Touring the Left Coast

November 17, 2002

by Brian W. Peterson

Touring America’s Left Coast should be on everyone’s vacation list. Enjoying the writhings and gyrations of neo-compassionists who drip with the yuppie self-righteousness found in indigenous Pacific leftists ranks right up there with seeing the grand mountain ranges of Alaska, the beautiful beaches of Hawaii, or the abundance of wildlife in Yellowstone National Park.

The mountains, the beaches and wildlife lack the humor of the western Marxists and Maoists who have missed therapy appointments due to their fears of venturing too far out of doors during a Republican administration. Besides, the elk and buffalo practice better personal hygiene.

Rush Limbaugh said it would be like this. When liberals and their kin folk way out in left field (the liberals are merely playing a deep shortstop) are out of the White House, life becomes one big Comedy Central television network, only it’s funny.

From Barbara “B.S.” Streisand’s fax machine to Harry Belafonte (who?) wistfully recalling simpler days, from Michael Moore’s latest bizarre theories about September 11^th to the annual bumper crop of head lice in Northern California, in comparison the Clinton years are just boring and uneventful distant memories.

Bustling under low cloud cover in the water-logged and caffeine-drenched Northwest, the great Seattle radio station KIRO (pronounced “Lenin”) recently entertained its listeners with a caller who recognized the “eerie similarities” between the unfortunate death of Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone and the deadly plane crash that claimed the life of Missouri governor Mel Carnahan two years ago. Carnahan, one may recall, was challenging John Ashcroft for the latter’s US Senate seat.

In the Northwest, the autumn days are too short to waste on every purveyor of left wing comedic gibberish, they are so plentiful. But some stand head and shoulders above the others. This caller to KIRO, with frightening seriousness, unburdened her heavy heart of her vast knowledge of the evils of Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft/Rumsfeld. When her intellectual meandering wound its way to the great nation of Iraq, dark words such as those used to describe the nefarious American monsters escaped her.

The radio talk show host enthusiastically endorsed the deeply alarmed caller’s conspiracy theory by adding his own dastardly Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft/Rumsfeld blah blah blah. Michael Moore must be proud.

Alec Baldwin, warm up the plane. Wellstone and Carnahan are dead and logically others will follow. The price of gasoline will soon hit $10 a gallon and the World Series will be rigged next year so that the Texas Rangers will only have to show up to win. Maybe Germany’s Herr Schroeder will take in Hollywood refugees, where Martin Sheen can team up with Woody Harrelson to make the long-awaited film, “Bosom Buddies: the Lighter Side of Lenin and Stalin.”

But if Bush/Cheney et al. could shoot straight, they would have knocked off the intellectual midget twins, Senator Tom Daschle and Congressman Dick Gephardt. Wellstone? He represented the frosty state famous for great fishing and having their graduates of the Electoral College support Walter Mondale. The delegates are still looking for their diplomas.

If President Bush had Sen. Wellstone killed, then the president should be immediately impeached. For our president to have a harmless leftist assassinated when he could have knocked off Senator Patrick Leahy is beyond the pale. We expect better judgment than that from our leaders.

Traveling through Northern California, entertainment opportunities abound, though travelers should beware the abundance of communicable diseases and mobile parasites.

Heading down the coast on Highway 101 toward the beautiful city of San Francisco, lucky drivers can be treated to a dilapidated former school bus (oh the ironies) with a sign warning of the dangers to America presented by the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Based upon the, shall we say, untidy appearances of the passengers, conspicuously absent from the bus décor was a sign warning of the dangers of unabated body odor and sundry sexually transmitted diseases. Apparently, the arts taught in beauty schools are foreign to many and the soap companies battle sales challenges in and around Mendocino County.

But then again, a little body odor can be partially defeated with a few tokes of homegrown “cigarettes” each day, so who needs the added expenses of soap and perfumes? If Streisand’s fax machine could transport hygiene products, no one would recognize Woody Harrelson’s relatives.

Normal people will find hearty meals to be as prevalent as Bible salesmen at a session of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals. But past the organic food shops and herb gardens, an occasional McDonalds can be found for those wishing to mock the protein-challenged.

Have no fear, the Bay Area, that beacon of self-importance, self-indulgence, and self-sanctification beckons the weary, the malcontent, the confused. You, too, can be a vacuous amoral retrograde and yet be amongst your own ilk in the Bay Area. It’s heaven on earth, perversely speaking.

After being surrounded by too many cars from the Golden Gate Bridge and points south, followed by a long, long drive, at long last the smog of the City of Angels (all the angels were mugged under Tom Bradley’s mayoralship and have since relocated to Phoenix and Salem, Oregon) appears up ahead. Other than Hollyweird, Santa Monica, and Venice Beach, Los Angeles seems downright normal and conservative. Any day Newt Gingrich’s birthday will be declared a citywide holiday.

Who needs Alaskan mountains, Hawaiian beaches and wild animals when the Pacific Time Zone has head lice, marijuana and Maoists in its midst? We on the Left Coast are just waiting for President Bush to kill another Democrat, bomb another Stone Age wasteland for it’s oil, or for the Texas Rangers to win the World Series so the leftists can have something else to protest.

Once back home in sunny southern California, it’s time to scratch “tour the Left Coast” off of the “dream vacations” list. If only other recreational excursions could be so entertaining. What’s on the agenda for next year’s vacation? The Caribbean? Paris? Ho hum.

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Brian W. Peterson writes a political column for the Antelope Valley Press (circulation approximately 60,000) in Palmdale, California. He is a graduate of Oral Roberts University, where he majored in TV/Film. Brian’s weekly commentary and newspaper columns can be found at www.LifeAndLiberty.com.

Send the author an E mail at Peterson@ConservativeTruth.org.

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