Even the penis-enlargement spammers are giving it away for free today: “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a big diick.” Over the entire world — or at least the part of it that believes in Jesus and Santa — a blissful peace has descended. So who am I to spoil the reverence with my karping koncepts?

Well, on this fifteenth anniversary of the demise of the Soviet Union, it’s a good time to launch an effort to overcome the nonsense that has pervaded public discourse ever since. Not that there wasn’t already plenty of nonsense before. In fact, all of the runaway destructive trends of the post-Cold-War era — free passes for right-wing obscurantism, the politics of contesting representations as a substitute for genuine leftism, love for the rich and hatred for the poor, elitist pseudo-science accepted as social “science,” objectification of discourse, hatred of psychoanalysis, and pragmatist condescension towards the power of language, among many others — were already, in the EIGHTIES, on my list of the things that really had to go. How depressing it’s been seeing them get stronger instead, I couldn’t begin to explain to my lucky juniors who, having come into social consciousness within the era of W, have nowhere to go but up. All power to you, kiddos! Don’t get distracted by my grumpiness.

Nearly seven weeks after the Much Less Monstrous Ones (MLMO’s) regained control of Congress, and with a palpably different mood blowing in the wind, it’s time for us all to strike back — even me, holed up in my lair — although, in the still Christmas air,

not a keyboard is clicking,

nor even a mouse.