JUST WHAT I'VE ALWAYS SUSPECTED

"The study tracked subscriptions for a top-10 seller of online adult entertainment (2006-2008) and using ZIP code data associated with those subscriptions, compared the data with numbers from the FCC that tracks the amount of broadband Internet users in any given state. One of the findings from the study revealed that online subscriptions are 'more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles and sexuality.' "

Source: Red Light States: Who Buys Adult Entertainment, By Benjamin Edelman ; FCC Report: High Speed Services for Internet Access

But where's the Bible Belt in this? My expectations were disappointed when I didn't see Alabama and Georgia, North and South Carolina. Florida is understandable. Lots of seniors there who might need a little lift off boost for the Viagra ride.

LONG TIME NOSEE

I've got to make an entry. It's been so long. That's because I'm working my way through an algebra textbook, working on my book Boomed Out: a mythical memoir of a Silent between generations, and trying to keep up on my personal reading and my reading of books for "Page Turners", my book club. Currently reading Three Cups of Tea ghosted by David Relin for Greg Mortenson for the book club.

Came across this idea while reading Three Cups of Tea. The Taliban would be right at home in America's deep south Bible belt. In Afghanistan, while they were in power, the Taliban set up a "Department of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice". These people were book burners and anti-science almost as thoroughly as Bush's White House. The Taliban wouldn't let medical students study anatomy or view drawings of human anatomy. Imagine how much they loathed evolution! That's why the Taliban is a perfect fit for the American South. All those promise keepers who've gone on to cheat on their wives would flock to the Taliban whose values are just like their own.

AUTUMN???????

Strange morning. Cool but will be 80º by afternoon. And I imagined as I drove to Java House that fall had already arrived. The sun seemed bleached out and weak, hazy. Fall's certainly near but not here yet... I hope. Current bathroom reading is Art: a world history. I'll be reading it for a year or more I guess. 

Edward Wilson's father was an alcoholic suicide. Wilson, of course, is the author of Naturalist, my current reading. He built up the concept of sociobiology. Wilson's father gave Edward a simple Southern code for life. Of course, these codes are more often honored in their breech rather than in the practice. "Never lie, he told me, never break your word, be always respectful of others and protective of women, and never back down if honor is at stake."

These codes are the reason the South is so full of guilt and shame because no one can live up to such codes imposed from the outside. This code was responsible for Wilson Senior's death if you ask me. Of course, they set the simple, honest man up for the duplicitous man who flaunts the codes in order to get ahead. In Southern churches, the rich leaders of the church team up with the parsons and preachers to dupe the Southern working man. That's why poor Southern men so crazily vote for neocon rich men who will not have a working man's best interests at heart. Until the average Southerner wises up, America will continue to fall behind the rest of the civilized world. You only have to listen to a Republican for a minute and you realize that nothing they believe in will help a struggling family get ahead. 

Also, this code of honor is one of the chief reasons that there is so much gun violence in the South. I can no longer recall the book a couple of Southern psychologists wrote in which they identified these codes of honor as being the reason Southern men shoot each other so often. Of course, Southerners do have the highest rates of suicide, poverty and homicide in the country.