Hannitize This!

Is it just me, or does anyone else wish Theresa Heinz Kerry would just shut up once in a while?

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I want to hate Gwyneth Paltrow, I really do, if for no other reason than she named her child after produce. But I just can’t. She’s sweet and pretty, and according to my Hollywood sources it’s not an act. I will go dutifully to see “Sky Captain” tomorrow, even though I get a panic attack whenever I see Jude Law on screen, and Angelina Jolie makes me feel like I need a shower, and I will likely buy the DVD even if it sucks. Rest assured, if it DOES suck, I’ll have a juicy review next week.

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Sean Hannity is a psychopath. Normally, I would not be so harsh, preferring something innocuous like, “Sean Hannity is a moron”, or, “Sean Hannity has his face so far up Bush’s a** I’m surprised he can even speak”, but I have it on good authority from a psychologist friend of mine that he is, indeed, a psychopath. I’m not going to list the indications of psychopathy, because I’m a hypochondriac, and reading such lists will make me think I’m a psychopath, too, and ruin my weekend. But I trust my friend’s judgment implicitly.

At my place of employment, I am wont to listen to talk radio all day, and the only station that comes in clearly is WMAL, the conservative station (as if there’s another kind). I know, I know, I can hear Air America on the internet, and occasionally tune in, but they drive me crazy too. It’s like listening to grass grow. At least conservative shows are fast-paced and have decent intro/outro music.

So, the line-up for the morning is: The news with Andy Parks and Fred Grandy (yes, that Fred Grandy, “Gopher” from TV’s Love Boat ; he sounds really friendly on the radio, but I did a stage show with him and found him rather standoffish, frankly); Michael Graham, a former stand-up comic who at least gets a laugh out of me now and again; Rush Limbaugh, a puffed-up hypocrite who's become so ridiculous that he’s ceased to even draw my ire; and Sean Hannity who, as I said, is a psychopath.

Sean likes to speak of “Hannitizing” people (get it! Ha ha, it rhymes with “sanitize”!) It puts me in mind of Papa Smurf wanting to “smurf” Smurfette, and one was never quite sure what the smurf the old fool was smurfing about.

In the past, I generally found him annoying but harmless. That was until this past April Fool’s Day, when Sean’s big joke was to spend most of his show pretending he had turned liberal, demonstrating his turnaround by publicly forgiving Bill Clinton, advocating charity for the poor, rallying against the war in Iraq, and generally espousing the teachings of Jesus Christ. The scariest part was not actually that he used Christ’s teachings as an April Fool’s joke, but the ire and fear in the voices of people calling in who really thought their boy had abandoned them. “Deliver Us From Evil” indeed.

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This is neither here nor there, but occasionally I find myself in the oddest places, like on a comic book message board discussing religion and sexuality. And after pouring out my views on being a gay Christian, and promptly being told to “enjoy Hell”, it struck me what it is about fundamentalists that….well, that I just don’t like very much. (It’s probably something that has been patently obvious to everyone else for some time now, but I’m a little slow on the uptake when it comes to these things. Too many years of reading Cliff’s notes instead of the actual novel).

The way I see it, their condemnation of all things “sinful” is a desperate attempt to avoid personal responsibility. If they can craft a world without temptation, they will never have to make a moral choice and risk it being the wrong one. Nor will they ever have to deprive themselves of anything enjoyable, because nothing enjoyable will be available to them.

My advice is, if you don’t want to drink or smoke or have get an abortion or have gay sex, then please don’t.