Cindy the comedian

Cindy Sheehan may have left Camp Casey in order to care for her mother but she is still posting on Huffington. Her latest post shows that she is either suffering from an enormous ego or she has lapsed into self-parody.

I have received dozens of emails with this heading: Go Home and Take Care of Your Kids. I think of all the name calling and unnecessary and untrue trashing of my character, this one offends me the most. What do the people who send me this message mean?

First of all, it offends me because it is so blatantly sexist. Would anyone think of emailing George Bush when he is out and about (now he is going on a vacation away from his vacation to make speeches in Idaho and Utah defending his killing policies), telling him to go and take care of his kids? Does anyone write to ANY man and tell him to go home and take care of his kids. I have news for all of these people, my children are adults and their dad is home to take care of them if they need any taking care of.

Here is a woman whose only claim to national attention is her motherhood and she upset because someone told her to take care of her kids. (There may be some confusion about Cindy's other kids. She has three besides Casey - two girls and a boy.) Bush is not dictating foreign policy on the basis of his fatherhood. Cindy is.

Cindy still refers to her oldest as a "man-child", implying that even though he was nearly 24, had been in the army for four years, and had been in a combat zone, he still needed mothering. Given that, it's easy to assume that her younger kids still need their (adult) diapers changed.

This is right in line with Cindy's personality in general. She insists that the protest isn't about her yet she demands that Bush see her - not other parents, just her. She knows that her son supported the war and went willingly but she wants us to surrender in his name.

We as mothers need to stop buying into the load of misogynistic crap that our children need our constant presence in their lives so they can thrive and grow.

You are right, Cindy. So why can't you accept that Casey grew up and made his own choices? Yes, it led to his death, but he had been in Iraq. He knew what was going on there better than you or I do.

Or maybe she's doing a dry self-parody and we just haven't noticed it yet.

Over on ZDNews, there is a frequent poster in the talkback section named Mike Cox. He usually responds to some story about Microsoft by insisting that his shop only uses Microsoft products. This is followed by references to having meals with his Microsoft representative and some outlandish statement, things like

My rep showed me a study funded my Microsoft that said so. Of course, I have banned Google here anyway. Our ISA Servers block access to it. It then redirects you to MSN Search for a true search eXPerience. Several of our R&D guys were upset at this but I told them it was either my way or the highway. I rule this place with an iron fist. I am the only person who has the passwords for our servers. Nobody else knows them. If an MCSE needs to logon to a server, he calls me and waits until I am good and ready to log him in. Google is a very threat to the information technology ecosystem. My rep and MCS told me this over breakfast

The whole thing is an over-the-top satire but people often mistake his post for the real thing and write back incendiary responses.

Maybe this is what Cindy is up to - performance art on the foibles of the anti-war movement.

Or maybe she just needs professional help.