From lunatic zillionaire televangelist Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now:

The Scripture promises: “All things work together for good to them that love the Lord.”  If you love God, he’s working life to your advantage, and it will all work out for your good.

Not long ago, Victoria and I and our two children drove down to Hermann Park near downtown Houston. But when we got there, the place was totally packed; people and cars everywhere! We hadn’t realized it, but we had arrived smack-dab in the middle of spring break.

At first, it didn’t appear that we were going to be able to find a place to park. A half dozen cars were circling the parking lot, waiting for somebody to back out so they could pull in. I was having a good time, cutting up a bit with my family, so I said to everybody in the car, “You watch Daddy. I’m going to get a front-row parking spot. I can just feel it. I’ve got the favor of God all over me!”

On and on I went, really making a big deal about it. Then, to everyone’s surprise, just as I steered our car past the front row of parked cars, another car backed out as I approached. It was almost as though we had timed it perfectly; he pulled out, and I pulled right into the open spot. I hardly had to slow down. Better yet, it was the premier spot in that parking lot.

I leaned over to Victoria and quipped, “Victoria, reach over here and get some of this favor off me. I can’t stand it all!”

Victoria just rolled her eyes.

I turned around to our little boy and said, “Come on, Jonathan, touch Daddy. You need some of this favor. Just get it.”

Not just any parking spot!  Osteen’s God is so awesome that He can guarantee you the premier parking spot in the parking lot of your choice.  If you accumulate enough Frequent Prayer Points He’ll send some angels to carry your shopping, too. You don’t get that kind of service with Krishna.

The headhunting rituals of Borneo tribesmen seem far less alien to me than this.  If I make an effort sometimes I think I can see the Aztec priests’ point about the human hearts. (I mean it would be very bad if the sun didn’t rise tomorrow. Maybe it does make sense to err on the side of caution). But I cannot understand how anyone can take this seriously in any way at all.

Gears Of The City, as rendered by wordle:

(click for full-size)

Raccoons: best of all possible vermin.

Amy Silverman’s Phoenix New Times story about John McCain and Arizona politics is doing the rounds mainly because it’s chock-full of dirt about John McCain.  Good stuff. 

I’m more interested in the following bit of recalled dialogue:

One morning this summer, my work phone rang.

“Hi, Amy, this is Tom Gosinski,” a pleasant voice said.

“No way!”

Every other call I’d gotten about McCain, it seemed, had been from some reporter wanting to know where he or she could find Tom Gosinski, the guy who ultimately had led to the outing of Cindy McCain’s drug addiction in 1993. I had told people honestly that I had no idea where Gosinski was; I hadn’t spoken to him in many years.

“It’s me!”

“Okay, prove it,” I said. “Tell me something that only Tom Gosinski would know.”

“I was wearing Pepe jeans the day I came to New Times, so you could interview me for the Cindy McCain story.”

It was him.  

The “Tell me something only the real Mr. X would know” thriller-dialogue trope is so hackneyed and preposterous that even I would flinch from using it in fiction.  Yet here it is, occuring unironically in nature. (Why would Silverman make it up?) 

I never get to say things like that.  Are there real people who have the kind of lives where you get to say this sort of thing all the time? (”No, Tom, I expect you to die.” “Kill me, Amy, and you’ll never find the Osterhagen Key”).  I feel left out.

I second this post.

Tom Geoghegan’s Which Side Are You On? may be the best American political book of the twentieth century.  Brilliant, moving, beautifully-written, also short and accessible, worth reading even if you have no interest in the ostensible subject matter just because it’s so good.

Are you prone to shooting your mouth off about tort reform and that fucking McDonald’s coffee-cup case without knowing what the hell you’re talking about? Be honest. A little? Then I recommend See You In Court: How The Right Made America A Lawsuit Nation. 

Someone has created a Tom Geogheghan for Labor Secretary Facebook group, which is just about the nerdiest thing ever, and I love it.

Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general’s report released today.

Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs: “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” the report said.

Gosh, I don’t know.  That’s a great question, ma’am.  A great question. Better than a worm like me deserves. Why do I want to serve Him? Because of His strong, pure will, I suppose. And His manliness. And because utter submission to a strong leader is the only thing that keeps my fragile ego from disintegrating entirely.

Do I get the job?

I know that I hung on a windy tree,
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows
from where its roots run.

No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,
downwards I peered;
I took up the runes, screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.

Hávamál, Odins Rune Song, Stanzas 138-139

I have just emerged from long and painful editorial revisions on my second book — thin and straggly-bearded, stooped and shuffling into the light — my eyes bloodshot and my typing hands cramped like claws — out of my office, which has become increasingly cave-like, and somewhat mildewy, and littered with scraps of paper like bones.  At last, out of my office!  From a thousand papercuts have I bled; my skin has grown pale, and slightly scaly.

For thirty days and thirty nights I have laboured in the editorial underworld, to bring back this:

What’s been happening in the world outside?  It’s very hot and humid.  Has Obama won the election yet?

whose blog is this?

who left this thing lying around here?

. . .

. . .

oh, right

Heartwarmingest story of the year.