These aren't tags. They're what happened to me yesterday.
So I'm at my first full-time job, having just read an email from the general manager at the independently owned and operated movie theater that's the home of my second full-time job (which, by the way, pays for the medical care not covered by the supposedly full-service insurance provided by my first full-time job -- but that's a whole other diary). The manager was updating me on the slew of phone calls and emails we've been receiving because we told a local ACT! for America group that we won't show an erstwhile "documentary" called "Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps around US".
I step into an elevator, joining a colleague from another department. I'm holding my iPhone, which sports an Obama sticker.
"He's not doing very well," says the guy, pointing to my iPhone.
I smile and say, "Nah, he's doing a great job. We'll be fine." Then I turn my attention to important matters, like checking my email for another update from the defenders of American purity.
And that's when I begin to hear about how Obama's going to start farming dead babies to ramp up stem-cell production. While, at the same time, I'm reading an email about how Islamist jihadists had ambushed the fledgling United States by becoming fiendish Barbary pirates in another century, right off the very coast of North Carolina (you know how our Outer Banks extend all the way to Africa, right?).
I check the elevator status to see whether it's done some kind of Willy Wonka thing and taken us to another dimension. No, it has not. And so I have to hear more about the dead-baby farms that produce good-for-nothing stem cells.
Finally I sigh and tell the guy that I myself have had an abortion and that so have a great many of the women he might decide to randomly talk with about abortion issues. We generally tend to keep it private, I say, because, you know, it's a medical privacy issue. Shhh. Nonetheless, he might be surprised to know how many of us have availed ourselves of the service.
He doesn't know what to say. After a few stammering seconds, he asks about my granddaughter. I smile and tell him she's fine and ask about his kids. We step off the elevator into the lobby, and he tells me as we part, "I don't agree with killing babies." Alright, I say. Take care.
Then it's back to the Barbary pirates and the jihadist terror camps in 22 states that, apparently, Homeland Security won't know about until millions of Christian conservatives force local movie theaters to play their "documentary" at the end of May and then organize, host meetings, hold bake sales, and otherwise coordinate high-level efforts to let the cat out of the bag about how Muslims are plotting to overthrow the United States and Kill. Us. All.
"You're putting your life in danger by not playing this film," says the local ACT! for America guy who's in charge of strong-arming our theater into showing the film. "You could be shot by every Muslim on the planet in the head and you still would have your head in the sand."
The manager wants to draw a picture of this to demonstrate what an diabolically awesome concept that is.
We're now the target of a good-natured Christian-right sunshine committee bent on kindly pointing out the error of our ways in not showing the film as a public service to the community. They seem fixated on vague threats as a means to convince us of their geniality.
The first line of "Homegrown Jihad" is this: "The vast majority of Muslim organizations within the United States are associated with terrorist groups overseas." Because of our particular customer demographics, our theater's patron base is about 25% Muslim. Heck, I'm Muslim. I can't imagine taking part in a postfilm discussion with people who blithely threaten theaters that won't show this soulless piece of celluloid hate. I can't imagine subjecting anyone else to it, either. I felt no fear in talking with my colleague on the elevator about having had an abortion. But my palms get a little sweaty when I think about having to serve as the theater's marketing director in front of a large group of people who are so convinced that Muslims are trying to kill them that they'll tell a local business that it's in danger if it doesn't show their propaganda.
So today, on We Surround Them Day, the emails and phone calls keep coming.
"Apparently the subject matter [of the documentary] wasn’t 'nice' enough. Would this be acceptable viewing if one of our cities were vaporized? Just curious, as this appears to be a distinct possibility."
And the elevator still takes us all to the ground floor.