believe me I live in Tulsa. There's a lot of teabaggers, I should know I have some in my family. You wouldn't believe the crazy shit some of my family spews, a good example is that I play the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG and my cousin accused it of being "witchcraft" and "evil". I also had someone accuse the video game Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep of being "evil". Why the hell is everyone so crazy down here?

My side business is entertainment - primarily children but also adults with balloon twisting and magic. Oh, my Gawd, have I witnessed the batshit insanity of the religious nutjobs down there. One person (a graduate of Oral Roberts University unsurprisingly) was convinced I had supernatural powers due to the simplest of card tricks. You couldn't even mention magic to some people/groups because magic is evil. I tried to be a voice of reason and argue that REAL magic doesn't exist - usually to no avail. And there are two very good magic stores in Tulsa when it's rare for a larger city to even have one.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is when I was in one magic store when some teenage kids came in wearing plaid shirts and ties saying they needed a magic trick that they could perform at their church talent show. The owner immediately reached for something called, "Kid Kards," which is as self-working a trick as any, and the two kids panicked. They couldn't do anything involving cards. The owner asked why. The kids said because when cards were invented by non-Christians, the Joker represented Jesus as a way to mock the faith. The owner has this great look that he would give people when he thought they said or do something stupid. Everyone withers before this look. He gave it to the kids then, and his tone of voice when he said, "That's not true," let them know he thought they were idiots. He then gave a 10 minute lecture on the history of playing cards before he would show them anything else after which he sold them a gospel trick. It was hard for me not to laugh the entire time this was going on.

TlalocW

years old. I used to believe everything my family told me and they forced me to retire from Yu-Gi-Oh! back then by scaring the shit out of me. When I got into high school at the age of 14 a friend of mine would play Yu-Gi-Oh! with the other kids there. Truth be told I missed it but I was afraid to come out of retirement (perhaps that was me subconsciously knowing my family was wrong), eventually one day my friends gave me some cards and told me to hide it from my mother. She eventually found out about the fact that I started to play again and although she freaked out initially she eventually told me it was "my soul and I should do what I want with it" I think she was still trying to frighten me or try to cause me to feel guilty. It didn't work of course as I am 21 now and still playing Yu-Gi-Oh! since the day my friends helped me come out of retirement. I also play Cardfight Vanguard as well which is a relatively new card game. The lesson in my story is if there was hope for me to go from fundy to unapologetic liberal there is hope for those teenagers in your story.

Even if the victor in this race is completely batshit insane, I'm glad Sullivan lost. He was a smug, lazy, hypocritical sonuvabitch. If he can keep off the sauce, he might be qualified to work at Walmart.

TlalocW