I'm too hip for Waco

Yesterday I wore a unique T-shirt, which I bought as a souvenir after the special screening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in Crawford. The gist of the shirt is that we should say no to Moore like we say no to smoking and to vote for George Bush in 2004. Most people I know are very much aware of my political views. "There goes that crazy ass liberal," they'll shout as I walk by waving. So, many of my co-workers understood how "cleverly ironic" it was for me to wear this shirt. But some didn't. The only conclusion I can reach is that my wit is wasted on the people of Waco. Probably not. I did manage to strike up a conversation with an avowed Republican who also works on the sports desk. He was able to agree that he should not judge the movie until he saw it, and I managed to agree that not all Republicans were the minions of Satan here to unleash hell on earth. We met in the middle, on common ground. While I was out getting a soda, it was a little different. A few people commented that it was a nice shirt, even giving me the thumbs up, which I thought was nice. I figured I could learn their secret hand signals and infiltrate a meeting and make this election really interesting. But several people took one look at me and just rolled their eyes. They didn't know me and didn't take the wearing of the shirt in the "cleverly ironic" spirit in which it was intended. I was literally being ostracized from a group that I am a vocal proponent of, which I didn't think was all that nice. So I have a slightly different view of the knee-jerk reactions we sometimes make when we don't know the whole story. Yet another learning experience for Nate, and I'm not even paying tuition for it. All in all, it is a good souvenir.