Thoughts in a Haystack

You have probably heard that Jerry Falwell has lost his need, one way or another, for faith.

I have no particular feelings about the news. Few if any people did more to coarsen our politics and instill anger as the permanent state of our civic discourse. He pandered to racial bias when it was convenient and safe and, when that changed, he moved on to easier targets, such as children's program characters who were not manly enough to suit the homophobes he cultivated. When he misjudged the tenor of the public who, after 9/11, were in no mood to blame that tragedy on gays or abortion doctors, he backpedaled fast enough but the ugliness always emerged elsewhere, sooner rather than later.

On the other hand, his political power had faded nearly away and his real lasting influence, Liberty University, no longer needed him in order for it to continue pumping out glassy-eyed cannon fodder for the Righteous Right's war on the Enlightenment. Unlike the might-have-beens of thirty years ago, Falwell's passing now will bring no sea changes. He is just another old man to doff a hat for as the hearse goes by.

Or a triangle.