Whirligig Your Meaning

As much as I'd love to sit here and gab with all you fine people, I do have a book deadline pressing on my brain, and for the next few days (days? he's hallucinating again) I must write about the sorry state of the Dems and their confused but loyal followers. Yes indeed, I sense this effort will be a big, big seller in liblog land. I feel it here, and late at night here. Of course, that could also be age, so you never really know.

Thanks to all for the warm birthday greetings, but I must draw the line at actual presents, so Sarah G. in Tampa, please don't send me a boa constrictor. My life's crazy enough as it is, plus, the cats might object.

And to Jon Schwarz, Mr. Mini-Intifada or whatever that thing's called: CHARGE YOUR FUCKING PHONE. Having a conversation with Jon goes something like this --

JON: Hello, this is Jon.

ME: Hey man. What's up?

JON: Hi! Well, I was just rolling some almond paste and BZZZZZZZZZZTTTTHHHAAWWWRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

(End of conversation.)

Have you noticed some of the rumblings over the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara's death? I'm not the world's biggest expert on all matters Che, but was he really the sadistic monster that many online have painted? His ending was certainly anti-climatic -- emaciated, starving, outnumbered and outgunned, shot in the head and placed on display. Not exactly a balls-to-the-wall epic exit. And while I concede that anyone is capable of anything, especially where violence is concerned, I wonder why there's such animated insistence that Che was one of the world's most vicious beasts. Is it the t-shirts? The coffee mugs? The embroidered berets? I'm all for consumer awareness, but some of the hysterical rants about Che's murderous legacy are decidedly over-the-top and politically selective.

I mean, how does Che's body count stack up against, say, Ríos Montt's in Guatemala? Or Roberto D'Aubuisson's in El Salvador? Was Che as brutal as Colombian death squads, or more so? How about the contras in Nicaragua? Did Che come anywhere near the charnel house efforts of Lyndon Johnson? Richard Nixon? Ronald Reagan? George W. Bush? Hell, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton killed more innocents than Che could even dream about in the jungle.

When it comes to venerating icons, my take is the same across the board:




See you in a day or two.