We are A Confederacy of Dunces. That is both a fact and the title of a book for which the author could not find a publisher in his lifetime, hanged himself, his mother subsequently finding a publisher for her son's book. That story is sidelined for now, but you can imagine what I'm going to do with that. If you're a dunce, and you probably are, you best take cover.
For now let's turn our attention to the Head Dunce, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20500.
As corporate deals are usually dealt, that is, with no hope of our understanding them, the latest of these puts the United Arab Emirates (small, unbelievably wealthy Middle Eastern country; I shall not call you a dunce in case you didn't know that.) in charge of six American ports.
Perhaps you have just raised an eyebrow (I find that difficult to do, but it looks great as one realizes that all is not well in Denmark; well, in this case, in America.), assuming that I am referring to some ports around the world that are, by treaty, ours. That would be the logical assumption, because you, unaware of this latest lunacy, think that people would be taking to the streets, if the case were different.
You would be wrong. Not a dunce. Just wrong.
The ports in question are located up and down America's Eastern Seabord. Up and down America's Eastern Seabord. Governors and senators of the states in which these seaports are situated are, of course, apoplectic. Logical unless you are Head Dunce.
The man who is fighting for the right to tap your phones, enter your houses, look under your beds without warrants has assured anyone who questions this latest buffoonery (I'm not laughing you son of a bitch.) that the security at these ports assures our safety.
Let's review: An Arab country, the most logical of places for terrorists to gather, plot, and, then, blow us out of the water, now controls six American seaports along our mainland. Terrorists now have the option of flying into the country or sailing in. The Head Dunce is turning terrorism into a tourist industry. I wonder if Expedia.com has a package deal from the UAE yet.
I will be dead before anyone looks to see if I had anything to say, but this is it: The Confederacy of Dunces, sometimes still known as the USA, gave away another piece of its soul today. And no one noticed. Again.
The best thing I can do for this country is die sooner, rather than later. (And, you pundits who even consider a retort to that shall burn in Hell.)
Just When You Think...
If I have a goal beyond basic decency, it is to avoid the obvious at all costs. That being said, I'm going to try to steer beyond the obvious dirt of shooting people in the heart, sending "best wishes," as the ultimate salve, lying until it is commonplace, and general behavior that raises Manson to sainthood on a sliding scale. By the way, salvo, so close to salve in sound and appearance, means "shooting two guns at once." Now that irony simply cannot be lost.
Well, I'm not going there.
When any of us wants something not to happen, though propriety or guts prevents us from declaring our feelings outright, obstacles begin to arise, seemingly from nowhere. Checks get lost. Cars crash. People even die.
The Bush Administration plays us for fools, which we are most of the time; but, now, obstacles are jumping out of nowhere to prevent the worst they can possibly do, their goals. Guns going off, the White House caught in a new lie every day, unexpected eruptions in Congress.
Among these, lies my one and only hope in the midst of the screwing of America. (Are you ready to run, Jeb?) Yes, more often than not good is at the mercy of evil (It's time for the American people to move on." Say what?), but, hope is not lost. Spend your life in the quest of ultimate power and there's that pesky knife, Caesar. Do the unthinkable and, at the end, kill yourself in a bunker. Use fear and murder to subjugate a people and appear in a hole in the dirt.
So with a little luck I may see the Bushes implode. Evil is - and now the point - its own worst enemy. It feeds upon itself, and that last supper, is, mercifully, one we remember.
Shakespeare. How did he know so damn much? "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
So maybe the best of us will not get a statue in the square. But we will not soon forget you George Bush, Cheney, and those horrible hair-sprayed dames who act as dummies (in every sense of that word). So, you're beginning to gnash your teeth. Dinner will soon be served. Evil the entree.
Well, a boy can dream. And crack a smile.
The Last Day Of Your Life
The NRA gave Dick Cheney a gun. He immediately shot someone with it. Is there anything else to say? Is there any other goddamn thing to say? How long are you going to let these fuckers get away with this. If you do, may you meet them in hell.
Have you ever noticed that when Quentin Tarantino speaks, he says absolutely nothing? His arms are flailing around, there are quasi-words coming out of his mouth, and he makes not one lick of sense. How could this nut have directed a movie and won awards? He's not a talent. He's a goofball. Or a speedball. Well, he's really got balls to open his mouth. And people in Hollywood are so similar that they don't notice that he has everything it takes to be homeless.
I mention this not to be cruel. Not because QT is the subject of the day, but because there is this cruel thing about show business (as if there is one!) that makes real talent, extraordinary talent, timeless talent, doubt itself.
Consider that you are a phenomenal talent and you witness people such as QT being taken seriously in the business. You think, "If he works in this town, then I must be nothing either." It's sad. Marilyn Monroe thought she was nothing, because Zanuck had her under his thumb. L. B. Mayer told Judy Garland that she was just a little "hunchback," and for all of her life, she thought she was a fraud. Lindsay Lohan. Same thing. Doubts herself, because she's watching all the idiots and at the same time her family is trying to keep her in check, so that she can't get away with the money. Meanwhile, she's gagging in the bathroom. May God protect her, if Tarantino ever wants her for a film. But this isn't the subject.
Although it is improbable, I believe that Laura Schlesinger's radio talk show - demented psyches cured in thirty seconds - is syndicated in all major markets in the U.S. Dr. Laura, as she is known to her listeners (now there's something to gag about), cites sailing and sharpshooting as her hobbies. She says this without howling at herself.
And talk about confidence. Taratino is a shrinking violet next to this Sherman tank. One day she was a proud mama taking her kid for his first day at college. Without skipping a beat she bragged that he is in the army. Signed up. Regardless of his one day of higher education, one must assume that someone signing up in 2006 must be volunteering for active duty. So goes the politics at his home.
Schlesinger makes some horrid army grunt every day when she says she is the mother of an idiot who signed up for combat.
What is worse, Dr. Laura (now my shrink is gagging) gives some decent advice, such as, "If you divorce, don't marry again until your kid is 18." Now that could prevent a lot of heartache. So could waiting until marriage before having sex. Certainly handles the question of abortion. (Pretty much.)
But she spends every day bouncing back and forth between psychology and politics. Church and state. She is trained for one, not the other. But like every single person in America who knows nothing about political science, she's ready to weigh in on any and all subjects regarding the Union.
Up to this point she has not been pistol whipped and her son has not been killed in Iraq (and we hope never), but would her politics change, if she were to endure such horrors? Perhaps she would say she is proud of her son, his courage. She may be that crazy (interesting adjective), but I suspect not.
She does a lot of damage by mixing her political views with her Ph.D. Her listeners, by osmosis, fill up with her sick political values. I do believe she loves sharpshooting at the thought of seeing a doctor who performs abortions in her sight.
So we have Laura screwing with our minds and Bush under our beds and the fascist state is complete. Read Elie Wiesel's Night and see what happens when the state becomes the church. As you are reading these few paragraphs, you are losing every freedom you assume you have. And you won't notice until the FBI comes for your next door neighbors. Oh, he's nuts, you're saying. Tarentino, Dr. Laura, and George Bush.
And you think I'm a nut?
Oh, shut up!
Has to be said (written) right now. Or I'll explode.
You know and, of course, I know that the president flat out lied in saying his administration foiled a terrorist attack on Los Angeles.
He did this for two reasons, both obvious, but this must be screamed across the country.
1. To raise his miserable approval level.
2. Even more, to defend his spying on Americans without obtaining warrants.
Toss the Constitution. Toss common sense. (Since illegal immigrants taking flying lessons are not much of a threat, let's get into the bedrooms of people who see the president for what he is and say so.)
Please. Toss the president.
Good night and, boy, do we ever need... good luck. This would be a good time for people who have faith in the power of prayer, as opposed to people who use the pretext of faith to gain power, to start prayin' like there's no tomorrow.
Oh, that's right, there probably isn't.
You Guys Are Killing Me
I cringe every time I hear or see the English language mottled with horrid sights and sounds. None of us is perfect all the time with respect to language, but more and more, it seems, few of us mastered grammar taught in - what's it called? - grammar school. I am cringing so much nowadays that I am in the fetal position.
People who are paid to write or speak English are out of their ken. Lord, listen to the President of the United States. The emperor has no clothes. Well, no command of English. Just the troups.
So I'm going to throw a few things out there in the hope that at least one person recognizes himself. Or herself.
When I was in third grade Sharon Newcomer decided that she was way ahead of the curve by using I instead of me. In every case! It was then that I began to cringe.
John and I are getting married. Correct. I is one of the subjects of the sentence. Takes the nominative case. Pronouns have cases in English. Nominative refers to the pronoun's being used as a subject.
The Rev. Billy Graham married John and I. Auuuuugh!!! John and me. The pronoun me is the object of the verb married. Takes the objective case. Prepositions also take the objective case. The story in the paper was about John and me. Me. See. John and me. I feel the cringe of the other even now.
The error we just discussed appears in absolutely every Charmed script. Every one. Of course, one of the sisters writes a newspaper column. The error appears in the film Troy. It's spoken by Helen of Troy (Well, she's still a princess of Troy, but no matter.) and nearly kills me, because I watch the movie about once a week. I know, I know. It's my own fault.
I'm going to throw out just a few things that will keep you, in just my opinion you understand, from sounding and writing like an idiot.
Forehead. The word is properly pronounced far'-ed. Not four-head. This is what's known as an idiom. It does look like the latter, but is properly pronounced as the former.
Here's one more. Will keep you from sounding like an idiot. Often. Pronounced off'-en. Not off-ten. This, too, is an idomatic pronunciation, but it is correct.
Now we come to one that some of you are so deep in the incorrect that you will find proper usage difficult to believe. Believe me. You all sound like idiots:
Someone who hasn't chosen a career finds it difficult to choose their courses for the semester. Auuuuugh!!! You don't even see the error, do you? Let's consider someone. That is one person. Even says it. One. In English we have something called parallel structure. Just think that the two ends of a sentence have to balance. So... We have someone as the subject of the sentence. Singular. One. There is a pronoun in the sentence following that singular subject. But look. You, yes you, have chosen a plural - more than one - pronoun to refer to the singular someone. You chose their. Why did you choose a plural pronoun to refer back to a singular subject? That just doesn't make any sense at all. In French. In German. In Italian. I could go on. And, certainly, not in English. So correct it. ...difficult to choose his (or her) courses. Parallel structure and just common sense. I know you'll have to think about it. And I'm not going to go further, because, if you're not really thinking, it won't matter anyhow.
No wonder the French laugh at us: We can't even speak English.
Someone who speaks correctly will make a good impression wherever they go. Nooooo!!! Wherever he goes.
If you have an understanding of English, you may take some license with it. As I have above. Someone will say, and I know it, "Well, that's not a whole sentence. He's not right."
I have permission. Really I do. Because I was paying attention in the third grade.
You know, I think if we spoke and wrote as one, we might not feel that we are so different. Maybe.
One...Singular Sensation!
It occurs to me that I could write one thing that George Bush has done for which he should be strung up (as I'm convinced is still done in the South) and never run out of lawless and depraved acts that you may investigate and find that I have multiple sources to confirm its truth.
While Bush was governor of Texas (Lord, why didn't they secede from the Union, taking Alabama and Mississippi with them?), he received proof that a prison inmate about to be executed was innocent. He tossed the brief aside and said, "It's too late." Perfectly flat. The man, need I say of color, was executed.
Should that alone not have been enough to keep him out of national politics?
Old Joe Kennedy could be faulted for the lengths he went to put the Kennedys in power in this country, but his sons and daughters were taught from birth to serve. To give. To make the world a better place for you and me. (Trust me. "Me" does not mean part of the military-industrial complex. It means a Medi-Medi patient whom our president torments daily.)
If you're old enough, you remember that Jackie Kennedy charmed the world by speaking its language, even though behind closed doors she was very uncomfortable with those crowds that adored her. How soon, and sadly, her feelings would be confirmed. There will never be another like her among us.
What do you think Barbara Bush's legacy will be?
The Bushes have used their wealth to turn America into a fascist state that brings "democracy" to the world through revenge, lies, war-mongering and the the devastation of the U.S. economy. Oh, that last one hasn't hit you yet, huh? Remember you read it here.
"Springtime for Hitler." Has a ring to it, doesn't it? Sort of brings to mind a Christian with a wife who read a book last week between smiling like an idiot, wearing a shade of lipstick that can only be called "Red State from Hell."
My sin for the day, among many, including pride, of course, was waiting too long to take Ziggy for a pedicure on schedule. His nails irritated his front pads at one spot. I'm keeping Neosporin (plug) on them until the little scrapes are gone.
I make no judgment. Honestly. Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.
Oh...I didn't execute anyone today.
Give Me That Remote!
This week American Idol grabbed its highest audience numbers since its debut. That's enough to make me want to pull the covers over my head. Any further comment could probably get me egged. That is the State of the Union. We do not realize the import of those Idol numbers.
This audience believes that we are/have created a democracy in Iraq, while America is a pathetic high school geek who thinks that doing some girl's homework for her will get him a ticket to the dance. She wanted the football player (civil war) all along and at some point our geek realizes that it was she who got the ticket: an A in trig (the theocracy for which they are jonesing).
This audience believes that a nearly $4 billion budget deficit (after the trodden Bill Clinton left a jackass of a president with a $3 billion surplus) can be remedied by tax cuts. As long as I breathe I will not understand how anyone could be so stupid as to think that a government can run without money. He should try to pay his bills for one month with an overdrawn checking account. Is this trig or what?
This audience is comfortable, knowing that Justice Alito's vote will overturn half a century of law and push their daughters one step closer to back alley abortions done with rusty coat hangers. How's that for a sour note, gang?
This audience wants to see fools croak out "Wind Beneath My Wings" rather than see 30 seconds of footage of men with arms and legs blown off landing at Landstuhl under cover of night. I know it wouldn't be fun to watch. I also know that some fool with an American flag on his bumper who does not watch that footage isn't just ignorant. He's one step from evil.
State of the Union. Lord, how I long for Dawson's Creek.
