There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

-- Mario Savio

I love to kvetch about how I prefer California to the East Coast! And, much as I hate to have to eat my words, occasionally something so foul, so odious, so grotesque comes along that I find myself unable to ignore it.

I should have foreseen that something like that would happen earlier today when Justin directed me to Little Green Footballs' link to this photo and videoblog of Ward Churchill addressing the San Francisco Anarchist Bookfair.

Before clicking on the link I prepared for the worst. I am well acquainted with Churchill, the fake Indian claim, the little Eichmanns remark -- the rest of it. A sickening and disgusting display I fully expected.

But nothing prepared me for this:

What do I have to do to make them stop? Throw my free market body on the grotesque gears of scrotalist apparatchiks?

I'll say this. Shocking though he may be, Ward Churchill has been upstaged. (Well, I guess someone had to show some balls.....)

And while Churchill and the "scrotal inflation" warriors may not realize it, the fact is that by working together, they're all helping to show the rest of the world that freedom is a many-splendored thing.

Why can't al-Jazeera show the world what is tolerated in the land of George W. Bush? Huh? Huh?

Who knows, it might also be a good way to cut down on immigration....

(Thanks for the tip, Justin! Hmm... Is he trying to get me to stay here on the East Coast??)