Join the all-new Crusades and smack the Muslims with Jesus (working knowledge of the Russian tongue required for battlefield promotions).

It's a mistake to berate fundamentalist Christians in America for their inability to grasp that dispensing with church-state separation leads directly to a theocratic situation not unlike the one favored by Islamic militants.

In fact, they grasp it perfectly well, and it's what a good many of them actively desire. If you're wondering why many of these reverse-jihadists are untroubled by the Trump-Putin bromance, it's because somewhere underneath the residue of godless Bolshevism, there is Orthodox Russia's traditional imperative to bring Christianity to its surroundings.

Sound familiar? Russia is a potential ally in the Jesus pincer movement against Them Muslims. Consequently, the Trump presidency is the ideal time to relaunch the Crusades, but this time as a reality television show.

For a taste of the script ... the dude seems serious.

A New Crusade Must Be Declared Against Islam, And Christendom Must Rise Again To Have The Cross Crush The Crescent, by Theodore Shoebat (some crazy ass website)

The nations of Christendom will soon restore themselves back under the refuge of the Holy Cross, the Holy Roman Empire will rise again through divinely destined Russia, and the Holy Cross will crush the crescent.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Jobbery, nutjob and Jabberwocky.

Welcome to another installment of "SHANE's Excellent New Words," a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words?

Why not the old, familiar words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show you're smarter than the rest of them. To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us compelled to witness the inexorable decline in our property values owing to the fallacy of the one-way downtown pass-through interstate, all we have is time on our hands -- moments enough for us to learn something.

This week, we have a trio of new words, beginning with jobbery.

jobbery
[job-uh-ree]

noun

1. the conduct of public or official business for the sake of improper private gain.

Origin of jobbery
1825-1835; jobber + -y

Historical Examples

Let us oppose it as a scheme of jobbery, devised with a view to the establishment of offices and appointments.

Jobbery is a word used primarily by speakers of British English. Meanwhile in America, we have lots and lots of nutjobs, especially in a presidential election year.

nutjob

Completely insane or crazy person. Someone who has totally lost the plot.

I prefer combining these two to produce nutjobbery, or the state of affairs when the loser of the plot conducts public business for private gain.

Now, such a gibbering idiot genuinely may be a nut job, spouting gibberish while engaged in jobbery at the Bored of Works.

Or, we might cut out the middle man entirely and go straight to purposeful, poetic nonsense: Jabberwocky.

Jabberwocky

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of an animal called "the Jabberwock" ... (it) is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English. Its playful, whimsical language has given English nonsense words and neologisms such as "galumphing" and "chortle".

Twas brilig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Ben Carson and Joseph's amazing technicolor grain silo.

What's his personal theory about the 'Mids?

I'm not that clever; the title reference is lifted from the article, which explains that (a) pyramids are not hollow, and (b) ancient Egyptians left behind writing, and their words explain the rationale behind the pyramids.

Ben Carson's irrationality is harder to explain. I've been busy lately, but had there been a chance to sit down, pop a top and watch the Republican debates, I still wouldn't have done it. Life's too short, and one of them will emerge at some point, anyway.

But seriously. Grain silos? We have an old abandoned one on the waterfront. My personal belief is that it's a pyramid.

Archaeologists To Ben Carson: Ancient Egyptians Wrote Down Why The Pyramids Were Built, by Kristina Killgrove (Forbes)

Yesterday, November 4, marked 93 years to the day that the tomb of King Tutankhamen was opened in Egypt, revealing spectacular artifacts and a magnificent mummy of the boy king. The celebration was somewhat marred, at least here in the U.S., by a leading Republican candidate for president, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who confirmed a statement he’d made in 1998 — that he believes the Egyptian pyramids were grain silos, not tombs.

The collective reaction from archaeologists and historians, who have command of literally centuries’ worth of research into the artifacts and literature of the ancient Egyptians, is… Wait, what now?

REWIND: Some ROCK ‘n’ role playing.

Yesterday I chanced upon a Facebook blurb in which a fundamentalist Christian political candidate was prattling on about ancient and noble superstitions being trampled underfoot by vicious secular humanists, and it occurred to me that it's been a while since Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana unleashed one of the organization's patented photo-ops, or for that matter, offered a turgid billboard erection. In anticipation of the next one, which surely can be expected to coincide with the fall election campaign, let's adhere to the dictum that the best defense is a good offense, and look back at a column first published in the newspaper on January 22, 2009.

---

ROCK ‘n’ role playing.

When confused and uncertain, we often recoil from the challenges of the future, reverting instead to comforting visions of one or the other redemptive halcyons from a past viewed with rose-tinted hindsight. Very little of it stands up to scrutiny, but no matter. Cultural mythology is aimed at supplanting rational thought, not buttressing it.

Citizens like you are standing up all across the country---standing up to reclaim our culture, a culture that was founded on the principles that are today being threatened at every turn.
-- Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK)

ROCK is back in the news with another orchestrated anti-pornography public relations campaign. It has erected a billboard, convened a press conference and hinted that the “end times” are finally near for Clarksville’s Theatair X.

But just as Fidel Castro’s stubbornly unmovable Cuba has thwarted generations of American politicians, so has Theatair X frustrated the efforts of local do-gooders. Wile E. Coyote’s success rate versus the Roadrunner is considerably better than the “winning” percentage amassed by Theatair X’s many detractors over the decades.

However, ROCK now says it has incriminating goods, and it demands that Clarksville’s town fathers take action against a business so eternally impervious to the vicissitudes of an ever-changing marketplace that if it were a “family” owned fruit and veggie stand, it probably would be receiving a lifetime achievement award from One Southern Indiana, and maybe a seat on its board.

Let’s leave the bananas and cucumbers out of it, pour a refreshing locally brewed ale, and return to the question I’ve asked of ROCK and the like-minded numerous times:

Exactly which culture are you so intent on reclaiming?

---

I’m so old that I can remember Citizens for Decency through Law, which as acronyms go comes out CDL – and a commercial driver’s license is hardly as rhythmic as ROCK, is it?

CDL was founded in Cincinnati in 1958 by Charles Keating, who later became famous (and eventually incarcerated!) for corruption during the savings and loan scandals that erupted during the presidency of Bush the Elder. Our local chapter of CDL declared holy war against Theatair X when disco was ascendant, Chevettes patrolled the highways and Jimmy Carter donned his energy crisis sweater.

Earnest prayer and righteous protest ensued, until eventually the smut peddlers became so terrified of CDL that they demolished the drive-in movie screen – to make room for a new building and a contemporary business model, which has thrived ever since.

In 1978, as part of my senior civics group project, a representative of CDL was booked to speak to us about pornography’s threat. We also scheduled an employee of Theatair X to appear separately and provide what we imagined as instructive counterpoints about rights, freedoms and frequent flyer discounts, but he abruptly cancelled at the last minute.

In a shocking turn, only a few months later the very same no-show was shot and killed while mowing his yard. I didn’t know him, but my personal aversion to cutting grass dates to that sad day.

In 2009, ROCK is a state of the art, social-networking and niche-marketing phenomenon, utilizing sophisticated communication technologies rather than CDL’s splotchy mimeographs and rotary dialing lists. ROCK capably harnesses the affluence and ideology of the vast and expanding Southern Indiana exurb, home of the mega-church and big-box theories of shopping, salvation and life itself, as well as tapping into the same “wealth creationism” espoused by One Southern Indiana, which continues to exploit a linkage, however surreptitiously, with theocratic tendencies.

However, we’ve all been here before. ROCK plays a familiar role in a long-running medicine show as civilization’s oldest professions, sex and religion, grapple for turf as millennia race past in the blink of a heathen’s jaundiced eye.

----

The question again:

Exactly which culture is ROCK so intent on reclaiming?

Is it the one with barefoot and pregnant women denied the right to vote? Does it have something to do with the enduring traditions of vice, gambling and prostitution in river towns like Jeffersonville and Clarksville, communities that profited from the calculated civic-mindedness of bookies and pimps just as surely as Louisville prospered from the coerced labor of African-American slaves?

Am I forgetting all the other aspects of presumably “golden” cultures of the past, when sewage flowed unnoticed through the streets, all of medicine was faith-based quackery, the Inquisition made Gitmo look like a Cancun resort hotel, and witches were regularly burned to keep parishioners toasty and warm in their pews?

In the past, organized Christianity aligned itself with each and every one of the preceding and lamentable abuses, which is to say that an often unquestioned local authority figure standing unchallenged at a pulpit taught supernaturally sanctioned gibberish to the fearful and reticent, with catastrophic results for those on the wrong side of faith.

ROCK unabashedly aligns itself with a particular religious worldview, simplistically offering “reclamation” of culture as its goal, but is a workable definition even possible under the circumstances of preconceived religious affiliation?

Perhaps there exists a remote possibility that “reclaimable” culture can be explored coherently, although only within the checks and balances of a truly pluralistic society, with shared respect for a multiplicity of viewpoints and a commitment to impartiality in the pursuit of truth.

Given the historical record of Christianity, I’m skeptical.

----

One of our civics set pieces was a feature from a “Hustler” magazine, which was one of Keating’s prime targets back in the day. It’s none of your business how we obtained it. The pages we clipped showed gruesome photos of disfigured and mutilated corpses. The title?

“War – The Ultimate Obscenity.”

Three decades later, that’s about all I recall from the class, meaning that contrary to popular opinion, I actually did learn something in high school.

Michele Bachmann: "A religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions."

After reading this article by Rolling Stone's masterful Matt Taibbi, I finally realized that Michele Bachmann has never been a member of the New Albany - Floyd County School Board.

Or has she?

Geez, it's getting really hard to tell the nutjobs without a scorecard. Could it be that New Albany's wonderfully delightful Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness finally has gone national?

By the way, how'd you like that ice-cold Budweiser "down by the riverside" this weekend?

Michele Bachmann's Holy War, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

... In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance. And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.

Of nut jobs and nut jobbery, American-style.

I see that another of our born-and-bred American nut jobs has wreaked havoc with bullets. It’s like an assembly line that never stops running.

Before the verbal shelling begins, this is not to suggest that rhetoric alone, whether left, right or middle, is responsible for nut jobbery, only that American soil is an eternally fertile incubator for nut jobs.

Worse, like Lear’s lifeline of a Fool, we seem to crave the presence of nut jobs among us in ways that do not bode well for the future of public safety, or personal sanity.

Permit me to explain my viewpoint.

In other Western countries, nut jobs are just as prevalent as here, but lacking freely available ballistics – and more importantly, denied an accessible soapbox owing to societal indifference – they soon become reabsorbed into the hinterlands from whence they came.

Indigenous nut jobs hang out at (for instance) Norwegian or Maltese dive bars, pulling their beards, waving their arms and muttering a lot, and if particularly entertaining, they find that bored patrons will buy them drinks, treating their conspiratorial gibberish and nonsensical ramblings as part of the nightly floor show, and nothing more.

In America, nut jobs are oddly venerated, somehow emerging as role models in the strangest and highest places, ranging from the televangelist’s pulpit (Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker) to the vice-presidency (Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle), and excluding neither major league sportsmen (Dennis Rodman, Al Davis) nor captains of industry (Charles and David Koch).

Existing below this somewhat rarified level of tabloid nut job notoriety are the garden variety, localized nut jobs, who at one time in the nation’s innocent, Mayberry RFD period of post-war stolidity, may actually have been as harmless as Otis and today’s Euro-cranks, but now increasingly are feared (and rightly so) due to the easy availability of weapons of significant, if not mass, destruction.

Even more bizarre, only in America do we deign to speak to this nut job fringe of miscreants as though they mattered, and in vaguely political terms, rather than consigning nut jobs to their rightful place on the ends of bars where the spittoons used to stand, forcing me to conclude that our degraded political parties – one in particular – actively desires their votes.

In fact, America’s twisted history offers dozens of examples of pre-emptive nut job cajolery, almost always emanating from those of its kissing cousins on the right, and generally meant to counter the widespread assumption among conservative elements that unless they take the initiative to blatantly lie first, unacceptable numbers of ordinary, aimless nut jobs just might fall into the dreaded hands of leftists, socialists, miscegenationists, feminists and homosexualists, and stage a second coming of the Bolshevik fury, with Red Massacres, rapes, art exhibits and the like.

Even worst: If not properly frightened into a state of amok anti-liberalism, nut jobs might take to committing crimes against property, not people – and then what?

That’s why the historical record of armed, frothing, left-wing nut jobs takes up vastly less space in the nation's Big Chief Tablet of a hate crime ledger than the population of heavily armed survivalists in a single Idaho county (pick one, doesn't matter which, and the ratio surely will hold true).

One of them may already have been elected Senator out there.

Verily, we just don’t do left-wing nut jobbery very well in America, and at this exact moment, I’m finding no consolation whatsoever in grasping this truth. Like violence and extremism, nut jobbery is a trait that baffles me. Too bad we can't do something about it. I've often though it must be constitutionally protected.

Do we ever learn?

Wait – don’t answer that question.