8/10/2015

#121 A World of Funny Stuff (2004)

All Rights Reserved © 2004 Thomas W. Day

Comedians have to feel specially blessed these days.  We have Colon Powell claiming that he has "evidence" of yet another oil-rich country possessing dangerous WMDs (wimpy male dandruff?).  Citizens in the Ukraine are protesting their rigged Presidential election and the Bushies are babbling about "preserving democracy (for everyplace except America)."  Finally, every other newspaper ad is for some sort of male erection enhancement dope or a male pattern baldness treatment.  You don't have to be a professional comedian to see the humor in the daily newspaper.

From the perspective of the rest of the world, or any rational human being, let's try to read something into an American newspaper.  Starting from the top, literally, what's with the "thinning hair blues" paranoia?  Men get bald.  Hell, even women lose their hair as they get old.  In fact, old, fat, white, bald men have been an object of terror for as long as I have been alive and a lot longer, if you can imagine that.  Suddenly, these folks what to moderate their scary image by painting the tops of their heads black?  I guess there is some sense in that.  They've been trying to convince the rest of us that the scariest people in the country are black men, so maybe they are enhancing their own powerful image by partially painting themselves the color of their favorite demons. 

The really cool combination of a comb-over and a painted-black skull is pretty scary, I have to admit.  Anyone that intent on disguising himself has to have something serious to hide; murder, robbery, child-abuse, and/or being a member of the NRA or the Republican Party.  All truly terrifying character flaws.  Even scarier, the ads tell us that the disguised men and women "feel 10 years younger" after painting their heads.  There is nothing scarier than young feeling Republicans. 

"Boost your stamina and performance" with one of the many recreational drugs now on the potency market, that's the subject of about 90% of today's television ads.  My favorite ad is the one for the non-prescription dope, Endurex for Men.  They never picture middle aged, fat, bald, white men as their typical customer.  Apparently, Endurex is for young twenty-something men who are getting it one with even younger, beautiful women.  I'm not bragging here, but when I was twenty-something married to a beautiful 20-something woman, I did not need any sort of endurance or performance dope.  If anything, I needed something to take the edge off of my permanent state of horniness.  Apparently, twenty years of eating hormone-stuffed beef hasn't been good for the American male.  We're going limp much earlier than in any previous generation. 

Pretending to be potent is almost as popular among the Whacky Right as pretending to give a damn about democracy every where in the world except in the United States.  You have to applaud the Ukrainians for being so brave in the face of the Russian military's attempt to subvert their first democratic election in zillions of years.  But what does it say about us when Bush can pretend to be part of "building a democracy" in Asia after he worked so hard to destroy an existing semi-democracy in his own country?  It says that we don't know democratic institutions when we are losing them.  Fair elections in this country ceased to exist with Bush's first abduction of the federal government.  The 2004 "election" cemented the fascists' control of our federal government and moved this country out of the democratic column into the corporate communist column for the foreseeable future.   We have as much business telling other countries how to manage their democracies as Donald Trump has in writing a humane business management textbook.  This would be a lot funnier subject if it wasn't so disastrous for the rest of the world. 

It's an odd fact that even imperialist wars haven't done much for our testosterone levels.  And that's sad because Bush has his favorite poodle, Colon Powell, parading more "evidence of WMDs" to the world as a demonstration of how far Cheney has his hand stuffed up Powell's ass.  Powell seems to be a little miffed at the world's reaction, "More magical PowerPoint slides, Generalissimo?  We can hardly wait."  Yes, the leaders of the civilized world are on edge waiting for Mr. Powell to demonstrate the latest piece of evidence that Powell is offering as an excuse to take over a few more square miles of the world's richest oil fields.  Whoops, do I sound a little cynical?  Gosh, why wouldn't I expect Powell and the rest of CRAP to be just as honest in their presentation of evidence as they have been for the last four years?  I guess if my vote actually counted, I might be more inclined to consider even a candidate that I voted against to be a legitimate representative of my country.  Since I'm living in the New Soviet Union (thanks for "winning" that war, Mr. Reagan), I'm more interested in regime change than nation building.

Our five-foot-two, Alfred E. Newman look-alike, soft-shouldered, hunchbacked by an oversized-wireless prompter, booze-and-dope-dappled, inbred rich kid, picture-of-impotence President isn't exactly creating an image of power and vitality to the rest of the world.  If anything empowers terrorists to believe that we're a nation of helpless wimps, it's our head wimp.  The boy looks like a walking advertisement for skull paint and impotency drugs.  At least we don't have to worry about GeeWiz getting it on with sexy interns.  Bush couldn't get it up with a lifetime supply of Viagra and this year's Playboy pin-ups spread across the White House lawn.  What we do have to worry about is terrorists believing that we're all as helpless and cowardly as Bush and his whining neo-cons.  The fact is, at least half of the country is made up of exactly those character traits.  The fact is, we are weak, spineless, and inclined toward irrational behavior under stress.  Osama can blow up a chunk of New York and we'll run away from him and attack a nearly defenseless Iraq.  If Iraq fights back, we'll run away and go after Iran.  If Iran looks dangerous, maybe Grenada will need another whipping.  Cuba seems to be a likely, defenseless, third-world target.  Eventually, we'll find a country we can whip and they'll stay whipped long enough for us to declare "a lasting victory" before we're mired down in hand-to-hand-combat in hospitals and nursery schools.  Hopefully, Bush won't mistake Canada's generally passive attitude toward our un-neighborly behavior as a sign of "easy pickins'."  A nation that can tolerate 10 months of winter would kick our girly-man asses. 

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