THE ACT OF  WAR

An old friend showed up this morning. Yes, it was the Alien C.W. Showed up, best as I can guess, as Mark Twain. He was still up to his old tricks. Said he had been visiting other galaxies where the craziness wasn’t as severe. He acted as if nothing had happened, which was unsettling.

“Had a question,” he said, “how long do your wars last?”

“What do you mean?”

“What is the Standard Unifying Consistency Kinetic for engaging in a war. Your government must have an SUCK factor for controlling costs and casualties. And the private sector must have a metric for projecting Pundit Underwriting costs. The PU factor must be severe in times of war.”

“And you want to know how long they last?” I asked.

“It’s a phenomenon unique to your planet,” he said. “Same as your penchant for knowingly being burnt by overexposure to sunlight.”

“They last as long as they last,” I said. “No longer. Once side just quits and then the other has to as well.”

“Sort of like your standard act of sex?”

I stopped to think, and he continued.

“If you don’t have a SDF, they, wars that is, could last 20, maybe 100 years,” he said. See, some of the other galaxies are wondering about your planet passing the Chiroptera Scat Stability test. Too low on the CSS might bring about serious action. The ship from Tulegria that dropped your Initiation Cells on Earth are beginning to fear they have made a mistake.

“The what kind of test?”

“It’s named after a joke about bat dropping and insanity. Tulegrians have this weird sense of humor.”

“You mean like bat sh--?” I stopped.

“Precisely. Now our research shows that not only might these irrational acts be indeterminate, there is also the profit motive. Is it really true that both sides in these CSS acts are financed from the same sources? If so, that will increase scrutiny and accelerate repercussions.”

“What sort of repercussions.”

“You are familiar with the concept of a virus, aren’t you?”

400. Scoundrels

C.W. came in this morning as I was having coffee and plopped down in a seat across the table from me. He looked a lot like a young Harry Truman, complete with a white linen suit and wire-framed glasses.

“Morning,” I managed.

“Wassup?”

That maybe sounded a bit like Truman. He might have said that to MacArthur just before he fired him. I kind of hope so. “You tell me,” I said, and turned back to the book I was reading.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said.

I ignored him.

“This current batch of scandals and damaged careers proves how smart George W. Bush was.”

This got my attention. “It what?”

“If you want to run for office in the information age in your country, you must have one.”

“One what?”

“You must make yourself a ‘Salvation Date’ and stick by it.”

“A what?”

“A Salvation Date. It will get you through any scandal that someone digs up if you have the press trained right.”

“It what?”

“Makes you bullet-proof.”

“How so?”

“Simple,” he said. “It’s the date on which you made pals with the Galilean.”

“Say what?”

“They can’t ask you, the reporters can’t, about anything in your life preceding your Salvation Date. Anything before that you did before that date is off-limits. It was done by the ‘other you,’ the you that was under the spell of The Dark One. The ‘new you’ is the one since then and it is open for observation. Of course, your new life since that date must be spotless, washed ‘white as snow’ so to speak. It doesn’t pay to go back too far. Ask Bill Clinton.”

He took a deep breath and continued. “All those TV evangelists have one. Did you ever think, in your wildest imagination that people like Charles Colson, Jim Baker, and Jimmy Swaggart could ever be taken seriously again?

I thought. “Those proved modern miracles of self-righteous rehabilitation all right.” I said. “I can see where a political aspirant with a checkered past could use one.”

“This current feller has several. His tend to drift around as to the exact date and other specifications.”

“Let me make sure I understand. You’re telling me, I gather, that it gives one a clean slate from which to work?”

No matter how sleazy you might have been, you get to start afresh, sort of a political ‘do-over’ in case you need it. Jimmy Carter and John McCain didn’t need one, but most of the others do.”

“I’m beginning to get the picture,” I said.

“It’s marvelous, isn’t it? If anyone mentions a pre-date misbehavior, the bench-jumpers take to the streets to protest the casting of aspersions on their candidate’s religious bona fides.”

 

From this day on. Get it? - C.W.

“I thought our Constitution forbids a religious test for public office.”

He turned slightly toward me, pulled his eyeglasses down on the tip of his nose, and assumed a highly sophisticated and presidential manner. He spoke gravely. “Did you come into town on a load of watermelons?”

I had to think about all this for a moment. I said, “Are you sure about all this?”

“It’s called the ‘Salvation Date Deployment.’ Can’t you see?” he said. He was becoming quite excited. “It’s part of my new book, Scoundrels Are Us: American Politics in the Modern Age. What thinkest thou?”

“By Jove,” I said. “I think you’ve got it!”

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Delta Dreaming

All Hat No Cattle

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327. Elections

There are forms that C.W. loves but some of those would get on the last nerve in my body. Take, for example, the one he calls “Redneck Raymond.” Yep, you guessed it. A big bushy-headed bully with a paunch cantilevered six inches over a belt buckle featuring a cowboy riding a bucking horse. He grates. Really grates.

And he showed up yesterday.

I was in the back yard waiting for the family to come back from grocery shopping. I was enjoying a summer breeze, a cigar, and a rum and tonic when he just walked around the corner of the farmhouse and plopped, uninvited, into a chair. He grabbed a glass belonging to my wife and poured himself a liberal shot of rum. He sipped it, made a face and held it out. “Not bad,” he said.

“Where have you been/” I said. He hadn’t appeared in this form for some time.

“Preaching,” he said. “I tried preaching.”

“Oh really? How did that work out?”

“Not bad at first. Found me a little Baptist church, learned a few gestures, perfected a little sing-song babble and off I went. Just had to work a few hours each week. Good gig.”

“So what happened?”

“Well,” he said. Before continuing, he took a good sip of rum, looked away, and then turned back to me. “To tell you the truth, the son-of-a-bitches wouldn’t pay me.” He slapped his knee and let out a hearty laugh. Then he took another drink. “Anyway, the Falloonian Elders have me on special assignment for a while.”

“Oh,” I said. “Doing what?”

“Elections.”

“Elections? Helping with them?”

“Hell no,” he said. “It seems your species, or your voting habits, is the talk of the galaxy right now. I’ve been directed to make some notes.” He poured himself some more rum. “Want to hear what I’ve done so far?”

“As long as we finish before my wife gets back. That’s her glass you’re drinking from.”

“Mrs. Big Dope’s never seen me drink,” he said. “She thinks I’m a saint.”

I rolled my eyes. “So what have you got?”

“I started with the types of elections, that you folks seem to have.” He took a small note pad from a shirt pocket, flipped a few pages, and read. “Types of elections.” He looked at me.

“Yes,” I said. “Go ahead.”

“One,” he said, “Americans sometimes have ‘Hissy-Fit Elections,’ or elections designed to express displeasure over some insulting occurrence, such as the election of a person with the wrong racial features or of the wrong gender.”

I thought about this. He continued reading. “Earthlings in this country have had, on one occasion, what I called a ‘You don’t mean it election,’ which is not simply an election but an intercession by its highest court when the court feels the electorate is about to make the wrong decision. The results can be devastating.”

I just stared. He kept going. “There is what I call ‘The Archie Bunker Election,’ based on a stereotypical uneducated, bigoted, but hard working American character in a popular TV series. The character was known primarily, at the time, for saying outlandish things, but it turned out later that a huge segment of the viewing population adored the character for saying things they wanted to say themselves but didn’t dare.

He flipped a page. “This one is complicated,” he said. “I call it the ‘We’re so stupid vote.’” He actually winked at me and took a sip before continuing. “There have been states with nearly simultaneous elections, one cutting taxes and the next mandating additional services.” He sipped. “In my own host state, where hunting is sacred and hunting rights nearly outweigh property rights, they once held an election to guarantee the right to hunt.” He made a note. “It passed, by the way.”

“Are we about finished?” My head was beginning to itch.

Your voters are certainly most particular
about to whom they grant rights. - C.W.

“One more,” he said. “It’s the ‘census vote’ and is one of my favorites.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How do you have a census vote?”

“It’s easy,” he said. “You just declare, for example, a statewide vote taking away, from a minority group, a right fully enjoyed by the majority group. It works quite well as a census.”

“A census?”

“Precisely,” he said. “The next morning after the vote, you know exactly how many assholes are living in your state.”

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241. Merit

“You got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

Oh no. C.W. has become fascinated of late by reruns of “I Love Lucy,” on TV. Unbeknownst to us, he ordered a complete set of the episodes and has been watching them on TV. He even took on the form of “Ricky Ricardo” this morning to ask me some questions about our language.

“Whaz this mean?” he said, plopping into a chair and reading from a notebook. “He was bornded on third base but goes through life tinking he hit a triple.”

“It’s and idiom using baseball terminology.”

“Say what?”

“In baseball, the second best hit a batter can get is called a triple. It allows the batter to make it all the way to third base.”

“Thaz good?”

“Very good.”

“Means the batter has accomplished something good?”

“Yes. The batter has done very well.”

He made notes. “So if someone is ‘bornded on third base’ they just happen to be there?”

“Correct.”

“And they ain’t done nothin’ to make it there?”

“Correct.”

“But they may claim they did?”

“They may indeed.”

Hey started scribbling notes and muttering to himself. I made out, “George W. Bush, Romneys, Kennedys, Waltons,” and a few other names. Then he said something strange, “White males,” and “northern Europe.” It caught my attention.

“Wait” I said. “You may be getting this all wrong.”

“Splain,” he said.

“You’re not accusing white males of the ‘born on third base’ analogy, are you?”

“No,” he said.

“Good,” I said, nodding and sighing in relief.

“Just the ones,” he said, “whose ancestors came here from northern Europe.”

“Now just a dad gummed minute,” I said.

“Qué pasa?”

“You’re not lumping me in with the privileged set are you?”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t born rich,”

“You were born of the color of milk or fresh snow weren’t you?”

“I was born white, yes.”

“And a male?”

“Yes,”

“Second base already,” He said. “Now, Latin, Mediterránean, African, Asian, Eurasion, …

I interrupted him. “You know darn good and well that I am of northern European descent.

Where you start can sure go a long ways
in determining where you will finish, eh? - C.W.

“Yes, Mrs. Big Dope had your DNA analyzed, didn’t she?

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Third base,” he said. “All the way to third base.”

“You are crazy,” I said. “Muy loco.”

He ignored me. “Let’s move on to another idiom,”he said.

“Let’s,” I said. “That one is silly.”

He flipped a page in his notebook, smiled, and looked up. “If the shoe fits, wear it,” he said. “Whaz at mean?”

 

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- C.W.

219. Transgressions

“You use a mug instead of a cup and saucer for your coffee.”

“Say what?”

“A cup and saucer is more appropriate. Someone who is supposed to be the head of the household should maintain decorum and you don’t.”

“C.W.,” I said, “don’t f … mess with me in the morning before I have had said coffee. And why do you look like that O'Reilly guy on TV, what’s his name?”

“Why do you call people by their last name only? Doesn’t that show disrespect? You certainly don’t act like a leader to me.”

It was hopeless. I drank my coffee in silence. He had started in early this morning for some reason. Anything I did, even the slightest gesture was grounds for disapprobation. It was annoying, even by C.W.’s standards.

“The fact that you didn’t answer me means you agree,” he said.

“Don’t you have a report to work on or something?”

“I suppose you are going to wear that awful cap today.” He was relentless.

“What cap?”

“The one that has ‘Vietnam Veteran” on the front.”

“I may. Why?”

“It’s old and dirty and it brands you.”

“Brands me as what?”

“A loser. Your kind lost that war. A leader wouldn’t advertise that he was part of it.”

“You are beginning to annoy me.”

“Ronald Reagan never got annoyed at anything.”

“Except the Constitution.”

“There you go again. Disrespecting those past middle age or characteristic of later life.”

“You may never reach the status of ‘elderly’ if you keep it up.”

He didn’t miss a beat, just said, “I suppose you want to take the day off.”

“If it pleases you.”

“With so much to be done, you want to take the day off? That is unmanly.”

“Have you been analyzing the liquor cabinet again?”

“So what do you intend to do?”

I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and said, “If it is any of your business, I thought I might read.”

“George W. Bush didn’t waste his time reading.”

Oh, the temptation was there, but I took another breath. “Mind telling me what you are planning now?”

He seemed pleased with the question. “A job.”

“With whom? What kind of job?”

“In comedy, on this TV network, named after a small wild animal that is related to dogs and that has a long pointed nose and a bushy tail.”

“Fox ‘News,’ I said.

“That’s what I said.”

I ignored him. And what exactly will be your title?”

“Transgressionater.”

“Transgressionater?”

“Yes. They have several openings. My job is to monitor every move, even the slightest, that the President makes.”

The light began to shine. “And turn each slightest move into a …”

“Transgression,” he said. “The people have a right to know. Isn’t that great?” He actually saluted.

“I think I’ll have another cup of coffee.”

He beamed. “Too much coffee causes a leader to make snap decisions from a part of the alimentary canal, you know?”

“And speaking of the ‘gut,’ your Galactic Universal Translator …”

Wear a brown suit? Why a man might as well
invade the wrong country to start a war. - C.W.

“I know,” he said, “you think it needs adjusting. But I trust my GUT and besides.”

“Besides what?”

“It reflects poorly on a leader to demean a simple investigative reporter.”

Coffee. That was my only hope, more coffee.

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