Mark Twain appears on the cover of this week's Time, and there are some good pieces in which Twain is likened as a precursor to today's funnyman-as-political-commentator (see: Stewart, Colbert, Maher, et al). Perhaps most interestingly, Roy Blount Jr. talks at length about Twain's essay, "The United States of Lyncherdom," which I haven't read, but now want to track down. Apparently it's pretty scathing, and still relevant:

Not only was "The United States of Lyncherdom" politically incorrect, it still is. It blames one of the most shameful aspects of American history on moral correctness, the herd mentality that prevailed among Americans who regarded themselves as right thinking. Twain decided that the country, or at least his readership, was not ready for that essay. It wasn't published until 1923, when Twain's literary executor slipped it, hedgily edited, into a posthumous collection. Not until 2000 did it appear in its original form, and then in an obscure, scholarly publication. It takes a genius to strike the funny bone in a way that can still smart nearly 100 years later. The nation's highest official accolade for comedy is the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be awarded this November to the late George Carlin--another man whose commentary grew bleaker and more biting in his last years. But old Mark, unvarnished, might be too hot for cable, even, today.

In the meantime, here's an effed up clip from 1985's The Adventures of Mark Twain, the claymation classic where Tom and Huck hang out with Mark Twain himself. Oh, and Satan, too:

Yeah. This freaked my shit out as a kid.