A Revelation

 Y'all, I have landed in a place where nobody's going to a No Kings Day march, that's for sure.  (BTW, I was happy to see several of you at them yesterday--if only on this computer screen.)

You get two choices on the radio here--I kid you not.  SIX are extremely conservative religious stations, one is the radio version of Fox News.   I'd been listening all day yesterday to excellent podcasts (more on some of those another day) and when I got in the car for my coke run, phone not yet attached, some preacher was saying, "America is great because America is good--thanks to our pulpits all across the nation...."But within a minute he was ranting about how bad we are.  "We are number one in the world in abortions--ripping babies out of their mama's wombs and harvesting their parts before throwing the babies in the garbage."

These charlatans literally make things up to scare their gullible audiences. In five minutes of listening to that (sermon? rally speech?), I queued up enough NPR podcasts to get me another 450 miles before I sleep again: Krista Tippet, This American Life, The Moth, Hidden Brain, 1A, and so many others. 

At breakfast Fox News was blaring. George Santos was the guest, talking about how his three months in prison were so terrible that he couldn't even get a Bible.  (Poor George, I'm sure that's what he wanted most!) But since he's been there he's turned back to God and he's at peace--and "Jesus is King, he's your f-----ing savior."  

"What about paying back the people?" one of the Fox News hosts asked him, and he said, "I don't have to pay anything back thanks to the grace of President Trump who believes in second chances." (What about the people you ripped off, Georgie? someone should have asked.) 

Profanity has taken on a whole new meaning for me this morning. It's not using certain choice words, it's lie upon lie upon lie. 

After telling the two people at the desk what a beautiful remodel they'd done here, I told them I had one big complaint--Fox News. 

The young woman strongly agreed (I first thought we were on the same page), but then went on to say, "I get my news on Tik Tok cause in all the others they just say anything they want."  

The man said they only played it on weekends.

The people who clean the rooms, make the meals and check guests in are kind people.  But clearly they are not deep thinkers.  I just got a taste of the ridiculous propaganda they hear on their dials and in their churches.  No wonder they are terrified of those of us who do the outrageous things they are told we do.  

The news I'm hearing sounds like church, and the churches sound like MAGA rallies.  In one clip, a teary Trump was giving what almost sounded like a sermon in praise of Charlie Kirk, tears in his voice! The Presidential Medal of Honor he bestowed had a cross engraved on the back--which the preacher proudly announced was the first time a religious symbol had ever been engraved on one of those medals. 

I've increased my monthly contribution to NPR--and hope that everyone fortunate enough to have it will do the same, even more so now that Federal funding has stopped.  If it ever goes away we will be immeasurably impoverished. 

I could write a few more pages on this, but you get the picture!  I'm going to take a shower, don my Rock and Roll shirt, and rock and roll on down the road--cause if I scratch my head any longer it's gonna start bleeding.