Friday, December 31, 2004
DIEU A COMPTÉ TON ROYAUME, ET Y A MIS FIN:
The Blogalaxy (no! skippy didn't invent that term!) is indulging in its annual "moral equivalent of self-abuse" by giving itself prizes. Wizbang announced voting results for its 2004 Weblog Award Winners, and Wampum will soon open voting for its 2004 Koufax Awards, named after Sandy Koufax, the great Dodgers left-handed pitcher. The American Street has joined the parade with categories Wampum left out, calling theirs the Perranoski Prize after another lefty who was Koufax's relief pitcher.
Wampum, which started its awards first, explicitly says its awards are "to honor the best of the left of blogtopia (ysitp)." Wizbang doesn't say it is solely for righties, and even includes separate categories for "Best Liberal Blog" and "Best Conservative Blog", but it is clear from the nominations and voting that it serves as a "non-Koufax". Why not a non-sinister baseball name? Sure, "Cy Young Award" was already taken, but they could have used Walter Johnson, or a more recent noted righty, who was a solid Republican and actually worked for Our Noble Lame Duck, namely Nolan Ryan.
The best evidence of Wizbang's starboard lean is its winner for "Best Liberal Blog", Matthew Yglesias, who isn't even a real liberal, but a mush-mouthed establishment "pragmatic" centrist that we've co-opted with the bright lights of the beltway. He was as close to a righty as the conservative voters could find among the nominees, and probably would have narrowly edged out even Kevin Drum, if that other moderate waffler had been in this category instead of coming in next to last in "Best Overall".
Wizbang's prize voters didn't totally miss the boat. For "Best Overall Blog", they picked the broader coverage of Powerline over Chucky's site, increasingly a launch pad for obsessive commenters, and Insty's often frustrating shorthand links, where his mere "indeeds" or "reallys" are more like Dave Barry's blog, leaving you to flip a coin over clicking the link. But their "Best Humor Blog" award went to Scrappleface, whose commendable regularity is burdened by trivial content. Like the later Mad magazine, it is not actually un-funny, merely dull. Further evidence that the voters were clueless is their ranking of the funnier, but more, well, "challenging" to conservatives, Jesus' General in fourth place, while not even including the sharply ironic Politburo Diktat. Wake up, folks, you're seriously confused.
Notice that they didn't even have a category for "Best Libertarian Blog". Tinfoil hat question: were they worried that might have split some of the vote for conservatives? If anyone knows of awards that explicitly honor such sites, please clue us in. We always find it amusing to spice up our own surfing with both the extreme totalitarians, now nearing deserved extinction, and their diametrical opposites, now perhaps too isolated for a stable gene pool (though a recent article about laptop use and decreased sperm production may make that irrelevant).
I generally don't vote in such exhibitions, but this year I did cast ballots in a couple of polls for two bloggers who asked me. I don't plan to nominate my own site in any of these contests. That's both because I don't stoop to compete with lesser beings (unless I can get les frères Urosevich to do the counting), and because my site doesn't fit the categories or the polarized voters picking the winners. But there will be no Sherman statements here; if drafted by write-ins, like those which made The Clenis runner-up for most evil person of the millennium, I'm sure I would triumphantly cackle "Who's your daddy?" at the beknighted losers just as much as anyone else. Even we Gausses and Gödels of the blogging world are not immune to flattery.
Actually a better parallel might be a musical one, like Satie or Schönberg, since the Parodess Laureate of the Left, Mad Kane, has not only nominated me in two Wampum categories, "Most Humorous Blog" and "Best Political Poems and/or Song Parodies", but has also decided to issue her very own 2004 Mad Blogger Award Winners. In this ingenious way to make sure your choices win each category, she gave me her prize (which I suggest she should name after another pitcher, Bill "Spaceman" Lee) for "The Most Likely To Make Me Feel Undereducated". While this swells my head, I wonder just what provoked it from someone I understand was herself both a lawyer ("recovering") and a musician. Maybe she doesn't read shape notes? Le parodiste Madeleine was not alone in establishing her own awards. Life ... or something like it posted Jess' blog awards which honored me (indirectly) twice; the obvious one was for "Best Blogger Jess is still trying to get". (I am also an infiltrator of the "gang" at The American Street, which he named for "Best Analysis".)
These two made me ponder starting my very own prizes, perhaps next year. My first thought was to name them after the Giants' screwball wizard Carl Hubbell, but he was another lefty, so I went instead with a non-pitching right-hander who had other interesting qualities. This White Sox catcher
I find this ambiguous career appealing, so this would be the first annual Moe Berg Awards. As the essence of the blogging world is self-centeredness, I might limit the nominees to those who have wisely permalinked my site or cited my stuff -- unless I just couldn't help mentioning something like "unrequitedly linked to most often". Now, what would be some appropriately insidious categories....
The Blogalaxy (no! skippy didn't invent that term!) is indulging in its annual "moral equivalent of self-abuse" by giving itself prizes. Wizbang announced voting results for its 2004 Weblog Award Winners, and Wampum will soon open voting for its 2004 Koufax Awards, named after Sandy Koufax, the great Dodgers left-handed pitcher. The American Street has joined the parade with categories Wampum left out, calling theirs the Perranoski Prize after another lefty who was Koufax's relief pitcher.
Wampum, which started its awards first, explicitly says its awards are "to honor the best of the left of blogtopia (ysitp)." Wizbang doesn't say it is solely for righties, and even includes separate categories for "Best Liberal Blog" and "Best Conservative Blog", but it is clear from the nominations and voting that it serves as a "non-Koufax". Why not a non-sinister baseball name? Sure, "Cy Young Award" was already taken, but they could have used Walter Johnson, or a more recent noted righty, who was a solid Republican and actually worked for Our Noble Lame Duck, namely Nolan Ryan.
The best evidence of Wizbang's starboard lean is its winner for "Best Liberal Blog", Matthew Yglesias, who isn't even a real liberal, but a mush-mouthed establishment "pragmatic" centrist that we've co-opted with the bright lights of the beltway. He was as close to a righty as the conservative voters could find among the nominees, and probably would have narrowly edged out even Kevin Drum, if that other moderate waffler had been in this category instead of coming in next to last in "Best Overall".
Wizbang's prize voters didn't totally miss the boat. For "Best Overall Blog", they picked the broader coverage of Powerline over Chucky's site, increasingly a launch pad for obsessive commenters, and Insty's often frustrating shorthand links, where his mere "indeeds" or "reallys" are more like Dave Barry's blog, leaving you to flip a coin over clicking the link. But their "Best Humor Blog" award went to Scrappleface, whose commendable regularity is burdened by trivial content. Like the later Mad magazine, it is not actually un-funny, merely dull. Further evidence that the voters were clueless is their ranking of the funnier, but more, well, "challenging" to conservatives, Jesus' General in fourth place, while not even including the sharply ironic Politburo Diktat. Wake up, folks, you're seriously confused.
Notice that they didn't even have a category for "Best Libertarian Blog". Tinfoil hat question: were they worried that might have split some of the vote for conservatives? If anyone knows of awards that explicitly honor such sites, please clue us in. We always find it amusing to spice up our own surfing with both the extreme totalitarians, now nearing deserved extinction, and their diametrical opposites, now perhaps too isolated for a stable gene pool (though a recent article about laptop use and decreased sperm production may make that irrelevant).
I generally don't vote in such exhibitions, but this year I did cast ballots in a couple of polls for two bloggers who asked me. I don't plan to nominate my own site in any of these contests. That's both because I don't stoop to compete with lesser beings (unless I can get les frères Urosevich to do the counting), and because my site doesn't fit the categories or the polarized voters picking the winners. But there will be no Sherman statements here; if drafted by write-ins, like those which made The Clenis runner-up for most evil person of the millennium, I'm sure I would triumphantly cackle "Who's your daddy?" at the beknighted losers just as much as anyone else. Even we Gausses and Gödels of the blogging world are not immune to flattery.
Actually a better parallel might be a musical one, like Satie or Schönberg, since the Parodess Laureate of the Left, Mad Kane, has not only nominated me in two Wampum categories, "Most Humorous Blog" and "Best Political Poems and/or Song Parodies", but has also decided to issue her very own 2004 Mad Blogger Award Winners. In this ingenious way to make sure your choices win each category, she gave me her prize (which I suggest she should name after another pitcher, Bill "Spaceman" Lee) for "The Most Likely To Make Me Feel Undereducated". While this swells my head, I wonder just what provoked it from someone I understand was herself both a lawyer ("recovering") and a musician. Maybe she doesn't read shape notes? Le parodiste Madeleine was not alone in establishing her own awards. Life ... or something like it posted Jess' blog awards which honored me (indirectly) twice; the obvious one was for "Best Blogger Jess is still trying to get". (I am also an infiltrator of the "gang" at The American Street, which he named for "Best Analysis".)
These two made me ponder starting my very own prizes, perhaps next year. My first thought was to name them after the Giants' screwball wizard Carl Hubbell, but he was another lefty, so I went instead with a non-pitching right-hander who had other interesting qualities. This White Sox catcher
was a brilliant scholar, picking up degrees from Princeton and Columbia Law School and studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. His linguistic skills inspired this observation by a teammate: "He can speak seven languages, but he can't hit in any of them." ... He and a teammate, also a linguist, would communicate on the field in Latin.He spied on Japan for the U.S. in the 1930s, then was in the O.S.S. during the war, and was "chosen to carry out one of the O.S.S.' more ambitious endeavors - a plot to possibly assassinate Werner Heisenberg, the head of Nazi Germany's atom-bomb project."
I find this ambiguous career appealing, so this would be the first annual Moe Berg Awards. As the essence of the blogging world is self-centeredness, I might limit the nominees to those who have wisely permalinked my site or cited my stuff -- unless I just couldn't help mentioning something like "unrequitedly linked to most often". Now, what would be some appropriately insidious categories....
A LAST DYING GRASP:
Anne Zook at Peevish has posted an admitted rant which proves her own case in a most unintended manner.
Anne Zook at Peevish has posted an admitted rant which proves her own case in a most unintended manner.
Anyhow, we got onto the subject of gangs and I was lamenting that no one takes the right track in dealing sensibly with the problem when he chimed in, already snickering because he knew he was about to light my fuse, with a nod and a suggestion of his own. Shoot them all, he said.This is a typical calmly rational leftist response to ideas they reject: ban their proponents to Coventry. Actually he has the germ of a good idea here. How do you win a war against poverty? Simple, burn down all the slums. The Philadelphia police made a stab at this a few years ago, consigning to the flames the headquarters of some obstreperous group, but bleeding hearts denounced them so much that they chickened out from continuing this radical urban renewal. But she goes on with her true confession.
I ordered him out of my office forthwith. "Get out of my office," I said.
He is a Libertarian and a bit of a wingnut at the same time. He's one of those people who believes that the closer government gets to nothing, the better off we'll all be (never dreaming, of course, that if it weren't for stringent laws about such behavior, I'd push him down the nearest stairwell)....So there you have it, the very best argument against libertarianism. We have to have a government to protect the oppressed minority of believers in that philosophy against murderous assaults by angry leftists. Strangely, despite the endangered ideological species status of this group, liberals have not called for affirmative action appointments of such folk to institutions and agencies. I'm sure the feeling is mutual, and when the libertarians establish their own utopian anticommunes (no doubt in the asteroids), they won't give immigration subsidies to lefties -- even though those future refugees from our Free Speech Enhancement Force would be harmless in a place where zero-gee means no one can toss you downstairs.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
WARRING IN A WINTER KERRYLAND:
The spirit of this grass-roots rebellion against Boston's Big Brother is to be applauded, but it suffers the usual flaws of preconceptual cracker barrel populism. Such piecemeal privatization produces petty vendettas. Better to turn over all the curbsides to corporations which can lease the spaces, use their profits to remove the snow, and have armed tow trucks standing by to haul off any violating vehicles to be sold for still more profits. Free market ideologues would say that history shows with these pure guardians in charge, there will be more and cheaper parking spots, without the bothersome need to clean them yourself, or to vandalize the vicious liberals claiming "public use" of your space.
As for me, I don't even care if they cost more -- I just want temporary ownership by fleeting individuals replaced with permanent property of everlasting corporations. In my ideal world, everything except personal effects would belong to stockholders somewhere. At that point, the future ideal society can abolish these silly "governments" and let entrepreneurs and executives decide our futures, instead of the demagogues and dilettantes we suffer under today. The goal is not more opportunity for individuals, but rationalization of control under Platonically perfect private companies that will last forever, making our efforts part of a transcendent eternity. Selling the streets is only a small first step.
In a battle that shows no signs of waning soon, Mayor Thomas M. Menino dispatched crews to South Boston yesterday to clear away anything and everything that residents placed in the streets to stake claims to parking spaces they had cleared of snow.Why should we care about a bunch of Democrats fighting their own city hall? This Taxachusetts pol is trying to impose socialist master planning on people who are struggling toward Our Noble Lame Duck's heralded Ownership Society. Like many tyrants he uses the excuse of an alleged crime wave to justify his oppression. Those slashings and keyings are obviously self defense against the usurpers of newly homesteaded private property (the shovelled spaces), which had been abandoned by the local dictator. If he wanted to go on claiming it, he should have cleared the snow himself. Instead of taking responsibility for his claimed territory, he blames the victims for protecting their own.
But just as quickly as the jaws of city garbage trucks crushed the myriad shopping carts, traffic cones, and furniture used as markers, many residents replaced them with new parking-space holders.
"I've got more barrels than he's got trucks," said James M. Kelly, the neighborhood's city councilor, who used a trash barrel yesterday to reserve his pristinely shoveled spot near N Street. City crews moved his barrel to the sidewalk yesterday, but a neighbor moved it back.
It's an unwritten law almost as old as the automobile in densely populated Boston neighborhoods: You shovel it, you own it. But Menino decided last December that the vigilante justice sometimes meted out for violating the law of the streets -- slashed tires, broken windows, or keyed car doors -- was getting out of hand. So he began ordering city crews to pick up parking space markers 48 hours after a major snowfall.
The spirit of this grass-roots rebellion against Boston's Big Brother is to be applauded, but it suffers the usual flaws of preconceptual cracker barrel populism. Such piecemeal privatization produces petty vendettas. Better to turn over all the curbsides to corporations which can lease the spaces, use their profits to remove the snow, and have armed tow trucks standing by to haul off any violating vehicles to be sold for still more profits. Free market ideologues would say that history shows with these pure guardians in charge, there will be more and cheaper parking spots, without the bothersome need to clean them yourself, or to vandalize the vicious liberals claiming "public use" of your space.
As for me, I don't even care if they cost more -- I just want temporary ownership by fleeting individuals replaced with permanent property of everlasting corporations. In my ideal world, everything except personal effects would belong to stockholders somewhere. At that point, the future ideal society can abolish these silly "governments" and let entrepreneurs and executives decide our futures, instead of the demagogues and dilettantes we suffer under today. The goal is not more opportunity for individuals, but rationalization of control under Platonically perfect private companies that will last forever, making our efforts part of a transcendent eternity. Selling the streets is only a small first step.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
IN HOC SIGNO VINCES:
We can see the ghostly glove of The Uncensured One in the tactics of the opposition forces in the Ukraine. Delay in choosing their new President is because our hand-picked puppet (instead of Russia's) was schooled in some advanced American political methods. But the incumbent has thrown a new curve ball which may comfort those still crying over spilled ketchup here at home.
No doubt you recognized the tactic of the crowds which surrounded the government and intimidated their highest court into overturning election results they didn't like. That's right, it's what The Exterminator sent his minions to do to local election officials in Florida in 2000. And who better than that pesticide promoter himself to inspire the first-round loser's medical judo in the re-run? Not even The Rovinator was as clever. After Our Noble Lame Duck's wardrobe malfunction was spotted in the first debate, he only planted the easily deniable tale that it was a radio receiver, knowing no one would claim to have fed the candidate those answers. This desperate measure worked as a cover, since it was much better than admitting we had two heart patients on the ticket.
Yush The Lush topped even this for chutzpah. When his vodkaphilia sent him fleeing to jet set desiccators, they cleverly blamed it instead on medically absurd claims of poisoning. This wrapped him in a winding sheet of martyrdom without the bother of actually deceasing, thus letting him have his own murder and avenge it too at the polls. But now the Kremlin's catspaw has devised an insidious argument to trump that:
We can see the ghostly glove of The Uncensured One in the tactics of the opposition forces in the Ukraine. Delay in choosing their new President is because our hand-picked puppet (instead of Russia's) was schooled in some advanced American political methods. But the incumbent has thrown a new curve ball which may comfort those still crying over spilled ketchup here at home.
No doubt you recognized the tactic of the crowds which surrounded the government and intimidated their highest court into overturning election results they didn't like. That's right, it's what The Exterminator sent his minions to do to local election officials in Florida in 2000. And who better than that pesticide promoter himself to inspire the first-round loser's medical judo in the re-run? Not even The Rovinator was as clever. After Our Noble Lame Duck's wardrobe malfunction was spotted in the first debate, he only planted the easily deniable tale that it was a radio receiver, knowing no one would claim to have fed the candidate those answers. This desperate measure worked as a cover, since it was much better than admitting we had two heart patients on the ticket.
Yush The Lush topped even this for chutzpah. When his vodkaphilia sent him fleeing to jet set desiccators, they cleverly blamed it instead on medically absurd claims of poisoning. This wrapped him in a winding sheet of martyrdom without the bother of actually deceasing, thus letting him have his own murder and avenge it too at the polls. But now the Kremlin's catspaw has devised an insidious argument to trump that:
Mission of observers CIS-EMO (autonomous non-commercial organization of election process observance in CIS Member States) contains about 150 persons from Byelorussia, Moldova, Russia and Tadjikistan. At to-day’s press conference representative of the mission Roman Tkach among violations has distinguished election propaganda, which is prohibited during the voting day, in the form of numerous orange marks in the streets.Warning: if this works, we should expect The Ketchup Consort's frustrated Recount Revenge Rangers to adopt a variant of this Spectrum Strategy in Ohio. We can imagine the J'Accuse we'd hear from Jackson père et fils:
Democratic voters were subliminally intimidated at polling places across the country. In every case they had to drive by intersections where they saw huge government-posted signs or lights that were all bright red. This color cleverly crept into their consciousness and caused committed ceruleans to cast crimson ballots instead. Hide those hues which tinted the contest, and make the scarlet streets color-blind again.
Monday, December 27, 2004
GIVE ME THAT OLD TIME DENIAL:
The CIA is refusing to disclose any information about abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, invoking a legal precedent that involved a secret project by billionaire Howard Hughes to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the 1970s.Their "refusal to disclose" in that case is, of course, why nobody ever found out about the Glomar Explorer, right? One hates to see hopes dashed so soon, but it looks like Our Noble Lame Duck's new head of The Company still hasn't learned a vital lesson from Israel, whose chief spook years ago said "No comment IS a comment". Fortunately, Nigerscam wasn't cooked up in his office, so he can't let that catspaw out of the bag.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
ET QUAND ILS LE VIRENT, ILS FURENT FRAPPÉS D'ÉTONNEMENT (LUC 2:48):
Just in time for the holiday season, there's another great illustration of the quote atop my blog. Years ago that mocking leftist Kurt Vonnegut thought he was making up a completely ridiculous pastiche when he tossed into one of his cynical stories an aside about a dentist from upstate New York, who proved that Christ was not a Jew, by analyzing the jawbone structures in fifty famous paintings of Jesus. L'insensé a dit en son coeur: Il n'y a point de Dieu. (Psaumes 14:1).
Well, if you're Mister Secular Humanism, you won't believe me when I tell you that "forensic experts are now using computer images from the Shroud of Turin along with historical data and other ancient images to make an educated guess" about a question you probably never considered before:
Just in time for the holiday season, there's another great illustration of the quote atop my blog. Years ago that mocking leftist Kurt Vonnegut thought he was making up a completely ridiculous pastiche when he tossed into one of his cynical stories an aside about a dentist from upstate New York, who proved that Christ was not a Jew, by analyzing the jawbone structures in fifty famous paintings of Jesus. L'insensé a dit en son coeur: Il n'y a point de Dieu. (Psaumes 14:1).
Well, if you're Mister Secular Humanism, you won't believe me when I tell you that "forensic experts are now using computer images from the Shroud of Turin along with historical data and other ancient images to make an educated guess" about a question you probably never considered before:
What did Jesus Christ of Nazareth look like as a boy? ...police artists use the same "aging" technology employed when searching for missing persons and criminals. "In this case the experts went backwards. Now we have a hypothesis on how the man of the shroud might have looked at the age of 12"... The resulting image shows a fair-skinned child with blond, wavy hair and dark eyes. ...No doubt you of little faith assume that's an end to it. But wait, there's more.
As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the Shroud of Turin itself has been mired in controversy for centuries, with some maintaining the image on the linen is that of the crucified Jesus, while others reject it as an elaborate hoax. In the 1980s, three international laboratories were selected to run the newly refined accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) method of carbon dating on the shroud, to help determine its time of origin. The labs ... all concurred the shroud was dated 1260-1390 AD.
"And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself." (John 20:3-7)As Arthur Dent would have put it, this is obviously some strange use of the word "scientific" that I wasn't previously aware of. Once, before it became a casualty of the Cultural Wars, there was an institution that could settle such questions, as the former Filippo Bruno discovered in 1600. Its officers, unlike the scapegoats of Abu Ghraib who were inadequately trained to obey the memos of our next Attorney General, understood strict rules to follow:
While some think the "napkin" that was on Jesus' head casts doubt on the whole shroud theory, others believe it helps validate the shroud as authentic. A relic called the Sudarium of Oviedo is claimed by some to be the actual cloth around Jesus' head. The cloth is impregnated with blood and lymph stains that match the blood type on the Shroud of Turin. ...
"The scientific and medical studies on the Sudarium prove that it was the covering for the same man whose image is [on] the Shroud of Turin. We know that the Sudarium has been in Spain since the 600s. How, then, can the radio carbon dating claiming the shroud is only from the 13th century be accurate?"
...torture was not regarded as a mode of punishment, but purely as a means of eliciting the truth. ... The limit placed upon torture was citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum -- i.e, it was not to cause the loss of life or limb or imperil life. Torture was to applied only once, and not then unless the accused were uncertain in his statements, and seemed already virtually convicted by manifold and weighty proofs.Even in the search for mundane truths, one should not leap to conclusions, mais éprouvez toutes choses (1 Thessaloniciens 5:21).
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
A SECULAR SOLSTICE SONG:
[Part One]
Marley was gone: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Old Marley was as gone as the old cache. Scrooge never deleted Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, on the website homepage: Immanentizer, A Blog By Scrooge and Marley. He went on posting as though his partner had only gone on vacation, and would return any moment, though inside he knew the truth, and he was secretly consumed with guilt.
Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Winter Solstice Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy at his computer. The door of his office was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cubicle beyond was answering email.
"A merry Solstice, uncle! More sunlight ahead!" cried a cheerful voice. It was that of Scrooge's nephew.
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.
"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Solstice! Out upon merry Solstice! What's Solstice time to you but a day for celebrating nature without a deity; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not a sacrament holier. If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Solstice' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Solstice in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"
"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow."
Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
"There isn't any hell, uncle. I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Solstice, and I'll keep my Solstice humour to the last. So A Merry Solstice, uncle!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.
The clerk, in letting the nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They bowed to him. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"
"Mr. Marley has been gone these seven years," Scrooge replied. "He disappeared seven years ago, this very night."
"We have no doubt his humanism is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman.
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word "humanism," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Brainwashed and Indoctrinated, who suffer greatly at the present season. Many thousands are in fear from religious nightmares; hundreds of thousands are in terror of imaginary afterlifes, sir."
"And your De-programming Camps?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are."
"The Cult Police and the Propaganda Ban are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had come down from Heaven to stop them," said Scrooge.
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish comfort of mind to the frightened multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the victims of religious terror tales some logic and science books. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when mystical Memories are recalled, and materialistic Reassurance is needed. What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied. I don't make merry myself at Solstice and I can't afford to make cowards merry."
"Many foolishly fear torment beyond the grave."
"If they are ignorant of whether anything comes after," said Scrooge, "they had better die, and resolve the uncertainty for themselves. Good afternoon, gentlemen!" Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew.
Later one young man stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Solstice carol: but at the first sound of "There was a wicked messenger....", Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror.
At length the hour of shutting up arrived. Scrooge made his way home, crossing to the other side of one street to avoid the high-pressure hoses the police were using to erase some theistic graffiti from the wall of City Hall -- a drawing of a Nativity scene. At one busy intersection a mounted officer used a stun gun to knock down some crazed homeless man who began shouting about Bethlehem, and holding up what looked like an illegal copy of the Bible. Routine ranting from tiresome troublemakers at this time of year.
At home Scrooge locked himself in and went upstairs to his bedroom. As he sat down in his chair, he heard the street door fly open with a booming sound, and then he heard noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
His colour changed when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the candle's dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him; Marley's Ghost!" and fell again. His body was transparent, so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.
Scrooge promptly fell on the floor on his hands and knees, touching his head to the carpet, and beseeching the spirit: "Oh, Brother Marley! Thank God you've come back! They said you had all been dissolved by a terrible synthetic virus that turned human flesh into gas, and forbade anyone to speak of the Rapture, but when I found your clothes on the floor, I knew! I knew I'd been a fool all along to deny God, and get left behind with all the other sinners. Then I saw that the Dispensationalists had been right all along. And I hadn't even realized you were a believer! Does your coming here now mean that the seven years of the Great Tribulation have ended, and that God will defeat Satan at Armageddon? Is there any hope for a late convert like me?"
The spectre looked down disdainfully at him and spoke sharply. "You always were a bloody fool, Scrooge! There hasn't been any Rapture, and I'm not a ghost. Marley really is dead, and I'm just a holographic projection in a form we hoped would be familiar to you, and thus less frightening. All the believers were really vaporized by us. We are an advanced species from another star system. We plan to land soon and take over the planet by pretending to be messengers from God. Naturally we didn't want any competing loyalties to other deities around. What we need are some rational people that are practical enough to see through all that mystical cover story and help us organize our new conquest for us. We had thought you would make a perfect Pétain, but now we're not so sure."
The milky image shifted position and looked thoughtful. "I'll tell you what, Ebenezer, we'll give you another chance. Tonight we'll send you three other holograms, who'll test your thinking and see if you can still be useful to us, or if you're just a hopeless waste that we'd better dispense with. We'll need to do this quickly, because our choices have to be made before the actual Solstice, which will be at 12:42 tomorrow afternoon here in London. Expect the first one in an hour." And he turned, opened the window, and floated into the air.
Scrooge stood looking up at the empty sky, then looked down at the street. Two children playing in the snow saw him and shouted "A Merry Solstice to all!" He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable. Scrooge closed the window, and being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invading Forces, or the heated harangue of the Hologram, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant, hoping this was all a dream caused by an undigested bit of beef.
[Part One]
Marley was gone: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Old Marley was as gone as the old cache. Scrooge never deleted Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, on the website homepage: Immanentizer, A Blog By Scrooge and Marley. He went on posting as though his partner had only gone on vacation, and would return any moment, though inside he knew the truth, and he was secretly consumed with guilt.
Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Winter Solstice Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy at his computer. The door of his office was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cubicle beyond was answering email.
"A merry Solstice, uncle! More sunlight ahead!" cried a cheerful voice. It was that of Scrooge's nephew.
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.
"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Solstice! Out upon merry Solstice! What's Solstice time to you but a day for celebrating nature without a deity; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not a sacrament holier. If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Solstice' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Solstice in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"
"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow."
Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
"There isn't any hell, uncle. I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Solstice, and I'll keep my Solstice humour to the last. So A Merry Solstice, uncle!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.
The clerk, in letting the nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They bowed to him. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"
"Mr. Marley has been gone these seven years," Scrooge replied. "He disappeared seven years ago, this very night."
"We have no doubt his humanism is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman.
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word "humanism," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Brainwashed and Indoctrinated, who suffer greatly at the present season. Many thousands are in fear from religious nightmares; hundreds of thousands are in terror of imaginary afterlifes, sir."
"And your De-programming Camps?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are."
"The Cult Police and the Propaganda Ban are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had come down from Heaven to stop them," said Scrooge.
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish comfort of mind to the frightened multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the victims of religious terror tales some logic and science books. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when mystical Memories are recalled, and materialistic Reassurance is needed. What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied. I don't make merry myself at Solstice and I can't afford to make cowards merry."
"Many foolishly fear torment beyond the grave."
"If they are ignorant of whether anything comes after," said Scrooge, "they had better die, and resolve the uncertainty for themselves. Good afternoon, gentlemen!" Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew.
Later one young man stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Solstice carol: but at the first sound of "There was a wicked messenger....", Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror.
At length the hour of shutting up arrived. Scrooge made his way home, crossing to the other side of one street to avoid the high-pressure hoses the police were using to erase some theistic graffiti from the wall of City Hall -- a drawing of a Nativity scene. At one busy intersection a mounted officer used a stun gun to knock down some crazed homeless man who began shouting about Bethlehem, and holding up what looked like an illegal copy of the Bible. Routine ranting from tiresome troublemakers at this time of year.
At home Scrooge locked himself in and went upstairs to his bedroom. As he sat down in his chair, he heard the street door fly open with a booming sound, and then he heard noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
His colour changed when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the candle's dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him; Marley's Ghost!" and fell again. His body was transparent, so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.
Scrooge promptly fell on the floor on his hands and knees, touching his head to the carpet, and beseeching the spirit: "Oh, Brother Marley! Thank God you've come back! They said you had all been dissolved by a terrible synthetic virus that turned human flesh into gas, and forbade anyone to speak of the Rapture, but when I found your clothes on the floor, I knew! I knew I'd been a fool all along to deny God, and get left behind with all the other sinners. Then I saw that the Dispensationalists had been right all along. And I hadn't even realized you were a believer! Does your coming here now mean that the seven years of the Great Tribulation have ended, and that God will defeat Satan at Armageddon? Is there any hope for a late convert like me?"
The spectre looked down disdainfully at him and spoke sharply. "You always were a bloody fool, Scrooge! There hasn't been any Rapture, and I'm not a ghost. Marley really is dead, and I'm just a holographic projection in a form we hoped would be familiar to you, and thus less frightening. All the believers were really vaporized by us. We are an advanced species from another star system. We plan to land soon and take over the planet by pretending to be messengers from God. Naturally we didn't want any competing loyalties to other deities around. What we need are some rational people that are practical enough to see through all that mystical cover story and help us organize our new conquest for us. We had thought you would make a perfect Pétain, but now we're not so sure."
The milky image shifted position and looked thoughtful. "I'll tell you what, Ebenezer, we'll give you another chance. Tonight we'll send you three other holograms, who'll test your thinking and see if you can still be useful to us, or if you're just a hopeless waste that we'd better dispense with. We'll need to do this quickly, because our choices have to be made before the actual Solstice, which will be at 12:42 tomorrow afternoon here in London. Expect the first one in an hour." And he turned, opened the window, and floated into the air.
Scrooge stood looking up at the empty sky, then looked down at the street. Two children playing in the snow saw him and shouted "A Merry Solstice to all!" He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable. Scrooge closed the window, and being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invading Forces, or the heated harangue of the Hologram, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant, hoping this was all a dream caused by an undigested bit of beef.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ADJUST THE PICTURE...:
Sen. Zell Miller, the fire-and-brimstone-preaching Dixiecrat who tried to challenge MSNBC's Chris Matthews to a duel after delivering the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, has been welcomed with open arms by Fox News Channel.While this will give liberal Democrats heart attacks, it makes me want to burst joyfully into song. How about a revised stanza from an old Fifth Dimension hit?
The cable network announced yesterday it has signed the departing Georgia Democrat as a contributor, beginning in January.
Details were scant. Kevin Magee, FNC's vice president of programming, told The TV Column, "We will plug him in wherever we can use him."
Divorcing Zell Blues
Zell, you scare Dems so, you shout so well.
They look at you and see their grandpa's voting base,
Back when your party still kept down that other race.
They were on your side Zell when y'all seceeded.
They ignored the lynchings y'all thought you needed.
But now TV news has ended that, well, good bye to you, Zell.
Monday, December 13, 2004
BUDGET HAWK DOWN:
It seems that Kevin Hayden has invited the Blogalaxy (and no, the vacationing skippy did not coin that term!) to enter a poetry contest, using a line from the SecDef which sounds rather Whitmanesque (even though that poet would not be allowed in Don's Crusaders).
One can pray for war each night (as a late friend of mine was instructed in Marine boot camp), yet still follow the fine American tradition of thinking the Pentagon higher-ups wear all those scrambled eggs on their hats just to make their own heads easier to find. Coming from a military family, I have no sympathy for short-changing our far-called legions.
You may sing this to a tune from some old band which seems to do the theme songs for all those "C.S.I." shows. I understand the original was the final song in a so-called "rock opera" of theirs in antediluvian times.
RUMMY:
Welcome to Iraq,
You'll be here for many a year.
My name is Rummy,
And, yes, I shorted you on gear.
If we want to cleanse the world,
We've got to play cheapskate.
So improvise armor,
Send home for kevlar,
And we'll blame it all on Bill.
Hey, troops getting shot, so sorry
You've got no vest.
Taking mortar hits in convoys:
It's for the best.
Purchase orders are known unknowns,
Just like all the rest.
We can't afford to fight the world spending all that cash;
It flunks the global test.
SOLDIERS:
We ain't gonna drive it.
We never would arrive. It
Would our life deprive. It
Won't let us survive it.
We ain't gonna follow,
Either you or your cheap boss.
It's too much to swallow:
Our suits hollow, as you wallow
In contracts, we take the loss.
RUMMY:
Now, you can't phone home;
We won't spring for the dime.
We censor emails
And letters out as well.
You can't say nothing,
So cheapness will rule unchecked.
You go to war with what you have must be
Our budget standard now.
SOLDIERS:
We ain't gonna follow
Such a cheapskate four-eye fink.
Won't be discount soldiers
Just to keep you from red ink.
We will be behind you,
But it's not for what you think.
We are gonna catch you.
When we take you
We will make you
Have a lot of blood to drink.
RUMMY:
Save me.
Free me.
Help me.
**Glugg**choke**
It seems that Kevin Hayden has invited the Blogalaxy (and no, the vacationing skippy did not coin that term!) to enter a poetry contest, using a line from the SecDef which sounds rather Whitmanesque (even though that poet would not be allowed in Don's Crusaders).
One can pray for war each night (as a late friend of mine was instructed in Marine boot camp), yet still follow the fine American tradition of thinking the Pentagon higher-ups wear all those scrambled eggs on their hats just to make their own heads easier to find. Coming from a military family, I have no sympathy for short-changing our far-called legions.
You may sing this to a tune from some old band which seems to do the theme songs for all those "C.S.I." shows. I understand the original was the final song in a so-called "rock opera" of theirs in antediluvian times.
RUMMY:
Welcome to Iraq,
You'll be here for many a year.
My name is Rummy,
And, yes, I shorted you on gear.
If we want to cleanse the world,
We've got to play cheapskate.
So improvise armor,
Send home for kevlar,
And we'll blame it all on Bill.
Hey, troops getting shot, so sorry
You've got no vest.
Taking mortar hits in convoys:
It's for the best.
Purchase orders are known unknowns,
Just like all the rest.
We can't afford to fight the world spending all that cash;
It flunks the global test.
SOLDIERS:
We ain't gonna drive it.
We never would arrive. It
Would our life deprive. It
Won't let us survive it.
We ain't gonna follow,
Either you or your cheap boss.
It's too much to swallow:
Our suits hollow, as you wallow
In contracts, we take the loss.
RUMMY:
Now, you can't phone home;
We won't spring for the dime.
We censor emails
And letters out as well.
You can't say nothing,
So cheapness will rule unchecked.
You go to war with what you have must be
Our budget standard now.
SOLDIERS:
We ain't gonna follow
Such a cheapskate four-eye fink.
Won't be discount soldiers
Just to keep you from red ink.
We will be behind you,
But it's not for what you think.
We are gonna catch you.
When we take you
We will make you
Have a lot of blood to drink.
RUMMY:
Save me.
Free me.
Help me.
**Glugg**choke**
Sunday, December 12, 2004
SILLY YANKEE, APPOINTMENTS ARE FOR RED STATERS:
The cynical assume that New Yorker Bernie Kerik has withdrawn from being Überkindermädchen ofMutterland Heimland Homeland Security not because of the new nannygate brouhaha, but because he got millions from a company selling stun guns to the agency. Nope, he was torpedoed because he is a close friend of a RINO panting for the Presidency, Rudy The Unready. There's no way some of us would let an ally of that gun-grabbing adulterer get planted where they could help his campaign.
I know the truth because I was the one chosen to fire the warning shot. (Unfortunately, they insisted it be over his head, even though I usually aim for the crotch.) Notice that Kerik is reported to have only discovered on Friday that he had a problem with a lack of employer tax paying related activities. In fact what happened Friday was that I posted here my piece called THE MINIMORPHOSIS. Most people just assumed it was a parody of the Democrats as seen by Kafka. No, all of that well-deserved mockery of the donkeys was just an excuse for the real meat, which was this line: "The family housekeeper, Bernardine Kerik, announced that she had disposed of the corpse."
He deciphered the hint at once, namely that we knew all about his she-nanny-gins and were ready to reveal all, so he should just fall on his own taser. Now the way is clear for a loyalist to take the job instead. While some have flattered me by suggesting I would be the best possible choice to round up all the domestic dissidents left dangling by that dilatory dilettante Ridge, I prefer to remain on the sidelines where I am free to harass heretics like Rudy and Arnold. And no, I have nothing against foreign nannies, having been largely raised myself by one that was probably an illegal alien, since she had no fixed address and only arrived by umbrella when the wind was right.
The cynical assume that New Yorker Bernie Kerik has withdrawn from being Überkindermädchen of
I know the truth because I was the one chosen to fire the warning shot. (Unfortunately, they insisted it be over his head, even though I usually aim for the crotch.) Notice that Kerik is reported to have only discovered on Friday that he had a problem with a lack of employer tax paying related activities. In fact what happened Friday was that I posted here my piece called THE MINIMORPHOSIS. Most people just assumed it was a parody of the Democrats as seen by Kafka. No, all of that well-deserved mockery of the donkeys was just an excuse for the real meat, which was this line: "The family housekeeper, Bernardine Kerik, announced that she had disposed of the corpse."
He deciphered the hint at once, namely that we knew all about his she-nanny-gins and were ready to reveal all, so he should just fall on his own taser. Now the way is clear for a loyalist to take the job instead. While some have flattered me by suggesting I would be the best possible choice to round up all the domestic dissidents left dangling by that dilatory dilettante Ridge, I prefer to remain on the sidelines where I am free to harass heretics like Rudy and Arnold. And no, I have nothing against foreign nannies, having been largely raised myself by one that was probably an illegal alien, since she had no fixed address and only arrived by umbrella when the wind was right.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
CURSE YOU, YOU STUPID DARKNESS!:
(Found at Dohiyi Mir.)
You are Lucy! Lucy Van Pelt works hard at being
bossy, crabby and selfish. She is loud and
yells a lot. Her smiles and motives are rarely
pure. She's a know-it-all who dispenses advice
whether you want it or not -- and for Charlie
Brown, there's a charge. She's a fussbudget, in
the true sense of the word. She's a real
grouch, with only one or two soft spots, and
both of them may be Schroeder, who prefers
Beethoven. As she sees it, hers is the only
way. The absence of logic in her arguments
holds a kind of shining lunacy. When it comes
to compliments, Lucy only likes receiving them.
If she's paying one -- or even smiling -- she's
probably up to something devious.
Which Peanuts character are you? brought to you by Quizilla.
(Found at Dohiyi Mir.)
You are Lucy! Lucy Van Pelt works hard at being
bossy, crabby and selfish. She is loud and
yells a lot. Her smiles and motives are rarely
pure. She's a know-it-all who dispenses advice
whether you want it or not -- and for Charlie
Brown, there's a charge. She's a fussbudget, in
the true sense of the word. She's a real
grouch, with only one or two soft spots, and
both of them may be Schroeder, who prefers
Beethoven. As she sees it, hers is the only
way. The absence of logic in her arguments
holds a kind of shining lunacy. When it comes
to compliments, Lucy only likes receiving them.
If she's paying one -- or even smiling -- she's
probably up to something devious.
Which Peanuts character are you? brought to you by Quizilla.
Friday, December 10, 2004
THE MINIMORPHOSIS:
"Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt." --Franz Kafka, "Die Verwandlung"
As Liberalismus awoke one morning from unlikely dreams about Presidential condiments, he found himself transformed in his bed into a very small donkey. Later, learned paleontologists would claim that random quantum leaps had spontaneously mutated his genes to those of a missing link in evolution, the long-sought "Eoasinus". Creation scientists of course denied that any such fabulous quadruped had ever existed, and suggested the change was due to drug-crazed lesbian witches. That view was somewhat closer to the truth. Liberalismus had really been transformed without his knowledge by an American Goddess named Media, who had been, like Merlin enchanted by Morgan Le Fay, manipulated by a mighty warlock named Wurlitzer.
What has happened to me? he brayed to himself. It was no dream. His room, a regular public housing bedroom, and therefore rather too small, lay quiet within its four familiar walls. Above the table on which a collection of campaign literature was unpacked and spread out -- Liberalismus was a Democratic political consultant -- hung the picture which he had recently gotten autographed and put into a pretty gilt frame. It showed the present junior Senator from New York, with a fur hat and thick asbestos gloves, standing and holding out to The Clenis a huge unread Bible, on which he hesitatingly laid his hand to take his inaugural oath. "Dear Lib," her inscription read, "Thanks for your help -- Sorry he had to track right -- You can count on me next time, for sure!!" Liberalismus had no idea that his continuing belief in such broken promises caused people to call him "Charlie Brown" behind his back.
There was a cautious tap at the door near the head of his bed. "Lib," said a voice -- it was Minderheit, his mother's -- "it's a quarter to seven. Didn't you have a bandwagon to catch?" That gentle voice! Liberalismus had a shock as he heard his own voice answering hers, and confined himself to saying: "Yes, yes, thank you, Mother, I'm getting up now." At one of the side doors his father Arbeiterklasse was already knocking, gently, yet with his fist. "Lib, Lib," he called, "What's the matter with you?" At the other side door he fancied he heard his sister Gerechtigkeit saying in a low, plaintive tone: "Lib? Aren't you well? Do you need anything?" He answered them both at once: "I'm just about ready," and did his best to make his voice sound as normal as possible.
"Liberalismus," said his father said later from the room on the left, "the Minority Leader has come and wants to know why you didn't catch the early bandwagon. We don't know what to say to him. Besides, he wants to talk to you in person. So open the door, please." "Good morning, Lib," Harry, the Minority Leader, was calling amiably meanwhile. "He's not well," said his mother to the visitor, while his father was still speaking through the door, "he's not well, sir, believe me. What else would make him miss a bandwagon! The boy thinks about nothing but his work." "Well, can the Minority Leader come in now?" asked Lib’s father impatiently, again knocking on the door. "No," said Liberalismus. In the left-hand room a painful silence followed this refusal; in the right-hand room his sister began to sob.
"Mr. Liberalismus," the Minority Leader called now in a louder voice, "what's the matter with you? Here you are, barricading yourself in your room, and neglecting your political duties in an incredible fashion. Attorney General Gonzales did hint to me early this morning a possible explanation for your disappearance -- with reference to the online campaign contributions that were entrusted to you recently. Your position in the party is not exactly unassailable. I came with the intention of telling you all this in private, but since you are wasting my time so needlessly I don't see why your parents shouldn't hear it too. For some time now your bitter opposition to the President has been most unsatisfactory; this is not the best electoral climate within the party for celebrating his mandate, of course, we admit that, but a time for never supporting him at all, that does not exist, Mr. Liberalismus, must not exist. Alberto reminded me that there are still vacancies available at our Navy's resort camp on the south coast of Cuba, if you need to retreat for a while and reeducate yourself."
When Lib awkwardly opened the door with his hooves, the Minority Leader saw him and uttered a loud "Oh!", clapping one hand over his open mouth and slowly backing away, then fleeing out the door to the other side of the street. His mother fell on the floor among her outspread skirts. Unfortunately, the flight of the Minority Leader seemed completely to unhinge Liberalismus's father, who covered his eyes with his hands, and wept until his great chest heaved, then snatched in his left hand a Democratic Leadership Council newsletter from the table, and began flourishing it and stamping his feet to drive Lib back into his room. The door was slammed behind him, and then at last there was silence.
For two whole days there were family consultations at every mealtime about what should be done. Finally Arbeiterklasse said they must call in professional help. He read them a classified ad from the New Dem Daily: "Rabbi Lieberman -- Available for weddings, bar mitzvahs, funerals, premature burials, and leftist exorcisms." Minderheit agreed, but added nervously, "We must keep his sister out of sight when the man comes, Papa. Remember when Herr Professor Doctor Kaufmann said that she was just Lib's imaginary playmate -- that Gerechtigkeit does not really exist."
When the Leftorcist arrived he expressed horror at Lib's appearance, saying "This monster will frighten every respectable person who sees it, and make your family social outcasts. To lift this burden from your shoulders, you need to feed him the new wonder drug, Weiches Geld. He will become more and more dependent upon it, until it finally blocks up his bowels and rots, and he passes away from intestinal atrophy." That night they began adding paper-thin sheets of it to his trough. Within a short time, while still he thought of his family with tenderness and love, there came from his nostrils the last faint flicker of his breath. The family housekeeper, Bernardine Kerik, announced that she had disposed of the corpse.
Then the family left the apartment together, which was more than they had done for months, and took the streetcar to the red country outside of the city. The car, in which they were the only passengers, was filled with warm sunshine. Leaning comfortably back in their seats the parents talked over their prospects for the future, and it appeared on closer inspection that these were not at all bad, for as Arbeiterklasse said, they could now provide for Gerechtigkeit all the better without that parasitical Liberalismus leeching off of them. They smiled at their pretty daughter.
The driver of the streetcar to the country, Herr From, raised his eyebrows scornfully when he saw the two in his rear-view mirror staring at the empty seat between them, for of course Dr. Kaufmann's theory had been right about Gerechtigkeit, though that was not proven to the world until Professor Urosevich's demonstration at the great eclipse of 2004. Even then, no one was cruel enough to point out to Liberalismus's grieving parents that this also proved the equally imaginary status of the two infants they believed their unmarried daughter had been forced to give up for adoption, Frieden and Freiheit.
"Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt." --Franz Kafka, "Die Verwandlung"
As Liberalismus awoke one morning from unlikely dreams about Presidential condiments, he found himself transformed in his bed into a very small donkey. Later, learned paleontologists would claim that random quantum leaps had spontaneously mutated his genes to those of a missing link in evolution, the long-sought "Eoasinus". Creation scientists of course denied that any such fabulous quadruped had ever existed, and suggested the change was due to drug-crazed lesbian witches. That view was somewhat closer to the truth. Liberalismus had really been transformed without his knowledge by an American Goddess named Media, who had been, like Merlin enchanted by Morgan Le Fay, manipulated by a mighty warlock named Wurlitzer.
What has happened to me? he brayed to himself. It was no dream. His room, a regular public housing bedroom, and therefore rather too small, lay quiet within its four familiar walls. Above the table on which a collection of campaign literature was unpacked and spread out -- Liberalismus was a Democratic political consultant -- hung the picture which he had recently gotten autographed and put into a pretty gilt frame. It showed the present junior Senator from New York, with a fur hat and thick asbestos gloves, standing and holding out to The Clenis a huge unread Bible, on which he hesitatingly laid his hand to take his inaugural oath. "Dear Lib," her inscription read, "Thanks for your help -- Sorry he had to track right -- You can count on me next time, for sure!!" Liberalismus had no idea that his continuing belief in such broken promises caused people to call him "Charlie Brown" behind his back.
There was a cautious tap at the door near the head of his bed. "Lib," said a voice -- it was Minderheit, his mother's -- "it's a quarter to seven. Didn't you have a bandwagon to catch?" That gentle voice! Liberalismus had a shock as he heard his own voice answering hers, and confined himself to saying: "Yes, yes, thank you, Mother, I'm getting up now." At one of the side doors his father Arbeiterklasse was already knocking, gently, yet with his fist. "Lib, Lib," he called, "What's the matter with you?" At the other side door he fancied he heard his sister Gerechtigkeit saying in a low, plaintive tone: "Lib? Aren't you well? Do you need anything?" He answered them both at once: "I'm just about ready," and did his best to make his voice sound as normal as possible.
"Liberalismus," said his father said later from the room on the left, "the Minority Leader has come and wants to know why you didn't catch the early bandwagon. We don't know what to say to him. Besides, he wants to talk to you in person. So open the door, please." "Good morning, Lib," Harry, the Minority Leader, was calling amiably meanwhile. "He's not well," said his mother to the visitor, while his father was still speaking through the door, "he's not well, sir, believe me. What else would make him miss a bandwagon! The boy thinks about nothing but his work." "Well, can the Minority Leader come in now?" asked Lib’s father impatiently, again knocking on the door. "No," said Liberalismus. In the left-hand room a painful silence followed this refusal; in the right-hand room his sister began to sob.
"Mr. Liberalismus," the Minority Leader called now in a louder voice, "what's the matter with you? Here you are, barricading yourself in your room, and neglecting your political duties in an incredible fashion. Attorney General Gonzales did hint to me early this morning a possible explanation for your disappearance -- with reference to the online campaign contributions that were entrusted to you recently. Your position in the party is not exactly unassailable. I came with the intention of telling you all this in private, but since you are wasting my time so needlessly I don't see why your parents shouldn't hear it too. For some time now your bitter opposition to the President has been most unsatisfactory; this is not the best electoral climate within the party for celebrating his mandate, of course, we admit that, but a time for never supporting him at all, that does not exist, Mr. Liberalismus, must not exist. Alberto reminded me that there are still vacancies available at our Navy's resort camp on the south coast of Cuba, if you need to retreat for a while and reeducate yourself."
When Lib awkwardly opened the door with his hooves, the Minority Leader saw him and uttered a loud "Oh!", clapping one hand over his open mouth and slowly backing away, then fleeing out the door to the other side of the street. His mother fell on the floor among her outspread skirts. Unfortunately, the flight of the Minority Leader seemed completely to unhinge Liberalismus's father, who covered his eyes with his hands, and wept until his great chest heaved, then snatched in his left hand a Democratic Leadership Council newsletter from the table, and began flourishing it and stamping his feet to drive Lib back into his room. The door was slammed behind him, and then at last there was silence.
For two whole days there were family consultations at every mealtime about what should be done. Finally Arbeiterklasse said they must call in professional help. He read them a classified ad from the New Dem Daily: "Rabbi Lieberman -- Available for weddings, bar mitzvahs, funerals, premature burials, and leftist exorcisms." Minderheit agreed, but added nervously, "We must keep his sister out of sight when the man comes, Papa. Remember when Herr Professor Doctor Kaufmann said that she was just Lib's imaginary playmate -- that Gerechtigkeit does not really exist."
When the Leftorcist arrived he expressed horror at Lib's appearance, saying "This monster will frighten every respectable person who sees it, and make your family social outcasts. To lift this burden from your shoulders, you need to feed him the new wonder drug, Weiches Geld. He will become more and more dependent upon it, until it finally blocks up his bowels and rots, and he passes away from intestinal atrophy." That night they began adding paper-thin sheets of it to his trough. Within a short time, while still he thought of his family with tenderness and love, there came from his nostrils the last faint flicker of his breath. The family housekeeper, Bernardine Kerik, announced that she had disposed of the corpse.
Then the family left the apartment together, which was more than they had done for months, and took the streetcar to the red country outside of the city. The car, in which they were the only passengers, was filled with warm sunshine. Leaning comfortably back in their seats the parents talked over their prospects for the future, and it appeared on closer inspection that these were not at all bad, for as Arbeiterklasse said, they could now provide for Gerechtigkeit all the better without that parasitical Liberalismus leeching off of them. They smiled at their pretty daughter.
The driver of the streetcar to the country, Herr From, raised his eyebrows scornfully when he saw the two in his rear-view mirror staring at the empty seat between them, for of course Dr. Kaufmann's theory had been right about Gerechtigkeit, though that was not proven to the world until Professor Urosevich's demonstration at the great eclipse of 2004. Even then, no one was cruel enough to point out to Liberalismus's grieving parents that this also proved the equally imaginary status of the two infants they believed their unmarried daughter had been forced to give up for adoption, Frieden and Freiheit.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
BLOG, INTERRUPTED (HOPEFULLY BRIEFLY):
Forgive me, but a sudden and urgent family medical situation has kept me off the web. Tests have been run, and within days results should indicate whether this will mean relatively simple surgery, or more extensive treatments as well, or even worse news. Prayers, good vibrations, or whatever your belief system provides, would do no harm and might even help.
Whatever happens, our votes against evil were cast (and probably even counted, in this non-swing jurisdiction), and our voice of mockery has been added to the balances. Thank you for this conduit, which we hope we'll be able, and moved, to use more in the future. Live long and prosper.
--Ayn Clouter
"They can have my almanac when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."
Forgive me, but a sudden and urgent family medical situation has kept me off the web. Tests have been run, and within days results should indicate whether this will mean relatively simple surgery, or more extensive treatments as well, or even worse news. Prayers, good vibrations, or whatever your belief system provides, would do no harm and might even help.
Whatever happens, our votes against evil were cast (and probably even counted, in this non-swing jurisdiction), and our voice of mockery has been added to the balances. Thank you for this conduit, which we hope we'll be able, and moved, to use more in the future. Live long and prosper.
--Ayn Clouter
"They can have my almanac when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."
