Jesse Helms

I've been away and busy, thus the blogal lull (blogalull?), but take a quick pause to note the passing of the segregationist Jesse Helms. This quip has been floating around of late:

Jesse Helms, I'll always think of you when I'm doing my laundry and separating whites from coloreds.

I was tempted to forgo (or forego, if you prefer) speaking ill of the dead until I talked to a North Carolinian who recited a laundry list of "reasons people have been waiting for 'Senator No' to die so they can piss on his grave". While he couldn't vouch for the veracity all of them, he pointed me to this list of quotes, a number of which he remembers all too well. (Lincoln Chaffee, a former Republican, puts his more subdued views on the subject, here.)

It's worth thinking about Helms' positions especially on race (later moderated in public but probably not in private) in light of the presidential elections.

We'll get back on topic once I've cleared some deadlines.