Parodies Lost

Thoughts On Some Important Issues

Jews and Muslims aren't allowed to eat pork.  God's pretty adamant about that.  Pork bad.  God good.  Easy enough to understand.  Except, Jews, Muslims, and Christians all worship the same God, and Christians can eat pork.  So, did they get some kind of dispensation from God that Jews & Muslims aren't privy to?  It can't be Jesus, since, one, he was Jewish, and two, Muslims revere him as a pretty cool guy.  Maybe all Christians are going to hell, at least the ones who eat pork. 

Two Jews get off a bus.  One of the funniest opening lines I've ever heard--you probably have to hear it.  But I never heard the rest of the joke.  It finally dawned on me why it's so funny.  Jews don't ride buses.  Think of it, Two nuns get off a bus; two Lithuanians get off a bus; two Presbyterians get off a bus.  None of them are funny.  Why?  They're all known to ride buses. 

You always bite the one you love.

Why is Tuscaloosa funny but Schenectady isn't?

How many fat guys does it take to screw in a light bulb?  Give up?  I have no idea...I just lost over 20 pounds.

My bride woke herself up laughing wildly last week at a joke she'd made in her sleep.  I slipped on Poly-ethyl and into Ethyl Polly.  I laughed my ass off when she told me, but so far, we're the only one's who think it's funny.  How good are your sleep jokes, wiseass?

So, I went to the doctor the other day, and he told me I was going to have to stop masturbating. "Why, I asked, my eyesight's still pretty good?"  "Because I have to examine you."  Badabing. (With thanks to my brother-in-law.)

Know why there aren't any Presbyterian jokes?  Because Presbyterian has five syllables--way too long to sustain humor.  Of course, Lithuanian is also five syllables and it's funny as hell--at least to me.

There you have it.  Not much, but first post in ages.  The old brain actually may be coming back.

How Do You Evaluate Yourself

One of my most powerful memories of being a teenager was writing in my journal to myself when I was an "old man."  At the time, 58 seemed awfully old, but I think I was focused more on 70s, but the issue arises regardless of age & is totally dependent on circumstances.  What I wrote was that I hoped at the end of my life, I could look back with pride on what I'd accomplished--not so much for myself, but left as a legacy.

Yuck.  Legacy.  That word has probably killed more people than Jesus (as a word.)

How do we evaluate ourselves?  What we've done?  What mark did we leave?  For agnostics, it's particularly difficult, but there's no heaven where the essence of who we are extends for eternity.  So, as an agnostic, I realize that, except for a handful of people, virtually every human being's existance is forgotten with a generation or two or three.  And even those famous souls whose fame seems to extend to eternity, how much do we really know about Shakespeare, Alexander the Great, Plato, or Bach?

Hell, I just learned that Cleopatra was a Greek!

From one perspective, what we do in the few years granted us is irrelevant.  Few of us will turn the tide of history, become Roosevelts or Gandhis or Maos or even Hitlers.

And now that I'm a point where we're trying to sell the house and move somewhere cheaper and less congested so I can retire, I can't help but look back but also forward.  What have I done that's made a difference?  What will I do in the years left to me to make a difference?  My wife and I planned for years for me to be able to retire early...but now I'm obligated to this seventeen year old kid to account for my career.  And the stresss of where to live, selling the house, arranging the finances, and a very bizarre sleep disorder that's messed up my brain for the last six months has made each day so much less than it should be. 

I don't know what to say to him.  I think, I hope mostly because of this brain fog, I can experience life day-to-day the way one must in order to leave something meaningful behind.  I do look back with some pride at what I accomplished, and regrets at what I wish I'd accomplished, but you can always say you should have done more.  And many of those so-called "regrets" can and will be addressed in my so-called retirement.  (Except for being a folk star...I think I'm a little old for that.) 

But when your brain is screwed up, it's very hard to find the path that John Spivey, who wrote The Great Western Divide, outlines.  I know it's there...sitting, calling to me...asking me to accept and integrate rather than to fight.  But I can't find it.  I want the inner peace that John too searches for, but, as I lay dying, I want to be able to say, as my father did, "I fought the good fight."

As I lay dying, I know that within a very few years, no one will remember me, but that's not my purpose here.  Will I be able to say I left this world a better place than when I found it? 

What other criteria can one use to evaluate one's self?

Let Iraq Burn

Some time ago, long ago that it's not even listed, I wrote an article condemning the Busher for the Iraq but arguing that it would play into the hands of the terrorists if we left. When Bush attacked Iraq for heaven knows what reason, there were tapes of Osama bin Laden dancing the Hora with all this minions. Copies of those tapes are available for a modest fee. You can get them by contacting this writer.

It was like Old Osama had two fingers jammed up the Busher's nose and was dragging him wherever he wanted. He needed new bases to train white, Catholic, English girls who've turned to Islam to become suicide bombers...the Busher gave him most of Yugoslavia & Iraq. What a great president.

But, as they say, it takes a tough man to make a tender chickpea, so I too have finally, painfully, agonizingly come to the conclusion that there's nothing we can do in Iraq but help kill innocent Iraqis and mangle more U.S. troops.

The fact is that the Arabs are loonies. Why they are loonies is a fascinating sociological question I will not try to address in any detail. It's similar, however (oy, is this going to get me in trouble), to self-defeating behaviors we see in some African Americans and Native Americans. Expectations breeds behavior supporting those expectations. Treat Palestinians like 5th class citizens for 60 years or so & guess what, they'll act like fucking idiots, killing each other because it seems less dangerous that trying to kill Jews. (Note, that didn't start with the Israeli occupation. It started with Egypt taking Gaza & the butcher of Jordan taking the so-called West Bank & keeping Palestinians living like rats with no cheese for 30 years.

But what about Iraqi loonies? You can't create a country by jamming three warring tribes together, have them live under one of the worst dictators in history, and expect them to act normally. I simply cannot fathom Sunnis and Shias blowing up each other's children.

This war is no longer a war of liberation...whatever it started out to be. It's a civil (how quaint, "civil")... it's a totally uncivil war aided by the scum in Iran & Syria. It's not that we can't win, we can't even define win. You couldn't describe a political condition in what is now Iraq that stood a chance of working. And, hey, for the first time, it's not all our fault. Let 'em blame the Israelis & Americans for their mess. Sorry, Ahmed, you shit, you clean it up.

And we haven't even addressed the coming war in Northern Iraq between the Kurds (terrible name...they should rename their tribes...get a lot more respect...like "The Crips" or something) and just about everyone else.

So it is with sorrow, despair, anger, confusion, and fill in the blanks, that I've come to the conclusion that we should simply say: "Yo, Arab-type people. As long as you're going to kill each other, we're outa here. Like, what are you--dopes? We're not sending American soldiers into your country to break up battles between warring tribes. We gave you the chance for democracy--sort of--and you blew it. We tried to help you rebuild your nation--and you blew it up. O.k., we had no plans for winning the peace--but it's your country. What are you, without an idea in your collective heads?

"You can't teach a man to fish if he keeps hitting you over the head with the fucking fishing poll. So...we're out of here. If you come to your senses, we'd be glad to come back and help you rebuild your country...but frankly, we're not packing just yet to return."

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Foreign policy, Bush, Arabs, Iran, civil war
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From Election To Election Without A Pause to Refresh--or Think

It was almost two months ago, one day in November, and then gone forever - a memory that's unsatisfying even though, as a somewhat Democrat and a liberal in search of definition, I was pleased with the results. Pleased, hell, I only knew of one pollster who, a month before the election, saw a 25-seat swing in the House. I waited too long to get to him for an interview. Sue me.

Now the pols are gearing up for the big one: 2008. The first time since 1952 that neither party will have a VP waiting his turn - if you believe that Cheney isn't running. So what have we got going into the next one?

We have an unpopular war, and it's important to make it clear that Americans aren't idiots - the war is unpopular because it's been so badly botched. I don't think many people even care that we were lied to about the cause of the war, nor do most realize that we're about to lose Afghanistan because Bush & Company pulled essential troops out of that country too quickly so they could fight in Iraq.

For the first time in our history as a nation, we are pretty much disliked around the world, and that doesn't sit well with a people who believe America has/had a destiny to spread democracy and freedom around the world. Few trust us. Too few fear us. Even fewer understand what the hell our foreign policy is.

Can you blame them?

The point is that, over the past 20 years or so, we've lost track of ourselves, which makes it very tough for anyone who wants to be president to figure out a platform.

Tiger Woods, so says a friend of mine, got $100 million from Nike for the coming year. One hundred million dollars. And millions of children go to bed hungry every night in America. My friend said that Tiger gives all that money to his charity and lives off his golf winnings. I hope that's true; I'd feel better about old Tiger.

We still don't have a post-Cold War foreign policy. We strut and speak with loud voices and thump our chests, all the while missing what everyone else can see - that America's at the end of its military rope.

The split between rich and poor grows wider despite the clever manipulators of data desperately trying to show how well most people have it.

We've solved our racial problems by subtly and instinctively creating new ghettos, which too many Blacks and Whites seem to desire. New immigrants don't appear to want to assimilate but bring their culture with them. Illegal immigration keeps the economy going and scares the shit out of everyone, including, if they were honest, supporters.

Personally, I say let 'em stay - but make it a requirement that they learn English. A Japanese or Thai or El Salvadorean who lives here and can't speak English is being consigned to a second-class existence. It's not "liberal" to push bi- or tri- or quadri-lingualism... it is the most insidious form of racism and paternalism.

I don't know what's happening with the environment. Most people don't realize that the world went through what is called "The Little Ice Age" in the 1400s, so it's normal to see temperatures rising. However, anyone who ignores the evidence of human beings' effect on the environment either has no children and plans to die soon, or is a moron. If you aren't scared by what's happening, share those drugs, man - we all need them.

Our transportation infrastructure is a disaster waiting to happen. We can't wean ourselves from cars. There seems to be no strategy for anything: transportation, energy, space, waste...

I don't care which party leads the way, but America is desperate for leadership; not someone who will do the old pol two-step of "Hey, trust me, I got all the answers," but someone who's got the courage to say, "Hey, oy, do we have problems. Here's what I think they are, and here's what I plan to do about each. And be patient, Rome was destroyed in a day."

But I see no leaders. We, the moronic voters, have allowed a system to be created that gives the nomination to the extremes, leaving moderates playing with their pretzels. We're one- or two-issue voters, and that's a recipe for disaster.

Let's say there was this candidate who was so right on so many issues -- not with answers, but with a solid plan for getting and implementing good answers -- but was opposed to abortion. Would you vote against him or her? Or maybe was pro-abortion in all forms. Would you vote for someone else even though this person has spelled out a path that could restore us our dignity, our pride, and a sense of mission?

Either way, if you can't put that one issue aside -- or guns or gay marriages or a host of other relatively inconsequential issues that tie us up in knots -- if you can't look beyond your own narrow needs, then I say you're dooming us. You can blame the pols all you want, but if you want to see the real villain, look in the mirror.

In Jameson Veritas

Technorati Tags: politicians, elections, voter stupidity, America Adrift
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Three Steps from the Caves: The Myth of Civilization

We are living on the edge of a precipice. Don't look down. It's taken me a long time to realize how critical the situation is, if, in fact, I am right that we are living on the edge of a precipice. What if we aren't but think we are? What's the difference in our behavior? Whoever, whatever, or however we were designed, something important was left out - the ability to accurately see the present. Our brains are not wired for the illusion that dominates our beliefs handed down from the 18th Century Enlightenment - the possibility of rational thought. The reality is that our brains aren't wired that way.

Perhaps I should start with, Are we living on the edge of a precipice? I look around me and see that our society is failing, the world is failing, we're making a mess of this Eden given to us -- by God or Darwin, I don't care -- it doesn't matter. What do you see, I wonder, and how can we resolve our different visions?

Human beings as civilized creatures is the most dangerous myth ever foisted upon a species. It's not fair. A million years ago we were living in caves, probably without language. In evolutionary terms, a million years is the flicker of a lightning bug. Our tools have evolved so much faster than we have that we mistake the elegance of the tool for the basic barbarian who created and now wields it. How could such an imbalance happen?

I have facts to support my illusion. Do you have facts to support yours? For example, as a good corporate spokesperson, I belittled global climate change for years, but only a fool would reject the notion that something is happening to our climate whether humanity is a major or minor player. Or consider that nuclear proliferation is reaching the point where a bomb planted in a major western city is simply a matter of when, not if. We proudly proclaim high moral values, but at the slightest sign of inconvenience, they're jettisoned. We rarely live them.

What did we learn after six million Jews and six million others got gassed and flamed and tortured to death by the Nazis? The world since then has become a testament to our heightened morality and chest-thumping words of grand visions.

We stood by while Cambodia created its killing fields, the Hutus and Tutusies (a fictional racial creation) slaughtered each other, while Mao and Stalin and Amin and countless other dictators and thugs and scum slaughtered at will while we wept oceans of crocodile tears. It's still going on - right now. Today. In Darfur. Do you hear? A child just died from starvation. Listen. No, you can't hear the cry of death. Don't look down. Wait. Now. Do you see? Another child was just slaughtered with a machete or a bullet or a bomb. What are we doing about it? Trick or treat for UNICEF? Is there is a more pathetic vision of our indifference?

The West? We've a history of barbaric behavior interspersed with some of the most incredible art and culture imaginable, but in the end we are a collection of moral cowards desperately hanging onto the illusion that we've gone far beyond the caves, not just three simple steps. My greatest fear is that, down deep, we know we're facing the end of civilization as we've known it, that nothing lasts forever, and something else must inevitably take its place. In the face of almost cosmological uncertainty, we withdraw into the illusion that we can take care of those closest to us.

The East? Eastern religions for some reason have always downplayed the value of the individual and have used the concept of reincarnation and Karma as a way of tolerating the most extraordinary inhumanity. Ironically, it shares some of what the Christian Church tried to sell in the so-called Dark Ages, but it's just a different brand of cowardice; it's a different path to the endgame.

What is humanity? We are so complex and yet so simple at the same time. We can create such beauty that we find it hard to catch our breath while the heavens weep. We can show selfless goodness and compassion that shouts from the mountaintops, "see how far we've come from the caves. Three steps indeed." How many of those moments must exist to erase the barbarism of the past and of today and tomorrow?

Why do we think we're superior to lower forms of life? Is it because one or two of us stand against the tides of insanity, is martyred, and cast in bronze for the rest of us to admire? We watch Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Desmund Tutu, and a small handful of others leave the safety of the area around the cave and walk out into the open fields. Our pride soars at what humanity can accomplish, but it's not humanity; it's a few humans.

If only we would emulate them. If only we would see that, in evolutionary terms, they are superior to us, but we've been given the gift of consciousness that just might make it possible for us to force our own evolution in the right direction. Neurologists have found that primitive parts of our brains, created when the world presented different threats, still have the power to determine our reactions with us having no conscious understanding of why we're acting as we do; but our conscious minds are not without power if we have the courage to engage them.

How do we take responsibility? How do we own and fix the mess we've created? It's part of my greatest fear - that we can't. There is nothing we can do, so we'll continue to withdraw, to create smaller and smaller social networks, to rail against them even though we no longer know who them is. We celebrate the phony intimacy of the Internet and social networks when it's obvious to anyone who will stop, just stop for a moment, and realize that without a hug the spine shrivels, that physical contact among people is essential to life.

At my most cynical, I see the Internet as a monument to our failure as a species. We don't know our neighbors who we can see and touch and smell. We will, however, form dozens, hundreds of...of what? Friends, associates, and colleagues - the few people I think of as friends I've met through the Internet I have to meet or the friendship will dissipate. I have to see their faces and watch them laugh. I have to break bread and share wine with them, allowing real intimacy to grow over time to the point where when we meet or say goodbye, we hold each other with a passion that fills so many of the empty parts of our souls. We may separate having agreed on nothing except that we are human beings and worthy of survival, worthy of the challenge of evolution. Go ahead, hug your computer. Let me know how good it makes you feel.

Wait for a moonless night when it's still warm enough to walk outside. Listen. Let the sounds of civilization pass through you until you can hear what nature, naked, is trying to tell you. Look at a plant, or a tree, or a rock - it's nothing special - just a plant or tree or rock; but it's amazing. Enjoy the awe of realizing that it somehow got there. Feel. Let the earth reach up and caress you with her toils and triumphs until you realize how fragile we are. Find a way out of yourself to help forge a true civilization. Those of us in civilized lands too easily forget it's simply a thin veneer of civilization - that we are only two or three steps from the caves.

You are your brother and sister's keeper.

Anyone's suffering, anywhere, diminishes your soul.

Find the great and simple truths: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Take emotional risks because we're becoming a nation, and a world, of strangers.

I don't know what to write about anymore. I know I'm not making a difference with this article regardless of how many ways I recreate it. Even if I could get my fiction published, it wouldn't move the firmament. If only God wasn't such a mute, perhaps I could become a preacher. Perhaps, in His silence, that's the best use of my time, but I will not be played the fool - offering strident calls for human rights and dignity that, at best, are read quickly and disregarded.

Quite simply and yet with a cry from my heart that should rend the sky into falling shards of blue, I believe humanity is losing. I have no idea how we sustain ourselves in the evolutionary chain. Humanity has been an awesome experiment, but no matter how I look at it, I can't find enough lasting potential and, worse, enough value that would warrant nature continuing to select for us.

On some selfish level, I'm grateful that my bride and I are old enough to go quietly into this good night. We will escape, I think, but so many of you won't. Your anger, your certainty, your righteousness blinds and binds you.

Some millions of years from now, what a tragic tale will be written about the short-lived human race. People will look at the dinosaurs that ruled the earth for 150 million years and compare them to Homo sapiens who ruled for perhaps two million years and then were gone. It doesn't matter how -- nuclear nightmare, disease, climate disruption, or the emergence of a superior species.

On balance, between us and the dinosaurs, who will be considered of more value in the perhaps infinite time of history?

Technorati Tags: evolution, homo sapiens, barbarism, responsibility
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News and Commentary: Yesterday's News Today, Not Tomorrow

Since the same things happen day after day, it takes a reporter with a nose for the unusual to keep readers from falling, nose first, into the computers. It's a shocker, let me tell you that. But I digress. So, since nothing ever changes, I thought I'd snoop around and tell you what you wouldn't have read had you the chance.

• O.J. Simpson's would-be publisher, Judith Regan, was fired Friday according to AP, her sensational, scandalous tenure at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. ending with the tersest of announcements. Gadfry Daniels, boys and girls, gimme a break. Now, as if the skies opened and the blazing Light of God's truth was shed upon, the human race is demonstrating decency. Sorry, Charlie, but another few babies just died in Darfur. Of course the book was stupid -- but look how many stupid heads supported it until a Benedictine monk, tippling a bit on B&B, threw up all over his copy, and the sinful publishers took it as a sign from God. Sheesh.

• It seems that America's finally getting tough with prisoners.  Authorities at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility have clamped down decisively in recent months. Don't you just love waking up on the wrong side of Alice's Looking Glass? Excuse me, but I'm about to yell. ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS? GET TOUGH? (Thank you.)  "Okay, you banana heads, no more free camel rides, you're going to have to watch PBS 24 hours a day, you have to face west when you pray to Allah, and anyone actually saying Allah will have his mouth washed out with his roommate's urine.  Bacon and sausage for breakfast." Here we've got a group of people, most of whom are probably innocent of anything, being treated like slaves, and the U.S. Army (Be As Fucking Mean As You Can Be) decides it's gone too soft.

• The U.S. military is planning to move a brigade of troops into Kuwait in what could be the first step of a short-term surge of American forces into Iraq to stabilize the violence. That's 3500 troops, boys and girls. Let's see, we have, what, about 150,000 troops there now? Wowza, that's a 2.333333333% increase! That's going to show those Shiites and Shamans and Sharmas and who gives a damn, a real pause in the pooping, I'll tell you that. I'll bet our 150,000 young men and women re-enacting Vietnam for a new generation are just doing a hora around a Muslim they just burned at a stake. What a great country.

• This has to be a joke, but it's on ABC's website. But a young captain serving in Iraq's violent Al Anbar Province has offered a simple explanation of what the problem was in Iraq and how to solve it. Among his observations is the importance of having a moustache in Iraq. He had a lot of other cool ideas, but he was just killed. We're going to have to move on, your intrepid reporter's rhetoric machine is spewing vile bile all over the place.

• This falls under the category of news I'd never have suspected, as professional a journalist as I am. This afternoon, Army Col. David Sutherland, commander of forces in Iraq's Diyala province, said that the Iraqis don't trust us. Speaking on a video link from Baquba, Iraq, he said "Public perceptions of corruption, inequity and fear are the driving force behind support to terrorist organizations." Well, darn it but I didn't know we had those problems in Iraq, and I want to be the first to publicly congratulate former Col. Sutherland... oh wait, it was probably just a joke by Donald Sutherland, that cut up. 

• And, finally, in the category "Stop It, You're Killing Me," this company that's building fences to keep illegal immigrants from the promised dung fields got nailed yet again for - you guessed it - hiring illegal workers. They've agreed to pay nearly $5 million in fines. If there is a more stupid animal on the planet than Homo Sapien, please let me know. 

So, once again, we say a fond farewell. Happy trails to you, until we meet again, happy trails to you, keep drinking Jameson... Yes, boys and girls, it is the one bright star in the firmament, the Rock of Gibralter, the piece de resistance upon which all can depend:

In Jameson Veritas

Technorati Tags: O.J. Simpson, Iraq, illegal immigrants, more troops
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A Little Revolution Now And Again Wouldn't Hurt

The election is over and what has changed?  What will change.  I doubt much.  There was so much violence (violence of the mouth and mind is still violence.)  It's no wonder attack has become the primary political strategy whether one is running for dog catcher or president.  America is a joke.  Worse, America is a lie.

Once awakened, we realize that The Great American Dream is really a nightmare, a siren song entrancing us, luring us onto the coast where our vessel is crushed between tide and rock.  Once visited, we discover that The City on The Hill is a rat-infested slum that provides penthouses for a few and bitter lies to the rest who wear the lies proudly, believing that someday, they, too, or their children will be given access to the upper levels. Where once we imagined living among giants, we strip off the distorting glasses to see a mass of little, hunched-over people with sour faces, drooling and swearing, shoving and pushing, stealing and hording simply because they can.

Walk the talk.  Give me a break. Christian super-ministers and born-again members of Congress fondle little boys. Liberal do-gooders restrain themselves from acting in the public interest if it could mean one more seat in Congress on Tuesday. Hungry children?  Sorry, we simply have to win the 6th in Indiana.

We don't have sides, we have slogans. It's easier to remember slogans, and, if someone challenges you, you simply repeat the slogan louder and louder until the little pest goes away. We don't have ideas, we have ideologies which, when stripped of their very expensive veneer, are revealed to be religions masquerading as policy.

And they expect us to vote after we jump headfirst into the cesspool of modern politics and emerge cleansed of all ideals.

It's so easy to attack. It requires no great intellectual prowess, it demands little of our critical faculties, and it feels good even though, if we were honest with ourselves, we'd recognize that the attacks on our opponents resonate only with those who already agree with us.

We create caricatures of our political adversaries regardless of accuracy, and we show our most venal, angry, petulant sides attacking those whom we presume think differently than we do. And different must carry some malevolent characteristics that, by themselves, stand as reason enough to call down the wrath of the almighty. How pitiable we've become.

When do we stop and ask what we're doing to our country, our values, our role in the world, and, especially, ourselves? When do we show the slightest bit of humility and acknowledge that we don't have all the answers -- we may have one of the answers -- but we're willing to sit down with anyone, anywhere, and just talk? Just offer our ideas and listen to what others have to say -- listen so hard it melts our brains?

I'm tired to making fun of conservatives -- it's like shooting apples in a barrel with a 12-gauge shotgun. And it's just as easy for conservatives to shoot at us apple-headed liberals.

But I'm not a liberal, conservative, libertarian, radical, or any other species of political animal that's been bred to provide sustenance for all the others. I have no allegiance that couldn't be turned by honesty, integrity, compassion, intelligence, openness... but would I even recognize it or, worse, would it be just another sophisticated shell game?

We are so frightened as a nation that we hide behind the comic book characters who'll promise us the illusion of protection. I don't think Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are bad people -- but they're the wrong people for the job. If challenged to present Democratic alternatives, I mutter and shuffle my feet and claim a prior engagement at the proctologist's. We set such absurd standards that good people would have to be crazy to run for public office, which is why when election day rolls around, we're up to our elbows in cow manure, desperately seeking someone who might smell a little less bad than anyone else.

Something has happened to America; I don't understand what it is. The rest of the world has always been a mess, but we have always told ourselves that we were different, special. The truth is that we are not. It's almost impossible to apply the disciplines of history, sociology, or psychology to the time in which one lives, so we thrash about, desperate for some coherent structure that provides us a direction, a sense of purpose, a meaning... all the while knowing deep in our hearts that we're grasping at absurdities.

If it's broken, fix it. 

America is broken. We are not who we want to be, we don't act in harmony with our beliefs and values, and we treat all with suspicion and resent that others are suspicious of us.

A little revolution purges the soul, but I don't believe in violence. A successful revolution is not worth the death of one human being, but I long for a revolution that rends the fabric of our society until we're all in rags with no choice but to rebuild.  To rebuild having understood the reason for the failures of the past. No one need die, but no one can avoid the pain of a revolution. Does pain with a purpose have value? Or is it just another in a long series of sleight-of-hand tricks played upon us by ourselves?

For we are to blame. We are the little, hunched-over people swearing and drooling. We trust no one and demand to be trusted. We seek out the cesspool. It cleanses us in some Stygian way. 

Come Tuesday, will you vote? Will you believe that your vote matters? That option A is far superior to option B? Is not voting a revolutionary statement or simply an act of boredom or frustration?

What should break your heart is that, if you truly came to understand the majority of people around you, you'd find deep commonality and purpose, a desire for justice and fairness. But we live on the surface where tactical issues are the ammunition we feed into our weapons of human destruction. 

Who will join me in revolution?  And who will explain to me how we are to bring one about?Who will join me in revolution?  And who will explain to me how we are to bring one about?

< br/>< br/> Technorati Tags: Revolution, American_Dream, liberals, conservatives, sloganeering
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Forget the Election: It's Time For More Important Issues

O.k., so the Democrats rolled over the Republicraps, Rummy's a mummy, Bush is fatigued.  Well done America.  I'm proud of us.  Given all the sturm and drang about soccer moms morphing into security moms, immigrants putting Mexican spices into every goddamn cuisine we've stolen from other countries, fears about the economy, despair about America's world image, you have to wonder, you know, why anyone would sit home on election day. Your vote may not matter, but at least it's a way of doing something other than powering down another Twinkie — although I wouldn't want anyone to think I was disparaging Twinkies.

But that's not what I'm concerned about.  There's an issue that's been bugging me for as long as I can remember.

You may know that it was Thomas Nast's fault that we have those two obnoxious symbols for our august parties.  Mr. Nast was a 19th century political cartoonist probably best known for tearing the arms and legs off Boss Tweed and his machine in New York.  He created the elephant and the jackass.  Is it any wonder people have trouble acknowledging their political allegiance?   

"Hi. I'm a big, smelly, flea-infested pachyderm. Vote for me."

"Hi. I'm an ass. Vote for me."

I'm mostly a Democrat, and I have given much thought to this problem. The last thing an ass needs is to be recognized as one. Nor does it help that slow, dimwitted, cranky Republicans should be so well-characterized by elephants.  Politics has never been about truth — it's about reality, the reality we create for those we hope to lift from despair and dump into utter stupidity. 

So... what images best reflect the best that we can be, regardless of whether we ever reach it or not?

Ultimately, there is only one animal fit to capture the spirit of Democrats building with such pride their mandate across the blue fields of grain:  Our new symbol should be [trumpet fanfare]: the Peregrine falcon -- a bird of extraordinary beauty and grace whose soaring flights should echo in our hearts as we think of the land of opportunity — no, not Bolivia, you idiot. Ah, the Peregrine falcon — nature's most remarkable flying hunter. 

The Peregrine falcon is "admired for its incredible speeds which are seldom exceeded by any other bird. Plunging from tremendous heights, the peregrine falcon can reach up to 180 mph in pursuit of prey. It feeds primarily on birds, which it takes on the wing."

Oh to be a falcon, to be one of the great warriors who dominate their kingdom through the force of their personality, their courage, their quiet but unassailable strength.

But I also want to be fair.  What do to for Repubicans?  Let's face it, being an elephant sucks.  I have given this dilemma much thought as well.  As Americans, we should stand proudly next to symbols we treasure most.  Our fearlessness and courage in the face of adversity, but also our humanity, our soft side, our belief that if only everyone would believe the way we did, wouldn't the world be such a peachy keen place to raise your kids and race your cars and smoke your dope?

And so, while I haven't canvassed any Republicans, I know the Grand Old Party will be thrilled to learn that their new image is — the beloved panda.

This extraordinary animal has won the hearts and minds of Americans across our great land of opportunity, and we owe a special thanks to the Chinese Communists for renting them to us at such reasonable prices. 

I know some of you, particularly Republicans are grousing, "Hey, we get a damn Commie animal for our symbol?"  To that, I simply say, remember that the panda was there long before Mao Tse Tongue made the long march from somewhere to somewhere else sending Chin Check Mate into exile on some island.  And the panda will be be there long after the Chinese shuck off the idiocy of communism and start beating everybody's brains in within the capitalist system.

Most important, wouldn't it be cool to rally the troops around symbols that give them a sense of pride, of accomplishment, of delusion?

The Hawk and The Panda.

America: The future is bright and clear, clouds torn asunder by the power of these two heroic images leaving us standing proudly under a bright sunlight while immigrants are busy selling sunscreen #45 at only five times the retail price.

Goddamn bless America.  Is this a great country or what?

>br /> Technorati Tags: Nast, Democrats, Republicans, national_symbols, jackass, elephant, peregrine_falcon, panda
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On the Edge of Packing in Politics

It is becoming increasingly difficult to give a shit about politics because the debates are like dust devils in the desert, swirling rapidly but having no lasting effect.  Does it really matter who sits where in Congress or the White House?  Well, of course it does, but the fog is so complete that even if there were a standard bearer worthy of our time, we'd never see it.  They all begin to look alike and sound alike. 

We won't let politicians be real, have faults or flaws, or show indecision. The media, understanding our blood lust, tears real people to shreds before they can become politicians.  The only justification I can see for term limits is that you might be able to hold on to your soul for four or eight years as a pol, but if you look into the future and see only bigger office space, more staff, more time on news programs, and more power, the system will mold you into something only vaguely resembling a human being.

It's also becoming increasingly difficult to take sides. Who thinks America's going in the right direction?  Or the world, for that matter?  Who believes that we are any kind of shining light on the hill?  The problem is trying to understand whether this is a short-term aberration or the beginning of the decline and fall of the American empire.

If I were a born-again Christian mummy, walking aimlessly through the graveyard of what used to be America, I'd be horrified viewing the broken moral compass, the rending of souls in the name of truth, justice, and the American way, the lack of civility or compassion or, as I've discovered the term that best fits me, social justice. The only thing that's worshipped in America is money and celebrity. The Christ-lover in me would think that something horribly wrong had happened; perhaps enough to cause the second coming.

However, as a died-in-the-wool liberal mummy, although I don't know what liberal means anymore, I'm still horrified. I see the same graveyard filled with children who died from neglect, violence, or malnutrition, filled with old people abandoned, with zombies who perhaps haven't yet died but might as well have, wandering in no direction and calling out only to hear their voice echo back to them in the void.  I look at the shards of the moral compass on the ground not knowing if even all the king's horses and all the king's men could put it back together again. 

We make our problems worse because they're all cloaked in rigid ideologies that will allow for no movement, no understanding beyond which is already provided.  Inside the ideology there is the illusion of safety; outside, there is only danger.  So we become blind and deaf to everyone and anyone but those who believe as we believe. 

I even understand why some people object to homosexuality. If you're terrified that the moral order of your world is crumbling, you look for any aberration that might be a cause -- or an effect. Some see it in same-sex marriages; I see the aberration in the spread of guns, and building huge fences between the U.S. and Mexico, and an anti-intellectualism that has plagued America since its beginnings. Richard Hofstadder wrote Anti-Intellectualism in America in the 1950s; but it's applicable as far back as one would want to go or as far forward as one can imagine. 

I can't blame the politicians because they are simply a carnival mirror reflection of what we've become.  We are so trapped in our own fears, so horrified by what we see around us that we're easy prey for political masterminds who have their fingers on the pulse of the damned and know exactly what to say to increase or decrease the rate of our beating hearts. 

The most distressing element in all this is that we still have the best system of government, the most freedom as a people, and more prosperity than anywhere else in the world.  But we don't seem to be able to see the cracks in the foundation, the slow erosion of social justice, the collapsing of society into groups that may include me, my family, my friends -- and there's nothing I can do about the rest of you.

It is always a mistake to examine the tea leaves from today's cup and read them thinking they might contain wisdom.  Without an historical perspective, there can be no judgments, no comparisons, no evaluations.  America's beliefs about her past have always distorted the harsh realities, but I can't help but fear that something is more wrong and growing worse -- and I think that something is the collapsing of the human spirit into an ever-smaller realm so we can ignore the disaster that is the world around us.  We are becoming a frightened, angry people, and no good ever comes from a life convulsed by fear and anger. 

Without leadership to help us break through the barriers we're erecting around ourselves, without a clear voice that forces us to reach out to others be it through shame or pride, I simply can't see anything getting better.   So I too build barriers and turn to humor and satire because I find I care less and less who wins the 6th district in Indiana.

Technorati Tags: Elections, democracy, social justice, liberal, conservative
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The Reaganification of Dick Cheney

This is not an easy article for me to write. Few Americans are as aware as I of the extraordinary contributions Vice President Richard N. Cheney has made to this country, the personal and professional sacrifices -- of himself and others -- without a moment's hesitation. The long hour away from family and friends, all to make this country something he and he alone could be proud of.

When Dick -- I'll always think of him as a Dick -- and I last met, it was at the Cosmos Club in Washington, a place where only the elite are allowed to meet. We sat in front of a roaring fire, sipping Hennesey Pierre Richard and smoking...well, yes, Cuban cigars.

"Dick," I finally said. "How can you bear it?"

He smiled that Dick Cheney smile at me. "It's for my country. Only for my country."

I admit it, I'm man enough. I was overcome and choked up. When the waiter Heimliched the olive out of my throat, I was able to speak again.

"What are you doing, putting an olive in the world's finest cognac?" I demanded.

"Nghsr ptmnsq rwtbxvc," said the waiter.

Dick, fluent in Lithuanian, translated, "He said a thousand pardons, son of a camel's hump."

"Is that good?" I asked.

"You're not going to get anything better out of a Lithuanian," he said.

But back to our story.

In the next issue of Time Magazine (Motto: No Matter How Pathetic We Are, We're Still Better than Newsweek,) you will read an interview with our Vice President. I for one, find myself in the category of so many Americans who've gone before me, in saying, "Climb down, asshole, you're blowing the whole megillah." 

Time: Mr. Vice President, if you had to take back any one thing you'd said about Iraq, what would it be?

Cheney: I expressed the sentiment some time ago that I thought we were over the hump in terms of violence. I think that was premature. I thought the elections would have created that environment. And it hasn't happened yet.

Okay, honesty from a politician. This is a good thing. This is the kind of good thing that makes Americans stand tall and proud and erect.

So why then, on Wednesday of this week -- a mere two days ago -- talking to Rush Limbaugh did our Vice President say, "This government has only been in office about five months, five or six months now. They're off to a good start. It is difficult, no question about it, but we've now got over 300,000 Iraqis trained and equipped as part of their security forces. They've had three national elections with higher turnout than we have here in the United States. If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well."

Remarkably well.  I suppose it all depends on what your definition of well is.  How does the Associated Press characterize well?

"The U.S. military acknowledged Thursday that its two-month drive to crush insurgent and militia violence in the Iraqi capital had fallen short, calling the raging bloodshed disheartening and saying it was rethinking its strategy to rein in gunmen, torturers and bombers. The admission by military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell came as car bombs, mortar fire and shootings around the country killed at least 66 people and wounded 175. The month is on course to be the deadliest for U.S. forces in nearly two years."

Old General Caldwell was calm in his assessment that we just haven't accomplished what we'd have hoped to at this point, given that attacks in Baghdad had increased by 22 percent just in the first three weeks of RamadamadingDong, the holiest month of the Islamic year.

Let's be fair. That interview with Time could have taken place years ago. Those sleeze-ball mainstream media and their soulless hearts.  So what was he talking about with Rush (No More Pills For Me Thanks) Limbaugh? "If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well."

According to the AP in a story released today, "The U.S. military acknowledged Thursday that its two-month drive to crush insurgent and militia violence in the Iraqi capital had fallen short, calling the raging bloodshed disheartening and saying it was rethinking its strategy to rein in gunmen, torturers and bombers." Rethinking its strategy to rein in gunmen, torturers and bombers?

The New York Times was, as one would expect, somewhat more circumspect.  "The American military’s stepped-up campaign to staunch unrelenting bloodshed in the capital under an ambitious new security plan that was unveiled in August has failed to reduce the violence."  Dick, Richard, Ricky, mon ami, what the fuck are you doing there?

There's talk of allowing a military coup to bring some order and stability to the region (I can't source this because my source told me he'd cut off my manhood if I did, but he got it on good authority from a high-level military-type person also at the Cosmos Club.)

As if that wasn't bad enough, the liberal flunky stooge newspaper, The Washington Post, reported today that the Iraqi militias were splintering into radicalized cells.  Now Sunnis won't talk to Sunnis, and Shias will ignore Shias.  Only the Shunis will survive.  In place of broad-based Sunni or Shia militias, we've got South American style hit squads in it for a piece of the action, although how many pieces of Baghdad can be left is a mystery.

But my dear, dear fried Richard maintains that we are making progress.  How to tell him...how to break the news that...excuse me while I wipe away tears -- "you morons blew the easiest war since Reagan attacked the Cuban custodians in Guatemala...or Puerto Rico...or San Salvador...or wherever the hell he sent Clint Eastwood."

And so one is forced, tears welling up and overflowing, to acknowledge that the Great Cheney has been felled by the same disease that took our great Reagan from us.  Irreversible, untreatable, incomprehensible stupidity.

Technorati Tags: Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Iraq
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Dim Bulbs in the Bush Administration--Parody Is Certainly Dead

O.k., there's a bunch of 20-watt bulbs sitting around a room somewhere in the D.C. area. One suddenly flickers and shouts out, "Holy Mother of All the Saints Above, will yer look at t'is. We're giving away the fuckin' store."

He, she, or it was waving a piece of unclassified material that detailed the numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.  But that wasn't the worst of it.  We'd already given the information the information the Russkies.  Wham!  Reclassified.

Ah, you're no doubt thinking, "this is just a few dim bulbs amidst the brilliant light of the Bush administration."  Wrong.  According to a new report by the National Security Archives, a George Washington University nonprofit research group, our very own Pentagon is busy classifying material that had never been classified before.  And the newly bulked-up and ready-to-take-on-all-terrorists CIA, aided and abetted by the Airforce, has been removing thousands of publicly available records from library shelves.

How bizarre is this?  Nixon Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, in an open 1971 appearance before Congress, revealed "that the United States had 30 strategic bomber squadrons, 54 Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles and 1,000 Minuteman missiles."  That information is now classified.  I have now broken federal law by revealing classified information.  This may be my last post--every--unless they have internet access in jail.

This would be like Barney Frank trying to go back into the closet.  Are these people idiots?  Once it's public and published, you can't make it secret again unless--hey wait a minute--unless you're about to pull a 1984 on the American people.  Nah, conspiracy theories depend on coordinated, intelligent people acting together.  That knocks out the Bush administration.

It's gets sillier.  In 1964, Defense Secretary Mevlin Laird sent to President Johnson on our military preparedness, including the number of U.S. and Soviet ballistic missiles and heavy bombers both sides were expect to have by 1970.  It was declassified.  And why not--the information is over 40 years old and anyone who cares has already seen it.  Yet if you get a copy of the report now, American numbers are blacked out--but not the Soviet's.

William Burr, who wrote the National Security Archives report said, in effect, that you'd have a hard time finding more "dramatic examples of unjustifiable secrecy."  The horses are out of the barn, the barn's burned down, and we're trying to get them to reenter the smoldering ruins.

It just isn't fair.  How can we satirists and parodists (I know, it's not a word but style trumps accuracy sometimes) write satire and parody when the Bush Administration's actions are more bizarre than anything we could come up with.

Technorati Tags: Bush administration, secrets, clasiffying public documents
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I Be The King, Ring a' Ding Ding

It's gotta be great to be president of these here United States of America. I mean, we're talking better than great, maybe even to the ranks of bodacious.  You gotta be a real nutcase, ala Richard "I am not a crook, I'm a thief" Nixon to get into trouble.  Other than that, it's clear sailing in every direction.

For example, let's ask us a hypothetical question: Why would anyone, already up to his ass in one war (say, rhymes with Pakistan but with more syllables), pull his troops out before the war was won to attack another country (rhymes with the wrack) that had nothing to do with the first war?

Answer: Because I can, motherfucker.

Whoa.  Is that a good answer, or what.  But remember, ain't many people in the world who can use that answer and not get laughed off the chopping block into the waiting arms of an outraged public.  You gotta be...(trumpet fanfare)...the president.

Here'a another good hypo-type-thetical question:  Say you've got this guy who's in charge of all your defense...soup to nuts, although these days, how many people actually serve nuts at the end of a meal, really?  Anyway, you say war, he says fine.  And off you go.  Arms wave.  His generals say, "yo, Mr. Defense Guy, we ain't got enough troops, we ain't got the right armor, we ain't got no plan for what happens if we win."

And Mr Defense Guy says, "yo, like I care.  Go talk to the president."

So we does.  We makes a bodacious contribution to the campaign to Keep Me President For Life (KMPFL...not a very artful acronym, but, what the hell, cut 'im some slack,) and we gets ourselves an interview.

Me:  (I'm anonymous in this...can't afford to get my ass noticed by the NSA, you know?) Mr. President, sir, how come you didn't listen to the generals when they told you all that shit about not being ready?

Mr. President, Sir:  Because I can, motherfucker.

Me:  O.k.  That's gotta be one cool feeling, you know, to be able to ignore anyone and everyone's advice but your own.

Mr. President, Sir:  You one dumb Eastern intellectual snob asshole liberal, aren't you?

Me:  Well, I wouldn't have put it quite in those terms, sir, but, well, yes.

Mr. President, Sir:  I gotta listen to God, you turkey baster.  I listen.  God tells me what to do.  I does it.  Faster than shit through a goose.

Me:  God told you to attack Iraq, hypothetically speaking, of course?

Mr. President, Sir:  [Laughing] Man, is you dumb or what?  You gotta know how to read between the lines.  God works in strange ways, so I figure, hey, wanna be like my Lord, so I act in strange ways.

Me:  Sir, what about all that stuff about contracts going to people who gave you contributions?

Mr. President, Sir: Like I should give contracts to people who didn't give me contributions, shit for brains? 

Me:  But a lot of them weren't qualified.

Mr. President, Sir: Oh, and who you gonna believe about qualifications.  Some group of dusty academicians or Your Lord God who ruleth the universe?

I mean, I could go on, but the point is that the man -- or should that be The Man? -- has an answer for everything.  And it's the same answer.  And it always works.

This is why I gotta run for president.  When I announced it before, the response was, how shall we put it, less than enthusiastic, but my wife ain't leaving and my mother's talking to me again, so that's cool.  I gotta find a smarter way to become the candidate.  Or better, yet, just bypass all that stupid candidate shit and just become president.

Know the best part?  You kin have anything.

Want Chinese for dinner.  Fuck it, don't have to call for carry out, just have them cute but brawny chicks lift you into your chair and carry you out to your car, where some dudes drive you the best Chinese place in town...which, kiss my butt, has been denuded of all patrons.  The joint's mine for as long as I like.  If I want to spend the night to have some dim sum in the morning, I just hollar out for a bed, and it's all right there.

And the windows on the car are real dark, which is important because if it's one thing that puts me off my feed, it's them goddamn homeless, welfare-robbing, snake-charming, beggars--hey, babe, out a sight, out a mind.

Or lets say you want to be entertained by Willie Nelson backed up by the Barbi Twins.  Man, you don't even need to lift the phone.  You just turn and say, bring me Willie and them Barbi Twins.  Goddamn, a couple of hours later...well, this being a family site and all, you'll just have to use your imagination.

Oh...to be president.  And you can't get in trouble. 

Lie to the American people?  Because I can, motherfucker.

Ignore the laws passed by Congress.  Because I can, motherfucker.

Ignore international law.  Because I want to, motherfucker.

I just wish I'd know all this earlier.  I'd a lived a different life so, one day, I could be, dare I say, the most bodacious president this United States of America ever did see.

And that's the truth.

Technorati Tags: President, U.S., satire, humor, power
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Hulk Hogan Against Animal Violence? When Will They Ever Learn?

It's a mystery concealed inside an enigma.  Perfectly legitimate organizations, groups who do good stuff to help lots of...things...people, animals, plants, plankton, Lithuanian refugees...want to get publicity for their cause.  And they should.  You wouldn't believe what Lithuanian refugees go through, but that's something protected under the "Better Not Blab Or We'll Throw Your Ass In A Hidden CIA Prison" Act of 2003, so I can't talk about it. 

Take dog fighting.  How sick is getting off on putting two dogs in a ring and letting them tear each other to shreds?  These are people without enough genetic diversity in their backgrounds.  Perhaps no genetic diversity at all.  Maybe they spring from odd plants grown in secret underground government laboratories.  But I can't talk about that.

Or cock fighting.  First of all, Bubba, change the name if you want to be taken seriously.  Second, it's as sick as dog fighting.  Read Roots.  The stuff the trainers do to the...roosters...when they get whacked by another...rooster...is, well, just gag me with a stick.

So, The Humane Society of the United States wants to toughen laws against this behavior.  O.k., cool.  I'm with you.  Especially the cock fighting.  That cracks me up.  I mean, that's just terrible.

Who you gonna call?  Imagine the Board of the Humane Society sitting around trying to decide who's going to be their spokesperson.

"Well, we could get Bridget Bardot," says one octogenarian.

"She's too old," mutters another.

"Who is she?" asks one young whippersnapper.

"How about the Barbi Twins?" asks a young dude with slicked-back, black hair, an earring and a nose stud.

"Cool," responds a young woman with a rather prominent...endowment.

"No good," says the Chairperson, "they're working with Willie Nelson on that horse eating issue."

"Whoa," says another, "haven't you heard about Willie Nelson--busted."

"Huh?" from the Chairperson.

"Yeah, September 18th, Willie and his band were pulled over in Louisiana, and the fuzz found a pound and a half of marijuana and some magic mushrooms on his bus.  Got off with a misdemeanor."

"What?" yelled the slicked-back hair dude.  "I got 6 months for one joint."

"Doesn't matter.  Serves the Society for Animal Protective Legislation right for getting a bunch of has beens and never weres to be their spokespeople," said the Chairperson.  "We need someone with gravitas."

They made their decision.  It took a long time.  Then they pulled in the PR help.  Blogcritics got an advanced e-mail news release, as did 2,345,235 others before they release it publicly Thursday, September 21st.

Who you gonna call?  (Would I lie about this?)  Hulk Hogan!  Hulk Hogan?  He can talk, which gives him an advantage over the Barbie Twins -- or it may be that no one listens when they do talk, so they had him do a (excuse me, I have to fall on th