MemeMachineGo!

=v= My sister was in town for the 4th of July weekend, which meant seeing some of the sights that New Yorkers only see when we have visitors. The governor staged a July 4th photo-op at Ground Zero, but the Statue of Liberty was unsullied by political slime this year (as opposed to, say, 1986, when Ronald Reagan turned it into a photo-op that included a few hundred Elvis impersonators). We also watched the fireworks from nearby the Brooklyn Bridge.

All of these sites are presumed to be terrorist targets, and at each location there were roving bands of kamikaze evangelists in matching outfits, who'd been trucked in from Kansas, Georgia, and God (presumably) knows where else. They were convinced that we were all about to be killed in a July 4th terrorist attack, and were there to save our souls. I have to admire their bravery, but I was less than thrilled with the contingent who added that God allowed the 9/11 attacks to punish America for embracing homosexuality.

At one point I thought we'd be better off on the other side of the East River, where there's a Jewish neighborhood, not known for proselytizers. The next day, though, I noticed that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade was littered with fliers from Jews for Jesus (the members of which are mostly not Jewish).