We're so sorry...(Don't mind the hood.)

Yes, your blogstress knows she has some consistency issues with regular posting. But with a nasty summer bug infecting her upper respiratory tract, and still having to go to that pesky day job, your cybertrix has been a bit short on energy for her numerous extracurricular activities, of which blogging is merely one.

Though it's a bit late for comment, your Webwench has to express her astonishment that, by way of apologizing for having failed to act during the practice's 70-year heyday against the lynching of African-Americans, the Senate could only muster a voice vote in favor of an apology for its criminal negligence. That means that either there were senators who voted for the apology who were afraid to let their constituents know that they did so, or that senators who voted against the measure who were too yellow-bellied to do so before the eyes of the nation. Either way, it's just awful.

Here in Our Nation's Capital, we have a wonderful thing called C-SPAN radio that allows Washingtonians to never miss a scintillating moment of congressional business, even while driving. On Sunday mornings, your écrivane likes to listen in to the call-in portions of C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" show while she tackles such chores as handwashing her spandex finery and painting her dainty toenails.

This past Sunday, as callers sputtered over the anti-lynching measure and former Ku Klux Klan member Senator Robert Byrd's new book, it was clear that there are more than a few spots on the national landscape where race relations could stand a bit of work. Old phrases like "hand-out" spewed from the lips of several angry white folks. It sounded like an ugly argument, circa 1960.

Seems that the ascendance of that white, Christian party has rendered once again acceptable expressions that were, not long ago, deemed no longer suitable for public utterance.