Saturday, September 22, 2018

Three Musketeers?

Nine years ago, Qaddafi, once ruler of Libya until then-President Obama sicced the USAF on him and his country, destroying both in seven months, visited New York City (camped-out) and made that long, rambling speech at the UN, otherwise known as the UHaUS (United Hate against United States. Here's a tongue-in-cheek sketch:

Mahmoud, Moammar & Hugo

It’s just past midnight in a spacious tent in a small village just north of New York City. Three men, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Moammar Qaddafi, and Hugo Chavez sit around a small fire. Hereinafter, they are referenced as A, Q, and C, respectively, but not respectfully.

*A: I thought that after the PanAm thing...Allah be praised, Momie...you don’t mind being called that, do you? Moammar is so...well... Sunni-sounding...that you would not be welcome...
*Q: Sunni-sounding, you north-end of a southbound camel, Mahmoud...Allah curse this fool before I give him the PanAm treatment...what do you mean...welcome...in this hole where there is not sand or even dates...and you say “Momie” one more time and the Libyan scimitar will...
*C (laughing): So, Moammar, you are not welcome. I saw the signs and...by the way, sneaking in here in the trunk of a cab driven by a kook from Pakistan was just a bit...
*A: The Pakistanis are all kooks...Sunni-kooks, that is. The Shiites will a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H-a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H...A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H On to Wisconsin...
*C (diving under a rug): Moammar, what’s with Mahmoud and this awful scream, worse than a muezzin with a herniated larynx at the evening prayer in your country?
*Q: Bah...Mahmoud has spent too much time in this miserable New York. He learned that scream from Osama’s lackey...that miserable al-Zawahiri, who learned it from watching the Howard Dean on American TV and uses it when he’s frustrated with his four or so wives...who’s counting anyway? Mahmoud uses it when the students burn cars in Tehran or when he thinks of Sunnis, whichever comes first. Anyway, the only thing Sunnis and Shiites love more than killing Americans is...oh, ha, ha...killing each other...Allah be praised for Shiite blood in the streets!
*C: These are strange customs, Moammar. In Venezuela, the Catholics and Protestants don’t kill each other...they’re too busy starving and working in the oil-fields the stupid Americans have drilled. And now I have my very own lackey in the U.S....Osama Obama, I call him...a very nice ring to that. He apologized in my very own kingd...make that my own country for the very existence of the United States. To show my appreciation, I did not call him Satan in my speech at the UN, as I did the cowboy Bush...right in front of the whole world.
*A: Shiite blood in the streets! Allah curse you for that, Moammar! When I bring in the Twelfth Mahdi I will sit upon his right side when he rules forever and sign the papers so that you will be dispatched to Paradise without benefit of a martyr’s death...meaning not even one virgin for you, not to mention seventy-two...whew...just the thought...
*Q: Bah! Let’s get down to business. I’m paying someone called “The Donald” one million big ones per hour for this wretched piece of real estate with no room service. I told him it would be a privilege to have my tent on his ground...make it sacred...and he told me I could...bleep, bleep, bleep...
*C: Oh hoo-hah...did he say that? I bet he demanded the rent up front!
*Q: Yes. I had to contact my best American friend, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and use his credit card. He owed me anyway...that payback thing for the billion I gave his Nation of Islam in the 90s, under the table, of course, since the N of I is tax-exempt...oh, hoo-hah, a tax exempt organization...the Americans are stupid. That billion was not for picnics at the mosque.
*C: I’ve heard that Farrakhan visited you 25 years ago. Is that true?
*A: Is that true, you ask...is that true...(wild laughter)? Guess who made that trip with the one they call “Calypso Louie” to see Moammar?
*C: His wives, of course.
*A: His wives...oh, ha, ha! Take his wives into the land of the houris, the land of the dancing sirens without burkas (wild laughter)! He took the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s spiritual adviser...for religious reasons, of course...a sort of mini-hajj to Tripoli instead of Mecca! That was the solicitation for a billion big ones and, I’ve heard, where Wright learned that God should damn America because white people put the HIV on the blacks to waste them.
*C: Is that where Farrakhan found out about the levees, too?
*Q: Of course it was. I told him 25 years ago that the army engineers fixed the levees to dissolve and let Lake Pontchartrain flood New Orleans to get rid of black folks whenever an eligible hurricane arrived. All he knew was how to play the fiddle and do assassinations, but I knew all about the evil Americans.
*A: I thought you said we needed to get down to business, Moammar. I need to get back to Tehran as soon as possible to witness the cutting off of hands of the rioters who claimed that I stole the election a few weeks ago. Actually – a little secret here – we’re going to cut off some heads, too, but that part’s only for invited guests...at 100 million rials apiece...little campaign fundraising to pay for vo...for expenses. I learned about that angle in America.
*Q: I need to get back to Tripoli, too, so here’s the business.
*C: Oh, ha, ha. So you’re going to give us the business...like I gave it to Bush.
*Q: Well, not exactly, Hugo, my friend. Mahmoud and I figure that you can give us half your oil and thus drive up the prices everywhere. You’ll still make a profit and we’ll get something to help make our people happy.
*C: And just how do I make any profit on a deal like that?
*Q & A: Have you ever heard of an Islamic fatwa?
*C: But I have a whole well-fed army, you vultures. My oil...never! It’s building up my personal bank accounts all over the world.
*Q: You DO remember PanAm 103, don’t you, Hugo...all those women and children?
*C (agitated): Well...maybe we CAN do business.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Wednesday, July 04, 2018

Lest We Forget

The recent attempts by Islamic fanatics to kill innocent people in order to make some kind of point is just the latest example that tyranny is the weapon of choice by the religious cowardly in its effort to control the world. The penultimate example in this country was experienced on 9/11. By contrast, when the colonists fought tyranny in order to gain independence, they fought against an army, not against innocent and unarmed women and children. That's the difference between civilized people and animals, notwithstanding any allusions to "Allah." Hopefully, those with illusions that the Islamic cutthroats can be neutralized in any other way than military defeat will not ascend to high office in this country, since tyranny is a perennial threat to every generation and must be defeated in every generation. The “evil empires” will always be a collection of nations/dictatorships that prey upon civilized nations, the latest bound by a religious fanaticism called Islam.

The muffled sound of drum and fife
And musketry in mortal strife
And voices raised in anger, pain,
Or mourning those among the slain
Are sensed when contemplating still
The carnage of a Bunker Hill,
When only battles - bloody, fierce -
The wall of tyranny could pierce.

Then comes to mind the gory scenes
From Queenston Heights to New Orleans
When tyranny again was banned
Upon the sea, upon the land;
And one can sense again the sound
When roaring cannons shook the ground
And mortal men...to make men free...
Would enter immortality.

On Shiloh’s bloody ground that day
They died with valor in full sway,
Or Gettysburg...Chancellorsville,
Where brothers each might brother kill;
One hears the massive, tragic groan
As tens of thousands would atone
- With blood - for hated slavery...
The vilest form of tyranny.

When jaded beasts oppress the poor
And close to them sweet freedom’s door,
It falls upon the free...the strong
Throughout the world to right this wrong;
At Santiago, brave men fell,
And San Juan Hill became a hell,
But men who found eternity
Gained entry scourging tyranny.

Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood,
Where thousands died, but others stood
Their ground with blood and sweat and fears,
And buried comrades through their tears;
And one can sense the frightful sounds
Of tanks and planes emitting rounds
From lethal, modern weaponry
To end the threat of tyranny.

To end the threat of tyranny? -
Ah...no...remember Normandy,
Or Iwo Jima, Anzio,
Where once again the blood must flow;
And one may close the eyes and see
And hear the mighty guns at sea
And wonder why it all must be...
But knows deep down...end tyranny.

So listen!...hear the muffled roar
Of new jet planes now bound for war,
Of new invasions from the sea,
The dying fighting tyranny;
And names like Inchon, Pork Chop Hill,
And Bloody Ridge - remembered still -
Assault the mind, yet augur peace,
In hope that tyranny will cease.

But hope, though strong, has little worth
As long as despots roam the earth,
As long as beasts whose prime resource
Is tyranny...forge brutal force;
So listen...as the jungle screams,
And those who die are shorn of dreams
At Pleiku, Khe Sanh, and Da Nang,
Where flags from coffins daily hang.

No…evil tyranny survives,
Each generation robbed of lives
Attempting to wipe out its curse,
Each war the next one to rehearse;
Recall the battle in the sand -
Exploding missiles as they land
On Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Iraq,
Mad tyranny again to block.

As in most centuries before,
The twenty-first begins with war
When evil men in Allah’s name
Torch innocents in jet-fuel flame;
Their leaders learn that they will pay
In Afghan mountains day by day,
Or in Iraqi towns and sand
An awesome price when good men stand.

************

In tranquil fields throughout the world,
Our dead are marked by flags unfurled,
Or marked by nature’s restless waves,
Beneath the seas in timeless graves;
Yes, thus it is, and thus will be...
Until God’s final, terse decree...
But until then, now strong and free,
The decent must kill tyranny.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Monday, June 04, 2018

Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, POTUS, & Rahm

For old-time's sake, a piece from Muckraker June 2010 during Obama's tenure:

It’s just past one a.m. in the little room off the Oval Office and Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde are meeting with President Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, hereinafter referenced as J, H, O, and E, respectively, if not necessarily respectfully.

*J: I say, Barry, we met in this tiny closet last August to discuss the healthcare bill and I said then that you insulted us with such an arrangement, and here we are again giving up valuable time in the aristocracy to be demeaned by the hoi polloi in this…this…and these Styrofoam cups for tea…we’ve a mind to bug out, eh, Edward…just go back to…
*H: To civilization, of course…I’ve never felt comfortable in the colonies, but tell me, Rahm – you seem the type to enjoy it – how many old codgers have the death panels dispatched using the healthcare protocol…and how did they go, willingly or (drooling) maybe on the gallows…oh what fun that must have…(wild laughter)
*J: Stop it, Edward. Actually, he’s simply identifying with the profound morality of saving the taxpayers’ money by not extending costly infirmities of the old goats. But, what’s the subject this time, Barry…you said this time you wanted to be called commander-in-chief and we’ve observed on the BBC newscasts that you never let the peasants forget it but that’s so formal and Mr. President is so-o-o-o snobbish…just call us Henry and Edward and we’ll use Barry and Rahm, such a quaint name…Rahm…
*H: Sounds rather like one of those Buddhist mantras…R-a-a-h-h-m-m (hums)…then it’s off with some poor Christian’s head…egad, what a mantra…R-a-a-h-h-m-m…(closes eyes)
*O: (glaring) It’s like this, Henry, I’m gathering the best brains in the world to give me the proper gravitas to disrupt the proper derrieres in order to solve the oil-spill problem and…
*H: Oh you mean the jolly good arses to kick…is that it, Barry? I love the thought…I can see it now, the commander-in-chief lining up the proper czars and kicking their arses back to…oh, why not just kick in their heads, too, what I call the old Sir Danvers Carew Treatment…ah…I remember it well as I bashed in the old man’s head right there in the lane, although I ruined that perfectly good cane with the heavy knob…egad…I hated to lose that cane.
*E: (whispering) Henry, is Edward…you know…is he…
*J: No…he isn’t from Chicago. Actually, he simply dispatched an old man who should have had the decency, a la your healthcare plan, to forget fading away with old generals and just up and die, as they say in your mountain-William state of Kentucky.
*O: Mountain-William? Rahm, is there something I don’t know about…
*E: That’s Brit-talk for hillbilly, Commander-In-Chief. Wow…they must not know their geography out there in Hawaii. I thought everybody knew…
*H: Hillbilly…whoopee…(singing) Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts…and she plugged him with her old forty-four…rooty, toot, toot….R-a-a-h-h-m-m…plugged him with…
*J: Stop it, Edward…you’re off-key anyway. He’s simply singing about mountain-William justice, Rahm, something you should appreciate, being from Chicago, where even dead people have the right to vote.
*O: Please…back to the subject. You guys are here because you represent knowledge of the physical and mental conditions that qualify people for ass-kicking. Except for anybody in the administration – all of them geniuses – can you think of anybody’s ass I should kick?
*J: I say, Edward…did he mean us with that “guys” appellation…us…the epitome of refinement?
*E: What kind of pit? How could you have a pit of you? Commander-in-chief, do you sense a leg-pulling here or what?
*O: The only leg problem I’ve heard about belongs to that MSNBC guy, Chris Matthews. He says his leg tingles when I speak and he even forgot I was black while his leg was tingling when I made the State-of-the-union speech in…
*J: We may not be royalty but we certainly are not guys, Barry, and I expect an apology.
*O: Sorry about that, Henry…er, slip of the tongue. I’m accustomed to teleprompters that guarantee no such slips of the tongue. I even use one at the dinner table to make sure I don’t make Michelle mad. Everybody knows you’re mateys!
*H: MATEYS! Now, I believe he actually said he’d campaigned in 57 states and had only two more to go. Oh…hahahahahahaha…now he’s confused us Brits with Australians. (sings) Waltzing Matilda…waltzing Matilda…God save the queen…waltzing Matilda…
*E: Knock it off Edward. This is serious business. We absolutely must have by six this morning the names of asses to kick or Spike Lee will say Commander-in-chief here is too unemotional and needs to shout and scream and froth at the mouth and kick asses.
*O: Not to put too fine a point on it, gentlemen, the people I’ve tried to buy off and told not to run in the primaries have run anyway…and won, so I need to express the proper outrage at British Petroleum and the kick-ass scoundrels in Washington or I might lose part of Congress in November.
*J: You heard that, didn’t you, Edward? Now he’s blaming BP and threatening our whole pension system in England that’s pinned to BP stock. (toss of the head) And…gentlemen will do nicely, Barry.
*H: Oh yes, I heard, Henry. (sings) She plugged him with that .44…(reaches in his pocket)
*E: Hey…wait a minute…we’re not blaming BP for anything. The whole Gulf explosion was set up by Bush and Cheney…just like the WTC…Katrina…Freddie and Fannie…GM…
*H: Calm down, R-a-a-h-h-m-m (hums), I’m just checking the time.
*J: I say, Edward, do you think he should deploy Paul McCartney’s derriere to his navel area for implying that Barry’s predecessor was an idiot, especially in light of the current lunacy in this colony?
*O: I take that personally, Henry. McCartney was just calling attention to the current superior…
*E: Yeah…everyone – even Blago – knows that Bush had an eleventh-floor elevator in a twelve-story house.
*H: Eleventh-story elevator in a…oh, that’s a good one, R-a-a-h-h-m-m (hums)…and the poor souls who step through the doors at the top…oh…what a glorious, bloody mess, better than cracking the old boy’s skull…twelve stories and then…SPLAT…WHOOPEE!
*J: Pay no attention. Edward’s just pointing out the necessity of prudence when entering an elevator. I say, Edward, do we need a moment for a conference (H nods)…yes…excuse us, gentlemen. (J & H step outside for a minute, then return) We’ve reached decisions about the ass-kicking.
*O: Good…I’m dying for a smoke and Rahm has to mail a coupla dead fish. I’ve already kicked Mine/Minerals Chief Birnbaum under the bus, so she’s not in the picture. Maybe Jesse Jackson would qualify. He once said he wanted to cut off part of my anatomy and I haven’t forgotten that.
*H: Gentlemen, Henry and I have decided that you two should cast lots…roll the dice…draw straws…whatever ignorant colonists do these days to see who goes first, then take turns assuming the proper position and kicking each other until the respective derrieres are in roughly the area of the adenoids…oh hahahahahahaha…entrails trailing everywhere…blood in the Monica room…

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Monday, March 26, 2018

MeToo...Nanny State?

The MeToo movement is all the rage today, introduced by actress Ashley Judd in her famous “Nasty Woman” speech on the Saturday after the 2017 inauguration...written by a high-school student. The target of the women's angst/hysteria is men, the devils. Here is a piece on the subject written in March 2010:

The “Nanny” State in Spades!

It’s been sad in recent years to watch individual non-society-threatening freedom being eroded in this country, both individually and collectively. People have to buckle up in their cars whether they want to or not. Owners of establishments who don’t wish to disallow smoking therein must do so anyhow. Or…they must hire and fire not on the basis of job-requirements but on the basis of quotas, never mind the extra expense involved, usually passed on to the consumer.

This isn’t to say there shouldn’t be laws to protect citizens from other citizens, such as those relating to speed restrictions on roads or to the requirement that drivers be sober and not distracted. Without laws governing societal conduct, there would be anarchy, so this isn’t about extreme libertarianism.

The third example above is a case in point with reference to freedom. Wal-Mart has a distribution facility in London, Kentucky, in which there are about 900 employees plus another one hundred contracted truck-drivers. In this huge warehousing operation, employees must be able to do heavy lifting. Anyone who has ever lifted a hundred-pound bag of spuds knows what this means. Since this is the case, Wal-Mart attempted to hire people it felt could do this job, the ultimate decision apparently being to employ mostly men for the quite obvious reason that, collectively, men are considerably physically stronger than women.

In some areas, women are mentally stronger than men, but at this facility the premium was placed on physical strength. A while back, a lady charged discrimination when she applied for a job at this facility and was turned down, she said, just because she was a woman. Well, yes…that might have been the case, not hard to believe. It’s perfectly obvious that if two employees instead of one are needed to heft a hundred pounds of spuds when one man can do it alone, the cost to the company for labor goes up to be passed on to the consumer while also thereby degrading the company’s competitive position in the marketplace, not to mention its responsibility to its shareholders.

So…the lady sued Wal-Mart nearly 10 years ago and the settlement just came down but only after it had become a class-action suit just ripe for any woman who could make a similar charge, real or imagined, to get in on the action. Wal-Mart settled for $11.7 million to be divvied up among all these ladies and any others who can still get in on the windfall, along with $250,000 in “administration costs.” One can only guess at what the real winners received – the lawyers – but they probably got a third of the stash, at least.

In other words, Wal-Mart could not conduct its business in the most efficient way possible but had to do business according to the way the government decides is “fair,” recognizing diversity as paramount in hiring, not the satisfying of qualifications for employment, in this case, physical strength. The next step in the process could be that inevitable “back injury” for which the company insurance must be responsible or – much better – a woman’s lawsuit in the interest of collecting a gazillion bucks for the ruination of her ability to make a living, also real or imagined.

Suppose a man applies for a job in Wal-Mart’s office but can neither type nor use a calculator. Will he be hired? Of course not, even though virtually no physical strength is required! He simply lacks the proper qualifications. Does anybody care about that? Of course not, since nobody gives a fig and men don’t cry! They just go looking somewhere else.

There’s a beautiful irony in all of this. Wal-Mart employs about 1.4 million workers, of whom 63% are women, even though they make up only 50.7% of the population. According to diversity-think, men are entitled to 49.3% of the jobs but hold only 37% of them. Why is that? Men are walking the streets these days looking for work at the same time Wal-Mart is discriminating against them…actually owing them 690,200 jobs but giving them only 518,000. Now…is that fair?

Living in a “nanny state” is no fun, but the progressives are determined to make this country into one so profoundly and correctly diversified that government will regulate everything and every service. People will become robots, except for those at the top, of course. Just ask Wal-Mart. In the meantime, all you men walking the streets…FILE THAT LAWSUIT! Some 172,000 of you are ENTITLED!

And so it goes...again!
Jim Clark

Friday, March 16, 2018

Nostalgia

A bit of nostalgia crops up occasionally, one such just now. Perhaps memories will be prodded by this blog of March 2010, written in the second March of Obama's first term to be compared to the second March of Trump's current (first?) term.

DNC Memorandum #10

From the office of Governor Tim Kaine, convener, 01 March 2010

***First, a word of apology for not advancing the regular monthly memorandum for February, though I had it scheduled for Feb. 29 but was advised that the day did not exist (little joke there). Recent days have been frantic, what with advising the president on his state-of-the-union address, explaining how those thoughtless interlopers crashed the first state dinner and beat their gums with the president, and later working with the president on teleprompter protocols that would guard against the use of terms such as corpse-man, Marine Corpse, and Peace Corpse. For those who have just graduated an Ivy League school, the word is corps, pronounced as the middle of an apple is. The rumor that the president said he mispronounced the word twice just to see if people were awake is not true and Rahm Emanuel said he would not do it again. A diversity-aware red/yellow/black/white paper will be issued soon to explain why the White House social secretary who staged the state dinner was disallowed to testify in Congress account executive privilege even though Attorney General Holder and Congressional democrats are still trying to drag in Bush colleagues Rove and Miers, also given executive privilege a while back.

***The latest rumor that Green-peace, Nader’s Raiders, NOW, Smokers Anonymous, and the nasty Congressional republican caucus have joined in exploring impeachment possibilities account the president’s continuing to smoke is untrue. Nader, speaking for the entire cabal that never was and never is and never will be, flatly denies any such effort and has insisted that these groups will not meet again. The president has explained that trying times call for extreme measures and that cigarette smoke clears not only his sinuses (especially the menthols) but also clears his head, citing as an example his smoking a complete carton the day before his Berlin speech in 2008 and winning over all of Europe to the concept that community-organizing is the very best preparation for being president. Pressperson Robert Glibs (okay…Gibbs, still a small joke there) has also explained that the president is not a threat to health-care-related expenses since he will die before getting so old that he will cost millions per month surviving into senility and actually is doing the country a favor by saving money. Caution: The DNC official position is that only idiots smoke for any reason other than head-clearing and that, even then, only geniuses qualify.

***Please be advised that in answer to questions about the president’s high-normal cholesterol condition you are to change the subject if possible; however, if the matter is beaten to death, simply say that Bush had good cholesterol, a condition that made him a poor president, and that President Obama is therefore risking his life (artery plaque-buildup, for recent college graduates) in order to be a good president. The rumor that Senator Kerry has offered one of his Purple Hearts to the president in honor of this sacrifice (if he can find one, that is…still looking along the fence over which he threw it in 1970) is untrue. Anyone finding a medal will be given a week’s vacation in Juarez but will have to furnish his/her own bodyguard.

***The health-care conference on 25 February was a huge success and staffers are reminded to use this lie in all contacts. Be careful in visual presentations not to use pictures/comments of Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Reid, who, sitting near the president, may or may not have been affected by the smell of Marlboro Menthols on the president’s clothes…allergies and all that. Senator Reid appeared as whining and Speaker Pelosi appeared as not being all-there at all. In sum, they didn’t help the cause and even furnished proof that the health-care panels enacted already in the legislation might have to rule adversely someday in any question as to spending money on their survival. In any case, do not – repeat – DO NOT use the term “trillion” in your presentations, since that scares the little people who don’t understand the vice president’s thesis concerning the proper way to use more and more spending in order to avoid bankruptcy. Rather, use some form of “billions” or, better, “thousands,” not that it actually matters much to the great unwashed, “Joe the Plumber” types.

***The president has begun his campaign for 2012 and White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina will be campaign manager. At least, this is the latest poop, not the usual kind but the propaganda kind, although it’s all pretty much the same. The campaign will be run out of Chicago and not the Capital for obvious reasons. It’s well-known that John F. Kennedy won the presidency in 1960 on the back of the Chicago vote in which even more dead people than were enumerated in the cemetery records voted. In fact, former president Chester A. Arthur voted in Chicago even though he was born in Vermont, lived in New York, died in November 1886, and was a republican.

***Homeland Security Chief Napolitano has informed the DNC that she’s heard staffers using the terms terrorism and kill with reference to the Ft. Hood massacre perpetrated by Major Hasan. This has offended some Muslims, especially those close to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Honorable Imam Louis Farrakhan, whose help in the Chicago campaign is absolutely vital since living humans (and a multitude of cats and dogs) also vote in Chicago, so the massacre is to be described now as people breath-challenged by a man-caused disaster. Anyone violating this directive will be sent for attitude-adjustments to Senator Durbin’s indoctrination facility, though it is not to be called the Durbin Gulag and Killing-Field Center, as some around the bottled-water keg and non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, blue/red-state-map, and Bush-dart-board have been heard to do. Senator Durbin has explained that he meant only the American GIs in Iraq and Guantanamo (called Bush cowboys) are like Nazi Storm Troopers and Stalin’s “whoopee killers,” not the GIs President Obama has sent to Afghanistan (called peace-keepers). Napolitano is demanding a kinder and gentler FEMA, beginning with the proper verbiage.

***Until further notice, Congressman Rangel is not only not in prison but is still chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. In view of the tax practices (or non-practices) of Treasury Secretary Geithner, the Ethics Committee is viewing Rangel’s mistake of a few hundred thousand dollars (who’s counting these days anyway?) as a mere slip of a pen by his chief clerk, who doesn’t understand Spanish real-estate contracts (or even English ones) and has accepted blame for all non-payments and lies, alleged, of course. Also, no money has been found in Rangel’s deep-freeze among the chicken wings, which proves that he’s far more ethical than former congressman Jefferson, who, at last report, was eating KFC smuggled into the Big House, where he’ll be living for a few more years.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Monday, February 19, 2018

WORD to the Wise?

When considering all the brouhaha these days concerning the (gasp) white-male mistreatment of women, especially in the workplace by saying offensive things (like the women do in their workplaces), one remembers back to February of 2010, Obama's second February of his presidency. Trump can take heart perhaps in this piece written during that time:

Dear President Obama:

I’m taking the liberty of contacting you with respect to your recent mispronunciation of the term “corpsman” in your state-of-the-union address, preferring instead to use the perfectly justifiable, phonetic “corpse-man” version, as any well-educated third-grader would also prefer. I’m sure you knew what you were doing and had a purpose for that particular pronunciation (English can be bothersome at times!), but on the very slight chance you simply goofed I’m offering you the services of the Institute for Modifying All Government Entities, known around Washington as simply IMAGE, of which I’m the CEO.

IMAGE has a record of serving elected officials for many years in many ways, helping them to reconfigure their various personae into ones that are more attractive and, more importantly, more believable. Former president Bush was offered IMAGE’s services when he mispronounced the term “nuclear” on a regular basis, but he declined, simply explaining that he did so on purpose because it made the pundits on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC (collective propaganda arm of the Democrat Party) froth at the mouth on camera when commenting on his speeches, to which they rarely listened, actually. He performed his “Texas swagger” for the same reason, though he regretted that Vladimir Putin threw his hip out of joint trying to imitate it, although to his knowledge neither his speech nor swagger ever made MSNBC’s Chris Matthews’ leg tingle.

The IMAGE bureau that would help you is named the Conference On Reconfiguring Presidential Semantic Errors, or CORPSE, for short. CORPSE would fashion for you a perfectly valid reason for your phonetic approach to speech, noting the history behind the nation’s halcyon days of top-flight education, when phonetics was important in teaching grade-schoolers how to both read and speak. A product of a later time, you could simply say that you made a sacrifice word-wise so that school pooh-bahs would get the message. Or, you could say that in your grade-school days in Indonesia you were not required to understand navy verbiage, and that in your high school days in Hawaii the term “corpse” was used on signs at beaches to warn surfers about the sharks; consequently, you felt the need to repeat that warning as a public service…maybe even referring to those nasty, insensitive republicans (little joke there).

Since your use of the term “corpse-man” involved one basic part of speech – the noun – the arm of IMAGE known as the Management of Adjectives and Nouns, obviously known simply as MAN, could help you or perhaps your speech-writers, since you used the noun “corpse” as an adjective to modify another noun, “man.” This is a no-no, as any fourth-grader would tell you. Applying MAN to the overall program would give you the tandem of CORPSE-MAN, in other words a feature to help you reconfigure your use of adjectives and nouns so that those vultures at Fox News would stop lampooning your teleprompters, not to mention most fourth-graders.

I’m sure you understand that the term “corpse-man” was gender-discriminatory, most likely because the ladies at the National Organization of Women have probably already been on your case. The rumor is that the NOW head honcho actually sent Rahm Emanuel a dead fish, blaming him for your teleprompter’s miscue, though she had to apologize to PETA and SPCA for such an insensitive fish-treatment.

One of our latest clients is Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, who also called attention to this rather obvious but just as obviously avoidable gaff by Emanuel or whoever handles the teleprompter operation, maybe Robert Gibbs, whom IMAGE has taught the proper use of the term “uh,” which I’m sure you notice he uses often. Ms. Napolitano reminded me that she introduced the term “man-caused disaster” to be used instead of terrorism, thus shifting all blame for mankind’s ills onto men, where it belongs.

As a result, IMAGE has put into operation a new department known as the Watchdog Overseeing Masculine Authority Nullification, or WOMAN, by its acronym. WOMAN will help you to avoid all references in your speeches that smack of gender-insensitivity or anti-diversity or homophobia or lack of appreciation for multiculturalism and cat-lovers. It would have prevented you last year, for instance, from characterizing Boston policemen as acting stupidly and being forced to bring that white cop down for a beer out in the garden. SCOTUS associate justice Sotomayor tried the same deal as Napolitano when she ruled that black firefighters should be promoted because of who they are, not what they know. That backfired in the SCOTUS, of course, so we have to be careful as to how far we can go with male nullification (little disclaimer there).

In any case, you can see how IMAGE can help you through the use of both CORPSE-MAN and CORPSE-WOMAN. It will help your teleprompter crew (phonetic pronunciations also available) or even yourself, assuming you may write your own remarks at times, to avoid the pitfalls associated with public comments. I hope to hear from you soon.

Warmest regards,
I.M. Otherself, CEO
IMAGE

Friday, January 19, 2018

Prexy Physical

The prexy had his physical,
Important, thus an annual,
And so the medic Admiral
Spoke to the press – unusual
At least in one-hour conference
Explaining that the evidence
Showed health intact,
In fact, quite good...collective fact.

The mainstream media fought back
With questions, comments – full attack
To make the case that prexy lacked
The stamina...and was half-cracked,
Such circumstances ruling out
His tenure, and of that no doubt,
But, truth to tell, they hated him
And meant to make his future dim.

The admiral had all the facts
And furnished numerous extracts
Like readings per cholesterol –
The L-D-L, H-D-L call,
Blood pressure and things glandular,
A heart quite strong, correct pulsar,
Cognition rated excellent,
Thus causing news-gang resentment.

The newsies were all primed to claim
The prexy crazy – brain of maim,
Since cognition was never part
Of physicals right from the start,
But prexy was a step ahead,
Requested testing of his head
On which he made a perfect score,
Thus in the press-room moan of roar.

A network turned over a rock
And found beneath its kind of doc
Who claimed the prexy's heart disease,
Of which was none, but would appease
Network, which likely crossed his palm
With gobs of greenbacks – soothing balm –
In case his conscience rubbed him raw
Or he was charged with breaking law.

One newsie ranted when apprised
That prexy never exercised
And all displayed aggravation
Since prexy ignored nutrition...
And so it was consensual
That prexy via physical
Was lucky just to be alive,
But doomed right soon his White House jive.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark