2004-A Backup of the Memory's Septic System
Here it is. Yet another pallid retrospective of the previous year. The points highlighted in this piece are the sole discretion of the author. Blatant omissions will be obvious, but their inherent blatancy makes them the prime candidates for omission--as they are already riding shotgun in our collective memories. Others are included because I had something funny to say about it--and for no other reason.
The omission of the recent 8.9 magnitude quake and subsequent tsunamis are part and parcel of the bromidic notions that "recency precludes the humorous." In other words, there's nothing funny down that road . . .
2004 IN REVIEW
January
9th—The Department of Defense gives Saddam Hussein official, “Prisoner-of-War” status, allowing him access to Red Cross attendance. Unofficial sources say the list of perks include cable television, X-Box tournaments against Kurdish villagers, and conjugal visits with CBS news executives.
11th—Former Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill goes on 60 Minutes to decry The Iraq war as a long planned vendetta against Saddam Hussein, and that the President had planned the war from the earliest days of his presidency. He did not elaborate as to why it took him three years to blow such an urgent whistle, however.
13th—President George Bush reverses an earlier stance banning Canada’s participation in the bid process for Iraq reconstruction, at a conference of western leaders. Canadian higher ups noted that the French adroitness for carrying white flags has perfectly suited them for road-crew service.
16th— #1 ranked white female pop singer, Michael Jackson, pleads not guilty to lewd acts with children, and looking horrifically similar to Diana Ross.
February
4th—Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admits to selling sensitive nuclear technology to such benign entities as North Korea, Iran, and Libya.
5th— President Musharraf Pardons Khan.
6th—Khan admits giving insider information to Martha Stewart—is executed without trial.
President Bush calls for the creation of an incompetent, clandestine intelligence gathering agency to investigate the other incompetent, clandestine intelligence-gathering agencies.
22nd—Ralph Nader announces his candidacy for President of the United States. Warns Americans about the hazards of helicopter ejection seats.
23rd—United Nations General Secretary, Kofi Annan, states that elections in Iraq are possible by years end, buy decries the “sad and unnecessary ethnic tensions” peppering the region. Calls for elimination of Jews.
March
2nd—170 Shiite Muslims observing ashura in Baghdad and Karbala are killed when their mosques are hit by suicide bombers. Osama Bin Laden issues a new videotape that basically says “No! No! The Koran says kill all NON-MUSLIMS you idiots!!!” Bombers go to hell’s 9th circle, devoid of the usual, afterlife harem of moustached maidens.
On the same day, robot explorer Observer detects signs that water once covered a small crater on Mars. Scientists cite Galilean precedent to say there is no God, and that we are an accident.
24th—Former Counter terrorism official, Richard Clarke, goes on—of all things—60 Minutes to say that Bush’s inner circle failed to heed his warnings of an “imminent attack by Al Queida.” Goes on to predict “earthquakes somewhere,” “murder in the Sudan” and “another movie with Ben Stiller” with frightening, Nostradamus-like accuracy.
April
7th--US announces that two cement-headed, warring tribes of Arabs—the Sunnis and the Shiites—can be unified; we just need to provide more Americans for them to kill.
13th—Heretofore mentioned Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan (who gave nuclear secrets to North Korea) announces gravely that the North Koreans now have a nuclear bomb. Registers his outrage with this “blatant and flagrant misuse of stolen technology.”
14th Osama Bin Laden releases an audio tape, which offers Europe immunity to “all nations who withdraw their troops from Muslim nations.” France sends troops to Iraq so that they can be seen actively following this directive by withdrawing them.
30th—Pictures surface on 60 Minutes II showing the graphic and disturbing non-beheading, non-electrocuting, and non starving of Iraqi prisoners of war by American soldiers, in the name of “getting all the facts to the American people.”
May
5th—Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe sells for 104.1 Million at a Sotheby’s auction—reportedly acquired by Buyer with a Crack Pipe.
8th—60 Minutes II doesn’t show the graphic decapitation of Nicholas Berg, an American businessman, by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, in the name of “needing to parse facts that are too pungent for the American olfactory system.”
18th—Department of Histrionic Showboating 9/11 Commission harshly criticizes New York’s infrastructure as incompetent and riddles with communication problems between fire and police departments. Respective chiefs for each department state that most communication problems stemmed from the fact that 1/3 of their infrastructure was buried under 6 million tons of other infrastructure.
June
1st—UN peacekeepers arrive in Haiti to provide targets for rebels.
3rd—CIA Director, George Tenet unexpectedly announces his resignation. Richard Clarke accuses Tenet of being “completely unaware” of his own imminent resignation, and that all attempts by him to warn Tenet that he intends to resign were brushed aside.
5th—Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, succumbs to Alzheimer’s at age 93. His death is also credited for provoking a small, religious insurgency amongst the left, as they profess a sudden, unexplainable belief in the existence of hell on talk shows and Internet chat rooms.
22nd—Bill Clinton’s book, My Life, sells 500,000 copies on its first day. Costco displaces its entire inventory to carry it. Satellite imagery shows visible deforestation of the planet to maintain printing schedule.
July
1st--Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein and 11 codefendants are arraigned in court on charges of crimes against humanity. Break dances on top of limo for fans. Dan Rather attempts to touch hem of garment.
6th—Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, selects John Edwards’ Hair to be his Vice-presidential running-mate.
9th—The International Court of Justice rules that a West Bank fence in Israel illegally impedes the infiltration of Palestinian suicide bombers into Jerusalem.
14th—In a vote of 50-48, the Senate defeats an attempt to install a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle, said that the vote was more “chronological, than ideological,” as floor debate would conflict with Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Franks’ bridal shower.
21st—Cosmologist, Dr. Stephen Hawking reverses an earlier opinion stating that no information can be retrieved from black holes, after the Hubble space telescope photographs a Starbucks under construction inside of one.
August
12th—The California Supreme Court annuls 4,000 gay marriages performed in February and March. Bed Bath & Beyond stock plummets to subterranean levels in the wake of high gift returns.
16th—George Bush announces plans to deploy troops in the battle against high cholesterol.
20th—Salty-dog war hero and swift-boat legend, John Kerry, tells the federal Election Commission that George Bush is hitting.
September
8th—CBS News’ Dan Rather breathlessly reports that some guy gave him photocopies of second generation documents stating that President Bush got “special treatment” in the National Guard. Thirty seconds later, the blogosphere exposes them as forgeries.
16th—Weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer releases a report stating that “he couldn’t find anything laying around iraq that looked like WMD’s” Admits that he forgotten the couch cushions, and that “we looked everywhere the terrorists said to look.”
20th—President Bush eases trade embargoes against Libya, allowing for Khaddafi’s men to load explosives on American liners with far less red tape, and with virtually no holdovers.
Dan Rather admits he “cannot prove the authenticity” of the documents, but that he stands by everything the documents say.
October
1st—Mt. St. Helens violates federal emissions limits—again.
4th—Paul Bremer, former Iraq Administrator, says that President Bush failed to send enough troops to Iraq. Richard Clarke stresses that his warnings of “an imminent threat of not sending enough troops” were brushed aside by administration officials. Predicts that president Kennedy will be shot when he goes to Dallas.
25th—The New York Times, in conjunction with CBS News, announces that 380 tons of explosives that “never existed” are now missing from the Al Qaqaa military installation, furthermore cementing fears that “non-explosions” and “non-casualties” will be the result of this slip-up.
November
3rd—President George W. Bush is handily re-elected. Michael Moore develops a high pressure weather system along his waistline, 10 degrees above the navel. John Kerry rips his shirt and cries “Stella!”
4th—Palestinian leader and child killing terrorist, Yassir Arafat slips into a coma. For once the American media reports good news.
11th—Arafat assumes bunker temperature—becomes leader of the “afterlife PLO” (Please Let me Out!)
December
1st—Jailed Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti states that he will run for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, just as “soon as I break out of this joint.” Blows up things to emphasize gravitas and passion.
7th—Harmid Karzai is inaugurated as Afghanistan’s first popularly-elected president. Shocks rest of Arab world by not having the opposition’s throat slit in the inaugural arena.
25th—The world exchanges gifts in fashions reminiscent of the magi’s gold, frankincense and myrrh, speaks of peace on earth, forgiveness and redemption, and gives all the glory to an omniscient entity who knows your sleep patterns, and social morays, and therefore behavior should be dictated accordingly.
And others celebrate Jesus’ birth. Jesus, of course, bearing the burden of actual omnipresence and having substantially lower triglycerides than Santa Claus.
"Xmas" To Be Changed to "XX."
One thing is for sure about the last electoral season. It may not have emboldened any
Republicans in the Congress,
but it sure has put previously conciliatory people like Julie West into a fighting posture. Atheism has spent enough time acting like the anti-God, drape-peeking Gladis Kravitz that it is, that it went off and got itself thought of as its own solitary religion--complete with its own sacraments. And one must at least admire those that congregate, move and shake to the doctrine of actively
not believing in something.
And while the atheists have yet to produce their anti-Pentateuch, complete with a set of "10 Demandments," it does seem that
stealing makes not the list of taboos, as illustrated in their glad handling of Peter Cottontail, Kris Kringle, and Lucifer the Prince of Darkness--all of who are responsible for squatting in the back alleys of Christian Holidays.
Until now, the passive and silent have watched as the
only meaning of Christmas--Jesus Christ--has had his birthday outsourced to a bloated northerner who lies about the whole "naughty and nice list" thing. Methinks that list bit was a condescending attempt to placate the shocked and outraged, since it distantly rings a hollow parallel to a "sheep and goats" rendering.
And how obviatingly hateful can you be, by using "Xmas?" Just walk right up and cross out his name. Sure, nobody's gonna object to that. Oh? Just for shorthand convenience you say? Oh oh, sure I buy that--"Happy Holidays" is so much less ergonomically deleterious to the median nerve tunnel than "Merry Christmas."
My mind wanders to a certain public school employment scenario, in which my supervisor was giving us a safety briefing right before "Spring Break."(read Easter). She accidentally said "Easter", then made a painful gesture of falling on her rhetorical sword over the matter. I mentioned that the
apology was more out of place than her Freudian attempt to proseletize a room full of bus drivers. She asked me to curtail my commentary. I didn't.
"Wow, it's a good thing that resurrection happened, so we could have a week off to deny it. And remember, let's keep "Satan" in Halloween."
One must notice the startling contrast with regards to Halloween. The only consternation on the part of atheists during the season of Black Masses
(Please, no email from Wiccans or Druids, and to the satanists: I know, Walpurgisnacht is your true, big blowout. It's quiet time for you and I can't possibly be funny with all your technical rangling about "when human sacrifice is actually warranted" and "The origin of Baphomet" and such), eviscerated palettes, and a ban on black cat sales--is whether or not churches are going to pick up the "haunted house" theme for the purpose of teaching somebody the rules of consequence.
So here's the run down.
- A visual assault on the seventh-grade alumni dressed up like Beelzebub complete with fly-ridden, latex animal-carcass = not a religious statement at school.
- Arriving to campus with a mocked-up "Satan attempts to convince Jesus to make bread from a nearby rock" matching set = The Inquisition(Constitutional crisis.)
You figure it out. Because I can't.
Yet More French Pass Through The Gate Called "Grateful"
That fine, fat existential friend of the "Anything but Jesus" crowd was
mugged by teenagers in Southern France. Quoth the BBC Online:
The man dressed as Santa Claus was handing out sweets in the
southern town of Ales when things turned nasty.
One of the teenagers demanded extra sweets and, when the red-
cloaked Santa refused, he and his friends started kicking and pummelling the man.
Somebody must've told them that Kris Kringle is and American capitalist, with vertically challenged slave labor, consigned to the Bumpass Hell of a sub-zero sweat shop.
Either that, or they know that Santa won't fight back . . . a sore bit of nostalgia for even the youngest of Gauls . . .
Word has it that they will recieve soap in their stocking for this outrage. . .
Another Blogrolled Silo of Genius
These guys need no promotion from me, since their readership is a testament to the meteoric possibilities of the Blogosphere. But
Scrappleface has picked up where The
Onion left off--primarily where those of us who loved The Onion
before have been put off by an increasingly bitter thread of previously unexpressed partisanship--not to mention their knawing, calculated blasphemies masquerading as humor.
Case in point: The media frenzy around Donald Rumsfeld is lampooned beautifully
with this headline. Be sure to check them out; they know what they're doing.
Put A Helmet In Your Christmas Stocking
Those who've trolled my diminutive blogroll will notice that I've linked to a new blog belonging to a comedian named Brad Stine. Brad falls directly into the category of conservative Christian comedian--in fact, instead of waiting for other media types to try to use the label as a pejorative, he's appropriated the title directly on
his website, as well as on his latest DVD/CD offering,
A Conservative Unleashed. His first release,
Put A Helmet On(his colloquial way of saying "quit being a poltically correct weakling") is exeedingly funny, and has met with resounding success.
Mr. Stine is currently on tour with the Promise Keepers. Christian Comedy met with some indifferent crossroads over the years, as the theoretical scepter was held for years by one "ex-satanist high priest,"
Mike Warnke. His lucid, and sometimes dark testimony was a majority of the public impetus to promote him. warnke maintained this stratospheric position--right up until
Satan held a press conference and said he'd never met the guy.
Today, Christian comedy's most recognizable face is
Mark Lowry, a very funny man with many talents(Ever heard the song
Mary Did You Know? Look at it's authorship the next time you see the sheet music.). Lowry's style is a mix of the self-depricating analyst to the slapstick and goofy. Mike Warnke's style was certain mixes of the same, with serious overtones taking over as the show progressed.
Stine has ventured into new, and sometimes irreverent territory. Imagine Dennis Leary with a touch of Dennis Miller, along with an unabashed conservative platform, and you've got Brad Stine. Stine admits that he breaks many of the conventions typially associated with Christian comedy, but that's fine by him.
Brad's Blog and message board provide a unique opportunity to interact with a very, in-demand act.
His inaugural blog discusses how a simple joke about the stereotypical nature of people, to think that when a funny man comes to church, he
must have a puppet in tow. But the grief came
not from people who've denied having these lazy and myopic assumptions, but from the
puppet people themselves, who misinterpreted the line as a dig at ventriloquists. Brad deals with this very deftly, and in a very funny manner to boot.
I've Found Allah
While trudging through an astonishingly huge blogospheric desert, one can meander for miles with no sign of water(and perhaps
this blog qualifies for a little more than an existential palm tree and shimmering bit of rising heat that results in a mouthful of sand), however The guys from
Allah is in the House may qualify for something genuinely substantive, funny, and
blatantly disrespectful to those tenderfooted crazies that hijacked our jets . . .
They're a bit blue in the language depatment, but to the blogroll they go.
The Whore To Whom Money Is Secondary: Hollywood
It takes not a MENSA candidate to realize that the DVD/video industry makes literal millions, every time a family-friendly, rated PG or better movie hits the theatres. They certainly have to have noticed the incredible cash cow that was
Finding Nemo. Ditto for
The Incredibles. The immense clamoring for the clean cut is obvious as the travail of a woman in labor. Those with little girls will understand this to exponential levels--as manifested by their fruitless searching for a
Princess Diaries II needle in a haystack of
Gigli Does Dallas and
Cruel Intentions MXXLIV
So just what exactly is the doctrinal provision that says "when the time comes for the proliferation of movies to the rental stores, we must ship and stock clean movies at a ratio of 2/150?" One must certainly come to the conclusion that
politics trumps even the whoremongering bottom line for these people.
Else I would not--have to go to the service counter and put my name on a waiting list for any one of the thirteen copies of
Princess Diaries II--since the market would easily bear a 100-copy sellout. But no, not only do I feel like some vagrant, nostalgic hippie outside a
Ticketmaster during Ozzfest, but I have to wrestle this self image while standing in the shadow of a
completely untouched, digital behemoth of
Fahrenheit 911. Fronted, aligned, six movies deep, seven across, and stacked from floor to ceiling. So not only do I have to grapple with explaining the plaid complexities of supply and demand to some goateed goof at
Hollywood video, but I also have to contend with Michael Moore's fat visage presiding over the matter from his gargantuan wall of wasted vinyl.
And while I'm at it, I think we'll plow another stake through the heart of that bibliophilic Nosferatu that is
Barnes & Noble. It must've been just too much that Ronald Reagan found a way to simultaneously conjure a conservative nostalgia, in an election year, right before D-Day's 60th anniversary, by doing what liberals wished he would do: by
dying. Even at his most compromised, Ronnie knew how to stick it to them. And God bless him for it.
So my local
Barnes & Noble does what any book purveyor would do when President Reagan's passing was announced: They built a biographical shrine to
Bill and Hillary Clinton, along with thirty-five other condescending monographs on why the West is bad and how our problems would evaporate if we would only suck up to Islam. Right at the front entrance, of all places. The Reagan biographies were never placed in the "current" islands near the front, as is their want in every other issue of topical importance, just salted away in obscure corners, left to the ignominy they want it to attain.
General Tommy Franks' book,
American Soldier, was literally turned, face in.
George W. Bush would later do the same to John Kerry . . .
And maybe someday, the consumer will do it to
Hollywood, and their ugly, retarded cousins at
Barnes & Noble.
Negotiating the Technical Labyrinth
I have to apologize right out of the gate, to those of you who have taken the time to post comments. I
deleted them with one wayward click of the mouse.
My amateurish attempts to make this blog something viable outside the perview of my friends, has had me rooting around the catacombs of my own html template language with a crescent wrench. Somewhere between the
Blogsnob advertisements and uploading the ability to view "trackbacks" I erased something irretrievable. I also managed to reformat my neighbor's hardrive, drop a salmon steak into the dog's dish, and lauch an ICBM on Montreal--all with one schitzophrenic slap at the keyboard.
Oh, and I also had to replace my counter with another one. Anyone new to this site should be duly impressed with the fact that the counter codes allow one to start at
any number desired, and I have thus eschewed the temptation to prime the pumps with a phantom readership constituency of 12,000. I may be
burgeois in my self image, but remain proletarian in my
presentation.
Yes Virginia, There is No God
Okay. That's a bit raw. But I have to wonder about the pathological bent of people who feel the need to engage in the drive-by-elucidation. No, I didn't teach my kids there was a Santa Claus
ipso facto there is no emotional letdown to follow in the wake of such innocently passed myths. But for pete's sake. You have no idea the state of another child--emotional or otherwise. Perhaps believing in Santa is the best hope they've got--until God reveals himself to them.
And the first email I get telling me that "Santa" is an anagram for "Satan" gets spammed for the rest of their life. . .
But would a newspaper editor of today do what was done so many years ago, by appropriating the very title that I've so blatantly slaughtered for cheap headline fodder? I doubt it. I would post the original article here, but Walter over at
Truth, Lies & Common Sense has done it so well.
Sometimes the truth is best delayed until
after childhood's magic so quickly fades . . .
Mr. Therapist Seeks Immediate Gratification
While my prolific writing belies a young blog, I already find myself perched at the corner of Curious and Bemused. The structural nature of this free blog thing makes:
- Comments a real pain to post.
- Hate mail one-too-many clicks from convenient
Because of this, I am soliciting emails from all who read this. All I am looking for is a core temperature, by asking you to click here, and send me a simple return email. Just type the word "core" in the subject line, and fire away.
I just installed the visit counter the other day, and am excited at what I see.
And by the way, if you want to actually write more than that, please do. Even if you hate what I am doing, I'd appreciate (and really . . . cherish) it.
Ripping Defeat Out of Victory's Jaws--Why Trent Lott Needs An Estrogen Reduction
Mississippi Senator Trent Lott is not far behind the "
Surrender Uber Alles" commonwealth of Euroweenies. Taking an almost Pavlovian cue from shell-shocked knasher-of-teeth, John McCain, Mr. Lott is throwing his surprising and
awe-inspiring dissent into the Rumsfeld Pugilistic Confab.
This is why he, along with Senator Arlen Specter(R-Pennsylvania, and purveyor of the "Scottish Law" defence when not voting to impeach Bill Clinton) need to be tossed into the same metaphorical shredder they've been shoving the Tree of Liberty into for their entire careers. Every time I even think of those two dullards, I see men who cannot, for any reason, come to grips with the fact that
their party has actually been in charge of the senate for the first time in forty years. And it's been ten years since that happened.
So what does Mr. Lott do when given the scepter of authority over the Senate? He gives the Democrats equal committe sharing authority as an "olive branch." Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy laughs, at yet another passenger yelling "shotgun" as he prepares to hit the road. The Democrats would have never done such a thing. When they're in charge, they
know it. And unfortunately, they
act on it.
So Troubador Trent heads out to a
celebration of the life and career of Sen. Strom Thurmond, and has the audacity to praise the life of the former segregationist. Now, Mr. Lott's simple and extemporaneous praise for Mr. Thurmond at an event
specifically designed to do so is appropriated by the Democrats to mean "You showed them niggers back in the day, hoss." A media firestorm erupts, in which Mr. Lott, an erstwhile silo of testoserone, goes out and apologizes, again, and again, and again. Not good enough for the Most Tolerant Party on the Face of the Planet. They demanded that Lott resign his committee chaimanships, and pass his party leadership to some other, banal, nondescript eunuch.
Lott resigned, but not before apologizing yet again. never bothered to get into parsing what he actually said.
Yes, Mr. Thurmond was a hard-core segregationist. Yes, he opposed civil rights legislation. Yes, he did what he could to prevent the black man from integrating into white schools. I have a news flash for you.
He was also a
Democrat when he committed these sins. Oddly enough it was somewhat commencorate with
switching to the Republican party, that he also renounced his own past.
Lott could've fought the
posse comitatus waiting outside his office, and said exactly what I've written. Instead he wilted like an anorexic vegetarian with Osteoperosis. And breathes life, yet again into the anecdotal legacy of the
Pansius Maximus:
Why did Napolean plant trees along the Boulevards in France?
So the Germans could march in the shade.
.
Yes, we should listen to old Trent. He not only recognizes
when the fat lady sings, but will sometimes don the wig and drag necessary to do
it himself.
. . . And then Satan Entered Into Him.
It has always seemed that Arizona Senator John McCain has vascillated between the poles of erudite ruffian and shell-shocked, retarded pundit. One can't possibly over-deride a guy who spent a good spell in the Hanoi Hilton, but one can at at least thank God he behaved himself at the Republican National Convention. That whole "disingenuous filmmaker" line was precious--even if it was accidentally supportive of Bush.
But let a possible candidacy enter the equation, and McCain turns into some Mephistopholean pea-soup pump--complete with a full and uninhibited cranial 360. But, as has been stated already, one must weigh the criticisms here against the immeasurable traumas delivered by one too many needles hammered up ones cuticles in Vietnam. That Thousand Yard Stare's gotta count for something.
McCain is notorious for criticising his own--right when things are heating up for those actually behind the eight-ball. The latest is to
press his "no-confidence " feelings toward Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. This, for all points and purposes, isn't necessarily an illegitimate argument--on it's own.
But McCain is trolling for a 2008 presidential run, and while this kind of posturing gets you immediate and nearly suffocating media attention(as does all Republican dissent), but it also comes perilously close to further exposing the fact that McCain is also a part-time moron. The two biggest issues, the two low-flying, giant albatrosses of burden, the duo of cumbersome, millstones of national importance to the man's missionary-like soul are:
1) Campaign Finance Reform
2) Steroids in Major League Baseball
Anyone remember when McCain was on news shows, riding the cusp of tears, saying he would "fight until his last breath" to pass the needed legislation to end soft money? Whew. I was scared that he might want to attack
soft foreign policy for a minute, there. He did it by the way--I mean he
did pass legislation. And McCain/Feingold legislation brought us the 527--in other words--those wanting to criticize either John Kerry or George W. Bush had to go out and fill out a triplicate governmental form, requesting interview with authorities unknown, hoping to avail to themselves a First Amendment--made previously available by Founding Fathers who could not have anticipated the brillance of "those who are afar off," like John McCain. Nope. The human cerebellum was but a withered piece of beef jerky, back in Jefferson's day.
Then there's the issue of Steroids. The press is going mental with
the idea that drug-testing in professional sports is the hot-button issue of kings. And John McCain is gleefully accepting the accolades of brilliance from the same people who just knew that John Kerry would carry Excalibur right through the electoral gate as well. Good for him. He needs to burn out on an early re-entry at this point. Yes, we're all behind your passions, John. Now get into that metaphorical pine-box and go to sleep.
"Elect me, and Barry Bonds will have to pee into a mason jar at home plate."
"McCain For president--because my distended jowls are God-given."
You go for it senator. Go ahead and believe that the press loves
you instead of your
dissent. Between you, and Rudy Guliani's endorsement gaffe for Homeland Security Director, Hillary Clinton's got to be riding the front end of an Iowa Caucus contact high, while you lock your jaws around the knot of heavy-hemp media rope.
And dangle like the dumb mutt you appear to be.
You Say "Islamophobia" Like it's a Bad Thing
Here it comes . . .
The same contingent that has successfully deemed anyone who disagrees with gay marriage a "Homophobe" is now going to put the thumbscrews to the dictionary with the term "Islamophobia."
Strategic Suggestion
The Homophobic epithet is easily dismissed as ridiculous, once you merely state that there is a yawning chasm between "a frantic, almost paralyzing fear of contact with homosexuals"(where that quirky "phobia" thing enters the fray) and believing that plenty of good, wonderful people can be wrong, sinful, and aberrant in their behavioral choices. I also have common relations with people that are alcoholics, adulterers, and liars. Guess what? I still deal with them on a very friendly basis as well, but here's a news flash--I teach my children that these beahaviors, morays, and beliefs are destructive to their bodies, as well as their soul.
That approach will pretty much end the tirade of the self-righteous leftist babbler--primarily because they will just go and pick the same fight with
someone else, who will cower in fear that they may be thought of in this light. The left can easily make the gays look victimized with this term because the gays
did not hijack the Mary Kay jet and fly it into the Claire's Boutique Distribution Center.
The left are always taking up the sword against the opponent they know will not do the same thing, and defend the side that will most likely hurt them first--either politically or, God forbid (or, big bang eschew), physically. The one exception is where they know that he dangerous contingent they are opposing exists within a societal bubble that will run to their defense and protect them if they become too irritating--in other words, the left will always take to shining a light on some isolated, 25-member pocket of skinheads in Idaho. But bring an entire nation of Nazis to bear, and those jews should just go ahead an
operate their own ovens.
This is why Hollywood Nutjobs like Alec Baldwin go out and act like the Republicans are slave owners. It's easy to be a brave and victorious opponent of slavery, because a Republican ended it over a hundred and fifty years ago. When in reality, if Mr. Baldwin were plying his marginal acting talents in the civil war era, Robin Leach would over at his plantation manor with cameras trolling the Sally Hemmings wing for his next special.
But
Islamophobia,
which apparently has the United Nations worried, is the New Call. My personal response, for the time being, is to
embrace it. Primarily these slogans are created for the purpose of shutting up conservatives(out of fear that their career goals and social standing will be affected) But I would do this:
"Yes that's right I'm an Islamophobe, the same way that I'm a
cancer-aphobe. Call me a reactionary but I'd like my kids to grow up and be virgins, than to blow up and
expect them. And if I have this sudden, uncontrollable urge to oppose Islamic opression than
you get over it. There's just something about the combination of the Koran, and orange jumpsuit, and elongated cutlery that makes me all crazy like that."
By the way, Tom Clancy's novel
The Sum of All Fears, which deals with Islamic Nuts trying to detonate a nuclear device at the Superbowl(oh what a stretch), was picked up in 2002, by a Hollywood producer. They made a few minor changes.
Like to make guess?
They went "Heil!(spit), heil! (spit)", right in
Der Fuerher's face.
Yes Hollywood, that great taker-on of all that is evil, is going to eradicate in 2002 what we already did in the 1940's. Brave brave Hollywood.
Flying Miss Daisy
Morgan Freeman
has managed to get himself grounded from flying this week. This little diatribe will not take Mr. Freeman's flight acumen to task, but one has to wonder. One thing is for sure. Morgan Freeman is the king of breaking down to everyday terms, the confusing, mystifying, and downright mindnumbing morass of aeronautic terms so foreign to the rest of us:
"In every airport they have what you call an approach which is how you're going to get in with step downs - flying technique for lowering altitude."
I know that up until now, I would have thought the act of approaching an airport as a
departure. And the whole "stepping down" bit! Whoo hoo! I would have mindlessly flown straight into the tarmac at a 90 degree angle with a latent airbag prayer. Dopey, dopey me. This stupefyingly adept elucidation of the arcane is not to be outdone by
this illumination--straight from Mt. Olympus:
"So I'm going into Teterboro and I was at 3,000 feet coming down from an altitude of 21,000 feet. I'm looking at the approach plate, which reads what altitude your plane should be at, and it says I should be at 2,000 feet in the air. So I better get down there and I got down to 2,000 feet."
This is almost painful. he should be writing cookbook retrospectives:
"So there is thing little thing called a frying pan, and this is a thing used for frying things. I was looking at the box for the pancake mix and it said to cook the pancakes on medium. So I'm looking right at the gas control knob (which is a knob that controls the gas inflow) and it was on "high", so I hurried up and turned it down to "medium."
All right. I'm done beating up a great actor, along with the reasons great actors should just shut up when they're not acting. Maybe Barbara Stresiand would take a clu . . . wait, never mind.
What was I thinking?
That Honesty Will Kill You Every Time
It seems actor Robert Downey Jr.'s respected self-effacing style is getting him in hot water when he turns that honesty toward someone else. Especially when your target is a spoiled little brat like Elton John.
John, who is gay, went on TV to say so numerous times, has given magazine interviews to make sure that we knew so numerous times, and cannot have his name mentioned in a single pop cultural publication without even a passing reference to his gayness. Fine. We know he's gay. Nobody's trying to string him up over the matter. The country is little concerned about who sleeps with him--or that $50,000 hair weave.
Enter Robert Downey Jr. So he goes up to the dais at the Kennedy Center to present an award to him, an makes a little
joke about him being another first lady.
Oops. It appears that Elton John has been viciously outed as a homosexual in front of the President of the United States. GW's probably on the red phone to Donald Rumsfeld as we speak (remember, no sissies).
Equality has taken a hit. Not in the area of an increase in jokes about the "beleagured" but in the area of the
joked about taking up the gun and riding every time somebody toilet-papers their flower shop with a little teasing. Time to redecorate.
Oh for the days of
Sanford & Son. . . I pine for thee.
More French Competence on Display
Take look at
this news story from ABC News. What do you get when you combine:
- One airport security test.(in France)
- 150 grams of plastic explosive.
- One incompetent bomb-sniffing dog.
- 80 possible planes.
- The same media that covers US operation in Iraq
You get an "inoffensive" incident. "Naw, this stuff, without the proper catalysts, is nothing but 150 grams of hershey's chocolate." Had this been a United States federal safety exercise, it would not have ended there, but been absolutely "explosive" in its life cycle, along with protracted theories of suitcase nukes, Anthrax spores, and phantom Al Queida cells camping out near preschools with their bayonets set to "toddler."
But because it was deemed "inoffensive" by the French, it ends there. Something smells, and I don't mean Jaques Chirac. I mean ABC news and their lack of desire to use the "but this raises more questions than answers" ploy utilized on nealry 100% of stories that might:
- Show a robust economy
- Prove George W. Bush can operate a fighter jet better than a beer bong.
No raised eyebrows. No "what did they know and when did they know it." Just "awww, those goofy French just put 150 grams of C4 on a plane, and couldn't find it."
No big deal. Next thing you know, that zany Kofi Annam will find oil-for-food money in the pocket of an old coat.
Or folded up under an Auchwitz lampshade . . .
