So, the news of the world, in no particular order, includes the fact that the Phillies lost to the Red Sox in 13 innings, on the strength of a single by Jacoby Ellsbury. (BJ and Paula R are happy!) Two more games to go folks.

We’ve got another round of WPS previews, as well as a nice profile of the Breakers’ break out defensive star, Sue Weber.  This weekend’s games will help break up a 3-way tie for third place in the WPS – an slot the Breakers would like to move out of tomorrow!

Michael Rowe has put up some good commentary on the Huffington Post about right wing hate speech and whose hands are bloody after horrific events like this past week’s shooting in DC (or the murder in Wichita). Ann Coulter, are you listening? Do you have a soul? A brain that computes anything beyond craven self-interest?

Then we’ve got another piece by Greg Mitchell, who’s done little exploring about what the white supremacists have to say about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. It is so weird to think, as I look out my window and watch the sunrise, that the landscape harbors whole populations of ideologically skewed creatures who move among us, thinking such weird and paranoid and destructive thoughts. It feels like what you see when you pick up a stone and all sorts of things scurry toward the shadows.

I guess if you’re a white supremacist, you would find my words the typical condescending liberal crap. It’s amazing to me that there can exist such a huge divide in so-called rational thought. Is it rational? Or is one of us crazy?

I certainly react to the far right as if it were crazy. Is it possible that it isn’t? And if it is, how can there be so many people who subscribe to its notions? Do they really believe all that stuff?  Does Ann Coulter drink the Kool-Aid that she makes a living off of?  The cynic in me says no — but that’s mostly because I can’t fathom subscribing to that worldview.

From Michael Rowe’s piece …

There was a time when decency, even honor, was an essential part of the American dialogue in its most ideal form, and part of its very identity. There was a time when our culture would have recoiled in horror at the vituperation flowing unchecked from radios, televisions, and the Internet, instead of applauding it as “common sense,” “free speech,” or “mavericky,” or “a spin-free zone.”

There was a time when intellectual honesty was not considered unpatriotic; when compassion for, and understanding of, your fellow man was a sign of strength, not weakness. There was a time when the phrase Have you no shame? meant something, and the First Amendment was not used as toilet paper to wipe up the excremental verbal degradation of vulnerable segments of the American population. A time when it was expected that citizens would understand the difference between free speech and irresponsible speech. Somewhere along the line, a cancerous segment of American popular culture and media cunningly metastasized themselves to the long-standing, honorable American “cowboy” motif and mentality, and recast it in their own image. They grafted cruelty, divisiveness, and ignorance to it, making the two appear indistinguishable, and natural allies. And they are neither, or at least ought not to be.

Well, it’s about time to start the day. I’ll be signing off till Monday morning, most likely. Hope you have a great weekend.

In the interim, anyone who could (please) stop by and explain the far right would be most welcome!