So I was milling around backstage after my talk, and the Lindsay woman asked me if I would help her out by holding the damn turkey vulture! The thing was enormous, but surprisingly light. Less than 5 pounds. They gave me a leather glove for it to perch on, which I appreciated because she later explained that turkey vultures defecate on their own feet, and the dried guano forms a protective layer against whatever nasty things might lurk in the blood and guts where the vulture stands during meals.
Elizabeth Churchill in Jon Carroll SF Chronicle August 27, 2003Look at the causes identified with liberals over the years. Freeing the slaves -- that was a cause taken up by the ancestors of the same brainy New England radicals who are demonized today as "bleeding hearts." Liberals also supported Reconstruction, and watched as that fine idea was destroyed by politicians and racists.
Liberals supported child labor laws, anti-monopoly laws, voting rights for women, voting rights for blacks, collective bargaining and (the long continuing battle) the separation of church and state.
It was liberals who supported the "socialist" New Deal programs that gave Americans at least a little dignity and a little cash. It was liberals who pressed for intervention against Hitler and who fought for "preparedness." It was liberals who designed and supported the postwar Marshall Plan (and gosh, wouldn't it have been nice if we had one of those in place now). It was liberals who lent their voices and their bodies to the civil rights movement; it was liberals who opposed the war in Vietnam.
That's a pretty good record of being right. What is it we're supposed to be ashamed of, again? Bill Clinton having oral sex? Yeah, that was too bad, but compared to workplace safety legislation, clean air and water laws, nursing home inspections, seat belt laws and all those other intrusive government regulations so much deplored -- I'll take being a liberal and accept the burden of Bill Clinton, who looks like Abe Lincoln next to the incumbent. That's another in the plus column for liberals -- you can't blame George Bush on us.
Jon Carroll in ibid. August 29, 2003
