Icing on a shit cake? That is one hard image. Thanks David, for reminding me one more time, why I'm so glad I don't live in America. Better to love it from a distance.

Guess it's just you and me David. I liked the last line. Obvious of course, but funny.

@1 & @2: LavaGirl: I had to jump into the fray---and I agree---the newly Schmaderized phrase "icing on a shit cake" is a hard image that will be difficult for me to shake off, too. Suddenly I have a desire to love America from a safe and sane distance, too. But from where? I can't imagine being viewed abroad as anything other than a "dumb American".
How is your winter solstice in Australia?

Can the GOP and their Tea Party stooges just DIE, already, instead of regenerating into the WWZ-zombie-fucked political shit-cake that they together comprise?

@3, Part II: And I am just sick about the massacre in Charleston, SC!
Stop the hatred, already!

@3 Part III: And THANK YOU, Adam Gopnik and Ornette Colman!

@3 Part IV: Sorry--that's Ornette Coleman, not Colman.

I still read it every week, as I have for nearly twenty years now. But it used to be so funny!! Now it's just mostly depressing.