THE SADDEST NEWS:
LINDA HALEY has passed away. Now that’s some fuckery!
You may have known her best as Anniee451 or (for older-timers) Annie McPhee.
Here is the avatar she used online:
I didn’t even know what that thing was until after she had passed away and I started digging deeper into some of her Internetness. I had often thought of asking her, “Just what the hell IS that anyway?” but we’d get so involved in so many wonderful comment exchanges that I’d always forget to inquire about such a superficiality. Anyway, just so ya know, that’s a “Dumbo Octopus” – it seems Linda, or Anniee (or Lindanniee, as I sometimes addressed her in Emails) had a thang about strange sea creatures.
Her real name was Linda Haley. She was born on December 16, 1966 and passed away on July 5, 2011. She was only 44 years old; born in Edison, New Jersey, she lived in Avenel, New Jersey, for the past six years.
She is survived by her loving husband David Haley, her children David James Haley, Sarah Elizabeth Haley, and a brother Stevn Lindsey.
Funeral services were handled by the Gerity & Chubenko Funeral Home.
[By the way, all blue words found in this blog bit are links to what I am referring to in that portion of the text. It is my hope that Anniee’s friends and fans will actually spend time exploring some of these links. She still deserves our attention.]
Sincere thanks to the kind soul who informed me of Linda’s passing, otherwise I might never have learned what became of my friend.
F-BOMBS & OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS [Or, ABOUT THIS BLOG BIT’S TITLE]:
I’m not sure if Linda (to be referred to by her Internet pseudonym Anniee for the remainder of this blog bit tribute) could have strung together two full sentences without including a four-letter word. Certainly not a paragraph anyway. The dropping of F-Bombs was the only aspect of her blogging that I didn’t care for, and she was aware of that. I recall her once saying that she had deliberately tried to post a lengthy blog installment with minimal profanity in deference to me. I genuinely felt honored.
Oftentimes the use of much profanity is the sign of a verbally-challenged individual. Not so with Anniee; she had an extensive vocabulary, well beyond the average American’s facility with words. [In one place, she quoted me as having written "do not seem to jibe with…" and she said of that remark: “See, this is why I love you. You didn't say ‘jive’. … Another pet peeve of mine is flaunt/flout (even someone as intelligent and educated as Hillary Clinton recently used flaunt instead of flout; I wanted to punch her. But I usually want to punch her.)”
Ha! Oh, Anniee!
“Hell” and “Damn” come naturally to me (they’re just salt and pepper for seasoning) but I rarely use the A-List four-letter words. It can happen, but I’ve got to be REALLY POed, and even then I will sometimes semi-cloak it by writing “ph” rather than “f”.
Which is why it’s kinda funny to find the “F-word” in the very title of this blog bit. Once upon a time, Anniee posted something on her blog about her idol Stephen King.
I added a comment, which I subsequently deleted. Anniee later remarked: “Stephen McCarthy leaves this comment which for some fuckery got deleted.”
I returned and posted this:
Ah-Ha!-Ha!-Ha! What you wrote made me laugh out loud. (No, I mean that literally.) WHY? Because I AM "the fuckery" that deleted the comment.
I got to thinking about it later and felt like maybe I shouldn't have been posting a disagreeing comment in light of the fact that Stephen King is obviously one of your heroes.
I mean, I know you wouldn't mind if I disagreed on some political issue, but this seemed like more of a "personal" thang, and I later had "poster's remorse" and returned to delete my own comment. So, I was "the fuckery". Ha!-Ha!
That was the first time I had ever encountered the term “fuckery” and it struck me as funny. I later related it to my brother Nappy, and he liked it so much that a week hasn’t passed since that he hasn’t used it. If we’re planning to watch a movie, or go to the grocery store, or go out to lunch, at some point, Nappy can be counted on to say, “Let’s get to the fuckery!”
So, I decided that in order to start this tribute to Anniee authentically, I needed to start it with the word “fuckery”. And the title itself represents the starter’s gun.
Somewhere, Anniee is smiling down with approval.
HOW WE MET AND HOW I FEEL:
I first met Anniee on March 16, 2009 via a comment she had left on a friend’s “I Can Has Cheezburger” LOL. I traced her from the “Cheezburger” site to her blog “PURELY POLITICS. PARTISAN? PERHAPS.” She was using the pseudonym Annie McPhee then; later she’d change it to Anniee451.
It’s kind of ironic that in the first comment I posted on her blog, I was generally in agreement with her but I actually challenged her on a couple of minor points. She handled it in a very civilized, grown-up way and invited me to return. Which I did. From the very beginning I respected her, but over the 2 years and 3 months that I got to know Anniee, I grew to love her like a second sister.
Less than a month from 52 and having lived all of my life in major metropolitan areas, I’m rather jaded. I’ve had a lot of life experiences and met a lot of different types of people, so it really requires something quite out of the ordinary for me to sit up and take notice. And then just when you feel that no one can much impress you anymore, you meet someone who, by the force of their personality, almost demands that you get to know them better, that you make the necessary effort to develop and maintain a friendship with that person. In other words: One day you’re surfing your little strip of Blogosphere Beach when Anniee enters.
As a blogger, she described herself this way:
In Flux. Creature of the night. Lover of liberty. Not "safe". Not "nice".
It seems that Anniee did not have an easy life – she had more than her share of troubles, and throughout her 44 years, poor health was frequently an issue for her. As a result, she was too often in pain, quite sleep deprived, and by her own admission, she sometimes drank more than she should have, and may have at times tried to drink her way to a state of pain-free slumber. (Although I suspect that, like me, she occassionally played up the drinking angle as a form of self-deprecating humor.)
As she once said to me in one of my blog installment’s comment section:
I don't know your life, but I know mine (and you've never judged me for it so I'll be honest) as it says in one of my favorite books, "Your mother doesn't OWE you anything. She clothed you and held you and fed you, and if she did it with a drink in her hand, she still did it with STYLE!" It comforts my ragged soul a bit. I remind myself that I DO all the good works that I am able to do...and well maybe I do them or have done them with a drink in my hand, but that doesn't lessen their worth.
For the above reasons, Anniee tended to blog in sets: a furious amount of activity would be followed by spells of inactivity, some of short and some of long durations. For the most part, she ceased blogging from November 30, 2009 until October 13, 2010 [10 and a half months], when she took it up again and continuted until her death.
ANNIEE’S SECRET BLOG:
I am sure this will come as a surprise to many, but Anniee had a secret blog. It was my natural curiosity that caused me to discover it one day. I had noticed that someone calling themself “The Shredder” had evidently posted a comment to one of Anniee’s blog installments at ‘Purely Politics’, but afterwards deleted it. I had never heard of this person, The Shredder, nor seen them post a comment on Anniee’s blog before. So, curious, I clicked on the name, which was actually a link, and I was transported to this fabulous blog called ‘THE SHREDDER’.
I loved what I was reading there, and found it amazing that another female could hate the ideology of Feminism as much as Anniee did. It almost gave me hope for America to think that there could be two “Anniees” out there. Immediately I attempted to get Anniee to check out The Shredder’s blog; I told her it was as if an identical twin of hers lost at birth had been found. I even told Anniee (at the risk of hurting her feelings) that The Shredder was just like her only “on steroids”.
Anniee ignored my comments. And it didn’t take long for me to recognize the style of writing and to realize that it was impossible that two different women could despise Feminism THAT MUCH. That’s when I told Anniee that I had come to the conclusion that she and The Shredder were one and the same.
Anniee, asked me to keep her secret identity as The Shredder under wraps; she said she just wanted a place where she could shred the feminists without any of her old political enemies discovering her whereabouts and starting a lot of flame wars with her there. I fully honored her request – the only person I had ever told about it was my friend DiscConnected, and that was BEFORE I knew that The Shredder was Anniee. I had told Disc: Man, you GOTTA check out this new blog; it’s like Anniee only maybe even better. To the best of my knowledge, DiscConnected and I are the only persons who knew of the secret blog, although a comment Anniee left on some other site, which I discovered while doing research for this tribute, indicated to me that she may have eventually let a few others in on it.
After much deliberation, I decided to spill the beans about this secret blog because, with Anniee gone now, the need for secrecy hardly seems to be an issue, and honestly, I think too much of what she posted at ‘The Shredder’ was just too good not to be highlighted. I particularly enjoyed the earlier postings at ‘The Shredder’ site, which I felt were as good if not better than the best of ‘Purely Politics’. But those writings are not for the fainthearted.
At ‘The Shredder’, Anniee adopted the pseudonym OhJessie, and here’s how she described her ‘Interests’:
Interests: Politics, Economics, Leftism (shredding it), Tea Party, Progressivism, Feminism, Prejudice, Government
Anniee sez: “That is my mascot; I like to think of myself as a free-market Ninja. I'm trying to get someone to make me one of these to keep; looks like it wouldn't be hard but I am a knitter and just can't sew.”
ANNIEE’S INTELLIGENCE & WRITING STYLE:
Anniee was extremely bright, witty, and well educated. I have rarely if ever known anyone who could speak so intelligently on such a wide variety of topics; it seemed as if there wasn’t anything she didn’t have above average knowledge of. Anniee understood Economics, she was no slouch in world history, she fully grasped the ideologies of Socialism and Feminism, was aware of practices in the medical field, had studied a bit about nutrition, knew the classics in literature, she had learned some tactical theories in the game of chess, had investigated various theological viewpoints and even knew her Bible to such a degree that she could accurately tell you (unlike a lot of self-professed “Christians”) that various Biblical passages make it clear “This earth is satan's dominion for sure.”
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/so-terrorists-have-won.html
However, Anniee’s writing style did not always make for the easiest of reading. At times she’d just jump right into the topic, assuming that the reader was informed enough about it that bringing him or her up to speed first with background information was unnecessary. Her mind was whirring about a thousand miles an hour and she just had so much to say that paragraphs could be jam-packed with info, and NO ONE could shift mental gears faster than Anniee could. One second she’s excoriating President Obama (which she did often) and in the next second she’s saying something that seemed to be only tenuously relevant but funnier’n hell! And I would sometimes be scratching my head and thinking: Wait! How did we get HERE from THERE? She also used initials frequently, and if you weren’t up on what the initials stood for, you could get lost pretty quickly. Anniee was a wonderful trip, but you really had to have your thinking cap on and just keep up as best you could.
THE MULTI-FACETED ANNIEE:
There were so many different aspects to Anniee’s personality, and that’s what really made her so interesting to me. She could be deeply serious and madder’n a wet hen, but she could also be light and joyful, extremely humorous, and about as wacky as I can be (and that’s pretty wacky). She and I had a number of exchanges, both in comment sections of blog bits and in Emails, where we would just start riffing in a goofy, free-form, non sequitur, improvisational way, and Anniee and I would go toe-to-toe, building upon whatever bizarre conversation we were constructing together. She could be such fun!
Here’s Anniee in one of her deep blue moods:
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/p-plans-panic-pessimism-possibility.html
Hope is a very hard thing for me, and suddenly this ray breaks through against all odds. You may tell me there's no God, but...damn. Yeah, there really is. Providence is alive and living. Sure I'll find plenty to worry about, always have, but...there's this ray. And we'll see, won't we?
Guess my final stand may take place right here after all. How can a final stand take place in Jersey?
And here’s an example of Anniee (disguised in her OhJessie identity) having some insane fun with me at the opposite end of her personality spectrum:
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2011/06/cancer-b-gone-or-shredder-n-mccarthy.html
OhJessie:
Because not much makes me scream and run. Even rapscallionery. I might turn aside for a moment if you're going to flop around on the floor like a carp, screaming and yodeling. Do you do that?
STMcC:
I may flop around on the floor like a crap, screaming and yodeling... but I NEVER flop around on the floor like a carp, screaming and yodeling.
So, you have nothing to worry about.
(Although, now that you mention it... perhaps I'll work on a screaming and yodeling carp impersonation to add to my screaming and yodeling crap impersonation. As the radio ads say, it's important to diversify your portfolio.)
OhJessie:
Yeah I end up on the floor sometimes too. Not sure if I yodel. But no one's ever said if I'm a carp or a crap. I thought they were the same genus.
Good luck with the impersonation, though. I hear tight pants work best for that one.
STMcC:
Ha! You may be even crazier'n I am. We needs help.
OhJessie:
But...but if they HELP us we won't be so much fun anymore! Leave the crazy people be, meddlers!
Now here’s a new one for ya: Most people knew Anniee as a very bold, fiery debater who got along with liberals the way canines get along with felines. You might say she was not unlike Ann Coulter but sans the civility (if you can imagine that!) I never met Anniee in person and never even saw a photograph of her, but should it surprise anyone to learn that she had red hair?
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/seems-i-skipped-e-and-h.html
Now here’s something that WILL surprise many: Despite her legendary knock-down drag-out arguments with liberals, Anniee said: “I prayed and prayed that I would be a peacemaker....HAHA!!!”
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/g-gramma.html
Well, before we laugh along with her, it needs to be understood that Anniee was SO multi-faceted that at times she REALLY WAS a peacemaker! Don’t believe me?
Once upon a time I had gotten into an argument with my friend DiscConnected, and Anniee Emailed me, trying to find the words that would repair the breach between my friend and me. (Happily, he and I were later reconciled.)
A fluke, you say? A one-time aberration? Think again! A couple of years prior to that, another one of Anniee’s fans and I had begun to get into a political argument. Recognizing that he and I essentially held the same political beliefs, Anniee stepped in and said what needed to be said to begin building a bridge over that troubled water.
Yes, there were many sides to her, and anyone who thought of her only as “Argumentative Anniee” was certainly missing important pieces of the Big Picture. Anniee’s prayers were answered, for at times she could also be a peacemaker.
She could get into the doldrums, yes, like the time she said to me in an Email: “Oh, my friend...times are sooooo fucking tough right now. … I'm gonna start bawling so I'm gonna end this.”
Despite that, and despite the fact that she was usually posting about politics and economics, she never lost “the little girl” inside. At an Internet site where reference had been made to The Island Of Misfit Toys from the animated TV Christmas special “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer”, Anniee posted the following:
Nobody wants a Charlie in the box.
And choo-choos with square wheels.
(I have all the misfit toys as Christmas ornaments, heh.)
ANNIEE’S SENSE OF HUMOR:
Anniee had a very pronounced sense of humor, but it was still a bit foreign to me. I was never confident that I had a handle on what she thought was funny. I’d post something I thought she’d laugh at, and she’d not seem to fully appreciate what I believed represented the humor in the piece. Other times I’d say something I thought was mildly entertaining and Anniee would find it laugh out loud funny. I suppose she’d say the same about me. However, below are some things that Anniee wrote, either in blog installments, blog comments, or in personal Emails that really tickled my funny bone:
In an anti-Obama piece she wrote, “Just wait and see what I call you if you fail. (I shall taunt you a second time).”
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/o-obamessiah-hey-obamessiah.html
An obvious allusion to “Monty Python And The Holy Grail”. And here’s another reference to “The Holy Grail”:
Laughter is a balm. Just don't fart in my general direction…
.
I got a hangover and no haire of the dawg . . . They really need to harness the power of the shakes for public use.
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/kitten-update.html
I'm a bit of a blowhard sometimes - went and defended the wrong historical character on a message board and got my ass fairly handed to me ;)
She posted the photo below and wrote: “Well, this marks 275 posts and I ain't been running this blog too long. I'm officially a blabbermouth. Yay!”
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2009/06/blabbermouth.html
Referring to our tendency to leave very lengthy, detailed comments on each other’s blogs, Anniee wrote: You deserve and merit a tad more than superficiality, I'd say. And I'll always say so. Sure, with some people I won't go beyond the surface and will just say "Pass the rum balls" but that isn't you.
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2011/04/pay-no-attention-to-that-god-behind_09.html
Not long ago, Anniee posted something on her blog which included a mildly derogatory remark about vegetarianism.
In a light-hearted way I let her know that I am a longtime vegetarian. Probably fearing she’d inadvertently offended me, she made amends by posting this:
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were vegetarian during their captivity. They weren't going to eat the king's diet, or something. And they looked more hale and hearty than the other schlubs. So don't mistake me.
I replied:
HA!-HA!-HA! I've read the Holy Bible in its entirety like 14 or 15 times and I don't recall seeing the word "schlubs" in it. (You're PRICELESS!)
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/06/those-were-days-random-nostalgia.html
On the fun side I looked at my stats … the funny part was it tells you who searched for what in order to find you, and lemme copy the results because a couple were funny - people who found me searched for:
1. Deep ocean animals
2. jesse jackson sex scandal
3. co-workers withholding information
6. ding ding ding loser
8. fuck the system before it fucks you quotes
There's a couple more but anyway, isn't it funny to wonder what kind of people typed in these search terms and why they led to me?
The alphabet challenge is something a friend came up with...ok a friend of a friend. You start on April FOOL'S day, April 1, and you blog every day (discounting Sundays - apparently somebody's a better Christian than me; usually on Sunday I'm hungover so works for me)
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/03/alphabet-challenge.html
Nothing Anniee ever wrote made me laugh harder than the bit below. She was attempting to keep up with April’s A To Z (a-letter-a-day) Blogfest but she probably hadn’t slept for a day and a half, and she was likely 60 degrees removed from sobriety. Thus she had lost track of what letter she was supposed to be blogging about that day and asked if anyone knew. Someone posted this comment to her: “Hehehe I like your blog. Will be around more often. (Today is L-Day)”. To which Anniee responded:
“Cool; welcome aboard. Just be prepared for a tad of drunkfuckery (if you've read back at all you'll notice it.) But for the most part the people who like it like it and those who don't, just don't. Very few in-betweens. I think I already did L so maybe I'll just go to sleep … God knows I could use it.”
When I read that, I started laughing so hard that, literally, tears were rolling down my face! Here’s another from the A To Z Blogfest:
DEVIL WENT DOWN TO...
GEORGE?!?! I was just looking for a studio recording of the Charlie Daniels song, and there are a bunch of videos labeled "The Devil Went Down to George". Even listing that as the lyric. What in the hell has the internet done to us??? On the other hand, chicken in the breadpan pickin' out dough. Heh. ETA: Apparently I'm gonna have to go dig out my old album Southern Fried Rock to find a copy with son-of-a-bitch, because they all say sonofagun; even the ones that are funny and spelled right. And I don't want a live version. Off to dig out albums. Now, what freaking letter are we on anyway? I really want to make sure I catch up here. Thanks in advance.
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/devil-went-down-to.html
It does my heart good to know that I brought a little laughter into Anniee’s life as well. Perhaps the best laugh I provided her with came when I linked her to a segment from the movie “Hollywood Shuffle” which she had never seen before.
She watched the YouTube video of it – an urban spoof of Siskel and Ebert’s movie reviewing TV program - and then said to me, “That was hilarious - I'm sending that to everyone lol. Salarius. Those two are awesome.” And I know that she meant what she’d said because she later reiterated it to me in an Email and told me she had sent the link to a number of her friends. Here’s the scene that Anniee found so funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfWc47SEPA0
ANNIEE’S CHRISTIAN FAITH:
I am a Christian, and that is first and foremost my identity - before American, before anything else.
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2010/11/burning-holy-books.htm
But burning books in protest? That's dumb. Let the words speak for themselves. On a personal note, Muslims were my allies in the early fight for homeschooling. I know all about HomeGrownJihad, but that isn't what these Muslims were doing. And I am certainly against using Sharia law in our country - assimilate or gtfo. America has a constitution, and we have to start using it again.
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2010/11/burning-holy-books.html
Unfortunately I remember the Camp David accords and [Menachem Begin] going after the PLO while not so much remembering that if I were British I might see him differently. Scottish guy called him a terrorist and how that ruined the Nobels, and I said I hoped he wasn't being anti-Semitic (anti-semitism bothers me on a gut level, badly), after which I got rather schooled. … I don't pretend to know it all; just a lot ;)
I'm not the best witness in the world - I mean, I have a potty mouth and I booze so what if I end up just making the faith look bad? … Being...you know, not in church or anything, and you get all these legalists...well that's their weakness and frankly, we're supposed to support them. I have different weaknesses and I find other support. We all need it, but anyway, that's why I don't often open up about the Lord when talking. But he's put us in one another's path for some reason, so let's enjoy it :) It isn't every day we meet someone who accepts us as we are, either, you know?
ANNIEE’S SONGS:
Not surprisingly, anyone with such a full measure of personality is also likely to have a wide range of musical interests. To illustrate . . . in a blog bit titled “Pretend You Can Build Your Hopes Again” she displayed her love of Simon And Garfunkel’s “A Hazy Shade Of Winter” . . .
Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
[Yes, Anniee, we will.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wSd4QJBEMvk
She also liked Yngwie Malmsteen and his music, such as “Far Beyond The Sun”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOvjybLQ4Q8
And Anniee enjoyed a lot of other stuff in between those two musical points, including Michael Jackson’s music.
ANNIEE AND HER ENEMIES:
Anniee did not get along at all with some people of the Left. She made plenty of political enemies, and I’m sure they hated her the more because they were not her equal in debates. Read between her expletives and it’s clear she was well informed; the girl knew her stuff(s). As Ann Coulter once wrote: “Liberals think they can defeat the truth with loudness.” And the liberals who argued with Anniee thought they could shout her down. WRONG!
I don’t know if Anniee really hated the people she fought with. Personally, I try to separate the sinner from the sin and refrain from hating the extreme Leftists, but I gotta admit, some of them make not hating ‘em a real challenge for me!
I do know that Anniee once told me that she has found it necessary to forgive others who have wronged her, just as she has needed to be forgiven by others. She was very clear on the fact that forgiveness is one of the primary tenets of her Christian faith. As she wrote: “My life is much happier without grudges.”
She had her politcal enemies to be sure. Like the utterly classless, bleeding-heartless, A-List liberal Jackass who posted the following at Anniee’s online guest book provided by the mortuary that took care of her remains:
“Wow, did her own venom kill her? I wouldn't doubt it for a second, because she was one nasty, hate-filled bitch. Siyonara, you evil scum-bag!”
Well, if nothing else, that Jackass proves that Anniee had impeccable taste in enemies! I mean, if someone who would do a thing like that represents the sort of person who despised our Anniee, then she was certainly angering the correct clowns. Don’t let that Jackass bother you too much though, because Anniee and I had once joked about making political enemies. I had said to her: “You can tell which conservatives are most effective by how hard the Leftists go after ‘em!”
To which she responded, “I hope that's true; it means I'm on the right path.”
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2011/04/pay-no-attention-to-that-god-behind_09.html
No doubt, Anniee was on the right path!
Besides that, Anniee McPhee was in good company. Consider another “Mc”: Senator Joseph McCarthy. When McCarthy died on May 2, 1957, the New York Times’ Editorial page ignored it. The head of that department, Charles Merz, said, “I don’t think we need an editorial on this . . . Why dignify the bastard? Let him pass from the scene without more attention.”
So, if you ask me, that some Leftist Loser would make such a “mean-spirited” (to borrow one of the Left’s own favorite charges) remark in her online guest book only goes to show how effective Anniee was in battering the socialists. I can only hope that when I’m gone, some “good-hearted” liberal will say something equally nasty and incorrect about ME!
Here’s an “I Can Has Cheezburger” LOL that Anniee created. It says a lot about her stance on politics and liberty:
http://cheezburger.com/Anniee451/lolz
Of course, none of this is to imply that Anniee and I saw eye-to-eye on every single detail. In general, we most certainly did, but we parted company occasionally when it got down to the minutiae.
For example, she felt that the best way to oust Barack Obama was through the Constitutional “natural born citizen” requirement, while I felt the initially nonexistent and later the obvious bogus birth certificate was the more promising route. I don’t think it’s likely that Anniee recognized the most disturbing fact of all about the 9/11 tragedy: it was partially an inside job. And Anniee, it seems, had not yet fully jettisoned her belief in the Left/Right, Democrat/Republican paradigm, although I still held out hope that if she read my blog installments long enough, she would eventually come to realize that both parties are in fact controlled by a wizard behind the curtain (namely, the Council on Foreign Relations, et al.)
In fact, it is a testament to Anniee’s intelligence and personality that I enjoyed discussing politics with her because, as a rule of thumb, I don’t generally engage in political discussion with folks who still accept that the Democrat and the Republican parties represent two distinctly different ideologies.
And then, of course, there were our more serious disagreements. Such as the fact that Anniee liked absinthe and disliked gin (which she described as tasting “like pine sap”) whereas I like gin and dislike absinthe.
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-idol-stephen-king.html
Our minor disagreements were of no account, however, for as Anniee liked to say: “If two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.”
But since we’ve broached the subject of booze, let’s look at something Anniee said about absinthe . . .
ANNIEE ON ABSINTHE:
After learning that I had tried a couple different brands of absinthe and didn’t care for them, Anniee suggested: “Well, maybe give the Lucid [brand] a try; I don't know how high the content of the wormwood stuff was in whatever you bought; but the Lucid really is strong enough. And it was a very pleasant dreamy sort of buzz...very nice. And yes, it was almost like an Ouzo or a Sambuca, but...there was something else to it, too; something I've never tasted before.”
And to another person she wrote: “Oh, and let me know if you end up trying the lovely drink [Lucid absinthe] - I tell you, if you can spare the money it was really worth it.”
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/absinthe-antarctica-anarchy.html
As I compose this tribute, I am indeed drinking some Lucid absinthe. I’ll confess that absinthe still isn’t my cup of tea (I’ll always like that “pine sap” better), but I’m drinking it anyhow - in the traditional way - in honor of Anniee. True, we didn’t agree on every point, but nevertheless, I thought she was MARVELOUS! My kind of person!
THE VARIETY OF ANNIEE’S BLOG INSTALLMENTS:
Anniee’s blog installments were all over the map, which really kept her blogs interesting. Just as “Nobody wants a Charlie in the box”, nobody wants to read a One-Note Johnny. Certainly the bulk of her blogging took the form of battering the Leftists generally and Barack Obama and the Feminists specifically, but she really mixed in a lot of other personal interest items as well.
For example, in THIS blog bit she told us about the kittens her Mama Cat had just delivered: “They're really not cute yet; you know how it goes. In two weeks they'll be adorable.”
I consider THIS one an Anniee classic. She was writing about how the Government Nannies of the USDA had just unveiled the new icon replacing the food pyramid symbol that illustrated a nutritionally balanced diet, and how Uncle Sam was ignoring research that indicated something quite different from what the federal agency was suggesting. She wrote: “I'll take butter on my broccoli, a human-sized portion of meat, and you can just put my damned apple in a pie crust where it belongs.”
That blog bit concluded with a chicken enchilada recipe. No one but Anniee would start out on a rant about Government Nannies and nutritional advice and end with a recipe for dinner. By gobs, she was great!
Somewhere Sister Anniee had made a remark that led me to believe that she may have been a Leftist at one time, so I asked her to elaborate. Scroll down to the comment section HERE to see Anniee explain how she went from being an atheistic hard leftist to a Christian, small L libertarian.
I once made the comment that I found it disappointing on those occasions when I’ve written what I feel is a particularly good blog post but it goes essentially unread and/or uncommented upon. Anniee said she felt the same way. Now she never speficially told me this, so I’m merely speculating here, but I have a feeling that one of her blog installments she may have had in mind when she agreed with me was HENNY PENNY – WITH A TWIST; it’s her take on an old children’s tale. It’s about a grain of wheat, a little red hen, a satisfied cat, a smirking dog, a pig, a turkey, and a huge wolf with a federal badge. She turned the well known story into an anti-Socialism piece.
It’s really quite good, and I remember when she first put it up on her blog, but I thought she was merely reposting something that someone else had written. In doing a couple of Google searches for it, Anniee’s blog installment was the only results I got. The reason I believe that among her own writings this may have been one of her favorites is because I’ve found that she posted it on two different blogs. I realize now that it was an Anniee original and I feel bad that not one of us ever left a comment on it for her. [But it’s not too late to read it.]
And speaking of regrets . . .
REGRETS - I HAVE A FEW:
Perhaps I’m mistaken but I seem to recall that somewhere on her “Purely Politics” blog Anniee once referred to herself as the queen of regrets. Well, if she’s the queen, I’m the king. When I learned of her death it hit me extremely hard, and the pain was intensified by the fact that I immediately zeroed in on several regrets of mine. Here’s two of them:
On a few occasions, Anniee and I spoke about our views on abortion. She was “very much interested” in delving into that topic with me, and I with her. She had written:
“All of a sudden I wasn't able to lie effectively anymore (that was like an immediate change) and I realized that abortion was murder. Which was the single issue I switched political sides on. …
The abortion question is a hell of a lot more complex than the rest of the issues - I personally believe it IS murder and yet I have heard enough compelling argument regarding the legalities that I can't say with 100% certainty that it must be illegal. Perhaps you and I could discuss sometime soon why I say that; I haven't found a single person willing to genuinely discuss it with me on the level I need it to be at, and maybe you are just the person to do so. …
“I am open to honest discussion so long as the person genuinely tries to understand what I mean when I make my arguments and understands that I abhor the practice personally. … I most certainly agree it's the taking of a human life; on that much we're already in agreement.”
That was on November 6, 2010. We agreed that I would write a blog installment explaining in detail my view of abortion, then she would submit a comment and we would go from there, engaging in a very in-depth discussion of the subject. But it wasn’t until April 30, 2011 that I finally got around to writing my abortion blog installment. Within days it had already gotten buried by a lot of junk I posted afterwards and evidently Anniee never saw it.
I intended to eventually call her attention to it so we could carry on our dialogue, but I was so busy doing other far less important things and told myself I didn’t have time right then for what would surely be a gargantuan discussion thread. So I made no mention of it at the time and I never did get around to letting her know that the abortion piece had been posted. Now we’ll never have that discussion I had promised her.
Anniee said of C.S. Lewis, “He's about the greatest author ever to live.” She knew I had read 3 or 4 of Lewis’ books and said to me, “By the way, if you've never read ‘The Great Divorce’ I beg you, I've never begged you to read something before, but that one I do. You will be as blown away as you were reading Screwtape. Promise!”
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2010/01/we-should-detesticle-feminism.html
Since I had not read that particular title, I told Anniee that I would. And I did. I got a copy of it from the library and finished it a couple of weeks prior to her passing away, and I found it as good as she promised it would be. I even Xeroxed a number of pages that contained ideas I wanted to discuss with her. In “The Great Divorce” I found one of the best things ever written about man’s relationship to God:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done”, and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done”. All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.
~ C.S. Lewis; “The Great Divorce”
Sadly, over the course of the last two weeks of her life, I never even got around to telling Anniee that I had read the book.
ANNIEE FORGIVES ME:
For several days after learning of her death, I was beating myself up something awful over these regrets and a few others. But then I remembered something Anniee had once written to me. There was some sort of a misunderstanding and one or the other of us (I can’t even remember now if it was her or me) mistakenly thought the other person was upset about something. It turned out not to be the case at all, nevertheless, Anniee wrote, “70X7, if there's ever any need for it.”
At first I wasn’t sure what the heck she meant, but after a minute it suddenly occurred to me: it was a reference to a Bible verse - Matthew 18:21 & 22 – in which our Lord Jesus tells us how many times we are to forgive someone who wrongs us.
So I figure that Anniee has already forgiven me for these faults and I am still 480+ “forgivens” to the good. And if Anniee really was the queen of regrets, then likely she had some "would'ves", “should’ves”, “could’ves” and “ifs” as well. If so, I hereby officially absolve her of all regrets, and she too has a surplus of 480+ “forgivens”.
ANNIEE’S INFLUENCE:
In a way, Anniee was responsible for inspiring a few of my own blog bits. Here are two that, in a sense, we kind of collaborated on:
CANCER-B-GONE! (Or, SHREDDER ‘N’ McCARTHY “SAVE THE WORLD”)
LETTING THE AMERICAN ECONOMY FALL: THE OWEN LATTIMORE MODEL
Recognizing in me that same fighting spirit that she possessed, Anniee once wrote: I love when you go on a good rant! It's like the lion inside the churchmouse : D
http://purelypolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/shit-just-got-real-muslim-on-rampage.html
I treasure every one of Anniee’s complimentary comments, but perhaps the sentences I hold most dear are these: “Hugs - thanks for being a friend through rough times. It means the world to me.”
And it is Anniee I must thank for introducing me to the superextraordinary writer Fred Reed. [Yeah, thanks a lot, Anniee! It was after reading Fred Reed’s stuffs that I came to realize: I can’t write worth a damn!]
ANNIEEISMS:
Here are just half-a-dozen and two – well, make it an even eight - select “Annieeisms” for your edification and/or amusement:
Like all real love it comes from God…
I've said it before and I'll likely say it again; this ain't "Inherit the Wind".
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2011/04/pay-no-attention-to-that-god-behind_09.html
I well remember hippies all over the place; I never asked about them, they were just a fact of life. Though my parents were not hippies or you'd be talking to "Moonbeam" or something. I horrified my mother one time when this dude all decked out like Easy Reader from Electric Company sporting an afro like 2 feet wide was walking towards us, and I pointed and yelled "Mommy! He looks just like a buffalo!" Oh she was worried, but he didn't even blink. … like I say the guy didn't blink an eye. Hell, he knew he was a freak with that insane afro. (OMG spell-check even checks "afro" wtf?)
http://stephentmccarthysstuffs.blogspot.com/2011/04/those-are-hippies-stephen.html
I am so fucking stupid I thought I was only 42. Guess what? I'm 44!!! Or I will be on the 16th. I was shocked and dismayed.
I shall brave the cesspools of leftist hatred for you and bring you back turds that I shall then fashion into gems before your eyes. Or at least I'll mock the shit out of them. There shall be f-bombs. There shall be offensive terms. There shall be hyperbole and metaphor and rhetoric. I hope there shall be laughs. The best thing to do to evil is to laugh at it; the devil can not stand to be mocked. So for those about to mock, I salute you.
http://theshredder918.blogspot.com/2011/01/welcome-noobs.html
The NOW feminists were calling me "Manniee" for at least a year, and assumed I was a man under a false identity. I took it as a compliment.
Anyway I've been the subject of conservative target practice, not as much as leftist air assaults and carpet-bombing, but definitely treated extremely ill. Likely you've had some of the same. Conservatives think I'm a leftist feminist and the feminists think I'm a fascist wingnut teabagging hatemonger who literally wants to throw old and poor people off cliffs out of sheer malice. But the worse insult is being called a leftist feminist.
There are even a few earthly people who still love me too. We'll see how that all plays out in the end I suppose and meet on the golden shores eventually either way.
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2011/04/pay-no-attention-to-that-god-behind_09.html
On April 27, 2009, Anniee posted a blog bit titled “COULD HAVE BEEN YESTERDAY...”, and in the comment section she wrote to someone: “I really like Mike and the Mechanics (the Christian influence in his music was certainly part of why, but also just the human emotion - The Living Years still kills me, as it came out right after my grandmother died and baby was born...sniff)”
OK, Sister Anniee, this song’s for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUdiQWxps5E
The day Linda Haley passed away, Conservatism lost a strong voice, my blogs lost their #1 commenter and at least 25% of their readership, and I lost a good friend whom I already greatly miss.
Rest in peace, Lindanniee. As The Bible says, “A friend loves at all times”, and as you said, “it'll be a grand celebration when we meet on that glorious shore.”
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: Comments are welcome, however, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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