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Sunday, July 27, 2014

211. Ignorance

He was glassy-eyed and groggy, not the usual demeanor for C.W. His moves were a little robotic and his head would jerk from side to side when I spoke to him. What was up?

“You okay?”

“No,” he said, “I’m worried.”

“About what?”

“The unemployment rate.”

“The unemployment rate?”

“Yes, it has risen.”

“Uh,” I said, I think it has gone down.”

“No,” he said, “you think you know everything but you don’t know anything. The unemployment rate was 4.2 percent and now it is 6.3 percent. This African-American is destroying your country.”

“President Obama?”

“That’s him. He’s raised the unemployment rate more than two percent.”

“C.W.,” I said, “when was the unemployment rate 4.2 percent?”

“Before Obama took office.”

“I think you will find that it was 4.2 percent some eight years before he took office.”

“That’s before he took office, ain’t it?”

I groaned.

He said, “And there was a budget surplus before Obama took office. What do you say about that?”

“I would say … when?”

“Doesn’t matter, but it was before he took office. Now there is a deficit of 680 billion. I tell you, he is destroying your country.”

“Wait a moment,” I said. I punched on the computer. “There,” I said, “that budget surplus you mentioned was for fiscal year 2000, that’s 14 years ago.”

“Exactly,” he said, “and since this, …  this, man of color has been in office, it is a deficit.”

“Uh,” I said, “would it surprise you to learn that he inherited a deficit of 800 million?”

“Liberal lies,” he said. “Just more liberal lies from the ‘lame-stream media’ that you liberals love so much.” His head began to wag from side to side.

I said, “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”

“I’m just longing for a return to traditional values,” he said.

“What sort of traditional values?”

“You know,” he said. “Values based on the King James Version of the Bible. Values that formed a solid society.”

“One with slaves?”

“Traditional values,”

“One where women were paid half of what men were paid for the same job and had to answer ads seeking a ‘cute and perky’ secretary?”

“Traditional values.”

“Where a person gave all their money to the poor?”

“Tradi …” he stopped. “Say, what are you doing, trying to change the subject?”

“Why don’t we?”

Just wait until this bombshell
hits the liberal media. - C.W.
“Okay,” he said. “Did you know that Chelsea Clinton may have fathered a child with Mike Tyson, the prize fighter?

“C.W.,” I said. “Have you been watching Fox News all day again?”

He said, “Benghazi.”

“Have you?”

“Benghazi.”

“C.W., look at me.”

“Benghazi.”
 
Click an ad for my new computer.
And, check out www.wattensawpress.com
- C.W.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

210. Punditry

 C.W. is back on his dream of becoming a pundit. He showed up in a nice dark suit, immaculately groomed gray hair, and a stuffy Caucasian demeanor that made every attempt imaginable to look above average.

“It’s easy,” he said. “All you need to be a good pundit is gray hair and constipation.”

“Say again?”

He looked at me as if I had just belched out loud at a formal dinner party. “Simple,” he said, “the gray hair is to make you look distinguished and the constipation is to make you look concerned.”

“Uh,” I said, “isn’t there a bit more to it than that?”

“Not much,” he said. “Once you decide where you are going, it is a simple process to get there.” He studied me. “For example,” he said, “you are President Obama.” He cocked his head sympathetically, “Mr. President,” he said, “there is a conspiracy theory being stated that you are a secret alien taking on the shape of an American to prepare the earth for an invasion from outer space.”

“A conspiracy theory?”

“Yes sir, a conspiracy theory.”

“And I am supposed to respond to that?”

“Sir,” he said, taking on a more threatening look, “are you saying that you refuse to respond to it?”

“You are crazy,” I said.

“I got you there, didn’t I?”

“No,” I said, “you exhibited once more that you are a whacked-out idiot.”

“Mr. President,” he said, ignoring me, “is it really true, as Sarah Palin says, that you intend to extend your defense cuts by making American families board our military personnel?”

“Have you gone totally mad?”

“Shall I take that as a ‘yes,’ Mr. President?”

“C.W.,” I said, “Our bill of rights protects us from that very thing. A pundit should know the Bill of Rights.”

“What’s that … the Bill of Rights?”

“It’s the first ten amend…,” I began before stopping. “For goodness sake, C.W., you have to know American history to become a pundit on TV.”

“Says who?”

Wow. He had me there. I thought about some recent clips I had seen and decided I might be on shaky ground.

“See,” he said as he leaned toward me as a father might when explaining the facts of life to a son. “We pundits no longer see the need for such nonsense. We operate in a post-factual paradigm. Haven’t you ever watched Fox News?”

“Only while picking something up at the used tire shop.”

“Then you know the Reagan Doctrine that guides the moral compass of media pundits.”


Facts? We don't need no stupid facts. Now that's the style of
 a good pundit these days. It frees up a lot of our time. - C.W.
“And that is?”

“Like he said, ‘Facts are stupid things.’”

“I think if you research that, you will find he has been misquoted, or at least mischaracterized, by history.”

“Research is for sissies. We have a job to do, as pundits, and we can’t be distracted. Besides, if The Great Communicator said it, it is true.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “with a new paradigm, you might adopt a new name as well.”

“So I and my colleagues will no longer be pundits?”

“No,” I said, “I think the term ‘pundidiots’ suits you better.”
 
Now click an ad for my new computer. - C.W.
And check out www.wattensawpress.com

Sunday, July 13, 2014

209. Refuge

It was too late. I tried to hide but they—he—saw me. It was C.W. in his classic form of Lucky and Lefty, the conjoined twins. Oh dear.

“Get in step, asshole,” I heard Lefty say.

“Walk straight, you dink,” the other said.

“Hey look, dumbnuts, it’s Big Dope,” Lefty said. They immediately started toward me.

I waited with trepidation.

They stopped in front of where I sat in the shade of an oak tree and then simulated a sort of “come to attention” move.

“Your Royal Cluelessness,” Lefty said, with a mock salute.

“Boys,” I said, acknowledging their presence. It was then that I noticed a large leather strap across Lefty’s shoulder and leading around his torso. Just as I did, he turned inward suddenly.

“Goddammit,” Lucky said, “how many times have I told you not to do that?”

“Just exercising my rights,” Lefty said revealing a nasty-looking assault rifle held across his back.

It startled me. “What the hell?”

“Would you just look,” Lucky said. “He has gone totally psycho.”

“Get that thing away from here,” I said.

“When you pry it from my cold dead hands,” Lefty said. “But we’ll be gone soon.”

“Damned if we will,” Lucky said.

“My little friend here says it's true,” Lefty said, patting the muzzle of the rifle.

Lucky looked at me with a horribly pained expression. “Know where he intends to go?”

I said, “Texas, maybe?”

“How did you guess?” Lefty said, eying me suspiciously.

“Uh, isn’t that where nuts like you feel most at home?”

“No,” Lefty said. “That’s where the good targets are.”

I said, “What good targets?”

“Them kids.”

Before I could respond, Lucky said, “He wants to go to Texas and shoot those refugee children as they come across the border.

I was aghast. “You can’t do that.”

“Sure I can,” Lefty said. “I’m a damn good shot … except when ‘shit for brains’ here flinches.” He motioned toward Lucky.

“Can’t you do something?” Lucky said.

“I’d like to see him try,” Lefty said as he pulled the strap away from his chest and let it pop. “The one person you don’t want to mess with is a motivated American with a gun.”

“First,” I said, “you’re not an American. You’re an alien yourself. Second, America hasn’t settled an issue with guns since World War Two. Third, you can’t shoot children, not even in Texas.”

Lefty said. “Sure you can. They’re just quicker, that’s all. You have to lead them a little more.”

Lucky said, “Please, Big Dope.”

I said, “Want to tell me what has you so exercised, Lefty?”

“Them kids need to go back home,” he said. “They come from South America and they need to go back to South America, or be shot.”

“Want to know the weird part?” Lucky said.

“Sure,” I said.

“You didn’t know us then, but remember when that young boy, Elián González washed up in Florida after escaping from Cuba?”

“Yes.”

“Guess who wanted to shoot some feds for sending him back to his father.”

I looked at Lefty. He said, “Well that was different.”

I said, “How?”

“Just was. That’s all.” He looked away.

“And,” Lucky said, “he claims to be this big Christian.”

“Don’t you say nothing about my Jesus,” Lefty said.

“I won’t,” I said, “except that he was once a refugee whose family fled into Egypt to escape persecution from Herod.

“That was different,” Lefty said.

“And how, exactly?”

Big Dope says that this photo may have created
an eight-year nightmare for America. - C.W.
“Well everybody knows that Jesus was an … uh … an American.”

“Tell me,” I said. “Do you have any bullets for that gun?”

“No,” Lefty said. “We’re broke. That’s why we come to see you.”

“Boys,” I said, “pull yourselves up a chair. You ain’t going nowhere.”
 
 
Be sure and click on an ad. I need ammo. - C.W. (Just kidding. I need a computer)
And also check out Big Dope's book at www.wattensawpress.com

Sunday, July 6, 2014

208: Personhood

“You’re embarrassed?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t know.” I was trying to calm C.W. but he was having none of it. He had just returned from a meeting somewhere with the other aliens from Falloonia, the ones that do the same thing he does, in different parts of the world. Since he had taken on the shape of a drugstore cowboy, with hat, boots, and a belt with a buckle large enough to serve lunch on, I can only imagine the spectacle presented at that gathering.

“This dude from Barcelona kept asking if I had dated any corporations,” he said. “Then the one from Moscow wanted to know how it smelled when a corporation broke wind. And of course Pauline the Parisian wanted to know where they shopped for shoes.”

“That was pretty bad,” I admitted. He was upset, naturally, at the recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court that indicated corporations were people with religious feelings. How was I to explain that to him?

“They wanted to know,” he said, almost in tears, “if, since they held religious beliefs, they were baptized, and how?”

I drew a deep breath and exhaled. He continued. “I’m the laughing stock of the galaxy.”

“Look,” I said, “you have to understand that we are a nation of laws, even if we don’t like some of them.”

“How can you pass a law making a corporation a human?” he said. “That’s piddelwadca,”

“It’s what?”

He thought. “That’s something like a cross between ‘brain of crap’ and mental masturbation,” he said. What you would call amusing or laughable through obvious absurdity, incongruity, exaggeration, or eccentricity.”

“I think,” I said, “you are trying to say it was ludicrous.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

I ignored him. “Don’t any of the others ever witness anything odd in their assigned locations?”

After a moment’s thought, he said, “Well there is this one stricture somewhere against copulating with an orangutan, but I think it is meant as a joke.”

“A joke?”

“I think so … something about producing too many soccer fans.”

I said, “I see.”

He said, “I don’t.”

At this point I tried to change the subject. “What say take a vacation down to the seashore soon? We could both use some rest. Maybe we could find us a nude beach somewhere.”

“That reminds me,” he said. “Do Jewish corporations get circumcised if they are male?”

“Say what?”


Could you have same-sex marriages between
corporeal humans and corporation humans?
Boy, am I confused. - C.W.
“Inquiring minds want to know,” he said. “That’s what my ‘pards’ kept saying when they asked me these questions. What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure, why don’t we see what my wife is fixing us for supper, Buckaroo?” I said, regarding his cowboy hat.

This only had the effect of setting him off again.

“Someone wanted to know if gay corporations can get married in our state,” he said, staring out into space and assuming the most forlorn expression I have seen on him since Big Bang’s Penny announced her engagement. “You can’t imagine the hell I have been through.”
 
“Come on,” I said. “Maybe we’ll go shopping later. You’ve been wanting to look for a new computer. Buying stuff always cheers you up.”

“Say,” he said, suddenly brightening. “Do you reckon a rich corporation couple could adopt me?”

Be sure to click some ads. I nearly have enough for that new computer. - C.W.
Oh, and check out www.wattensawpress.com

Friday, July 4, 2014

Patriotism

Friends and followers:

I always had a bit of trouble picturing Big Dope as a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. (Editor’s note: he means “hero”), even though he served his country during wartime, and in a war zone. The stories I heard from him never suggested heroism, just a willingness to serve rather than denounce his country or be classified as a coward.

Now I understand. After reading more of your history, particularly that of the Vietnam War era, I see that as long as your country can produce young folks of such breathtaking and sublime greatness that they are willing to serve without complaint in an unpopular, immoral, and illegal war—despite being stereotyped by a thankless populace as sociopathic misfits and losers—your country will be safe.

I have traveled the galaxy but have never encountered such patriotism. They truly represent your, “Greatest Generation.”

So, in honor of your day of independence, I offer this tribute to them.

Tommy
by Rudyard Kipling
I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
    O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
    But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
    The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
    O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
    But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
    The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
    O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
    Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
    But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
    The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
    O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
    While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
    But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
    There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
    O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
    But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
    An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
    An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

 Have you hugged a veteran today?


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Your friend,
C.W.

Oh, and click on an ad or two. I really need that new computer.
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