Sarah Palin isn’t the only woman running for Vice President in this season’s U.S. Presidential sweepstakes.

There is another candidate for the office on Number One Observatory Circle who also happens to have a vagina, and that candidate happens to be me.  Governor Palin and I have more in common than two X chromosomes: We both favor lipstick politics, love our supportive manly husbands, enjoy handling phallic objects - in her case a rifle, and in mine, a vibrator - and neither of us has had much of any government experience on the national stage at all.

Then there are our outfits: I’m in lingerie all the way, and the Governor’s in a bikini.  Yes, that bikini shot was a fake - just Sarah Palin’s head jauntily photoshopped onto the bikini model’s rifle-wielding body - but the zeitgeist is that it authentically conveys the Spirit of Sarah (Lord have mercy).  That is, even in her sensible business suits, desert camo, cuddly parkas or hunting gear, and always in those sultry stern “Tina Fey” specs, Sarah Palin exudes sex.

Which brings up a big difference between the Governor and me:  Sarah might exude sex, but she’s against sex education.  I’m a sex educator.  I believe that education is power, and sex education is sexual power, the power to attract and cultivate healthy, exciting, relatively safe, mutual beneficial relationships, the power to give and receive pleasure, the power to love and be loved.  Why do we all need a good sex education?  Because repression relies on ignorance. We need education in the sexual sciences to wipe out damaging, sometimes deadly superstitions and misinformation. We need education in the sexual arts to help improve our erotic lives and to keep our families together. We need education in sexual psychology and philosophy to help us determine our sexual nature and cultivate it in a fulfilling, ethical, manner.  

Sarah Palin believes that “faith-based…abstinence only” is the only kind of sex education anybody should get, and we’ve all seen how well that works with her own daughter.   Saying no to sex education is just one cornerstone of Sarah Palin’s anti-sex/anti-nature platform; on abortion, same-sex marriage, evolution and stem cell research, she is somewhere to the right of the Pope, Dr. Laura and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Another big difference between Sarah and me involves our  fellow earthly creatures:  I want to save the bonobos.  She wants to gas the polar bears.  I’m no vegetarian, but the  Governor seems  to glory (hallelujah!) in  her “God-given”  dominion over the  local fauna to a sadistic, fetishistic degree.  Or maybe she just flaunts her dominionist style to impress her red meat-hungry fans.  With her grizzly bear throw rugs, airborne wolf-shooting games, plush fox (or is that wolf?) collars and fur fetish photo-ops surrounded by horny Vikings, Sarah Palin is the 21st  Century Venus in Furs.

Which brings out the difference in our approaches to power.  There are two ways to get it (so they say): through fear and through love.  I tend to go through love.  Sarah Palin is all about fear.  And boy oh boy, is she scary, especially to women and girls who have wished and worked all their lives to get a female in the White House, and now this anti-feminist Puritan threatening to set women and humanity back a few decades could well be the one who gets in. As for men, if they're not down on their knees, they're nervously protecting their balls.

The Alaskan Governor is the quintessential dominatrix, the Queen of Cold with a warm smile and a wicked style.  This is a key to her appeal.  Americans, who reelected (overlooking, for the moment, the possibility of voting machine fraud) the Bush Crime Family Torture Masters in 2004, apparently have a strong masochistic streak.  An attractive, powerful, moralizing domme makes us weak in the knees.  Americans are bowing down before this woman like lovestruck submissives, giving up their rights to peace, pleasure, freedom, a clean environment and any sense of respect from the world.  Like Austrian novelist Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch's 19th century classic Venus  in Furs, Sarah Palin looks stunning in fur, wields a mean leather whip and has utter disdain for your pain.  And this Venus also wields a cross as a sword.

Which brings up a difference that’s thicker than lipstick:  I'm for the separation of Church and State, and the Governor is running as a Messenger from God.  And that’s no vague conceptual God.  That’s not the Jewish God, nor the Muslim, Buddhist nor Hindu God, and it’s certainly not the Goddess.  Sarah Palin’s God is The Christian God with a capital crusading C, and she is His Messenger.  And if you don’t accept Jesus as your Savior and the Republican party as your overlords, get out of the way of her snowmobilee.  This is Sarah’s world and you’re just running from her bullets in it.

That’s another key disparity in our philosophies:  I’m all about Peace through Pleasure.  Sarah’s for Drilling and Killing.  How can such a saintly woman be so brutal? Easy. See, candidates like me, who aren’t absolutely postive that God is on our side, or even that He or She exists, feel the need to be diplomatic, to work for the good of society, and the planet.  People that speak with God directly, like Governor Sarah and Mad King Lameduck George, don’t sweat such small stuff, what with God Himself IM’ing them to rain bombs on civilians, plunge the economy into ruin and pillage the planet.  Praise the Lord.

But back to us ladies.  Here’s something else we have in common:  Neither of us has been invited to Bohemian Grove (unlike McCain, Obama and all the male Bushes).    I know a few of the BG’s secrets, but Sarah has a better chance of being  the first female leader that these Greek love powerbrokers invite to their "top secret" Midsummer Night’s Bacchanals in the Redwoods. I'm sure they're already fantasizing about Governor Sarah sporting a strap-on. Shhhh....

Which brings us to censorship:  I’m against it (just in case you don’t know).  Sarah Palin tries to ban books from libraries.    And then there’s the war in Iraq (I’m against it).  Sarah Palin calls it “a task from God.”

But our most important difference isn’t really about us, it’s about our running mates.  Sarah’s man is John McCain, the U.S. Senator who plucked our eskimo princess from national obscurity and set her on a snow white horse with reigns of flowers and a crown of stars in front of the old beat up, utterly discredited Republican army.  Now she is his Joan of Arc.  He is her Prince Charley, egotistical, fickle, quick to anger, utterly beholden to the wealthy powers that back him and prepared to keep our troops in Iraq for the duration of his presidency or the next 100 years, whichever comes first.

My “man” is the U.S. Presidential Candidate Frank Moore.  While Sarah’s man is a War Hero, who rained bombs on Vietnamese civilians before he was captured by Vietcong, Frank Moore is a Peace Hero who has brought joy and inspiration to millions over the years as a performing artist and healer.  Frank promises to bring the troops home from Iraq “immediately,” and he'll have universal prenatal-to-the-grave health care and universal free education with equal access, and free public mass transit as well.  Neither McCain nor Obama are offering these basic services that should be the first priority of any “free” functional society.  Read more about at frankmooreforpresident08.com/  and if you like what you read, write us in: Moore/Block. Feel good about your vote this time.

But far be it from us to “take” any votes from Obama who is, indeed, the far lesser of the two evils here.  So you Barack voters, especially in the swing states, go ahead and vote the Big O.  But if you’re one of those liberal Republicans who’s considering voting McCain/Palin because you like the idea of supporting the kind of feisty, sexy, can-do woman that Sarah Palin appears to represent, consider this:  Everyone has their personal tastes.  So… Sarah Palin has her grizzly bear carcass on a couch and I have my ecologically friendly Monkey Rocker.   What would you rather have in your Vice Presidential living room?  Wait, don’t answer that…

Just please don’t vote for her!  Pray for her, pray to her, worship her, adore her, jerk off to pictures of her (real or fake), obsess over her family problems, adopt her sexy librarian look, copy her hair style, try out her Tina Fey glasses, send her fan mail, parody her, dedicate your next Christian rock tune to her, build a cathedral for her, but please just don’t vote for her.  Because God and Goddess help us, if enough of you do.

  Playboy Radio 9/11

Every national candidate has to do something to commemorate 9/11, and I did two radio shows.  The first was Playboy Radio and we didn’t talk about 9/11 at all.  The subject was fetishes, and somehow I  couldn’t turn 9/11 into a fetish in a way that didn’t sound forced. A fetish for burning phallic buildings?  Too conspiratorial… 

So the host Suzanne Whang, porn star/domme Nicki Hunter  and I stuck to foot fetishes, domination and  submission, and felching. 

Concerned about keeping my mocha crème down in my stomach as opposed to all over my microphone, I tried to keep the felching talk to a minimum, but though  Suzanne was very nice, smart and funny, she could not seem to stop talking about felching.  It was like she had a fetish for it.  Or maybe she'd done a focus group and discovered that this is what Playboy Radio listeners want to know about: felching. And yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. 

Nicki brought along an extremely devoted slave who seemed surgically attached to her lower legs. Slaves aren't so shocking these days; lots of divas wouldn't leave home without them, and nobody blinked at Nicki's doglike PA.

Sister Teri and Brother Charles came along for the ride, and we had fun sucking suggestively on butterscotch lollipops brought by Nicki’s slave, though we were just a little disappointed not to see any bunnies. 

  Later that night, Teri, Sara Sioux, Brother Joe the Alien  Engineer and I did a great, super intense 9/11 RadioSuzy1 show.  Somehow the subject of felching came up (so to speak) again.  Two felches in one day, and I don’t care if I never felch again.
  

Emmys Partee

  Now for a few more shameless and gratuitously self-promotional pics!

I took Sara Sioux (no relation to Sarah Palin) to the  Non-Fiction Peer Group Emmys Party at the Academy of Television Arts and  Sciences deep in the heart of the San Fernando Valley.

We had fun sipping delicious Grey Goose martinis, munching fresh lobster canapes, showing off our stylin' hats and posing melodramatically on the red carpet. 

Aren't we glam?

Thus lubricated, we schmoozed up a few folks, including  my original HBO director Shari Cookson (now an ATAS Governor) and Dan Berman  (also a Governor), John Watson of South Park...

Mitchell Block (my long lost cousin) whose TV show actually  won an Emmy, Kathy Griffin, another Emmy winner,  the super hot Grey Goose  cocktail waitresses and bartenders...

and countless grinning toasting filmmakers whose names I've misplaced along with my change purse.

Congrats to all the winners and losers!

You Can Live Forever In Paradise On Earth

  The Speakeasy has cool neighbors! 

Actually, most of our neighbors are in what my dad called the “schmata” business, a.k.a. fashion, a.k.a. sweatshops.  And then there are the guys down the hall, Case Simmons and Andrew  Burke,

Simmons and Burke are the up and coming Lennon and McCartney of the LA Art World, fresh from their spectacular opening, "You Can Live Forever In Paradise On Earth," (combining several of our favorite themes) at the Kim Light Gallery on LaCienega.

Then we cruised into our Virgin Blogtalkradio Show,  brimming with hope and awkwardness, one week after our Last Skype Show, filled with anguish and longing.

Meloversary with Agwa

  Now… Meloversary, here we come! 

We’re going to celebrate the 10th  anniversary of emo-love...

with Sara Sioux, Sister Teri and the Pants Down Boys, Agwa Bolivian coca leaf liqueur (feel the buzz), Palin Protection Condoms and  more. By the time you read this, you will have probably missed it, but just in case you didn't...Come join us!

No matter how organized, there’s  something fundamentally debauched about a painting party.

Especially when skin is involved. Bodypainting, or even just fingerpainting, is always a sensuous, wild yet essentially innocent endeavor, wet color splashing here and there, bodies speckled like rare birds, faces streaked with warpaint.  Of course, here at the Speakeasy, we call it peacepaint (tm).

War or peace through pleasure, we threw a hot wet painting party in Sara Sioux’s new room at the Speakeasy Annex, painting the town bonobo red, blue, pink and purple, and painting ourselves right into the town.

Alas, we were not naked, as we were for our fabulous Nude Body Painting for Peace Show...But we were more productive in that we actually accomplished the painting of Sara’s room which is now a splatterific phantasmagoric purple, pink and blue temple of sin.

Nude Body Painting for Peace (playing  this Sunday on RadioSuzy1TV) features a multi-colored, multi-cultural palette of porn stars, political operatives, models, dancers, dommes, one hot ER nurse and your favorite media sexologist. We all got naked and painted, our boobs, buns, backs and tummies transformed into moveable canvas for the artistic visions and twisted dreams of the bodypainters. 

Check it out, listen free...Or watch the show this Sunday for a mega-dose of naked color and psychedelic-erotic eye candy.Maybe it’ll inspire you to throw your own  nude body paint for peace party...or at least to paint your room.

  Swinging Interview: Bisexuality

  Kasidie Magazine recently published a long, free-ranging, naughty but quite nice interview with me on some of my favorite subjects, such as swinging, spanking, sperm wars, bonobos, brain surgery, war and peace through pleasure. Here’s an excerpt on male bisexuality among bonobos and human swingers:
  
KASIDIE: Several news articles came out a few months ago about a scientific study about female bisexuality (saying) that bisexuality in women was no longer considered to be a transitional phase on the way to lesbianism but a distinct sexual orientation... I laughed at when I read it because swingers could have told them the same thing and probably saved them a lot of money in research.
  
DR. BLOCK: I think that there are many aspects to bisexuality. I don't think it’s just one way or there’s just one reason for it. In my humble opinion we're all somewhat bisexual. It's just that we don't all act on it. I look at bonobos and they're all bisexual.

  KASIDIE: Both bonobo females and males are bisexual?
  
DR. BLOCK: Yes, both sexes. The females are more expressive of it. Even in bonobo society female bisexuality is more acceptable.
  
   KASIDIE: Really??
  
DR. BLOCK: But the males are also bisexual and you see it especially in moments of violent tension. When they get violent they often turn it in another direction, they have sex with each other. I think that level of male sexual interaction is too much for our human society to take, which is one reason we have so much violence. Probably a lot of the violence that human males exhibit towards each other is sexual. It's just that we don't accept that.
  
KASIDIE: That's interesting. I guess that there is something to that, because when you get two men together with their testosterone and adrenaline all flared up there is really no culturally acceptable outlet for that energy other than violence. As opposed to violence as our society is supposed to be, we'd probably make a bigger deal out of a hand-job than a stabbing.

DR. BLOCK: Yes. Most swingers tend not to be into the guys having sex with each other; there are exceptions, of course.  But I do tend to think that guys enjoy swinging partly because they like to watch their women with other men, and that satisfies certain bisexual feelings that they have... Feelings that they would probably be horrified to hear described as bisexual.
  
   KASIDIE: [Laughing] I'm imagining the looks on guys'  faces as they read this.
  
DR. BLOCK: Oh yeah, they'll say, "I'm not gay!" And I'm not saying they're gay. But I do feel that "bisexuality" simply means that we can get turned on by both sexes.  Of course there are those guys that go to swing parties solely to get a lot of women for themselves... But a lot of these guys want to see their woman with another man. Of course, some of this is altruistic; they like to see their woman experiencing pleasure. Part of this is tit for tat; they want their woman to be with another man so they can be with the other woman. But I think a really big part of it – and as a therapist I talk to guys about this all the time – they get really turned on seeing another man with their woman. Part of that is about seeing the man with the woman. Why do you think porn is so popular? Really, porn is usually about one guy sitting there and watching a girl that he's attracted to having sex with another man.
  
KASIDIE: You're probably totally blowing a lot of guys' minds right now. I actually agree with you. I just never thought of it that way.
  
DR. BLOCK: That being said, I'm not trying to say that, "Oh, you guys have to start sucking each other off." I am not saying that at all. Because people have different things they want to do or not do. I'm just saying part of the excitement of the swing party for the man is that there are other men there.
  
   Click Here To Read The Whole Interview
  
   Click Here For More On Male Bisexuality, Threesomes, Hot Wives and Cuckolds

  WebCam Sex Therapy

Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Especially a live, moving, sexual picture.  So, in addition to telephone sex therapy, some of the more adventuresome therapists with the Dr.  Susan Block Institute also offer Webcam Sex Therapy sessions.

   Saritabella is a new Webcam & Phone Sex Therapist with
The Block Institute. Call her at 213.749.1330

It's a little pricier than phone therapy, but if you'd like to literally see your  therapist and/or if you want your therapist to see you, then Webcam Sex Therapy is for you. For more information, call us anytime at 213.749.1330.

RadioSuzy1 Back On The Air

Here at the Speakeasy, we’re still grappling with the after-shocks of being technologically and personally attacked by unhinged religious fanatic loser demons, as our beloved Prince is held hostage in the temporary Temple of Doom.

Going to Temple for the High Holy Days

But  slowly but surely, we are  getting back to taking care of business...

   With Marja Kay, Bran, Maggie, Teri and Sara, after Marja just sang an incredible operatic aria at the Speakeasy . Photo: Mar

...regrouping, meeting, holding small private gatherings, taking care of our beloved telephone sex therapy clients, doing pick-up shots for Canaan 's Speakeasy film...

   Canaan shoots a swinging lightbulb . Photo: Suzy

preparing for a visit from British TV's "Sexorama" regarding my run for the U.S. Vice Presidential as the running mate of Frank Moore...

   Meloversary @ Dr. Suzy's Speakeasy: 9/20/08

getting the Speakeasy ready for Meloversary...

   Meloversary 2007 . Photo: Mar

...beating the devil and getting back to  our bonobo ways...

   With Ashleigh, Michael, Alex, Kent "National Lampoon" Simmons and Sara Sioux . Photo: Mar

And now,  back by popular demand, RadioSuzy1 returns to the airwaves! Sara, Teri, Joe and I  did our Comeback Show this past Saturday night, and had a blast yapping with callers and each other about sex, love, life, death, alien abductions, police batons as sex toys, pregnant sex, bread-baking as an aphrodisiac and the joy of being cock-rich. It was a fantastic hour, and now it's lost in time, because alas, the recording failed, so we are only left with the memories.

   Joe is RadioSuzy1's Engineer-From-Outerspace . Photo: Mar

Well, failure is the tuition you pay for success. So now that our dues are paid, our next RadioSuzy1 show this Saturday night is bound to be awesome. Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. We're looking forward to future great shows, including an interview with Donna George Storey, author of the marvelous erotic novel set in secret sexy Japan, "Amorous Woman," on Saturday, September 27.

Lots more is being planned (though we know that the best laid plans may not get you laid the way you planned), so don't come yet and don't go away...Stay tuned for the Fall...

Hope is high on the horizon, at the Institute, in the Speakeasy, on BonoboWay, and in the world.

America will have a new President. Hopefully, it will be my running mate Frank Moore. Barring that, it's encouraging to see Obama sweeping the free and unfree world with his elegantly tailored message of hope and glamorous progressive politics. Even if the man onstage turns out to be just a corporate frontman, Obama Fever is a step in the right direction, away from the Bush Leagues. On a more personal note, we also have high hopes that our Nightmare on Bauchet Street will soon wind into the inevitable happy ending. In the meantime, we’re doing all we can to have a little fun and spread our message of peace through pleasure around the world. Much as we appreciate Obama's message of hope (which once upon a time was Bill Clinton's message of hope), we like "peace through pleasure" better. After all, hope is often false, and peace through pleasure never is.

Daisy Layne Rides The Monkey Rocker

For instance, there's nothing false about our latest Clip-O-Rama clip: “Daisy Layne Rides the Monkey Rocker,” created by BlockFilms' brand new editor Ashleigh (under Mar’s gentle but firm direction). No pretense or special effects, just a real-life, happily married, very attractive (albeit a bit whacky-looking), clown couple having crazy but very real orgasms in the wild but totally real environment of The Dr. Susan Block Show. The stars of the clip are Clown Porn newlyweds, Daisy and Dick Chibbles, playing on the amazing “fucking machine” known as the Monkey Rocker in the middle of last Spring's “Jack ‘n’ Jill Off Jam.”

Dick does Daisy on The MR Photo: Tom Zimmerman

Watch sweet Daisy go down on Dick’s big dick, then jill off on the MR while Dick jacks off all over her lithe, nude (except, of course, for the clownface), orgasming body, demonstrating what a super sex machine that cute little Monkey Rocker can be. It’s also, incidentally, the perfect gift for any playful woman, not to mention a great springboard to mutual masturbation, whether you're just clowning around or up for some serious deep-penetrative orgams. Get your very own Monkey Rocker in Shopping Heaven, or save $795.00 and just watch the download.

You might also want to check out a vintage fucking machine, a.k.a. "female self-gratifier" or masturbation machine, circa 1926, in Weimar Love: Hot Sex in Pre-Nazi Berlin.

10 Commandments of Pleasure Published in Italy

Speaking of sex in Europe, we just received the Italian translations of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. We're delighted to have my book published in Italy, my husband’s native land and one of our favorite countries. Mama mia, the pasta, the pesto, the men pinching your behind! The publisher, Armenia, printed the commandments in two elegant, pocket-sized, hardback editions, one for the ladies, Le 10 regole per Dare Piacere a una Donna. and one for the boys, Le 10 regole per Dare Piacere a un Uomo.

There’s just one problem. My name on the cover of both editions is spelled wrong. That is, my Italian last name, which is my husband’s Italian family name is Filangieri. So my name on the cover should be “Susan Block-Filangieri.” On the Italian books, it is wrongly spelled “Susan Block-Filangeri.” This misspelling is particularly unfortunate since the old aristocratic “Filangieri” name is highly respected throughout Italy, almost like Windsor is in England, the most famous Filangieri being Gaetano Filangieri, philosopher and prison reformer of the Enlightenment, as well as inspirational confidant of Benjamin Franklin. When I told my British publisher, the distinguished and sympathetic Ernest Hecht, who arranged the Italian (as well as the French) translation, he wrote back: "Unbelievable...We immediately sent your complaint to them but as you probably know not surprisingly the whole of Italy is now on holiday until the end of August...Very annoying I can appreciate."

Well, there are islands of pleasure in a sea of pain, as well as a few moments of pain in any night of pleasure. Sometimes it hurts so good, and sometimes it's just "very annoying." So, guess we’ll have to wait (and hope!) for the corrected second edition before we can show my Italian in-laws.

Happy Hookers on Sunset Boulevard

Somehow, a few friends, fans and I managed to slip away from our crazy busy lives on a Monday afternoon to see the West Coast Premiere of Xaviera Hollander: The Happy Hooker, Portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary at the Dances with Films Festival .

All photos from The Happy Hooker premiere taken by Mar Sorell

This was my second full viewing (I saw the World Premiere at New York's Cinekink Film Festival where our Squirt Salon also premiered), and parts of it are better than ever, especially the haunting opening scenes that reveal the conditions of Xaviera’s first couple of years on Earth in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia during World War II. The film has been shortened, which is good, though I was sad to see a few scenes I liked edited out. Well, at least they didn’t leave my part on the cutting room floor. I, along with several other sexologists, including Dr. Betty Dodson, Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle, Norma Jean Almodovar and Veronica Vera (all of whom have, at one time or another, been on my show!). All of us talking heads (or in the case of Dr. Sprinkle: talking boobs) comment on Xaviera’s groundbreaking contributions to the Sexual and Feminist Revolutions. The film is filled with exhilarating and titillating sexual moments, including a scene in which I describe how Xaviera's underwater blowjob style greatly inspired one of my therapy clients, intercut with shots of Xaviera frolicking naked in the pool. Recently, the movie won the “Best Documentary” award at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival and the West Hollywood International Film Festival.

Produced by Xaviera’s cousin, sexologist Dr. Patti Britton and directed by filmmaker Robert Dunlap (who happens to be Dr. Patti's husband), the film leaves no doubt that Xaviera is an important and rather unique icon in our cultural history, “the most famous madam of all time,” even though she was only a full-time madam for a couple of years.

Xaviera's effervescent aura, strong will and can-do attitude toward sex, writing, promotion, business and life itself, have made her an erotic legend and an inspiration to independent sexual women around the world. It certainly inspired me and my girlfriends to party in her honor.

“What becomes an erotic legend most?” asks the Washington Post. “Longevity. Sex symbols have notoriously short shelf-lives, and the few that endure loom large in our pop-culture consciousness: Liz, Marilyn, Madonna. In an age of fleeting sexperts and flavor-of-the-month porno queens, it’s nothing short of remarkable that after 30 years Xaviera Hollander is still a household name.”

I took along another budding hooker/author, Mae Victoria, one of Xaviera’s spiritual daughters, author of Hooker: A Beautiful Madness and the Block Institute's newest celebrity telephone sex therapist.

We hooked up (not literally) with famed international civil rights attorney Barry Fisher who several years ago helped me craft a winning pro per case against the LAPD when they raided the Speakeasy, expecting to find...hookers (they didn't)!

From the Laemmle Theater to Greenblatt’s across the street to the Pleasure Chest champagne after-party where we met up with Speakeasy Girl Sara Sioux Robertson, it was a festive time.

Having recently grieved over the untimely death of another famous high-end madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a.k.a., The D.C. Madam, it was sweet to celebrate the long, exciting life of a successful, respected, genuinely happy hooker who is still very much alive, even after several decades of enjoying multiple pleasures in many different arenas, from sex to travel to food to fame to friends to life itself.

Liberal Bashing & Liberal Killing in Knoxville Unitarian Church

According to the evidence, the man who walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children’s show and fired three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the congregation, killing two people and wounding six others before he was wrestled to the ground by church members, “hated liberals and gays.”

Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve Still wrote in his police report that the shooter, Jim David Adkisson, targeted the UU Church "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets." Adkisson's message has been broadcast on countless media outlets over the past few days, just going to show that in the 21st century, committing a sensational multiple murder is a very viable way to get your political “point” across to millions.

Adkisson, an unemployed truck driver and former member of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne who recently ran out of food stamps, said that since "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement, that he would then target those that had voted them into office."

The UU's are nothing if not liberal, especially as churches go. Their website states that it has worked for "desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women's rights and gay rights" since the 1950s. Current ministries involve emergency aid for the needy, school tutoring and support for the homeless, as well as a cafe that provides a gathering place for gay and lesbian teens. Sounds like an oasis of sanity in a sea of intolerant religiosity. Apparently, Adkisson targeted his victims for this precise reason. That and the fact that his estranged ex-wife used to be a UU member.

Inside Adkisson’s house, officers found the books "Let Freedom Ring" by right-wing TV talk show host Sean Hannity, "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by far right-wing radio talk show host Michael Savage, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by right-wing loofa lover Bill O'Reilly. There’s a great temptation to blame right-wing blowhards like Savage, Hannity and O'Reilly for Adkisson’s hate-fueled shooting spree, and many of my fellow lefty bloggamists are doing just that. But considering the evidence thus far, I’m going to pass on accusing the O'Reilly Gang of being “accomplices” to Adkisson’s murders. Maybe it's because the right-wing blogosphere, most prominently Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto, melodramatically blamed me (me!) for the horrific suicide-bombing of Istanbul’s HSBC bank in the Summer of 2003 and accused me (me!) of being “Saddam’s Sex Therapist,” all because I had written an anti-war essay called “Rape of Iraq” that Spring just after the Anglo-American invasion. You can read all about how several rabid right-wingers held me “morally responsible” for that terrible tragedy and called for me to be "hanged for sedition" in “Saddam’s Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech.”

Speaking of Free Speech, O'Reilly, Savage and Hannity are *just* exercising theirs. Along with their feminine counterparts, Dr. Laura and Ann Coulter, they cheer on what is meanest in America: war, intolerance, ignorance, bigotry, backwardness. But no, they are not guilty of "aiding and abetting" this trigger-happy hater in his cold-blooded murder of two innocent people. At least, they are no guiltier than they are of aiding and abetting the Bush Administration in the conduct of an illegal, mass-murderous invasion and occupation of a once-sovereign country which, by the way, is filled with millions of innocent people, many of whom have been killed by trigger-happy haters of gays and liberals. Yes, the O'Reilly Gang is among the lowest of the low. But, even though their minions have called for my execution, I won't give them the satisfaction of calling for theirs. The Freedom of Speech we receive from our First Amendment gives us the right to be right-wing, war-mongering loudmouths like O'Reilly and friends, or liberal, peace-through-pleasure-loving loudmouths like me and my friends.

So I'm not calling for their hanging, but I am calling for these overexposed corporate hacks (hooker is too good a word for them) to be vilified in the village square, throughout cyberspace and, hopefully, at a dinner table near you. Because their self-serving, mean-spirited philosophy of aggression and intolerance is, indeed - sometimes quite literally - killing all that is good, gay and liberal in us.

R.I.P: Greg McKendry
Fallen Hero of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian
Universalist Church and Liberals Everywhere

But enough about those right-wing cretins, corporate shills and loser shooters. I'm going to end this bloggamy on a note of hope and praise for Linda Kreager and Greg McKendry, the two people who were killed in the blasts delivered by this crusader-maniac egged on by media bullies. If the UUs had a sainthood, they should be canonized. McKendry, a UU usher and much loved foster dad, died while shielding the children from shotgun fire as fellow church members wrestled the gunman to the ground. Both Kreager and McKendry are heroes for "taking the bullet" for the rest of us liberals. They give us hope for humanity. We will not forget their sacrifice.

August Heats Up on Blonde Island