For Deeky, because this was his favorite show evah.
Question of the Day
What's your favorite video game?
This is an easy one for me: Oddworld. Hands-down my favorite of all time. It's also one of Spudsy's favorite games, too, and both of us were made inordinately happy by discovering our shared ardor.
It's all about Abe.
How can you not love that face?
Quote of the Day - #2
The liberal uses crises, real or manufactured, to expand the power of government at the expense of the individual and private property. He has spent, in earnest, 70 years evading the Constitution's limits on governmental power. If conservatives don't stand up to this, who will? If they don't offer serious alternatives that address the current circumstances AND defend the founding principles, who will? - Mark Levin, National Review
And all this time I thought right-wingers didn't understand the concept of irony. Silly me.
HT to Glenn Greenwald.
McCain's Gay Q&A with The Blade
See Johnny provide a plethora of examples of how saying "I support states' rights" is just another way of saying "I support discrimination" in polite company.
McNasty's Greatest Hits
Earlier today, in comments, Shaker Bokun59 asked if John McCain is "truly as nasty and belligerent as he appears to be." Is he really that bad—or is it just one of those partisan memes that develops about an opponent? I'm guessing he isn't the only Shaker with that question, and, since detailing McCain's long list of objectionable qualities has been what one might call a specialty of mine since the inception of this blog back in '04, I figured I'd put together a little collection of Punk McNasty's Greatest Hits to answer that question and for handy-dandy reference.
• Accusing the Democrats of being sore losers and obstructionists motivated by partisan "bitterness" just because they had the temerity to not treat Condoleezza Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State as "a foregone conclusion."
• Accusing Vietnam veteran and Congressman Jack Murtha of being "too emotional" to be rational about the war.
• Sending then-freshman Senator Barack Obama what Matt Stoller called "remarkable" and one of "the single most bitter, nasty letters I have ever seen from any Senator."
• Threatening to leave an appearance before the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department because members of the audience challenged his statements on immigration, organized labor, and the war. He also questioned their work ethic and skills, telling them "You can't do it, my friends," when some accepted his hypothetical job offer of $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.
• Threatening to commit suicide if the Democrats won a majority in the Senate.
• Using the racially-charged and highly inappropriate term "tar baby."
• Singing about bombing Iran:
• Responding to criticisms of that hilarious little ditty by snapping: "Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends. My response is, lighten up and get a life," without, naturally, the merest glimmer of irony that he'd been casually joking about taking lives.
• Telling Jon Stewart he'd brought him an IED from Iraq as a gift:
• Responding to Congressman Murtha's criticism of that hilarious joke with: "All I'm going to say to Murtha and others. … Lighten up and get a life," to which Atrios said what ought to have been obvious to any halfwit but eluded the evidently witless McCain: "The point is that dead troops and other victims are no longer capable of getting 'a life'."
• Erupting at fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn in a meeting about immigration legislation, during which McCain accused Cornyn of raising a concern just to torpedo a legislative deal, "used a curse word associated with chickens," and shouted "[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room!"
• Responding to one of his supporters asking of Hillary Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?" by laughing:
• Saying he hoped Fidel Castro would die.
• Reportedly calling his own wife a cunt.
• Shoving one of his Republican colleagues and repeatedly calling another "boy."
• Telling women to get "education and training" instead of fighting for equal pay in the legislature.
• Joking about his reputation as "Senator Hothead."
• Calling Obama's response to Bush's outrageous suggestion that Obama wants to appease terrorists a "hysterical diatribe." (Got that? Bush calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer isn't a hysterical diatribe; Obama defending himself against the charge is.)
• Joking about domestic violence.
• Joking about exporting cigarettes to kill Iranians.
• Joking about rape.
• Asserting that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign."
• Being a ginormous misogybag.
• Challenging Obama's patriotism.
• Behaving like a rude jagoff to reporters. (One example of about 10 different posts I've written on the same theme.)
So, if you're keeping score at home: He can't get along with his colleagues, even the ones on his own side of the aisle, he flies off the handle when he doesn't get his way, he's hostile toward anyone who disagrees with him, he has no seeming objection to the casual use of sexist and racist language, and he makes highly inappropriate jokes about rape and violence against women and war and death, including the murder of TV hosts and deaths of foreign leaders.
That probably describes a hell of a lot of people, including—perhaps, especially—bloggers. But those people aren't running for president. John McCain is. Is that the kind of person we really want leading our country? Is that the kind of person who we want as our head of government, no less our head of state?
There are a lot of scary things about the possibility of a President McCain, like the fact that he's a warmonger, just for a start. Among them, if not at the top of the list, is this: Sending McCain onto the global stage to be our national representative could make this...
...a fond memory of the days when we had a president who merely creeped out foreign dignitaries by being a douche, but at least never screamed, "Fuck you, cocksucker!" at them.
The Trick is Finding the Right Expert
My friend Jason, who reads AmericaBlog just to be "thankful I am not John Aravosis," just sent me an email about how Aravosis is feverishly deconstructing video that's meant to be possible evidence that McCain had a stroke onstage. Regular video, slo-mo video, screen caps—it's quite the investigation over there.
Anyway, J says: "So Aravosis speculates that McCain had a stroke. Well, I know from my experience as a condescending ass: When you are accustomed to contorting your face with various expressions of disdain and contempt, your muscles atrophy a little and sometimes the odd flinch occurs to compensate."
And thus ends the Shakesville investigation into the Great McCain Twitch of 2008.
Wednesday Blogaround
What's the frequency, Shakers?
Recommended Reading:
Echidne: Out of Her League
Boehlert: Right-Wing Bloggers Leave Their Stain on the Campaign
Cara: An Obama Ad about Rape?
Julianne: Short Stories
The Rotund: "You get into a stupid place."
Marcella: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 56
Leave your links in comments...
It's a Choice for Gays, But Not for Women
by Shaker Juliemania
The last installment of Katie Couric's interview with Governor Palin aired last night. Here are Palin's comments on feminism, abortion, the morning-after pill, evolution, and homosexuality (the first video includes her comments on abortion and the morning-after pill, and the second includes her thoughts about her gay friend). Transcripts are below.
Palin reminds me a lot of my sister-in-law, who said to me: "I don't have a problem with you [me and my wife]; I have a problem with your lifestyle."
Palin says she's not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. Really?
She scares the hell out of me.
Couric asked Palin whether she considers herself a feminist.
"I do," Palin said. "I'm a feminist who, uh, believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed, and to try to do it all, anyway. And I'm very, very thankful that I've been brought up in a family where gender hasn't been an issue. You know, I've been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing. We were out chopping wood and you're out hunting and fishing and filling our freezer with good wild Alaskan game to feed our family. So it kinda started with that."
Couric: If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, do you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion, and why?
Palin: I am pro-life. And I'm unapologetic in my position that I am pro-life. And I understand there are good people on both sides of the abortion debate. In fact, good people in my own family have differing views on abortion, and when it should be allowed. Do I respect people's opinions on this. Now, I would counsel to choose life. I would also like to see a culture of life in this country. But I would also like to take it one step further. Not just saying I am pro-life and I want fewer and fewer abortions in this country, but I want them, those women who find themselves in circumstances that are absolutely less than ideal, for them to be supported, and adoptions made easier.
Couric: But ideally, you think it should be illegal for a girl who was raped or the victim of incest to get an abortion?
Palin: I'm saying that, personally, I would counsel the person to choose life, despite horrific, horrific circumstances that this person would find themselves in. And, um, if you're asking, though, kind of foundationally here, should anyone end up in jail for having an … abortion, absolutely not. That's nothing I would ever support.
Couric: Some people have credited the morning-after pill for decreasing the number of abortions. How do you feel about the morning-after pill?
Palin: Well, I am all for contraception. And I am all for preventative measures that are legal and save, and should be taken, but Katie, again, I am one to believe that life starts at the moment of conception. And I would like to see …
Couric: And so you don't believe in the morning-after pill?
Palin: ... I would like to see fewer and fewer abortions in this world. And again, I haven't spoken with anyone who disagrees with my position on that.
Couric: I'm sorry, I just want to ask you again. Do you not support or do you condone or condemn the morning-after pill.
Palin: Personally, and this isn't McCain-Palin policy …
Couric: No, that's OK, I'm just asking you.
Palin: But personally, I would not choose to participate in that kind of contraception.
Couric: Do you believe evolution should be taught as an accepted scientific principle or as one of several theories?
Palin: Oh, I think it should be taught as an accepted principle. And, as you know, I say that also as the daughter of a school teacher, a science teacher, who has really instilled in me a respect for science. It should be taught in our schools. And I won't deny that I see the hand of God in this beautiful creation that is Earth. But that is not part of the state policy or a local curriculum in a school district. Science should be taught it science class.
The governor told us though she's not a member of any church, she visits a couple of them regularly when she's home. She took issue with news reports that one of them, The Wasilla Bible Church, sponsored a conference where gays could be made straight through prayer.
Palin: Well, it matters though, Katie, when the media gets it wrong. It frustrates Americans who are just trying to get the facts and … be able to make up their mind on, about a person's values. So it does matter.
But what you're talking about, I think, value here, what my position is on homosexuality and you can pray it away, because I think that was the title that was listed on that bulletin. And you know, I don't know what prayers are worthy of being prayed. I don't know what's prayers are going to be asked and answered. But as for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her dearly. And she is not my "gay friend," she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice that I have made. But I am not going to judge people.
People may judge her after Thursday's debate, where she'll be unfiltered and unedited - something reporters complain the campaign has resisted.
Palin: The campaign knows that I am an open book. My record is out there and my life is out there.
DON'T QUESTION ME!!!
Here's McCain positively seething through an interview with the Des Moine Register. (There are more vids here, but I chose my favorite three and did transcripts which are below. And Space Cowboy just posted another.) What really comes through in these clips, aside from the fact that he's a surly jagoff, is how much he hates being questioned—not getting questions, but being questioned; that is, having someone challenge what he asserts to be the truth about himself or Sarah Palin or anything else. We've had eight years of that shit. It doesn't work. The American president is an employee of the American people—which is a concept that Republicans have evidently forgotten.
Transcript for Video 1:
McCain: You know, you just threw out the word, uh, that I, we had a detour from the Straight Talk Express, um, I think it would be valuable if you gave me some examples from—for an assertion of that nature.
Reporter: Well, such as—
McCain: Sure.
Reporter: —when the ad saying that Obama supported comprehensive sex education for kindergartners—
McCain: He did. He did. He did! I'll be glad to provide you—we have the documentation. I'll be glad to provide it to you. Now you may not accept that documentation; we have it and we found out it's true.
Reporter: You can take this small slice of truth that may not represent the real truth of the situation; is that being straight?
McCain: Yeah, but I didn't do that. I didn't do that. Now you can assert that I did; I didn't. I've got the facts to back it up. He strongly supported that legislation, and I'll be glad—it's on our website. It's on our website.
Reporter: It seems like with the rescue plan, we have just this, this crisis in confidence. People don't trust the president, the congress—they don't trust the media. How can you go about rebuilding trust with—without, I would contend, 100% absolute truth?
McCain: Because I've always had 100% absolute truth. And that's been my life of putting my country first. And I'll match that record against anyone's. And I'm proud of it. And an assertion that I've ever done otherwise I take strong exception to. And you'll have to provide better proof than a bill that Senator Obama supported that clearly calls for the teaching of sex education of young children. So, um—
Reporter: Even something like the, the ad implying that, the, uh, lipstick on a pig reference was to Governor Palin—that just seems like that was not worth your seriousness in this campaign.
McCain: Well, that certainly is your opinion, and I respect your opinion, but it's not the facts that changes my positions and my honorable service to this country. So I respect your opinion; I strongly disagree with your assertion.
Transcript for Video 2:
Reporter: So, Senator, you're talking about surrounding yourself with people with a lot of experience—
McCain: I always have.
Reporter: —and yet you picked a vice presidential running mate who doesn't have a lot of experience in public office, so why should voters be confident that Sarah Palin has the experience at this point to succeed you if something—if you weren't able to serve out your term as president?
McCain: Well, thank you, but I disagree with your fundamental principle that she doesn't have experience. I remember when a governor came out of California, didn't have the experience—I remember when a governor came out of a small state, uh, called Arkansas, that he didn't have the experience. She has been a mayor, she's been overseer of, uh, billions—I don't know how many billions—of dollars of natural resources, she has been, uh, uh, uh—she's been a member of the PTA, she's been a governor, she's been a mayor, she's been, uh, she's had vast experience on one of the fundamental challenges of America and that's energy, so, uh, with due respect, I strongly disagree with your premise that she doesn't have experience and knowledge and background. I fundamentally disagree, and I'm proud of her record, and it's not an accident that she's the most popular governor in America—the most popular in America! It's not an accident that she cut taxes, she gave money back to the taxpayers, that she oversighted the negotiations that took on the oil companies that resulted in a forty billion—B, billion—dollar natural gas pipeline that's gonna bring natural gas to the lower 48. And she understands the challenges that families face today, and, uh, in a rather unique way. So, uh, and by the way—uh, I'll stop. I'll stop there. But you and I just have a fundamental disagreement and I'm so happy the American people seem to be siding with me.
Reporter: Why do you think they're siding with you, because there seems to be—
McCain: Because they like her! They appreciate her! They know leadership when they see it! They—
Reporter: But there seems to be a pretty strong disagreement over whether the people who are great fans of hers, and there are people who feel very uncomfortable that she does not have a lot of experience in public office—
McCain: Mm hmm.
Reporter: —you know, even among, you know, fairly conservative Republicans—
McCain: [either sarcastically or trying and failing to sound sincere] Really?!
Reporter: —who like her policy proposals—
McCain: I haven't detected that.
Reporter: —so how do you reassure them—
McCain: And I haven't detected that in the polls, I haven't detected that amongst the base—ya get twenty thousand people that come to our, uh, our rallies, uh, so, again, I fundamentally disagree. Now if there's a Georgetown cocktail party person who, quote, calls himself a conservative and doesn't like her [waves hand dismissively]—Good luck. Good luck. Fine.
Reporter: You just dismiss those who don't—
McCain: Sure.
Reporter: —feel comfortable with her level of experience—
McCain: No, I don't dismiss them. I think that the American people have overwhelmingly shown their approval. Are there people who will be detractors of her? That's fine. That's fine. That's, that's what politics is all about. Uh, some people allege that, uh, that others may have spent too much time inside the Beltway, and too much time not out in touch with the American people. Some people that, that, that, that know Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't address the American people on television. So, uh, I, I—people are free to make up their minds. But to argue somehow that she is not qualified is something I categorically reject.
Transcript for Video 3:
Reporter: Throughout your adult life, am I right, as a veteran and a member of congress and now as someone over 65, have you always been covered in your adult life by taxpayer-financed healthcare plans?
McCain: Uh, I was out of the military for awhile before I went to Congress, but, uh, you know, that's a—interesting statement, um, so, and I have never, um, been an astronaut, but I think I know the challenges of space. And I've never done a lot of things in life that I think I'm familiar with. I've always been a free enterprise, um, person who thinks that families make the best choices for themselves and their future. That's a dramatic different—different philosophy that my Democratic opponents, in my view, who think that government is the answer. Senator Obama wants to create a huge healthcare bureaucracy for America. We've seen that movie before. So, uh, the answer is that most of my life, uh, in serving my country I have had, uh, healthcare. I did go a period of time where the healthcare wasn't very good.
Wait a Minute...
WTF did McTurd just say about 35 seconds into this interview?
I’m not saying this is the perfect answer. If I were dictator, which I always aspire to be, I would write it a little bit differently. I would increase the FDIC insured deposits and done some other things..Well, lest there be any doubt about who McCain intends to follow, at least in the dictator wet dream department.
The problem is that if he really wants to be dictator of this country, he's going about it all wrong. As an aspiring dictator, there's even less of a reason to keep Palin around at this point. She can serve him best by going back home and keeping an eye on Russia from her porch. And this whole election and debate thing? Seriously, John, cut the shit and board the straight coup express. Why are you trying to win people over? Dictators don't care about that kind of thing. Just make a surge right to Washington, kick everyone out of there, and send a goon squad out to confiscate the internet so that everyone's on a level playing field again.
Come on, John, I know you can do it. Just get it done.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
Challenging the Gay Adoption Ban in Florida
Another foster father is challenging Florida's ban on gays and lesbians adopting children.
Frank Martin Gill never set out to smash Florida's gay adoption law. A foster parent, Gill took two half-brothers into his North Miami home in 2004 when a child abuse investigator asked for his help. It was supposed to be temporary.As the article notes, the precedent has already been set by a couple in Key West. While it's understandable that the attorney general is obligated to defend state law no matter how odious, the governor, who should know something about the sting of preconceived ideas regarding sexual orientation, walks a fine line between reconsidering the ban and granting full equality to all the citizens of the state, which includes a sizable gay population, and alienating the fundamentalists, to whom he has to suck up in order to stay in office.
But weeks turned into months, and then years. Gill and the two boys became a family.
Now, a month after a Key West judge declared Florida's gay adoption law unconstitutional in a separate but narrow case, Gill and a team of lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union will present a new challenge to Florida's 31-year-old law that forbids gay people from adopting.
''I tried to make them feel, from the beginning, like they had a permanent home,'' Gill said of the boys.
He said he told the boys: ''I'll be your daddy; it doesn't matter what happens, I'll always be your daddy.''
Gill's attorney, Robert F. Rosenwald Jr. of the ACLU, said the case boils down to a simple human equation: ''What is at stake in this trial are two little boys getting to know that they get to stay at the only home they've ever known.''
In Florida, gay people can foster children, but they cannot adopt. Although the Key West ruling declared the law unconstitutional, it was not appealed to a higher court, so its significance as legal precedent remains weak.
On Wednesday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman will begin a trial over Gill's petition to adopt the two half-siblings. Their mother and respective fathers lost their rights to raise them in 2006.
Opposing Gill are the Florida Department of Children & Families and the state attorney general's office. Neil Skene, a DCF special counsel, said he couldn't discuss the Gill adoption, citing the confidentiality of adoption cases. He said that, in general, DCF ''is obliged by statute to oppose the adoption'' when any potential adoptive parent discloses that he or she is gay. The attorney general defends state laws that are challenged, Skene said.
Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday that he is not reconsidering the adoption ban. ''No second thoughts,'' he said.
Let me make it simple for you, Governor: denying citizens their rights based solely on something innate like being gay is bigotry, plain and simple. Got any second thoughts about that?
(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)
Important Announcement
Pew's latest poll shows that Obama is winning women voters by 17 points. Please do not let this deter you from wantonly and irresponsibly blaming women if he loses.
Also note that, when you do, you should totally refer to them as Hillary Clinton Vagina Voters, even and especially if they never endorsed her.
FYI
Mike Finnigan, who you may know better as the eponymous Mike of Crooks and Liars' Mike's Blog Roundup, is deeply awesome. I know this because I have met him, and I have seen him play and sing. But here, care of Zencomix, is evidence for all of us to enjoy as the inimitable Mr. F does "Born Under a Bad Sign" with Crosby, Stills & Nash:
Thanks very much to Blue Gal, herself no slouch in the awesomeness department, for passing that along.
Also FYI: Hanging out with Mike Finnigan, Blue Gal, Drifty, and Iain backstage at a Joe Cocker concert is exactly 62% political nerdery, 33% cool (none of which was contributed by your blogmistress), and 5% cigar smoke.
Quote of the Day
"Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers and yet when asked questions you spout off facts, figures and policies and I'm amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, 'Does any of this really matter'?"—Sarah Palin, to and as reported by her former debate partner and political challenger Andrew Halcro.
[H/T to Shaker Broce.]
Oh Good Lord
McCain (probably inadvertently) implies that Venezuela is part of the Middle East; meanwhile, Palin can't name a single newspaper that she reads:
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this, to stay informed and to understand the world?(Video here.)
Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media—
Couric: But like what ones specifically? I'm curious, that you—
Palin: Um, all of 'em, any of 'em that, um, have been in front of me over all these years.
Couric: Can you name any of them?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, it seems like, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Well, Palin gets 1,000 points for attempted misdirection, but Couric wasn't implying that Alaska was a foreign country; she just wanted to know whatthefuck newspapers and magazines Palin read to stay informed about what's going on in the world.
It wasn't a gotcha question—in fact, Palin could have thrown some red meat to their base by saying she read some conservative rag like the National Review or the Weekly Standard. She could have said something pretty innocuous like the Wall Street Journal or US News and World Report. She could have said, "I kept up with world events watching Fox News and reading the Drudge Report," or even more generically "television" and "the internet."
She could have said any one of a million things—but came up with more rambling nonsense, which suggests either that she's been reading bupkis about zilch for most of her adult life, or that she's been so tied in knots about saying the wrong thing or so totally hamstrung by the McCain campaign that she doesn't even feel like she can answer the simplest of questions forthrightly.
In which case, the claims that she's invigorating the ticket with all sorts of mavericky goodness is total bullshit.
Which we already knew anyway.
Still.
Question of the Day
What is your one can't-live-without article of clothing?
Jeans. No specific pair—although I've got a pair of dark denim bootcut jeans of which I'm particularly fond at the moment. I just can't live without at least one good pair of jeans. For a grrl whose social life is highlighted by hanging out with partner and friends at home (or a pub if we're feelin' fancy!) or going to a movie or triple-A game with partner and parents, perfect jeans are the natural equivalent to the perfect little black dress.
Being Thankful for Life, Death and Whiskey
P.J. O'Rourke has been diagnosed with a very treatable form of cancer. He talks about it and his view of his mortality in a way only he can.I believe in God. God created the world. Obviously pain had to be included in God's plan. Otherwise we'd never learn that our actions have consequences. Our cave-person ancestors, finding fire warm, would conclude that curling up to sleep in the middle of the flames would be even warmer. Cave bears would dine on roast ancestor, and we'd never get any bad news and pain because we wouldn't be here.
You may disagree with him on politics -- and I do -- but my heart goes out to another kid from Toledo whose sense of humor I can only marvel and and wish him the very, very best for a speedy recovery and many more years of doing what he does so well.
But God, Sir, in Your manner of teaching us about life's consequential nature, isn't death a bit ... um ... extreme, pedagogically speaking? I know the lesson that we're studying is difficult. But dying is more homework than I was counting on. Also, it kind of messes up my vacation planning. Can we talk after class? Maybe if I did something for extra credit?
Why can't death -- if we must have it -- be always glorious, as in "The Iliad"? Of course death continues to be so, sometimes, with heroes in Fallouja and Kandahar. But nowadays, death more often comes drooling on the toilet seat in the nursing home, or bleeding under the crushed roof of a teen-driven SUV, or breathless in a deluxe hotel suite filled with empty drug bottles and a minor public figure whose celebrity expiration date has passed.
I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.
Furthermore, I am a logical, sensible, pragmatic Republican, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy's. That he should have cancer of the brain, and I should have cancer of the ass ... well, I'll say a rosary for him and hope he has a laugh at me. After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?
[...]
Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God's grace. (Although this option is not usually open to reporters.)
I'm not promising that the pope will back me up about all of the above. But it's the best I can do by my poor lights about the subject of mortality and free will.
Thus, the next time I glimpse death ... well, I'm not going over and introducing myself. I'm not giving the grim reaper fist daps. But I'll remind myself to try, at least, to thank God for death. And then I'll thank God, with all my heart, for whiskey.
(Cross-posted.)
