Tea Parties, Rednecks & Moody Blues

May I take this moment to express my joy at the prospect of Condoleezza Rice becoming our next Secretary of State? She's right in-line with the Bush mantra: intelligent, sophisticated, honest, and in possession of what most ladies in the public eye seem to lack nowadays-- integrity. Ms. Rice has my respect, along with an invite to my ultimate political tea party.

I would like to propose a new homeland security measure: allotting 50 million in the budget to buy one-way plane tickets for every die-hard moody blue. France is already preparing housing for them along the Rue de Arafat, so in the interest of repairing international relations, let's give Jacques a permanent audience with the Americans he loves the best-- the expatriated ones.

My friend Jamie, of 1971 Films (see link in sidebar) sent me a link to Charles Krauthammer's excellent piece, "The Myth of the Christian Redneck". Having just read the article (great minds think alike) I responded to my fellow Yankee-turned-Redneck, expressing my seething frustration regarding the stereotypical complaints of the moody blues (no offense to Aunt Fritzi) by penning the following:

VH1's Best Week EVER said that the South was having the best week ever and proceeded to depict these same stereotypes... as a northeasterner who's lived in the south, I am especially irked by the ignorance of it all.

Granted, while Texas wasn't always my cup of tea, it wasn't because a bunch of
two-toothed hicks were running around, marrying their sisters and drinking
whiskey in-between revival sermons. (For people who don't like history, libs
sure do like to revive the cultural notions of the past.) I actually couldn't
take Texas because people were too nice, too honest, and lived by a set of cultural standards that were totally alien to me most of the time. Not that it was always a bad thing. For example: as a young woman, if I said 'f**k' in public, I'd run the risk of being scowled at and given a bar of soap for my mouth, because in Texas, it's not respectable to communicate solely in four-letter words. What's wrong with that? Nothing; it's NORMAL.

But according to the Freudian-obsessed, self-absorbed, apathetic, pessimistic
northeasterners, demonstrating self-respect and respect for others is borderline
psychotic. Therefore, the south is full of red-necked hicks. Fools. As far as
I'm concerned, I'd rather be a redneck than one of the moody blues any day.

I offer a toast to all of us blue-staters with red necks-- may we infuse that level of honesty and morality into our own "occupied" territory. L'Chaim!