Happy National Day of Mourning, everyone! I sure hope I can get to the mall before the Day of Mourning Sales are over.
Oh, wait. National days of mourning are fucking stupid. Never mind.
It's not even necessarily that it's Reagan. I understand there are a lot of people, especially people with money and power, that practically worship our newest corpse-in-chief. That's fine. And for these people, these Reagan conservatives, NOTHING is too good for Reagan. Not processions, not ritual, not getting his smiling face on whatever they can manage.
Well, OK. Stem cell research that might have made his last years less of a living hell, THAT was too good for him, but then them's the price you pay when you cozy up to Jerry Falwell in the 80's to get your job. Oh, sure, Nancy can ask all she wants for the embryonic stem cells, but the fundie monster Ron helped create is running science now. The irony is palpable. I mean, the closest I could come to an analogy is if, say, a whole bunch of our problems right now were caused by a group of nutjobs in some country that Ronnie funded and armed because they were fighting the Soviet Un.... oh. Wait. Shit.
But aside from it being Reagan, why we need an official day of mourning six whole days after Reagan died is beyond me. It's 2004, folks. I'm sorry, but we all live faster now. Even the Amish had heard and mourned and were done with the whole thing by Wednesday noon. Give us some credit. Many of us have high speed Internet access at home, work, or our local libraries.
At this point, we should have had a National Hour-Forty-Five of Mourning. Let's say on Tuesday, 8:15 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, tape delayed for the Pacific. Mountain time, check your local listings. That would have covered it. It's not as if all those people had to walk past the casket. Please. 80% of those fuckers were doing it just so they could say they did. Of the 20% who had some kind of valid connection to Reagan, at least half of those could have been weeded out by some fair, egalitarian process. Get Katherine Harris on that job, come to think of it.
We have things called cameras. We can even use the hi-def ones. Rent out some theaters. People can walk past the screen of their local Multiplex. Touch the screen, get some nachos, make a morning of it. What do you think, you're gonna be able to smell him in the rotunda or something? If you sense the faint reek of death and decay, odds are it's coming from the sweaty bastard behind you. STAY HOME.
I mean, if I were... someone completely different, I could totally justify walking past the casket. I mean, back in '84, the school band I was in played for a Reagan re-election rally in Rochester, NY. I was in the SAME ARENA as Reagan. We shared a deep personal connection. I helped, in some small way, to get him re-elected*. I could totally get away with going and pay my respects. But I'm not a self-obsessed dickhead with an overactive thyroid**.
Some of you may be asking, at this moment, "Who are YOU to judge how other people grieve?" I say this, because there are now a whole bunch of new people reading the site. I'd like to extend a hale and hearty YAD welcome to the Barony of Nordskogen and all you sick fucks googling your hearts out for every last detail of the Heemeyer Granby Armored Bulldozer Rampage. Anyway, for future reference, judging is kinda what I do around here. At least, whenever I see something DUMB.
* For those wondering, yes, I did throw up, just a little, in my mouth as I typed that.
** The thyroid's the one that makes you all maudlin and melodramatic, right? Whatever.