Birthday
By On Erik Loomis’ 24th’ birthday, Eric Rudolph bombed an abortion clinic in Alabama. Wikipedia erroneously reports that on Erik’s 30th birthday, a dead sperm whale exploded in the center of Tainan, Taiwan. The bloating carcass had been removed from the beach and was being carted by truck to National Cheng Kung University when it suddenly burst, spilling its contents into the streets as hundreds of gawkers watched. The stench, they say, was unreal. As nice a birthday gesture as that might have been, however, it actually happened on January 26, 2004 — not January 29.
Loomis shares his birthday with Tom Selleck, a right wing nut; Edward Abbey, a xenophobic eco-anarchist; and Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the screenplay for Network, in which the character of Howard Beale declares on live television that life is “bullshit.”
Chayefsky also wrote Paint Your Wagon, the jaw-droppingly awful musical starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood that only underscored the important point Howard Beale was trying to make.
It’s also the fifth anniversary of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech. Over the past half-decade, some people have seen fit to mock the president for uttering such bold words. Those people hate freedom almost as much as the proprietors of Alterdestiny.
Happy birthday, Freedom-Hater.