual or apparent violation of morality or propriety : disgrace
3 a : a circumstance or action that offends propriety or established moral conceptions or disgraces those associated with it b : a person whose conduct offends propriety or morality

As I read the above definitions, nothing that has happened with Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien meets any of these criteria. Why should I be an old curmudgeon and ruin the party? After all, the public's appetite for information about scandal seems bottomless. The David Letterman scandal in the fall, was a small prelude to the Tiger Woods scandal. Though Tigers pummeling is far from an end, the day will come when he crawls back onto the golf course to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or is that outrageously bad boy behavior? Never mind, it's probably the same. It's probably best that I not get involved with such controversies. I have to help my publisher get my vampire novel ready for publication. Vampires. That's a safe subject. You've never heard of a vampire scandals, have you?

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