Grendel's Lost Sock: Thought for Today

Occam's Razor for Political "Scientists" and Conspiracy Theorists:

Do not succumb to the temptation to explain current events by resort to "a vast conspiracy controlled by a sinister intelligence" when things can be explained by vast incompetence under the misdirection of sinister stupidity.

Flarf Poem composed on a Google of “War is not a Time of Joy”

Call President Bush
for quick deployment
of international force.

Uphold the fragile
cease—“The need is urgent,” Bush said,
“War is not a time of joy,

These aren’t joyous times.
These are challenging times,
and they’re difficult times,

and they’re straining the psyche
of our country,”
The President said.

“Sometimes I’m frustrated,
rarely surprised.
Sometimes I’m happy.”

The President said.
I believe the next verse is
“I thought of, this is, you know…

War is not a time of joy.”
Quite the bout of finger-pointing
is underway. Really.

There is absolutely nothing wrong
with being frustrated.
Bush is human. Really.

These are challenging times,
leaving now would be a disaster.
Pullout is impossible. Got that?

“Nobody wants to turn on their TV
on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists."
The President said.

Well, he did say he just finished
the plot against America.
War hurts. I want my Jesus back.

“War is not a time of joy,” he said,
Thrilling linguists everywhere
by speaking an entire English sentence:

The President said,
“Nobody likes
to see innocent people die.”

Unwinning Wars

Have you ever noticed that whenever America makes war, a war declared in the media and not in Congress, a war against a word, an idea, a state of mind, a condition, or a category of nebulously defined behaviors, substances, or political entities, instead of a war declared and waged against a nation or nations, that these Wars On are conflicts which America never wins, or at least is never the clear victor? That, in fact, these Wars On never really end, though such wars may subside and flare up, are occasionally discretely abandoned by their sponsors, or else we declare victory and withdraw.

There was/is the War on Crime. In America, the main victors in this war are politicians who are “tough on crime” during their election campaigns. Often the criminals join the politicians creating in a “win/win situation.”

There was the War on Poverty, and America certainly did not win that war. Today, under various dog-whistle rubrics such No Child Left Behind, and Welfare Reform America wages an undeclared War on the Poor.

There was/is the War on Drugs; did America win that war? We just say no to the drug-du-jour, and when next year’s model hits the streets it always seems to be more noxious, more addictive, and more destructive to society than the last drug “scourge.” However, this crusade, like the War on Crime, is a perennial winner for politicians and for the drug businessman too, on the whole.

For a long time, America fought a War on Communism, aka the Cold War; to my mind better called the Hot-and-Cold War. Some say we won that war, around the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. But both North Korea and Vietnam, “Communist” states to which we served up piping-hot war in the midst of the Cold War, still have “Communist” governments run by the same basic set of people that were in charge when we were making war on them.

We went to the brink of the hottest of hot wars during the episode known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and since maintained a simmering enmity against the “Communist” regime of Fidel Castro. Yet nearly a half century later we are still waiting for Fidel to just fall down and not get up. The most populous nation on Earth, China, has a “Communist” government run by the same ruling class for almost 70 years. China and its present day ruling class are more powerful than the Imperial dynasties of old. Even in most of the territories of the former Soviet Union, the same ruling class, more or less, is in charge, where there is anybody is in charge; the rich are richer, the poor poorer. Did America really win the so-called Cold War?

For the past few years now, America has waged the War on Terror. How terrified do we, the people, have to be, before our own ruling class can call it a win? How many of our freedoms will we give up before we will surrender the least of our comforts, or give up the strangely comforting fear itself? How many countries must be laid waste, how far must “Democracy” be spread, before the “Terrorist” bogeyman can be retired? How many people have to die before the President the United States of America can declare final victory?

To “Sir” With Something Other Than Love

Open Letter to George W. Bush: Just Shut Up

Sir:

I take strong exception to your remarks on the recent court decision by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor that declared your warrantless wiretap program illegal and unconstitutional. I take particularly strong exception, sir, to your opinion that people who oppose your abuse of the office of President in this (or any other matter)

“…do not understand the nature of the world in which we live."

I think that the people that oppose your regime most avidly understand quite well the nature of the world we live in, and your large and regrettable part in making that world much worse that what it could be. You, sir, understand nothing; you are a liar; a thief; a murderer; and a tyrant, and in all your endeavors ultimately a failure and an incompetent. The truth is not in you, sir. God does not speak to you; or if he does, you’re not listening.

You, sir, have embroiled the United States of America in an undeclared, illegal, and apparently endless war, spent the treasure and the reputation our country, the lives of our soldiers, and the lives of countless innocent civilians on the basis of constantly mutating justifications and in pursuit of ever-shifting goals that recede like the flickering waters of a desert mirage. Virtually every decision you and your advisors have made in prosecuting this war against “ter-rism” has not only been wrong, but wrong-headed and self-deluded as well. You, sir, have condoned, encouraged, incited, and on numerous occasions ordered the commission of war crimes. You, sir, though you have never dirtied yourself with the blood of an enemy—make that “enemy combantant”—are a war criminal, and I dare say, if you were not the President of the United States, you would by now be facing charges in the dock at the Hague.

In the course of waging this so-called “War on Terror,” which is better named the “War to Terrify,” you, sir, have converted the constitutional democracy of which you are the chief steward into a proto-fascist state. For the sake of your war games, you, sir, have mortgaged the future of our children, and bid fair to wreck our country, and perhaps accelerate a world wide collapse of human and natural systems in a planetary disaster.

You, sir, are the one who does not understand the nature of the world we live in.

You, sir, in the words of Sha Zukang, the Chinese Ambassador to the U.N. at Geneva, should “shut up.” Shut up and be quiet.

It is better for you to shut up and keep quiet. It's much, much better.

Grendel's Lost Sock: Quote for Today

"In a world full of excrable excresences, there is always a fetid coprostatis of an idea to make your own."

Ned Seeman

Liquid Terror and the Scent of Fear

In light of the roll out of “Liquid Terror” and its effect on the airlines and airports of the world, Dr. Omed has a suggestion as to how to simplify and improve airport security. Check all baggage. Instead of the current security checkpoints, airline passengers should be checked onto the airport concourse in the same way that prisoners are checked into a county jail.

In dressing rooms under the supervision of security guards, passengers would strip, submit to a cavity search, and their clothes, wallets, purses, ids, pocket change, and what-not would be bagged, tagged, examined for contraband, and checked for transshipment.

Passengers would be issued color-coded jumpsuits or hospital scrub type pajamas, and flip-flops or slip-on tennis shoes. At some county jails, prisoners charged with misdemeanors get an orange jump-suit, and felons get white. Or vice versa. First class passengers get, say, purple, and every one else gets orange. Every passenger would get a coded wristband like a patient gets at the hospital or an inmate gets at the jail, that can’t be removed without scissors or a knife.

The passenger section of the plane would be behind a locked gate, like the prison bus, with an armed steward or stewardess on the other side of it, keeping an eye on everyone with the help of surveillance cams. Passengers seatbelts can be locked by remote control, but you could slip on the complementary handcuffs, if you’re into that. And in each and every barf bag, there would a complementary stale baloney sandwich, just like you get at a city jail. Beats a bag of peanuts, don’t it?

Air travel in the Age of Fear is already replete with restraints and indiginities. Think how glad you’ll be to get off that plane, when you are arrive at your destination, to get your own clothes and personal items back, to have that wristband snipped off, to step out into the open and take a big breath of fresh air. You’ll feel so free. For a moment, anyway. Just don’t make any suspicious moves, until you’re out of range of the cameras and the sniper towers.

FLARF POEM COMPOSED ON A GOOGLE OF “FOG OF WAR”

The fog of war
conceals much more
than can be seen.

In the fog of war,
chips can fall
in different ways.

Why not
have surrogates
do the fighting and dying?

The fog of war,
of course,
is thick.

Clausewitz, and probably
every military theorist since,
has spoken of the fog of war—

The difficultly of telling
what’s happening
when you’re in the field.

The war happened,
and then what happened
happened, and the timing was just right…

Tragic mistakes happen
In the “fog of war.”
Soldiers have since time immemorial died

from friendly fire
and other lethal errors.
In war, stuff happens.

It is devilishly difficult to follow
the ricochets
amid the incendiary fog of war.

But I suppose
we shall have
to try

not to see it as a failure,
attribute the negative outcome
to the fog of war.

On the positive side…
defined goals have melted
into the fog of wars gone by.

Other consequences
of the invasion
are still shrouded
in the fog of peace.

Steal This Postcard

CINDY SHEEHAN ASSESSES THE BUSH "PRESIDENCY"

GRENDEL'S LOST SOCK: THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Human beings are not moved by facts. This is the closest thing to a true fact that you will ever encounter in your human existence. The facts, ma’am, just the facts are just too boring, too inconvenient, too depressing, too…factual—or as Mr. Colbert may already have said (Dr. Omed doesn’t have cable)—too facty.

We, as a people, as an allegedly sentient species, don’t want too much factiness. We do not want to be told the facts; we want to be told a story, a story with a happy ending; or at least a story with a good moral. I don’t blame us; the facts are hard. We want some factric softener added to the wash, so our thoughts will come out fuzzy and warm. “God” is our favorite brand of softener when it comes to the really hard facts. God comes in many brands, and each brand claims unique and exclusive features and offers periodic enhancements to keep the devotion of its customers, but mostly what we want to make those cold, hard facts fuzzy and warm.

Fuzziness is next to Goddiness. Is that so bad? There is a phrase that is invoked by journalists and commentators when a modern army is not performing as advertised, usually against a foe less well-equipped with the latest death technology: in wise tones the words "Fog of War" are uttered. Battles are lost or won in the Fog of War. On the battleground of Gott-Mit-Uns-Kulturkreig we must navigate the Fuzz of God. The hard facts are still there; you just can't see 'em.

Breakfast at Lammas

Upon the fortieth day
under the enemy sun,
Yeshua,

if you are
bar abbas,
son of the father:

Tell
this
stone
to become bread.

It shall be written, Diabolos
By bread alone
may we ask for a stone.

A stone to move,
a veil to rent,
a trump to play,
women to weep,
dead saints to rise and walk,
choirs of angels to sing,
orisons to remember all our sins,
and the blood
of the lamb
to wash in the stain.

Enough to feed the multitudes
and seven baskets
of broken promises
left over.

Take this bread, Yeshua
but do not eat.
Instead, speak into it
as if it were the ear of God.

She will hear you.

Put it quickly in the coals
of the cooking fire
as if the crust were brimful
of your words.

She will answer you.

I am so hungry,
I am a bone gnawed by God.

Take, speak.

Dana Pattillo

Note: Lammas, or Lughnassad, occurs in late July and early August. It is marks the middle of Summer and the beginning of the harvest. It is the first of three harvest festivals and is usually associated with ripening grain. It heralds the coming of Autumn.