Dear mother of Gawd, I am tired of arguing with rocks

[IrishAyes]

43. Since my aversion to RW media, I have to come here to find out what they've been up to.

Though I retired for financial reasons to the remote corners of the MidWest, aka RedNeckLand, most people in this tiny town seem to have lost their taste for direct political onslaughts at me in person the last year or so. Guess I bit too hard. And I always try to discourage such conversation as needlessly provocative.

But I do still know they believe what Beck and Hannity and Limpball tell them is true. So I get my gossip here, where it generally comes with a refreshing chaser.

What was I going to say, now? Oh, yes... Wanda Sykes was on Jay Leno's show last night. While you tend to suspect everything those two great comics say might be a joke, with that caveat, for those of you who missed it: It appears from what they seemed to say in all seriousness that Ms. Sykes actually used to work for NSA directly, and not as a contractor's contractor either. Wouldn't be surprised; she's really a brilliant woman as well as the funniest ever.

Regardless, in her usual humorous way she laid waste to HongKong/Moscow Eddie and the idea that most of what the majority of us have to say to one another is worth the NSA listening to in the first place. The notion that anyone, much less a government agency with actual important work to do, wants to hear and record to every word out of the average person's mouth is sheer lunatic hubris. Honey, most of us just ain't that interesting.

Well, I did have one neighbor cautiously ask me if her friend a few miles away who had married a man of MidEastern descent was in any danger of being bombed with one of 'Obama's American drones' simply because of the husband's ethnicity. I asked her if he consorted with known criminals in the US or received frequent calls from overseas numbers connected to known terrorists, and she had to admit he didn't or her friend wouldn't still be married to him. I told her that he and his wife were in less danger from drones than I am, since my roots go way back in revolutionary Ireland.

"Now you must know," I assured her, "that I myself pose no threat to anyone except that I would bore a wiretapper to death. If Uncle Sam's not after me, I doubt he's after your friends either."

I find it passing strange that the sole credibility I've earned in this subsubculture is my apparent ignorance of and disinterest in the things they get all worked up about. Some DU'er said recently that maybe my long series of letters to the editor of the local weekly had begun to have a slightly positive effect on some of these people. I don't know. They probably won't go so wild next presidential campaign if we run Hillary plus? because a lot of the women adore her personally, as fewer of the men do. We'll see.

Meanwhile, in between times, I was gratified when one local couple helped me dispose of my giant trumpet vine arbor that blew over in our last wind storm earlier this week. They consider President Obama and certain other Democrats the Unholy Trinity, lying hyenas of socialism, etc. But for once at least, it didn't seem to matter. (Several contractors have refused to even quote various jobs for me, making it clear that politics - or their 'ethics' - mattered more to them than my $, which happens to be just as green as theirs.) So that felt good even above the practical aspects.

It couldn't be the letters to the editor. More likely, the excellent pie I take to carry-ins. Well, whatever it takes...