"After Therapy" Goes.....Print

The newspaper picked up a few paragraphs of After Therapy thought and printed them in the OpEd pages today. Needless to say, "tickled" doesn't begin to describe our reaction.

They printed a slightly cleaned-up version of our thoughts on a local issue that got some national play. Kelsey Smith, a murdered Midwest teen, has been the focus of many letters to the editor since her story reached its apex. Most of them were decrying the obvious. A few were seizing the chance to score points for their caucus of choice.

On the same day, one letter was from a pro-death penalty minister seeking to spread the love of Jesus at the end of a noose for the murderer. Another was from a man who cut-and-pasted the When Someone Gets Shot paragraph from the N.R.A. newsletter that excuses the sin while lamenting the sinner.

And I thought we just had a case of crazy kid kills pretty girl.

We fired off this email to the editor:

Some days you’re reminded that common courtesy is neither, to paraphrase someone.

I pray for Kelsey Smith’s family in the face of unimaginable pain. That’s not what Patrick McWilliams (6/12, “Using a gun for defense”) or the Rev. David McKinley (6/12, “Kelsey Smith”) did. No, these letter writers approached the loss of a mother and daddy’s little girl with agendas rolled up in one hand and placards in the other: one to push his pro-death penalty view, the other to shill for the National Rifle Association. This kind of parasitic opportunism is stomach-turning.

If their parents are around, they have reason to disclaim responsibility for having raised someone to use a child’s death to praise their political pets. A pox on both their houses.

If no one else has told you, the rule is, “Shut up and mourn.” This is not your side-show.

The appearance above is slightly edited by the Powers That Be. I called them "boobs", not letter writers. I would never call someone a letter writer if I had the chance to call them a boob. But I guess that's the daily print business for you. The paper's Web site gives ample opportunity for the more weak-livered among us to fire back anonymously. This is the part we liked best.

We got one only slightly veiled invitation to join a racist rant that seems rooted in the belief that missing white girls make better TV than black ones do. And that their families' tireless efforts earn their plight the coverage it gets. Someone actually gave us an "Amen." Same person. One racist "Amen" for the After Therapy train of thought. We might need to retrace our steps.

So... hyped by the sheer exhilaration of having at least one thought on thousands of front lawns and at least one crazy person closely scrutinizing (and agreeing, frightfully enough) we decided to return the favor and post a comment of our own - as a karmic Thank You for adding ink to our inclinations. I picked out a letter from a Vietnam Vet still crying in his oatmeal over the ass-kicking handed to my former congressman, the Olympic runner Jim Ryun (R- KS), by Democrat Nancy Boyda in the 2006 cycle. Of late, the recriminations have focused on Ryun's absence from Vietnam for a "disability" (a 50% hearing loss at age 4 from high fever) - fine fodder for poking fun, given his rise to fame was based on his physical fitness.

So we jotted:

"Our thanks go to (the vet) for finally offering the one sensible explanation for Ryun's congressional service: He simply didn't hear what was going on.

To be so consistently wrong on such a wide variety of issues that you actually glide to the right of your rural Kansas constituents is a colossal achievement. To realize that it was accidental and a result of hearing loss is just... well... sad.

Interestingly, we know a number of hearing-impaired individuals who seem to be right on the issues most of the time. Perhaps attributing Ryun's poor judgement to his poor hearing is unfair to his ears. More often than not, the problem is between the ears, not in them.

Our modest education taught us that when an issue arises about which you have no reason to speak with clarity, reason or sound judgement, one ought to keep one's hand in the pocket when the vote is taken. Mr. Ryun, despite his lamentable hearing loss, was all too giddy to rush to the floor to cast his misguided votes to our collective detriment. His loss in '06 was among the most jaw-droppingly improbable of them all.

His hearing may be the lone, true explanation for how he slithered out of one war-time sacrifice. It does nothing but further our condemnation of him for pushing others down the same road he's never even sniffed. His defeat was too long in coming.

You can't say he didn't earn it. You can't say it wasn't a good idea. And you can't say we haven't already done better for ourselves."

Well... you'd think I'd called someone's grandmother a whore. I was poking sticks at a long-gone Representative from the part of Kansas most people don't know exists. Here's a sampling of the reaction:

"The party of tolerance marches on!!!"
"...irrational moonbats like yourself."
"...miserable partisan diatribe..."

Us! Moi! Your local funny/cranky/quirky/dirty talker! If there was a word to describe the thrill of being called nasty names by people you don't know, I would like it put on a t-shirt, a bumper sticker, and a line of condoms. This must be what love feels like!!

We may never again see ourselves in "real" print, but this time was a hell of a lot of fun! Our boobs may have become letter writers, we may have inadvertently given off a receptive racist vibe, but all in all, we discovered that getting called names in public is a HUGE turn-on.

On a disturbing note, we caught an unwelcome glimpse of understanding for the Ann Coulters of the planet. We don't like that part of the realization, but it apparently comes with Media Whore territory. As the French say,

"Tant pis."