The Supernatural Bride, 53rd Day of Childwinter, 526 M.E. (Electra): Comic actor Dana Gould recently noted, "Thinking about Rush Limbaugh and how, now that he's dead, you never, ever hear about him. No one mentions anything he did, because what he did had no value. It contributed nothing worthwhile to the culture. Nothing of lasting value. He just made anger. Every day. Rising, blooming and fading like a fart. Then he died and was instantly replaced by a fleet of little replicas, farting fake fury five days a week. Creating nothing of interest or artistic value to anyone. Seriously, what an awful way to make a living."

I couldn't agree more. There's no "Limbaugh philosophy," no "Limbaugh teachings," not even a "Limbaugh style." He just spewed vitriol into the atmosphere to inflame the minds of angry listeners, who simply turned to their next source of invective, their next opiate, after Rush was gone.

Even beyond the fleet of little replicas to which Gould refers, we now have the millions of little comment bots relentlessly monitoring social media to post hateful words and comments on any post deemed outside the narrowest of MAGA world views. Adding nothing of value, nothing worthwhile, just hate. The mayor of Boston, Massachusetts posted the most anodyne of congratulations to the USA's men's hockey team for winning the Gold Medal in the Olympics today, and I saw nothing but smarmy, mean-girl comments making fun of her and her ethnicity, and complaining about taxation. They've been calling the state "Taxachusetts" since at least the 1970s, and the name is so well established that even spell check accepts the word "Taxachusetts" without corrections, but sure, there were no taxes in Boston until Michelle Wu came along.

Fun historical fact, speaking of Boston and taxes and all: the Boston Tea Party wasn't a protest over taxes as is commonly assumed. It was actually more a protest about government-sanctioned monopolies. American colonials didn't have a vote for members of the British Parliament and therefore couldn't be taxed (taxation without representation), so the government-controlled East India Company would instead ship all their tea from the Far East directly to England where it was taxed, and then would ship the tea from England over to the Americas. The colonists, frugal as they were, preferred to buy their tea at cheaper prices from the Dutch instead. However, the British government decided that the East India Company deserved a little more profit, and issued a ban on Dutch tea imports to the British colonies, forcing them to buy the more expensive and highly taxed tea from the British instead. The colonists were incensed about losing freedom to choose from whom to buy tea, rebelled, and stormed an East India Company vessel in Boston Harbor and dumped the tea overboard. 

It wasn't until four score and seven or so years later, during the Reconstruction of the Confederacy, that the event was called the "Boston Tea Party" and used as an argument that opposition to taxes was a sacred American tradition. Previously, the protest had been known by uncatchy terms like "The Destruction of the Tea." But southerners opposed to their tax money being spent on Black schools and social programs for the formerly enslaved started a protest movement not against the specific programs they detested, but over the very principal of taxation in general, and mythologized The Destruction of the Tea into an anti-taxation Boston Tea Party.

Same shit happens today. When Democrats are in power and money is spent of social welfare and fighting inequality, "taxpayer unions" and teabaggers emerge protesting not those programs (that would be racist), but protesting the general concept of taxation. But when Republicans control the government, taxes are still collected but the taxpayer unions and teabaggers are strangely quiet.  

It's cold again. Thursday, I was outside taking my alternating-day walk in a tee-shirt and shorts in 70° F weather, and today the temperature is falling below freezing, with wind-chill temperatures down to 12° overnight. Apparently, the polar vortex winds have broken down again, allowing arctic air to spill south, and while the Northeastern U.S. is getting pummeled by a nor'easter and heavy snow, we down here in the former Confederate States are suffering sub-freezing temperatures and blustery, 10-20 mph winds with gusts up to 35.  

To summarize, I never liked Rush, I'm excited that the USA beat Canada in Olympic hockey (even if I didn't quite say so above), and I provided an unrequested history lesson and bitched about the cold weather. Any questions?