Disaster

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End Times for God’s Own Party?

Hurricane Isaac: coincidence, or divine wrath?

The hand of God has reached out and smote the GOP with righteous wrath. Yea, even as Republicans struggle through the electoral valley of demographic decline, they are plagued by signs of divine displeasure.

 In little more time than it took Him to make the Earth, the Republican Party has been unraveling from blow after self-inflicted blow:

 -Prophet Paul Ryan’s starve-the-beast budget plan sounds to many voters like a fatal dose of snake oil;

 -Formerly devout members of God’s Own Party, such as Olympia Snowe, were driven from the fold. Charlie Crist, for the apostasy of joining the infidels who will gather in Charlotte, you are forever cast out of Bohemian Grove;

 -The serpent-tongued Todd Akin spake the truth of GOP beliefs about Eve’s wily daughters and their mysterious bodies, then tried to deny he meant what he said;

 -And finally, Hurricane Isaac descends on the Gulf Coast to pound retribution on Republican heads in Tampa for the sins of George, who was cast into the wilderness.

 Woe to thee, Republicans, for you’ve sorely tried the patience of all. Come November, you shall reap the whirlwind sown by your ideologically pure Christian soldiers, who will march the GOP right to its End Times.

 

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The Royal Grump presides over a crashing bore

London’s opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics was just plain awful. Mary Poppins? The National Health Service? The Industrial Revolution? Ranging from incomprehensible to bizarre, its various parts melded into one marathon bore, reducing British history to chamber-of-commerce boosterism.

Maybe that’s the best anyone could have made of it. As material for a spectacle, much of British history isn’t suitable for an event that emphasizes peace and brotherhood. The same can be said of most countries, perhaps all – an excellent reason to avoid self-congratulatory posturing in favor of a warm welcome and a good show that celebrates Olympic ideals.

Wouldn’t you love to have seen what John Cleese or Eddie Izzard could have done? Only Daniel Craig, Paul McCartney and (if you’ve acquired a taste for him) Rowan Atkinson managed to inject a bit of entertainment.  

Show director Danny Boyle owes an apology to the thousands of volunteers who devoted their time and efforts, only to be made to look silly. And someone needs to tell Queen Elizabeth it would have been ever so much more polite to all those performers, and the athletes who’d earned a chance to be there, if she’d tried to look like she was enjoying the results of their hard work.