Hell and High Water

US Rep Shimkus - IL-R

When the new congressional districts take effect here in Illinois, assuming they survive the Republican legal challenge, our new representative in Washington will be none other than the Bible tweeting climate change denier, Representative John Shimkus.

At this moment, July 4th, 2011, the Congressman's web site (he's on the congressional committee on communication and technology - and I assume he's in favor of either turning the internet into a new branch of God.com, further monetizing, privatizing, militarizing, or perhaps abolishing it), which sports some eye popping eye candy and a very nice large print cgi, will not let me contact him from my proper address. I expect that this will change.

When it does, I will want to periodically check in with the Congressman, urging him to rethink, reconsider, vote sensibly, stop tweeting the Bible, stop going around saying silly stuff about climate science, consider changing parties, get a lobotomy, or perhaps commit a mercy suicide.

We will, of course, be working tirelessly to deny him his seat in the Congress.

In the meanwhile, I would like to point out that in a sense I think he's right about one thing. When he says that "God has promised to end the world by fire next time, not by flood," I can liberally translate that to mean that he thinks the planet is in God's hands. I don't believe in God (god, or dog spelled backwards), but if God can be re-imagined as a figure of speech for the seemingly random acts of a natural order, and that hands are metaphors for the passage of time into futurity, then I will concede that no matter what we do starting now is going to fully avert the ongoing climate catastrophe. If he means, in liberal translation, that 'we're fucked; we may as well let the multitudes be fed by ADM and the bankers have all the money and power in the meanwhile,' then, yes, I agree with him, if only in that most cynical and despairing corner of my consciousness. It may be a practical matter of fact. It may be a very short meanwhile, for as everyone with an ear to the ground knows, the caprices of nature are starting to really heat up right about now. The flood relief the good Congressman has secured for his State (MY State!) is a beautiful, remarkable, ironic thing. The earth, I never tire of saying, will survive us. It is merely going to shrug us off. It is humans and humanity (and the humanities) that are under water. We may not go out as a result of flooding this time, but flooding, via nukes, can lead to fires nowadays.

Of course, this is not, I think, what the Congressman means. Though it may be futile, I am stuck on the side of the humans and wish to campaign to save them. I wish to do whatever is necessary to save myself. I also want to extend my campaigns to my wife, who is running her own campaigns, as well as to my innocent pets and gaggle of strays. This is like Samuel Johnson writing that "Hodge shan't be shot."

I invite any Illinoisans in my readership and my district to do as I will:
vote against this stupid, stupid man.

I urge everyone (and everyone else) to contact him in Washington at:


DC Address:The Honorable John Shimkus
United States House of Representatives
2452 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-1319
DC Phone:202-225-5271
DC Fax:202-225-5880
Contact Form:http://shimkus.house.gov/index.cfm?
sectionid=54&sectiontree=5154
WWW Homepage:http://shimkus.house.gov/
Twitter:@RepShimkus

Please give him Hell. He deserves it.