And, so, August comes to a close and September begins.

This means kids going back to school, the weather soon turning sharply cooler, the slightest bit of color tinged on leaves of deciduous and one more last summer fling of Labor Day.

Does this mean, after a hot summer of hysteria and rabid paranoid conspiracy theories of death panels, we'll get back to real business of making this great nation a better place?

Not a chance! At least not as long as profit remains to be sucked from the well-being of the common folk and right-wing populists continue to be willing to whip up paranoid nightmares among the frothing, ignorant minority.

"Pray now for deliverance," read a sign outside something called the Jerusalem Tabernacle of Pentecostal Holiness. "The anti-Christ is among us."

It's always useful for the paranoid fringe to have a devil of which they can be afraid. Fear has become one of the primary motivators of ill-read voters and loud-mouths. It served well in the first decade of this century.

Then, in 2008, we rediscovered good ol' American hope as a motivator and it swept into office Barack Obama.

But, now, only nine months later fear and paranoia have found their voice again. And don't underestimate the power the fear to move a very vocal minority to outrageous and made-up claims like the one appearing outside that Tabernacle of Paranoia.

This is "fluoride in the water will make us communists" all over again.

You will remember that favorite slogan of the John Birch Society from the 1950s. As silly as it seems, now, some poor ignorant folks really believed the propaganda put out by the Birchers: that adding fluoride to municipal water supplies would not make our teeth stronger but, rather, turn us all into raging comm-a-niss(es).

The irony was that so many of the true believers really need help with their teeth!

But we are back and thanks to a culpable media machine louder than ever.

"Death panels" and "death books," they say, will be the end result of a reformed health care system. It is the goal, they say, of President Obama and his legion of (insert silly notion here) to put everyone to death so they can govern a country of no one and turn it commaniss.

Unless fluoride has a stealth effect lasting 40 or 50 years, I think we're pretty safe.

Now, if we can just find a way to get decent, adequate and affordable health care available for the morons who keep fighting it.

"Where da white women at?" asked the new sheriff of Rockridge.

And, so, finally, the truth…er…comes out.

It's not so much that teabaggers, cranks, curmudgeons and birthers are so opposed to any change or reform President Obama might bring to Amurka.

It's that he might take all da white women. Did we mention the new president happens to be African-Amurkan?

Yes, that's right. The truth can now be revealed. That old black magic has us in its spell.

We've long known white guys fear us black guys because they think we have huge parts and will, therefore, steal all their white women. Mandingo on the Mall.

It seems some of the extreme and, frankly, scary right-wing of this fine nation have decided the only way to, shall we say, lay to rest this imaginary controversy over the President's citizenship is to, well, have a look at his penis.

This – just even a glimpse – of the Presidential Pecker will prove, they say, if he is circumcised and, therefore, if he's a real Amurkan.

Really. Not kidding. None of this is made up.

I'm sure all of you read daily, "Free Republic." It is one of the most authoritative news sources on the InnerTubes.

Free Republic's bulletin board, comments post, finally got down last week to brass balls. A group of them, salivating over the possibility, suggested a circumcision at birth – or lack thereof – would prove once and for all the president is just as we suspect a Nazi-Socialist-Kenyan-Hippie-Zen-Zoroastrian-Rastafarian-Baptist.

And I believe this conversation took place just as the president was fly-fishing for trout in Montana.

Fortunately for us, alert editors at Salon captured this pointed exchange. We want to thank Salon and Al Gore for inventing the InnerTubes in the first place so this kind of hard conversation can take place:

Thoughtful, educated person #1:
The only other thing that hit me was that [Larry] Sinclair said BO was not circumcised. When my son was born in a hospital that was done as a matter of routine without even consulting us. Would the same be for Hawaii? OTOH People born at home or in some other cultures are not circumcised.

Thoughtful, educated person #2:
A relative of mine was born (in a hospital) a couple of years after BO's alleged birth date. He was circumcised also (as a matter of routine, not according to any family request).

Thoughtful, educated person #3:
My son was born in June of 1961 in a hospital in CA, and the nurses released us because of miscommunication in a day and a half before the circumcision was done. We had to go back to the doctor's office to have it done a week later, and the doctor was NOT HAPPY. My second son was born in the same hospital 4 years later. I don't remember them asking me about it. Routine procedure for little boys.

Thoughtful, educated person #1 again:
Wish we had someone to make a phone call to the hospitals in HI and ask if they routinely do circumcism [sic] and when that practice started.

Thoughtful, educated person #4:
You might want to make that call to a Canadian hospital …

Thoughtful, educated person #4 again:
No…it would have been in Kenya….not Canada.

Thoughtful, educated person #5:
I am having a vision of a court room scene. The judge turns to O sitting in the witness chair to his left and says "I am sorry, Mr. President, but I am going to have to ask you to stand and drop trou."

I really thought we got rid of Dick with the last administration.

The Kennedys inspired us to believe in politics and public service as a good and honorable pursuit; one in which we could help people.

We've known for well over a year, now, this day would come.

Many of us hoped and prayed Sen. Kennedy would survive long enough to cast the vote to see what he described as his life's work become reality: reasonable, affordable health care for all Americans.

He did not and with his passing go also a generation of leaders who inspired millions of us to see public service as a way to help among us the powerless and downtrodden.

We really never knew Joe. But we knew and loved and were called to a higher sense of being and service by John, Bobby and for nearly 50 years Teddy, too.

The New York Times describes Sen. Edward M. Kennedy this morning as "a man of great faith and great flaws." But aren't we all?

I wonder, this morning, how many of the millions of men and women who have served in the public sector over the past half-century, the countless millions more who have volunteered in political campaigns, would have done so without the inspiration of a higher calling given us by the Kennedys?

How many of us became driven to create in this great nation an even greater nation of compassion and equality and, yes, empathy and creativity because of the examples set by John and Bobby and Ted?

And Ted showed us how to operate within the confines of Washington, how the grist mill of politics can actually yield success in the gears of the United States Congress.

Only two senators served longer than Sen. Kennedy. Sen. Byrd of West Virginia remains a powerful if ebbing figure in the most exclusive club in the world. Sen. Thurmond of South Carolina left us a few years ago.

But it is the legacy and works of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts that will shine brightest in American history.

Ponder some of his accomplishments for a moment, the life of a United States Senator since 1962:

• Helped President Johnson pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

• Led the fight to lower the voting age to 18.

• Helped abolish conscription into the U.S. Military.

• Helped remove restrictions from the airline and trucking industries.

• Helped adopted the Fair Housing law of 1968.

• Helped establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

• Built federal support for health care centers in poor communities around the nation.

• Created the Meals on Wheels program.

• Championed health and nutrition programs for impoverished and pregnant women and their
   children, what became known as WIC.

• Successfully defended the Voting Rights Act in 1982 when the Reagan Administration sought
   to weaken it.

• Won approval in 1990 of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

• Won approval in 1997 of the State Children's Health Insurance Program or S-Chip.

• Was the leading proponent of universal health care for all on Capitol Hill and in the nation.

Sen. Kennedy's most famous speech, perhaps his most inspiring words, came in the eulogy he gave for his fallen brother, Bobby, in 1968 in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

Those words, now, can describe him best, too:

"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

"Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world."

The President and his family, safely ensconced in holiday on Martha's Vineyard, escaped the wrath of Hurricane Bill. Apparently, the President simply walked down to the beach, held out his arms and calmed the waves.

Congressional lawmakers – those who remain in the country – escaped the wrath yet again of enraged whackos hopped up on corporate insurance Kool-Aid and teabag overload.

Kids – most of 'em – are headed back to school. Gamma Phi Beta has its newest sister and, unfortunately, sports writers across the nation seem convinced that some reptilian college football team in Florida is, well, pretty good.

All seems right with the world. But, heck, that's no fun.

Not to worry. There's plenty of trouble to find out there.

Let's see…oh, yes…the Obama Justice Department said Sunday it will reverse a Bush Administration policy and investigate reports of prisoner abuse at the Guantanamo Holiday Center. This means if…and it's a BIG IF, according to, um, NO ONE…someone might get in trouble if it's discovered prisoners at the American outpost on Cuba were tortured. This is because, of course, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney assured us no one would be tortured. I guess we'll have to wait and see if anyone gets in trouble for, um, enhanced interrogation techniques.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said over the weekend he was just kidding when he echoed the bizarre claims that health care reform will lead to killing old people. You remember: "death panels," and "pulling the plug on grandma." No, Grassley assured us, he was just kidding about that and can't believe anyone took him seriously.

"I mean, no one takes Sarah Palin seriously," he said. "Why should anyone take me seriously?"

Okay, I made up that quote. Actually, what he said was he was merely using the same words President Obama used in describing health care reform proposals. Right. We all remember when O said, "We're gonna put old people down."

And speaking of just down-right crazy-talk, the President proved once and for all over the weekend he is a Socialist-Nazi-Hindu-Zen-Zoroastrian-Rastafarian-Baptist when he sent best wishes to Muslims around the world for Ramadan, the month-long celebration of a mediocre motel chain.

Imagine that: some alleged Christian sending best wishes for the observance of an important liturgical point in some other religious tradition. Why, that's downright…well…Christian of 'im.