The American Spectator

All Things Considered (National Public Radio)

A giant passes in Austin, Texas, owing to the usual “complications from a head wound”:

In Austin last week, an unlikely civic symbol passed away. He was a cross-dressing homeless man who lived on the kindness of strangers, but he was much more than that, according to NPR’s John Burnett.

Burnett: “He was a fixture on the sidewalks of this capital city in his bushy beard, tiara, thong and falsies. Leslie, as he was universally called, became a symbol of the eccentricity and rakishness that people celebrate in this fun-loving techie boom town. Now, Leslie is gone. Mourners at the memorial donned rhinestone tiaras and feather boas in his honor. A young man who gave his name as Ozzie Zion went a step further, stuffing himself into a bikini bottom….

“When Leslie died at age 60 in a local hospice last Thursday due to complications from a head wound, the mayor proclaimed it Leslie Day. Leslie Cochran himself ran for mayor in 2000, appearing around town dressed like a stripper and holding hand-lettered campaign signs.”
(March 13, 2012)

The Progressive

Old Faithful, The Prog, publishes another manuscript awaiting translation into English:

The GOP is so queer. Not gay queer. Pre-Queer Nation queer.

Mitt Romney, though certainly ruggedly handsome, perfectly coiffed, and well dressed, is queer. Odd queer. Most of the kids do not want him to play on their team. Right in front of him, they try to draft someone else—anyone else but him. His flip-flopping is extreme people-pleasing. Mitt is trying as hard as he can, smiling, shaking hands, spending money, saying he’s just like us, and he cannot get the Republican love. Actually, that sounds gay.
(April 2012)

From the Archives

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Satire? Columnist Phillip Morris at work:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is without question the most dangerous judge in America.…Thomas hasn’t added a shred of original thought to the court, but he has brought an irrepressible desire to change its constitutional politics.…One can only wonder when Thomas will sharpen his knife for something truly meaningful like, say, the 13th Amendment prohibition against slavery.
(March 8, 1992)