Another day, another deranged right wing lunatic.

Last October 1, a friend and colleague who inhabits the office next to mine, and who happens to be, ahem, somewhat right of center -- but I like him anyway, even though he's a Yankees fan -- banged on my office door, and said I'd been called out on Coby Mach's radio show, which is a low-rent local version of Rush Limbaugh. I think his exact words were 'what have you done now?'

I was mystified. He said a 'retired airforce general' had reported me to the FBI, CIA (?!) and Board of Regents.

I asked why?

He said I had issued death threats to students. He recited some of what he'd heard, and damn it, it was the Mikado! Yes, this vicious little piece by society offenders William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.

And then I realized. it was my version of "As some day it may happen.." I posted on my Facebook page two weeks previously. Apparently some right-wing loon has been patrolling my facebook page and thinks W.S. Gilbert was a terrorist. Or I am. Or something. God knows what he makes of the Pirates of Penzance.

Apparently Mach, not the sharpest crayon in the box at the best of times, read it all out solemnly, unaware it was taken from a comic opera. I have to get that audio!

So naturally I contacted the Board of Regents to get a copy of the complaint.

Turns out either my friend Bob, or Coby Mach, gave the loon a promotion; he only claims to have been a colonel. Aside from the hysteria of describing Ko-Ko's song as 'threats', he's illiterate, of course.

So I did some of my Googly magic on Mr. Stephans. It turns out he leads the Nebraska section of Convention of States Action, which wants to amend the US Constitution by the obscure Article V mechanism (which has never actually been tried). It's sort of a Holy Grail for the 'No Step on Snek' crowd.

Even more amusingly, Mr Stephans himself has a history of unprovoked violence. He physically attacked a referee during a grade school basketball game, eventually pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery. Given his record, I've asked the Chancellor to ban the loon from campus.

Now back to reading about how uncivil the Democrats are...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The members of Turning Point USA at UNL.

 Turning Point USA love lists. They have a long-standing list of faculty who have not hewn to the conservative way, either by writing stuff unfavorable to Donald Trump, or teaching things conservatives don't want to hear. So, in the spirit of listing and transparency, these are their current members at UNL.  This group funded some of the terrorists who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.  Alexander Burkhard Andrew Shelburn Benjamin Terry (their faculty advisor, from the College of Engineering) Carson Scott Christian Simmons Christine Stulken Christine Discenza Dan Mathews Dawson Coudriet Dominic Naughtin Eleanor Kenkel Ethan Nelson Faith Santana Garrett Cantrell Grant Carstens Hayley Brakefield Izzy Rosegrant Jack O'Dell Jackson Towne Jacob Benton Jordan Minderman Josie Dostal Kaitlyn Nein Kevin Coffey Kiara Kearney Kirby Hughes Madison Talbert Matthew Berringer Nancy Nguyen Ryan Barragan Sam Gilbert Sarah Pagano Sierra Schroeder Sofia Heggem Taylor Tunnison William Beck
Read more

The Fortenberry slaves: a prelude

Image
Toiling in the mid-morning sun, in a hot, muddy cotton field in Copiah County, in the south of Mississippi, three young African American men, brothers, aged 18, 20 and 22, hoed the rows. It was late June, 1860, and so the men were slaves. The ground was wet from yesterday’s rain, the air heavy, and the men were anxious to finish their work before the clouds gathering on the western horizon flooded the fields with another summer cloudburst. Inside the plantation house, unbeknownst to them, they were being enumerated . James R Fortenberry, the slave-holder, a man of about 35, was listing their important personal details to Elijah Peyton, Assistant Marshall. These details were three; age, gender, and race. The race was officially ‘mulatto’; at that time, and in that place, mulattos were usually the sons or daughters of a black woman raped by a white slave-holder. They had no names, as far as the United States Government was concerned. Instead they would be listed, in Peyton’s elegant,
Read more

Dan Whitney, aka Larry the Cable Guy, a short biography

Image
I have known of Dan Whitney, Larry the Cable Guy , longer than most people have. In the car on the way into work at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, we used to listen to one of the usual mostly-talk rock radio shows. Larry would quite regularly call in. His accent fascinated me. Probably because I’ve lived in so many places, I like to try to place accents. Larry the Cable Git's accent was vaguely southern, or was meant to be southern, but I couldn’t place it anywhere in particular in the South. In any case, he’d distorted it so much you could make out only half of what he was saying.  What he was saying was mumbled, consciously transgressive hate.  Later on, I discovered he was was born and grew up in Pawnee City Nebraska, until his preacher daddy hauled him down to Florida. It’s a long story… (1) Daddy issues Daniel Lawrence Whitney, better known by his stage name and character Larry the Cable Guy, was born on February 17, 1963 in Pawnee City, Nebraska, to the Reverend Thoma
Read more