When you’re awake at 3am to consider the wasteland of your life here’s a way to look at death. Yes, he’s welcome; yes, he’s seductive; yes, he’s not wearing much; yes, you hope you cum together but still…

We never talk about it. We don’t make plans. We don’t display the deceased in the living room. Hospice is one thing but do we have a local café?

Is there honey still for tea?

NPR floats a trial casket.

What is it with all these asshats from Pennsylvania thinking that something that offends their sensibilities is as traumatic as 9/11?

Last week, it was a Penn State alumnus comparing the NCAA sanctions against the school’s football team to the attack that killed more than 2,000 people.

Yesterday it was Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), comparing the date of 8/1/12 with 9/11 and December 7 (Pearl Harbor Day for those of you still not fully awake).

Why?

Not because it would have been Jerry Garcia’s 70th birthday, but because it’s the day that the Affordable Care Act’s provisions went into effect requiring insurance companies provide preventative reproductive health care services to women, including free pap smears and equity in coverage of contraceptives.  Beware of the terrorist vagina avengers, all freshly cleaned and protected from unwanted pregnancies, out to attack AmeriKKKah.

[NY Mag]

From the Internal Revenue Service:

Jeopardizing Tax-Exempt Status

After an organization qualifies for 501(c)(3) status, it must continue to act in furtherance of its exempt purposes to keep its tax-exempt status.

There are five types of activities that can jeopardize that status. These are:

• Private benefit/inurement,
• Lobbying,
• Political campaign activity, and
• Activities generating excessive unrelated business income (UBI).
• Failure to comply with annual reporting obligation.

Some of these activities are absolutely prohibited, while others are restricted.

[NYT: Obama throws women under the bus to appease bishops]

Asshat/drug addict/pill-popper/sack of shit Rush Limbaugh joined Talibunny and Michele Bachman in the onslaught of attacks on Michelle Obama’s “Get Moving” nutrition campaign, criticizing her on Monday for eating ribs. On today’s show, Jabba insisted that his comments were not “below the belt” because “take a look at some pictures. Given where she wears her belts, I mean she wears them high up there around the bust line. Isn’t just about everything about her below the belt when you look at the fashion sense she has?”

Now Rush. FSM knows that I and other members of the Stinque Fashion team have sighed in exasperation with Shelley Oh’s tendency to wear her belts high. But it comes from a place of love, just like Tom and Lo over at Project Rungay. And you, of all people, should not be commenting on fashion.

Stinque After Dark Update: Bonus shot for str8 guys — you owe me, Dodger — of Shelley Oh’s sexy muscular legs and latest unfortunate belt placement is after the jump.

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[We interrupt Stinque’s ongoing coverage of collegiate Sport (at halftime, which is a natural interruption point, so there) for a story about Glenn Beck being Glenn Beck.  Apologies in advance.  Sport thread appears below.]

So Glenn Beck made a pledge today to denounce extremism “from the Left, the Right or middle.”  [Note, of course, that two-thirds of that set is NOT HIM.]  Included in the pledge is this specific plea:

I denounce violent threats and calls for the destruction of our system – regardless of their underlying ideology – whether they come from the Hutaree Militia or Frances Fox Piven.

Well, isn’t that a refreshing thought from a guy — wait.  Rewind that last little bit there:

or Frances Fox Piven.

Dude.  I haven’t heard about Frances Fox Piven until today.  What puts her in the same discussion as a violent militia group?  Or anyone more radicalized than, say, Garrison Keillor?  Follow me for all the horrid details, post-jump.

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So we are one month away from the handover of the House.  And the reality is starting to hit home.  Seems that the Smithsonian — those rabble-rousing anarchists — have decided to put up a special exhibition on portraits of homosexuals. 

ORANGE ALERT!

There are some very famous artists represented in the show: Andy Warhol, Walt Whitman and Jasper Johns, among many others. But the work that so far has been the most controversial is a provocative video from 1987 by the late artist David Wojnarowicz called A Fire In My Belly.

Martin Sullivan, director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, says the artist created the piece as a response to the “agony and suffering” of his partner who at the time was dying of AIDS. Using “vivid colors, and some fairly grotesque scenes, it’s more a meditation on the fragility of the human flesh,” Sullivan says.

[ants on crucifix, standard-issue rant from Bill Donahue, yadda yadda yadda]

At least one critic has accused the Smithsonian of caving in to pressure from Catholics and from two Republican members of Congress. Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia called the exhibition “an outrageous use of taxpayer money.” A spokesperson for incoming House Speaker John Boehner told The Hill newspaper that “Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January.”

[See what I did?  Orange Alert?  John Boehn… oh, you people are no fun.]

And thus we see the value of having Democrats in power.  With Dems in power, the GOP merely gets two-thirds of what it wants. The good news is that the truly wingnutty stuff is pushed to the side.  But when the GOP gets the keys?

Point: the first two weeks of January are going to see toxic levels of crazy.  Hang onto your asses, everyone!  (Just not too suggestively, thanks.)

OK. So the Iowa Hawkeyes’ game this afternoon against The… Ohio State University will feature a pregame ceremony honoring Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta — who, fortunately, is from Iowa. Which is nice, all things considered.

All things considered, of course, except for this tripe from Iowa’s star quarterback, Ricky Stanzi:

“I don’t know how other colleges are, but when you walk around here, you’ve got people … you’ve got guys walking around in dresses and just these hippies. They’re doing nothing. There’s the Ped Mall area down there, right in the middle. Those people are going nowhere. Those people are the people who don’t like America. They always find something wrong with [America]. They’re the problem. They’re the people who need to change and figure it out. They need to get it together and work hard.”

The instareaction is, of course, annoyance. Guys walking around in silly clothes wanting to change the world MADE THIS COUNTRY GREAT. Hell: look at Ben Franklin — dude did so much for America and still had time to make frilly shirts look faaabulous.  Even on fat guys like him!

Or: how about satire? Seriously, the Buckeyes’ d-line should move from their four-point stances to a knee, in unison, and ask Ricky to marry him. He crosses the line to punch the nose tackle in the throat.  False start (5 yards).  Unsportsmanlike conduct (15 yards).  First-and-ten goes to first-and-thirty.  And Ricky gets tossed.  You’re welcome.

But having hippies get off their asses and do something? Like, say, elect Iowans who aren’t knuckledraggers like Steve King?  Ricky may have a point after all.

Anyway: big slate of college football today.  Wisconsin at Michigan in a massive Big Ten tilt.  Illinois and Northwestern will cram (literally) into Wrigley Field. Domers to the Bronx to try to salvage an awful season against Army.  Haaahvid and Yale have their clambake.  And, oh, by the way: Stanford at Cal for Big Game.  Allow this to serve as your College Football Smackthread.  Enjoy!