Well, let’s get to it, shall we?

A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday that the “writings” that got him arrested are being taken out of context.

I don’t know how big a deal this is, but why is the word “writings” written in quotation marks?

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole’s home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

… And Fluffy the Cat? (I’m always going to interject “Fluffy the Cat” when I happen upon stories such as this one… You know that, don’t you?)

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

“My story is based on fiction,” said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. “It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies.”

Yes, dear Poole. But, don’t you see… all high schools are over-run by zombies! You can’t rely on the over-familiar — you need something a bit more exotic or you’ll lose your audience.

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. “Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it’s a felony in the state of Kentucky,” said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

The Winchester Police Department, evidentally, is over-run by zombies too. That needs to be his sequel. Only he’ll probably have to change the name to avoid suspicion or dancing to close to “Terrorist Threats”. Maybe call it the Pinheadster Police Department. (I’m willing to donate a notebook and pen so that he can write it while waiting for bond or arraignment in his jail cell.)

“It didn’t mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn’t mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn’t mention no principal or cops, nothing,”
said Poole. “Half the people at high school know me. They know I’m not that stupid, that crazy.”

So, half the people at George Rogers Clark High School knew Poole, eh? The other half probably thought he was a freak. Or maybe half the people who knew him thought he was a freak, and half the people who didn’t didn’t think he was a freak. Calculating such percentages is a tough business.

On Thursday, a judge raised Poole’s bond from one to five thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.

And so it goes…

In the bastions of Pinkwater-related rumours (an obscure Internet reference, circa late 1990s), Pinkwater was in some stage of writing — perhaps entirely written but never-to-be-published, a third “Snarkout Boys” book entitled I Snarked With a Zombie.

But the premise in Lizard Music serves as much purpose as anything else. Our hero, Victor, becomes aware that everyone around him is pod-person.

“Now, what’s this about pod people?”

“Oh yes, it’s a problem, but it doesn’t do to worry about it too much. Somehow, people who get all concerned about podism usually seem to wind up catching it.”

I don’t know what Poole was getting at with his zombies. Perhaps it was a Revenge Fantasy of some sort. Perhaps it was an erudite commentary on society at large. It was probably neither, though.

Well, here’s the eventual explication to the provacative caller’s “I don’t support the troops” thangy, from the Clyde Lewis message board:

First, I am no pacifist, I believe in the appropriate use of a military. My father was with the U.S. Air Force on Iwo Jima, and I see his service as protecting our country form a fate worst than conquest.
Second, In 1848 my greatx4 Grandfather, Beuford W Smith came to Oregon and set up the first sawmill with his brother Titus. On the Pointer side of my family we homesteaded the land on the north side of Hwy. 26 from the zoo all the way west to the hospital where my family welcomed a band of 12 Cherokee to camp . My great GF Pointer fell in love with one of the women and married her. There was some hostile sentiment toward Indians at this time so they told most people she was from China.

“He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall become a slave to the wise at heart.”

Take it for what it’s worth. Truthfully, I don’t take the phrase seriously, and can only really brush it aside as a rhetorical device that will have meaning as soon as the necessary changes in the English language grant it meaning.

For what it’s worth, I just received an outraged mass-email about Jane Fonda. I contemplate the aesthetic choice of centered 13.5 Arial font block letters (which I would contemplate the same if it discussed, say, Dennys cutting back to low-grade cheese for their grilled cheese sandwiches.)

(Do I now drudge up Rush Limbaugh’s recent comments in Afghanistan to the troops? Yes… no… maybe…)

The New Republic, as per this cover, considers itself as defending the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, John F Kennedy (or is that Robert Redford?), Harry Truman, Woodrow Wilson, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. having been a qualified Socialist, I imagine the magazine would have, by the late 1960s, ran editorials citing him as a a bit irresponsible under the current editorial board.

They found the man who embodied their magazines’ political hopes and dreams in 1992 in the guise of the “New Democrat” Bill Clinton, and endorsed him heartily. All the while running op-ed pieces by Fred Barnes and others advancing George H W Bush’s cause. Make of it what you must.

I am told that if I go back to Joseph Lieberman’s first bid for the Senate seat from the state of Connecticut, I would find that he was a man who ran to the right of the seating Republican Senator, endorsed by Pat Buchanan of all people. See here:

Lieberman was first elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat in 1988, scoring the nation’s biggest political upset that year by a margin of just 10,000 votes after being backed by a coalition of conservative Democrats, allied with conservative Republicans who were upset with Republican incumbent Lowell Weicker’s liberal voting record.

I suppose that this has to be considered the deathknell end of the “Rockefellar Republicans” that the Goldwaterite and Reaganite(*) Republicans were at war with… a group of Republicans that may well its soul from Robert La Follette, but for the most part were just standard political hacks. Pity the political party or political party faction that finds its base in the Northeastern United States! Today, you have Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, and that’s about it. He voted for Bush’s father in the 2004 election, considers himself Republican to the core, and does not like the current party all that much. And, he’s found his poll numbers dissipate quickly, as Rhode Island Republicans wonder: You couldn’t vote for Bush?, and Rhode Islanders in general wondering You’re caucusing with these freaks?

The New Republic endorsed Joseph Lieberman for the Democratic Nomination for Presidency. Lieberman is currently the weak point for the Democratic Party’s attempt to claim a cohesive party Legacy: Roosevelt and Kennedy hang over us all. The effect of Joseph Lieberman is to ponder whether he’s a Skull and Bones plant of some type.

Murmurs abound about throwing up a primary challenge to Lieberman, ranging from a sort of token “conscience” choice of Paul Newman to some more credible politician. Actually, defeat Lieberman and perhaps it’d be the same as deflating the Rockafellar Republicans…

The two most recent credible primary challenges of note… New Hampshire in 2002. Pennsylvania in 2004. New Hampshire’s Republicans wanted to get rid of Bob Smith for quiting the party in 1999, and thus backed John Sununu to oust him. Movement Conservatives consider Arlen Specter Enemy #1, and backed Pat Toomey to oust him… Arlen Specter was then backed by the Republican Party — including Bush and the other Pennsylvania Republican Senator, Rick Santorum, who gave him enough cache amongst Pennsylvania’s Right Wing Republicans to win the danged race.

So, with Lieberman… it sadly depends on whether the Democratic Party particularly gives a damned.