Things I learned last week

Things I learned last week:

-Driving in Southern California the other day, I found myself behind many an automobile sporting a bumper sticker that identified its driver as a Republican, or at least as being of a right-wing political persuasion. No problem. Free speech and all. However, I was quite surprised to learn that Californians have a direct say in Nevada politics. No, not because there are lobbyists in Carson City representing the Golden State. Rather, because so many of these bumper stickers called for us to “Dump Harry Reid,” “Fire Harry Reid,” “Kill Harry Reid” (not so much a political one there), “Waterboard Harry Reid,” and so on. Perhaps, though, this out-of-state activism is perfectly acceptable. Back home in Nevada, I’ve chanced to find myself behind Republican motorists as well, and their understanding of California politics is even more enlightening. While I was under the foolish impression that only voters in California’s 8th Congressional District could vote for said district’s U.S. representative, I’ve seen more than a few stickers calling for the firing, ouster, decapitation, etc., of Rep. Nancy Pelosi. My, the things you learn when sharing the road with those who’ve chosen never to learn anything.

-Apparently, our Mongolian Sikh atheist president is once again trying to deny any ties, past or present, to the Fiji-based Greek Orthodox synagogue he attended as a young Baha’i Mormon in the Principality of Andorra. Thus spake Zarathustra.

-Former President Jimmy Carter headed back to North Korea, this time to negotiate the release of an American teacher working in South Korea who unwittingly wandered across the border. I’m sincerely very glad he was successful at preventing the poor man from having to spend eight years in a prison that would likely cause Hannibal Lecter a permanent loss of appetite. But once again, I have to call into question my own education. I admit, I learned a rather limited amount about post-WWII far east geography during school days. But I’m still pretty sure there’s a fairly noticeable buffer between the two countries. So now I venture to learn, before another week goes by: Is there somewhere in the northernmost part of South Korea where one can trip over a tree root or a poorly disguised land mine and somehow go flying clear across the DMZ?

-I learned about something called “Beck University.” Sadly, my initial assumptions were proven faulty when it turned out that “Beck University” is a symbolic lesson plan, to be imparted entirely on Glenn Beck’s program on Fox News, neither of which I ever view (unless you count the snippets of each that occasionally air on “The Daily Show” and “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” to help the host of each program make a larger point). You see, when I first heard of “Beck University,” what immediately sprung to mind was Beck Hansen, and I thought, with great hope and anticipation, that we could all finally take an intensive and insightful course designed to help us understand the meaning of the words to the song “Loser.” Sigh! Another dream dashed in this age of the ever-declining value of an education.

-I did, however, learn, via Glenn Beck, a few things about the historic Civil Rights Movement in America, things of which I’d heretofore been completely ignorant:

1. White conservatives must reclaim the movement as their own.

2. Blacks do not “own” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

3. The U.S.A. was founded as a nation in which individual freedom trumps all, as long as you strictly adhere to a moral code established and enforced by white conservatives.

4. If you hold a large gathering on the same date, and at the same location, when and where a truly historic rally took place 47 years ago, and you are so ignorant of history that you did not know ahead of time that this was the anniversary of said historic rally, then the only possible explanation for your choosing the date at random is “Divine Providence.”

5. No matter what they may say in their own defense, and no matter how pure their hearts or noble their intentions, progressives are immoral, racist, tyrannical, anti-religion, anti-freedom, pro-slavery Nazi terrorists whose sole reason for existence is to destroy America and all it stands for.

-There is absolutely nothing more interesting, more compelling, more epoch-shatteringly fascinating to the American news media than the upcoming season’s lineup of “Dancing With the Stars.”