There's One Under Every Bed

The early spring means greening grass, but most of the trees are holding off. For all I know, it's the hours of daylight that touch of their leafing, not the ambient temperature. Mostly. A few are budding. Are they the bold pioneers in the arboral realm, or recklessly impatient? Thinking like that only goes to show that there's nothing than can't be anthropomorphized.

It's also the season of robocalls. At least until tomorrow, when Illinois holds its primary. The calls were pretty thick today, including the following, which my answering machine recorded and which I will transcribe verbatim, after the part in which the two speakers on the call introduced themselves. Why? It might be of interest someday when scholars ponder the opinions of the trog right at this moment in history.

First, a male and female voice introduce themselves by name, with the man identifying himself as a "Jew from Massachusetts." Then the woman says, "I'm a Christian from California. If you believe, as we do, that marriage and sexuality should only be between a man and a woman, please help us stop Mitt Romney."

Male voice: "As governor, Romney started gay youth pride day proclamations, promoted homosexuality in our elementary schools, and unconstitutionally ordered officials to make Massachusetts America's first same-sex marriage state."

Female voice: "Romney supports open homosexuality in the military, appointment of homosexual judges, and the ENDA law, making it illegal to fire a man who wears a dress and high heels to work, even if he's your child's teacher."

Male voice: "When you vote tomorrow, please vote for social sanity and Rick Santorum, not for homosexuality and Mitt Romney."

Female voice: "Rick Santorum is the only candidate who can be trusted to uphold traditional marriage, a straight military, and the rights of American children to have both a mother and a father."

Male voice: "This message paid for by Jews and Christians Together Dot Org," after which he gave a phone number.

This isn't a political blog, but for crying out loud. Is this what the Grand Old Party is coming to? The party of Lincoln and TR and Eisenhower and even Nixon and Reagan? The rational members of the party better hope not. To paraphrase Sgt. Bat Guano, some of these "core" constituents are all worked up imagining that the nation's deviated preverts are organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. Well, I suppose it's tough to be on the losing side of social change, and not to have any real justification for reinstating the old prejudices.