Jesse Helms is Dead

He died on July 4. Somehow, that seems appropriate.

My father used to live in North Carolina after he retired. (He's in Florida now -- at 91, even North Carolina winters can be tough, not to mention climbing a mountain to get the mail.) I didn't bring up Helms when we talked, because I love my father and didn't want to cause a stroke or something. Helms was the epitome of everything my father hates. It occurs to me that he was the image of the contemporary conservative.