mr. grumpyhead's

Of Course, I Meant "Tomorrow" At The End of My Last Post in the Symbolic, Figurative Manner

And, besides, I was in mourning. For our nation. I just don't know what we're all going to do, now...

Without further delay, allow me to present the final installment of my fictional conversation between Richard A. Clarke (remember him?) and The Mr. President, at the White House... set in those care-free days sometime in July, 2001.

Richard A. Clarke: But allow me to inquire: if it's the Islamic militant fundamentalists we fear so much, which is understandable, why are you fomenting the Christian-Right in the U.S. to continue with their nonsense? Why are you empowering them?

GWB: Me empowering them? Heh heh... you got that a little bit a-reversed, dontcha, Boyee? Where we gonna get the soldiers, Son? We can't count on just the patriotic and the broke to unsuspectingly join the Guard, can we? A month or two at Ft. Bragg turning into two years very much elsewhere... but if ya survive, and if yer smart.. and well-connected... yer in on the ground floor of financial opportunity, Iraqi-wise. Even if ya got nothing left on yer arms be-low yer elbows, mebbe! Who we gonna call? Just the Cho-loes? Or the Af-ri-can-A-mer-i-cans..?. There's only so many Marines we can get out of those people... they're still a minority, ya know, even though we keep a-tellin them on the tee-vee that they've got jest plenty ta spare, all the time...

RC: But won't invading Iraq cause the Islamic world to hate us all that much more?

GWB: Not if we're quick.

RC: Well, the only thing that would divert immediate resources from Iraq would be....

GWB: That's right, Clarkster. Doing somethin' a-strange. Like liberating Afghanistan. They're screwed no matter what we do... and they aint got no oil. Even Iran didn't invade that place. They just sent their terrorists.

Besides, my Dad was almost killed in Iraq. But Sad-damns a-getting on in years- Iran could bust into Iraq at any time, ya see.

RC: Don't you care what'll happen in Israel as a result of all of this? I'm telling you that al Quada needs bodies and minds for their campaign... won't this increase their supply of angry sacrificial terrorists? And aren't you concerned that people here might think you're doing this simply to obtain oil for America?

GWB: Israel, Heh. Don't even go there! I'm sure I don't wanna! Heh heh.

Naw, naw, naw. Look, to be serious, my Good Man! The far right and far left wing have, throughout the whole of history, always depended on the sweat and anxieties of moderates to make everything all right, and that's what will, indeed, eventually occur in Israel.. Here, we call it the "balance of power"... "balance of forces".. whadeveh. Ahem. People here can't decide between the left or the right because so many of us have Divorce Trauma. It even leaks into the more stable families, by now. Like mine! We're all trying, do you see, to please both the mother and the father simultaneously... both in our families... and in our collective psyche. It's perplexing.

Things might be a-okay--- as long as the moderate leaders don't keep a-gettin' whacked! Heh heh. You know, Israel was useful, in its day. We don't really explain to schoolkids why they were useful same reason we don't exactly link the creation of Pakistan with the creation of Israel.. it was at the same time! Uh, duh!

You know, when them Enger-land peoples were asked ta ski-dadle- you know who really asked them? Well- it weren't precisely just Mr Mahatma! They didn't really all beat it, anyway. We sure as heck-fire didn't get lost. And the West didn't create those countries jus' cause we felt guilty about anythin', even though that's we say about Israel, all the time. It was in our own interest. Naturally. This ain't any kinda secret. It's all there fer anyone who resists all this dumbing-down kinda stuff that's been a-goin' on fer.. well, decades, in actual fact!

RC: Isn't encouraging too much ignorance among Americans.. dangerous?

GWB: Naw.. it's the same reason I let the hippy-types think I'm just money hungry. Mr. Oil Baron! Warrin' for the Oil! Hah. Confidentially - me, I got all the money I need. So do my friends. "The future, Mr Gettes".. heh heh. Ever seen that one?

RC: Never mind all that historical stuff, right now...

GWB: Sure. I know we'll ignore all your "historical stuff". I'll ignore everything you ask me to. And I'll also ignore everything you don't ask me to.

RC: ... You know, Sir, I've been in intelligence work all of my adult life-

GWB: Yeah.. me too! Longer! (smirks)

RC: What'll you do to convince the public, whom you don't trust with the truth about this, that we need to invade Iraq after all this time, but not, say, North Korea?

GWB: Dunno... We'll think of somethin'

Clarke: What's this "we" business, Sir?

(Cop-out Note: Please be reminded that the author's musings regarding political matters are satiric in intent, which is also to say that it might be more a report of how it looks rather than a statement of how it is known to actually be. Of course, in a television-led news environment, how it looks is sometimes all we think we've got.

Also, I need to mention that the dialogue of the last five or so postings is in no way meant to state any actual view that the author may have regarding pre-planning of 9/11 by people in the U S government.)
__________________________________________________________________________________________original contents copyright 2004 by the author. any likeness to persons, living or deceased, without satiric intent, is both unintentional and a tremendous coincidence.

I'm Back. And I'm Black. And I'm Harder Than a Heart Attack

Okay, someone very close to me just stole the forthcoming comment/joke of mine for her much more popular "b-log" (I called it "b-log" for about half a year... which annoyed her, for some reason). Her version of the joke, incidentally, is a far more G-Rated version than mine. So, you've been warned.

I wanted to comment on this alternative weekly press story which you can read all about on aan.org, wherein we're treated to a general summary of a memo by a U.S. intelligence officer or official or high-level lacky, or whichever, who is writing in the missive that was leaked to the reporter regarding how things really were in Iraq in March- if you want to read all about it, go to aan.org, and they'll hook you up. Apparently the mainstream news people have taken a great deal of interest in this story, and the interest may grow... it looks like one of those things they make a big deal about on the tellebision after people who read have been chewing on it for a week or more.

What I found really very troubling about the memo is that this memo-writing person was sent to Iraq, of all places, on the taxpayer's dime, I'm assuming-- and yet this great expert on foreign politics and tribal warfare confesses to the reader that he/she had never seen any of The Godfather movies prior to watching them all one evening with some high ranking Kurds this year. Really! Not even the mediocre third one, in the eighties. There's something uniquely disturbing about that, isn't there?

Maybe the memo writer was a mere child when even the third movie was released. Which means we really are in a whole lot of incredible trouble, doesn't it?

Of course, I'm assuming that if the memo writer is one of those Log Cabin Republicans then we can be assured that he's seen, at least, Lawrence of Arabia. Actually, if it is a Log Cabin Republican then he's very probably seen it nine times this year alone. Especially in these most recent two years. And possibly even humped the little circle in the center of the DVD. You know. Commitment.

Oooooooooh. Okay, I'm sorry if you think that was a joke slamming gay people. Actually, it's just a joke slamming Neocon Republican gay males.. see the difference? Well, you should!

I just sort of cringe at the thought of a club for gay members of the G.O.P. It reminds me of the Jews for Jesus group- talk about wanting to stand out, huh? How much punishment can someone wish to heap on themselves?

Seriously, I strongly condemn in the most serious terms the joke I just made about both the Log Cabin group, and the Jews for Jesus... thang. I'm so very ashamed. I'm stressed: walking down my street this evening my way was sort of blocked on a busy street with a narrow sidewalk by a fairly loud guy on a cell phone who could very easily have been a Log Cabin Republican. There are a lot of them here, these days, so I've been told. He was sauntering down the street and sort of taking up much of the sidewalk width.

Even when he was on the other side of the street I could hear him whinnying or even braying into his phone. You know the kind. Just lower your voices, Fellas. I'm not always in the mood to hear your loud, loud public commentaries. On the phone or off. Maybe you think you're a Socrates or a Plato roaming the streets of a post-post-modern Athens, commenting in witty fashion in your finest stage pannnnnnnnnnnnache- but you most probably aren't. You know how I know? Because we all get to hear your lenghty
force-fed monologues on the bus, train, the streets, grocery stores, everywhere. Lower it. Demure was so out that it's in again. See? That appeals, no?

Seriously, if you're under fifty and have never actually seen Lawrence of Arabia, do so right away. The modern-day-a-go-go thing to say these days, so I understand, is how very much the end of Lawrence is like the situation we may be in, you know.. over there. In Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or both. Or maybe everywhere, now.

And even more seriously... if you're over fifty and live in Europe, the U.S., that Canadian region , the U.K., or Japan, or any place in the "developed world", and especially if you have more than a poverty level income and have had access to a video player or DVD player for over a month of your fifty long years, and if you haven't ever taken the trouble to sit through Lawrence of Arabia.. then please don't ever return to my site. Just go away. There's nothing to see, here.

"The FBI starring Efram Zimbalist, Jr! In Color!"

Hey, for those of you who were busy last night and didn't get to see Paramount's Homeland Security on NBC, here are some memorable highlights from the Easter evening telecast:

(Tom Skerritt is the academic who is called by the White House to head the Department of Homeland Security just under Secretary Ridge. No, we never get to meet Ridge in person, which would have been fun. Skerritt's character has a second banana who is a loveable, somewhat twitchy yet urbane guy whose name is.. Saul. And don't tell me you didn't see that coming)

Saul: (looking at Skerritt's character intently) When I said I didn't want Homeland Security to become America's Gestapo (he casts his eyes away, looking downward)... I really meant it.

(Hey, those are comforting words, Saul, because earlier in the broadcast the dumbass Goys across America were all intently wondering about that sincerity question regarding you, of course....)

(A blonde, blue eyed, tough guy CIA agent gets a call to go to Oakland's Lake Merritt in California where the FBI is involved in a heavy stakeout of a large terrorist cell. CIA guy whose name and portrayer I forget because I'm not intelligent enough to remember knocks on the door of the ratty hole-in-the-wall where the domestic Feds are set up)

CIA guy: Open up. I'm the Good Guys. (or some variation of that as he shows his ID through the door's peephole. A young FBI agent not busy at the stakeout gear table lets him in)
FBI guy: Hey, so you're a spook, huh? (chuckles incredulously) Sorry, man. It's just that I've never actually met one of you guys, before.
CIA guy: That's okay- we'll be working a lot closer together from now on.
FBI guy: Amen to that.

(Scott Glenn is an old-timer at the Agency who is going to retire on 9/11 when he comes out of retirement due to the attacks and finds himself on horseback a few scenes later, in Afghanistan, aiding the Northern Alliance in some of the program's more expensive scenes due to all the comp generated effects in the explosion and battle depictions. At one point they go into an underground facility in a hill that has been blasted by U.S. airborne fighters, and Glenn comments wearily about all the body parts lying around that they find in the cave, very probably a major al Quada stronghold. As he goes further into the cave with a flashlight he comes across what is clearly an abandoned intraveneous feeding bag on a stand... then a dialysis machine... then something that looks like an unusual cane that, I assume, is meant to be one of bin Laden's well-known possessions. It's clear that the Primo Catch has once again eluded them... and, of course, us, as well)

Scott Glenn's CIA character: (as he holds up the cane between himself in close-up and the camera) Son of a bitch!

Uh.. yeah! Son of a bitch, indeed! Gee, that'd be my reaction, too, in the same situation!
The two hour program, which had no warnings about violence during the breaks (maybe there was one at the very beginning, but I'm not sure) was unusually violent for primetime network television, especially without those parental warnings, including at least one unflinching shot of a point blank shooting into the head (there were several shootings like that) and a wide eyed closeup of a sniper victim with a blood puddle seeping onto the pavement from the back of his skull... and I must say that these seemed to be lifted/borrowed/stolen from the more shocking shots of Schindler's List, except that this wasn't a black and white offering, of course. The drama looked to me to be the premiere episode of a proposed series, although I don't know if NBC has picked it up. Think the FCC might prevent it?