"...You Don't Have To Be A Humorist To See This Is One Opportunist Who's Never Heard The Word Ricidivist..."

Full disclosure.

I am not racist.

Nor sexist.

Nor misogynist.

Nor, particularly, activist, adventurist, ultra rightist, ultra leftist or hedonist.

Although, truth be told, I am a sentimentalist.

Or so I've shared with my therapist.

I do freely confess, though, to being a stupidist.

And that's a stupidist, not the stupidest.

For the latter, you have to go south, young man.

(By Patrik Jonsson | Christian Science Monitor )

Declaring Joseph Ozment “rehabilitated,” Gov. Haley Barbour included the convicted killer among over 200 pardons he issued in his last days as governor of Mississippi.

Mr. Ozment was last seen leaving the Governor's Mansion, where he was a convict “trusty,” on Jan. 8 when he got into a car driven by his grandmother.

Ozment, whom Barbour described Friday as a “free man,” is now being sought by Mississippi authorities investigating the constitutionality of Barbour's mass pardons, which shocked many Mississippians, including victims and law enforcement. The list included over 40 murderers, rapists and others convicted of violent crimes.

The unusual manhunt is the latest twist in a peculiar tale of Southern patriarchy and redemption that has dogged Mr. Barbour since he left office earlier this month. The governor has defended his actions, saying the state pardon board had already freed most of the people, and that the clemency was mainly designed to give worthy ex-convicts the right to vote and hunt.

This particular piece goes on for a few paragraphs but I ended my reading here.

Hard to continue when dealing with the coffee coming through my nose from the laughter.

Said snort/spit take occurring, of course, as I read the last sentence.

The governor has defended his actions, saying the state pardon board had already freed most of the people, and that the clemency was mainly designed to give worthy ex-convicts the right to vote and hunt.

The temptation here is to castigate the entire sovereign state of Mississippi as the last remaining bastion of inbreeding in modern times.

That would be unfair and incorrect.

Keeping Up With The Kardashians has disproven the theory that inbreeding is confined to the Confederacy.

Here's the thing, though...ya'll...

You've got to laugh, or weep, at the luscious lunacy of a freely elected governor of a state in the United States of America who sees his role in the protection of human rights as seeing to it that those who have been convicted of felonies have returned to them their constitutional right to vote...

...and hunt.

Because, way down South in the land of cotton, there are no two more precious possessions than a ballot box and a gun rack.

It's that kind of mindset that turned me into a stupidist.

Again, a stupidist.

Not the stupidest.

For that, you have to be Haley Barbour.

Or anybody who ever flipped a lever next to his name.