I Rode Through the Desert on a Post with No Name (apologies to the '70s group "America")
How hard it is to overcome a writer’s block dating back to 1989 when one is torn between gales of hysterical laughter and fits of angry cursing because, to paraphrase a line from “Apocalypse Now”, the BS is coming so hard and fast it’s like trying to hand out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
The original title for this ramble was “The Imam in the Moon.” I had a few choice observations about the announcement that NASA has been directed to begin some sort of bizarre “Muslim Outreach Program” to thank those stolid folks for their contributions to the invention of algebra while the rest of us were living in caves, or something like that.
Then the title shifted to “Let the Games Begin!”, when the Democrat party began their inevitable implosion last week on the heels of mealy-mouthed Robert Gibbs—the White House Press Secretary—admitting the obvious; the Dems are going to lose both houses of Congress in, oh, about 100 days.
I’m better at writing headlines than I am at following a coherent thought. Newspapers actually pay people to do nothing but read the stories that are being pasted up as they go to press, and try for summations in as few words as possible.
Other headlines occurred to me during the past week; including some scalding racial invective concerning the Ministry of Justice’s refusal to prosecute thugs for violating civil and voting rights because said thugs are black. Then there was Ben Jealous—great name!—of the NAACP calling a black entrepreneur beaten up by SEIU thugs an “Uncle Tom,” and his further assertion that those ubiquitous “Tea Klanners” are racists who want to lynch President Obama from the nearest, tallest pine tree they can locate.
There was also VP Joe Biden sounding off at the Grand Ole Opry, blaming Bush for the failure of the current administration to produce more than hot air. That’s sort of a no-brainer gimme, though, like Biden himself.
Then there was Fearless Leader, saying the other morning that “we” have capped the Deepstar Horizon, or whatever that blown-out well in the Gulf is called. He kept using that third-person possessive tense, like he had gone down to the ocean floor and screwed the damn cap onto the pipe himself.
Madame DeFarge-Pelosi busied herself chewing poor Bob Gibbs a new one for speaking truth to power and hinting that this fall might see American Marxism cut off at the knees. Meanwhile, Harry Reid said there are no illegal aliens working in Las Vegas, and Congresswoman Shirley Jackson Lee of Texas channeled Sarah Palin’s faux pas by bloviating about North and South Vietnam—even though that country has been unified since 1975. I mention the latter because the vile Kathy Griffin took a cheap shot at Governor Palin—something about trying to teach “that nutbag” there was a North and South Korea—before Ms. Griffin called Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s daughters “prostitutes.”
As I used to mutter in a bemused tone in the throes of powerful LSD-marijuana-whiskey psychoses, when the world was literally swirling around me at a dizzying pace: “Wow…things are happening fast!”
I haven’t used recreational drugs in decades, and I quit drinking hard liquor. Who needs them? The world is so twisted these days it’s all I can do to maintain a center of sanity with a cup of coffee and a cheese muffin under my belt first thing in the morning.
The last headline leapt to mind when Bobama showed his hatred for the South by his choice of vacation destinations. Despite all the rhetoric by British Petroleum and El Presidente about the rest of the country hauling ass down to the Gulf of Mexico and availing ourselves of the unpolluted beaches that remain, when it comes to taking Plethora, Urethra, and Diarrhea—the First Family—out for a day at the beach, they chose a place that was as far from the Gulf of Mexico and potential tar-balls as they could travel without leaving the continental United States. (Apologies to the Obama kids; they couldn’t choose the circumstance of their parentage any more than Chelsea Clinton, Amy Carter, or Tricia Nixon. My mama was a possum, and my daddy was a junkyard dog, so I know about the accidents of birth.)
I suppose I should address some of the aforementioned madness in order.
I thought “The Imam in the Moon” was a cute lead-in, but frankly, the whole concept of a “Muslim outreach” concerning the space program befuddles me. Do people grounded in 16th-century theology really care about the exploration of the universe? They may have come up with some ground-breaking mathematical formulas back in the day, but somewhere along the line, they stalled out. My general idea of “Muslim outreach” concerning the space program is simple: Bobama made a lot of noise about closing the terrorist detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and finding another location to hold the ters pending trial. How about we refurbish the space shuttles for a couple more trips, send the squirrels to the moon, and issue them space suits and shovels? They can be the first Muslims into space, and when they get to their destination, they can lay the groundwork for the first international colony on Luna. (I feel particularly nasty about this one; if they act out on the moon the way they have at Gitmo, we delay sending oxygen re-supplies. We could also delay the return of their lawyers, thus promoting true “tort reform.”)
Madame Pelosi chewing on the hapless Robert Gibbs is just the opening act. She is the modern equivalent of Cleopatra: the Queen of Denial. I have postponed putting up dire warnings that anyone passing this way who disagrees with the current regime needs to register and vote this coming November. Like the rest of the swirling world rushing past, I am overridden by circumstance, and don’t yet feel a compulsion to do so. Mind you, the right to vote is one of the few untrammeled rights remaining in this country, and no matter how apathetic or cynical you may be about how much your voice counts in the cacophony of an election, it does count. The polls are on my side; if you want real change, the time to start is in 100 days, on 2 November. There is a radical housecleaning coming; it’s traditional for the opposing party to gain congressional seats according to which party holds the White House, but this year is different. My principles dictate that I should vote for something, but come November, a lot of people will be going to the polls to vote against something, i.e. the socialist megalomania that has gripped America for the past few years.
Oh, did I mention that the government took over the banking industry this week? Let’s see, automotive, health care, and now Wall Street. Once again, the ruling party decreed that we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it. I had more situational awareness when I was stoned, tripping, and drunk, simultaneously. It’s boring stuff, and didn’t get the attention the health-care takeover did. “Ho- hum. There’s the government again.”
The Biden-Blame-Bush thing is, as I mentioned, a gimme. Does Joe “The Plagiarist” Biden have a shred more more credibility than, say, Dan Quayle? The standing joke when Bush 41 chose Quayle as his VP was that it made President Bush impervious to assassination. No one wanted Dan Quayle to step up to the plate, because he couldn’t spell “tomato.” (Or was that “potato?”)
(I still have trouble deciding whether to place punctuation marks inside or outside of quotation marks. I guess that disqualifies me from government service. I do know there is a North Korea and a South Korea, because there is only a cease-fire between those countries since the year I was born, and Vietnam, like it or not, is a single country today. I also know Scott Brown’s daughters are a model and an athlete—basketball player—respectively.)
As for the President’s choice of vacation destinations, I have only a few closing words:
Back in the 1990s, I tried AA and the twelve-step stuff. I came to realize that full embrasure of the program was trading one addiction for another, and eventually made my own separate peace with the demons that possessed me. I learned stuff from twelve-stepping, but just as godless secularists regard the Ten Commandments as “The Ten Suggestions”, I found it difficult to hang my life around someone’s earthly commandments that I have to live a certain way or die.
(This approach works for many, and I say more power to them. I am not denigrating AA and the positive influence it has wielded over so many lives.)
One of the life lessons I learned in AA was the most succinct definition of insanity that I have ever encountered. “Insanity is when you keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome.”
When Bobama turned up on TV hiking in Bah Habah, Maine, I had to raise that 12-step question: "What did you expect, really, Robert? He hates the South more than we ascribe to Billy Sherman marching through Georgia, so what did you really expect?"
By that strict definition, I have been insane for a good portion of my adult life. Not just in dealing with the subtle influence of alcohol, but because I keep seeing politicians who promise something besides the same old song-and-dance. I want to believe them, just as I want to believe that if you set a quart of bourbon in front of me, I won’t try to drink it all in one sitting.
Optimism is in the air, and a sea change is coming. The American people are waking up to the hard fact that the “change you can count on” was a fraud; a manipulation of hopes and dreams by Chicago machine politics as cynical as the “good will” of Al Capone’s Mafia-funded soup kitchens during The Depression.
Call me crazy, but I expect a different outcome this year.
(I have deliberately overlooked the “race card” politics of recent days and the aforementioned outrages. If I go there—which I will—I’ll be getting in touch with my inner redneck. I’ll be channeling the worst of what I grew up with, and it’s going to be ugly. I’ve never had a Constant Reader “unsubscribe”, but if I write what I’m thinking about the racial politics in play today, I’m betting some of you will abandon this site because you’ll decide I’m an irredeemable racist.)
The original title for this ramble was “The Imam in the Moon.” I had a few choice observations about the announcement that NASA has been directed to begin some sort of bizarre “Muslim Outreach Program” to thank those stolid folks for their contributions to the invention of algebra while the rest of us were living in caves, or something like that.
Then the title shifted to “Let the Games Begin!”, when the Democrat party began their inevitable implosion last week on the heels of mealy-mouthed Robert Gibbs—the White House Press Secretary—admitting the obvious; the Dems are going to lose both houses of Congress in, oh, about 100 days.
I’m better at writing headlines than I am at following a coherent thought. Newspapers actually pay people to do nothing but read the stories that are being pasted up as they go to press, and try for summations in as few words as possible.
Other headlines occurred to me during the past week; including some scalding racial invective concerning the Ministry of Justice’s refusal to prosecute thugs for violating civil and voting rights because said thugs are black. Then there was Ben Jealous—great name!—of the NAACP calling a black entrepreneur beaten up by SEIU thugs an “Uncle Tom,” and his further assertion that those ubiquitous “Tea Klanners” are racists who want to lynch President Obama from the nearest, tallest pine tree they can locate.
There was also VP Joe Biden sounding off at the Grand Ole Opry, blaming Bush for the failure of the current administration to produce more than hot air. That’s sort of a no-brainer gimme, though, like Biden himself.
Then there was Fearless Leader, saying the other morning that “we” have capped the Deepstar Horizon, or whatever that blown-out well in the Gulf is called. He kept using that third-person possessive tense, like he had gone down to the ocean floor and screwed the damn cap onto the pipe himself.
Madame DeFarge-Pelosi busied herself chewing poor Bob Gibbs a new one for speaking truth to power and hinting that this fall might see American Marxism cut off at the knees. Meanwhile, Harry Reid said there are no illegal aliens working in Las Vegas, and Congresswoman Shirley Jackson Lee of Texas channeled Sarah Palin’s faux pas by bloviating about North and South Vietnam—even though that country has been unified since 1975. I mention the latter because the vile Kathy Griffin took a cheap shot at Governor Palin—something about trying to teach “that nutbag” there was a North and South Korea—before Ms. Griffin called Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s daughters “prostitutes.”
As I used to mutter in a bemused tone in the throes of powerful LSD-marijuana-whiskey psychoses, when the world was literally swirling around me at a dizzying pace: “Wow…things are happening fast!”
I haven’t used recreational drugs in decades, and I quit drinking hard liquor. Who needs them? The world is so twisted these days it’s all I can do to maintain a center of sanity with a cup of coffee and a cheese muffin under my belt first thing in the morning.
The last headline leapt to mind when Bobama showed his hatred for the South by his choice of vacation destinations. Despite all the rhetoric by British Petroleum and El Presidente about the rest of the country hauling ass down to the Gulf of Mexico and availing ourselves of the unpolluted beaches that remain, when it comes to taking Plethora, Urethra, and Diarrhea—the First Family—out for a day at the beach, they chose a place that was as far from the Gulf of Mexico and potential tar-balls as they could travel without leaving the continental United States. (Apologies to the Obama kids; they couldn’t choose the circumstance of their parentage any more than Chelsea Clinton, Amy Carter, or Tricia Nixon. My mama was a possum, and my daddy was a junkyard dog, so I know about the accidents of birth.)
I suppose I should address some of the aforementioned madness in order.
I thought “The Imam in the Moon” was a cute lead-in, but frankly, the whole concept of a “Muslim outreach” concerning the space program befuddles me. Do people grounded in 16th-century theology really care about the exploration of the universe? They may have come up with some ground-breaking mathematical formulas back in the day, but somewhere along the line, they stalled out. My general idea of “Muslim outreach” concerning the space program is simple: Bobama made a lot of noise about closing the terrorist detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and finding another location to hold the ters pending trial. How about we refurbish the space shuttles for a couple more trips, send the squirrels to the moon, and issue them space suits and shovels? They can be the first Muslims into space, and when they get to their destination, they can lay the groundwork for the first international colony on Luna. (I feel particularly nasty about this one; if they act out on the moon the way they have at Gitmo, we delay sending oxygen re-supplies. We could also delay the return of their lawyers, thus promoting true “tort reform.”)
Madame Pelosi chewing on the hapless Robert Gibbs is just the opening act. She is the modern equivalent of Cleopatra: the Queen of Denial. I have postponed putting up dire warnings that anyone passing this way who disagrees with the current regime needs to register and vote this coming November. Like the rest of the swirling world rushing past, I am overridden by circumstance, and don’t yet feel a compulsion to do so. Mind you, the right to vote is one of the few untrammeled rights remaining in this country, and no matter how apathetic or cynical you may be about how much your voice counts in the cacophony of an election, it does count. The polls are on my side; if you want real change, the time to start is in 100 days, on 2 November. There is a radical housecleaning coming; it’s traditional for the opposing party to gain congressional seats according to which party holds the White House, but this year is different. My principles dictate that I should vote for something, but come November, a lot of people will be going to the polls to vote against something, i.e. the socialist megalomania that has gripped America for the past few years.
Oh, did I mention that the government took over the banking industry this week? Let’s see, automotive, health care, and now Wall Street. Once again, the ruling party decreed that we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it. I had more situational awareness when I was stoned, tripping, and drunk, simultaneously. It’s boring stuff, and didn’t get the attention the health-care takeover did. “Ho- hum. There’s the government again.”
The Biden-Blame-Bush thing is, as I mentioned, a gimme. Does Joe “The Plagiarist” Biden have a shred more more credibility than, say, Dan Quayle? The standing joke when Bush 41 chose Quayle as his VP was that it made President Bush impervious to assassination. No one wanted Dan Quayle to step up to the plate, because he couldn’t spell “tomato.” (Or was that “potato?”)
(I still have trouble deciding whether to place punctuation marks inside or outside of quotation marks. I guess that disqualifies me from government service. I do know there is a North Korea and a South Korea, because there is only a cease-fire between those countries since the year I was born, and Vietnam, like it or not, is a single country today. I also know Scott Brown’s daughters are a model and an athlete—basketball player—respectively.)
As for the President’s choice of vacation destinations, I have only a few closing words:
Back in the 1990s, I tried AA and the twelve-step stuff. I came to realize that full embrasure of the program was trading one addiction for another, and eventually made my own separate peace with the demons that possessed me. I learned stuff from twelve-stepping, but just as godless secularists regard the Ten Commandments as “The Ten Suggestions”, I found it difficult to hang my life around someone’s earthly commandments that I have to live a certain way or die.
(This approach works for many, and I say more power to them. I am not denigrating AA and the positive influence it has wielded over so many lives.)
One of the life lessons I learned in AA was the most succinct definition of insanity that I have ever encountered. “Insanity is when you keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome.”
When Bobama turned up on TV hiking in Bah Habah, Maine, I had to raise that 12-step question: "What did you expect, really, Robert? He hates the South more than we ascribe to Billy Sherman marching through Georgia, so what did you really expect?"
By that strict definition, I have been insane for a good portion of my adult life. Not just in dealing with the subtle influence of alcohol, but because I keep seeing politicians who promise something besides the same old song-and-dance. I want to believe them, just as I want to believe that if you set a quart of bourbon in front of me, I won’t try to drink it all in one sitting.
Optimism is in the air, and a sea change is coming. The American people are waking up to the hard fact that the “change you can count on” was a fraud; a manipulation of hopes and dreams by Chicago machine politics as cynical as the “good will” of Al Capone’s Mafia-funded soup kitchens during The Depression.
Call me crazy, but I expect a different outcome this year.
(I have deliberately overlooked the “race card” politics of recent days and the aforementioned outrages. If I go there—which I will—I’ll be getting in touch with my inner redneck. I’ll be channeling the worst of what I grew up with, and it’s going to be ugly. I’ve never had a Constant Reader “unsubscribe”, but if I write what I’m thinking about the racial politics in play today, I’m betting some of you will abandon this site because you’ll decide I’m an irredeemable racist.)
posted by Robert at 2:06 AM
6 Comments:
Possum,
Good article (as usual). Bobama's outreach to Muslims via NASA is a waste of time. There are plenty of reasons why Muslims won't go into orbit: 1) They can't get their prayer rugs to stay in one place, 2) they can't pray towards Mecca because Mecca keeps moving, 3) beheadings in weightlessness are real messy, and most importantly... 4) there are Pigs in Space.
(:D) Best regards...
I’m better at writing headlines than I am at following a coherent thought."
I beg to differ. If anything, you're rather loquacious...but I'm always interested in what you have to say.
Hey, Jack, you sat here on Scorpion Hill a little over a year ago, drinking whiskey and yakking with me. I wasn't exactly a sparkling bon vivant in person, was I?
I do like to jabber a whole lot, though. It's the editing for content part that eludes me.
You're an intelligent and interesting person, in person and on "Da 'Net"...
Well, as John Wayne said at the end of "True Grit", "Come see a one-eyed old fat man some time!"
We are living in interesting times, aren't we? What amazes me most is the ability of the people all around us to ignore history and continue to re-try approaches to our problems that have failed miserably in the past, hoping for better changes this time!
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