Take heart, fight on

I love Anne Lamott. Not just because she is a fellow Marin resident. Certainly not because she wears her hair in blonde dreads that look like butterscotch Twizzlers. I love her mostly because she's funny. But the fact that she is insightful and committed and attempts to live like a true Christian, instead of the hateful, exclusive variety of faith that has been passing as Christianity in this country for too many years, makes her as dear to me as a peanut butter milkshake.

When Anne gets angry, she doesn't lose her sense of humor. If anything, deep heaviness brings out delightfully bearable lightness in her prose. Check out her piece in today's edition of Salon, in which she expresses her disgust at the mendacious, vile, un-American campaign being waged by John McCain and Sarah Palin. Money quote:

"One of the tiny metabolic suggestions I have to offer -- if, like me, you choose not to have her name on your lips, like an oozy cold sore (I say that with love) -- is to check out a Web site called the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. There you can find out what she and her husband would have named you if you had been their baby. My name, Anne, for instance, would be Krinkle Bearcat. John, her running mate, would be named Stick Freedom. George would be Crunk Petrol. And so on.

First of all, go find out what your own name would be. Then for one day refuse to use the name of these people who are so damaging to earth and to our very souls -- so, "I don't have to understand anything, it's all fuzzy math. Trust me. I'm the decider." From now on, when working for Obama, talk about Obama, talk about his policies, the issues, the economy, the war in Iraq, poverty, the last eight years, Joe Biden. You don't have to mention Crunk Petrol, or his sidekick, Shaver Razorback."

FYI, Sarah and Todd would have named me Puck Mule.