PAUL SANTORO BOB DYLAN AND A BLACK WIDOW

It was the summer of 1972 when I became a landscaper.

I went to high school with the person who got me the job.

Dave was a very tall guitar player who chain-smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes.

(I inhaled an unfiltered Camel cigarette when I was 6 years old and passed out.)

My co-workers and I were a bunch of slow-moving, coffee-gulping landscapers.

I know that caffeine is supposed to increase metabolism, but it didn’t help us.

We would sit for as long as possible imbibing our coffee rather than landscaping the earth.

One landscaper was Paul Santoro.

Paul Santoro became both peer and mentor to me.

He was six years older than me.

He once said to me:

"I'll be your guru."

That line became part of an unpublished song we called "Don't guru-jew me."

I remember when we were in his faded-blue Volkswagen bug, slowly crawling down Pearl Street.

It was a bright, beautiful, cold and snowy day.

I forget exactly what we were discussing, but at one point in the conversation I told Paul that I thought he sometimes “got too heavy for me.”

Paul replied:

“Yeah, but just remember, heaviness descends from the heights.”

This statement made me poke my head out of the bug’s window to look up at the sky.

Paul’s words were as powerful as another quotation that has stuck in my memory:

“Everything that rises must converge.”

And many years later I would read these words:

The seal of Solomon known as the six-pointed Jewish star, contains the old wisdom: "as above, so below".

Paul was the same age as Bob Dylan, and he told me this one afternoon while we were walking on the side of a mountain, looking for moss-covered rocks.

He said, "I could have been Dylan. I traveled to the same places that he did."

Then Paul picked up a rock and found a black widow spider beneath it.

He picked the spider up and then said in his raspy voice:

"Look at this. It's beautiful!"

I was stunned when he picked up the black widow.

I was surprised when he gave such praise to this feared arachnid.

It was an impressive moment under the summer sun.

Paul played acoustic guitar in various restaurants.

He liked to play Bob Dylan songs.

His raspy voice was pretty good.

I enjoyed listening to him sing.

I showed Paul some of my poems, but he didn't seem too impressed, and he would recite a few of his own from memory.

Paul and his girlfriend Linda broke up, and then he moved to California.

I heard that he married a woman from France (or Italy) and had a child.

I believe he named the child Ivan.

I bet Paul is still strumming his guitar.

A JOKER AND A CLOWN AT THE RADIO AND TELEVISION CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER 2007

BUSH'S BRAIN

KARL ROVE

DID HIS RAP!

AND HE’LL GET HIS OWN

RAP AT A LATER TIME!

(BUT NOT OF HIS CHOOSING!)

THE SMIRKING DECIDER

WAS ABOUT AS FUNNY

AS A BURNING BUSH!

THIS IS TRAGI-COMEDY

AT ITS VERY BEST AND WORST!

THE TRAGIC LEADER AND DECIDER

TURNED INTO A COMIC RELIEVER!

AND HIS CHIEF ADVISER AND DECEIVER

JUMPED UP AND DOWN

LIKE A LUNATIC CLOWN!

Adiuva nos, Domine!

Iraq death toll survey 'robust'

http://www.theaustralian.news.com/

March 27, 2007

BRITISH government officials backed the methodology used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003, the BBC reported today.

The Government publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet medical journal in October.

But the BBC said documents obtained under freedom of information legislation showed advisers concluded that the much-criticised study had used sound methods.

The Lancet study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, estimated that 655,000 more Iraqis had died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. The study estimated that 601,027 of those deaths were from violence.

The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 per cent certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.

The conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, was disputed by some experts, and rejected by the US and British governments.

US President George W. Bush said he did not consider it “a credible report,” and Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said the study had extrapolated from an unrepresentative sample of the population.

However, the chief scientific adviser to the Defense Ministry, Roy Anderson, described the methods used in the study as “robust” and “close to best practice.”

THE AIR IS FULL OF WAR AND HOLLOW MEN

"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
T.S. Eliot

Waiting and waiting for the crack of doom

The world seems to be going insane.

But I still go and buy milk, bread and eggs

Until the next day of shame.

War is in the air and

The air is full of war.

And although the Homeland is without war

America is at war.

The war machine is busy making its billions---

Making its new cruise missiles---

Making its new depleted uranium munitions

To fight tomorrow’s war.

The ice caps are melting

But the oil cartels are laughing.

Don't worry about tomorrow

Worry only about today.

You need more oil to burn and

We need more profits to earn.

War is in the air and

The world is full of war.

Waiting and waiting for the crack of doom

Is making us all go insane.

THE REIGN OF BUSH AND DICK

nests of lies!

&

dirty skies!

illegal actions!

&

hidden factions!

smirking smiles!

&

smiling guiles!

endless excuses!

&

repeated ruses!

secret notes!

&

covert votes!

illegal spies!

&

roving eyes!

perpetual war!

&

taxed-to-death poor!

"Earlier this year I had a major operation for cancer. The operation and its after-effects were something of a nightmare. I felt I was a man unable to swim bobbing about under water in a deep dark endless ocean. But I did not drown and I am very glad to be alive.

However, I found that to emerge from a personal nightmare was to enter an infinitely more pervasive public nightmare - the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful nation the world has ever known effectively waging war against the rest of the world. "If you are not with us you are against us" President Bush has said. He has also said "We will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders". Quite right. Look in the mirror chum. That's you.

The US is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of mass destruction" and it prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has more of them than the rest of the world put together. It has walked away from international agreements on biological and chemical weapons, refusing to allow inspection of its own factories. The hypocrisy behind its public declarations and its own actions is almost a joke.

The United States believes that the three thousand deaths in New York are the only deaths that count, the only deaths that matter. They are American deaths. Other deaths are unreal, abstract, of no consequence.

The three thousand deaths in Afghanistan are never referred to.

The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children dead through US and British sanctions which have deprived them of essential medicines are never referred to.

The effect of depleted uranium, used by America in the Gulf War, is never referred to. Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly high. Babies are born with no brain, no eyes, no genitals. Where they do have ears, mouths or rectums, all that issues from these orifices is blood.

The two hundred thousand deaths in East Timor in 1975 brought about by the Indonesian government but inspired and supported by the United States are never referred to.

The half a million deaths in Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Argentina and Haiti, in actions supported and subsidised by the United States are never referred to.

The millions of deaths in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are no longer referred to.

The desperate plight of the Palestinian people, the central factor in world unrest, is hardly referred to.

But what a misjudgement of the present and what a misreading of history this is.

People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their fellows, they do not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice, they do not forget oppression, they do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers. They not only don't forget. They strike back.

The atrocity in New York was predictable and inevitable. It was an act of retaliation against constant and systematic manifestations of state terrorism on the part of the United Stated over many years, in all parts of the world."

From Why George Bush is Insane

By Harold Pinter

Special to The Assassinated Press

3-26-7

I FEEL YOUR PAIN MARY JANE

It has been said that Carl Sagan did most of his writing while under the influence of marijuana.

(O.K. He was stoned out of his gourd!)

That’s why he sounded so unusual when he uttered “billions and billions and billions…”

If Bill Clinton had inhaled, there might have been fewer bombs falling on Bosnia.

If George W. Bush had snorted less cocaine and smoked more pot we might not be going bankrupt right now both morally and fiscally.

But who will ever know?

New Mexico now allows medical marijuana to be inhaled.

As so many have said so many times (most recently Bill Maher), marijuana has never killed anyone.

This is an exaggeration and probably false, but compared to alcohol and cigarettes, the lethality of marijuana is minimal.

We all know that the drug companies have abetted and assisted (i.e. paid) the FDA in order for these pharmaceutical giants to receive quick approval for their plethora of drugs so that they can make their billions and billions.

To legalize Mary Jane or heroin would compete with these hefty profits.

Drug lords and drug cartels would go out of business.

(But legalization could save the U.S. government billions in its so-called WAR ON DRUGS.)

The pharmaceutical serpent has always been eating its alchemical tail.

The American people have always swallowed the pill that the legalization of marijuana would be dangerous.

But the biggest dangers come from the crimes committed to obtain and sell the high-priced street drugs.

The Taliban are now funded by illegal drugs.

The poppies are their friends.

Making all drugs legal would endanger the huge profits currently made by drug companies and drug cartels.

The big business of asset seizures by law enforcement agencies would also disappear.

Legalizing drugs would create a safer world. Legalization of drugs would help us to win the war against terrorists.

The beautiful marijuana plant is still an evil weed because it threatens the Evil enterprise of DRUG LORDS and PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES.

Pity Mary Jane and feel her pain.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The late astronomer and author, Carl Sagan was a secret but avid marijuana smoker, crediting it with inspiring essays and scientific insight, according to Sagan's biographer.

"I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high ... in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater,'' wrote Sagan, who authored popular science books such as "Cosmos,'' "Contact,'' and "The Dragons of Eden.''

In the essay, Sagan said marijuana inspired some of his intellectual work.

"I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves,'' wrote the former Cornell University professor. "I wrote the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down.

Ann Druyan, Sagan's former wife, is a director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The nonprofit group promotes legalization of marijuana.

By Scott Andrews — 21 Aug 1999 Associated Press

BARNEY DOESN'T HAVE FLEAS BUT MY OTHER DOGS DO

"Announcing open hunting season on all Iranian visitors to Iraq is like playing Frisbee with nitroglycerin. Bush has gone looking for trouble and is likely to find it."
Juan Cole

I'm

Scratchin'

&

Rove's

Scratchin'

Alberto's

Scratchin'

&

(It's not cat scratch fever

Either.

Who let the dogs

Out?)

My dogs of war attacked

Iraq

And now Iraq's

Scratchin'.

No WMD and no Al-Qaeda

But

I gave 'em my

Shock & Awe

Anyway!

Citizen's got Spied on

&

Citizens got Lied on

&

Now citizens are doing their

Scratchin'!

A lot of Lies got told

&

A CIA spy got Exposed

&

Now Truth's

Scratchin'!

The Whole World begged for

Peace

But I gave 'em

War

&

Now the World's

Scratchin'!

Barney doesn't have

Fleas

But my other dogs

Do!

&

We're

All

Scratchin'!

Scratchin'!

Scratchin'!

Oh!

I almost forgot my wonderful

Dick!

He's Scratchin'

Too!

"We the American people would not do what George Bush and Richard Cheney have done in Iraq, all of it in our name. We would not, for utterly fabricated reasons, invade and occupy a sovereign country without provocation, killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens, driving millions more from their homes as refugees, torturing prisoners, destroying the country's economy and infrastructure, fomenting a vicious sectarian civil war, sacrificing 3,200 American lives, squandering half a trillion dollars, dangerously destabilizing the Middle East, blackening our country's character, and defaming every American citizen.
We are not a devious, savage, and warlike people. With considerable merit we think of Americans as honest, decent, and law-abiding, generous, tolerant, and humane. And we are patriotic, devoted to our country and to its ideals of freedom, democracy, peace, justice, and honesty in government.
The huge disconnect between who we are and what our government is doing in Iraq is painfully apparent, and the gap is insuperable.
It is imperative, therefore, that we hold the President and Vice President accountable not only for breaking domestic and international laws, but for violating the ethical and institutional essence of America and the ideals of her people. To rescue our country's elemental decency and to assure the security of its governing principles, it is our patriotic duty to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney.
We consented to the invasion of Iraq because history told us we could trust our government to tell the truth. We were not naïve: the Vietnam war was also launched on a fabrication, but that was an aberration. We would not and did not expect it to be repeated. So we trusted and believed George Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell when they spoke to us. They said Saddam Hussein was complicit in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. They said he had terrifying weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them to our shores. They said he could soon trigger a nuclear device in our country, killing hundreds of thousands of American people.
None of this was true. It was propaganda, intentionally designed by the White House Iraq Group to mislead the Congress and the American people. That is fraud, and fraud is a crime. Given the magnitude at which it was practiced, and the epic consequences, few would disagree: it is a high crime and misdemeanor. We need to impeach Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, as Elizabeth de la Vega has written, not as a matter of politics but as a matter law.
Brilliantly and knowingly, the Bush Administration introduced full-strength surrealism into our public discourse, in the form of their amorphous and fraudulent "global war on terrorism." They asked for our consent and the consent of the Congress to undertake it; thoroughly deceived, both the public and Congress acquiesced. There was no way a trusting country could know the "war on terrorism" was a fantasy: what the Bush Administration launched in fact was an international crime of military aggression.

At least six books make compelling cases for impeachment: The Impeachment of George W. Bush, by Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia Cooper; The Genius of Impeachment, by John Nichols; The Articles of Impeachment, by the Center for Constitutional Rights; Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, by Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips; The Case for Impeachment, by David Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky, and U.S. v Bush, by Elizabeth de la Vega. Tallying an overwhelming succession of impeachable offenses, all fraudulently disguised as worthy, even noble initiatives, the books tell the astonishing story of what the Bush Administration has done. "

From The Remedy is in Our Hands
Impeachment and Patriotism
By RICHARD W. BEHAN
March 20, 2007

[Richard W. Behan is the author of Plundered Promise: Capitalism, Politics, and the Fate of the Federal Lands /Island Press, 2001]

SICK PSYCHOS

It’s a strange, strange world with a lot of strange and sick people.
We are all familiar with the old tales about having sex with sheep.
Maybe funny to hear and tell, but the tale’s not so funny when it actually happens.
One wonders what goes wrong in the human mind.
Why?
And how?
One of my favorite scenes in the movie Starman is when the alien (played by Jeff Bridges) brings a deer back to life.
Then I read this:

SUPERIOR, Wis. (AP) -- A 20-year-old man received probation after he was convicted of having sexual contact with a dead deer.
Hathaway pleaded no contest earlier this month to misdemeanor mistreatment of an animal for the incident involving the deer. He was sentenced Tuesday in Douglas County Circuit Court."The type of behavior is disturbing," Judge Michael Lucci said. "It's disturbing to the public. It's disturbing to the court."

You’re right, Judge Lucci, it’s disturbing to the public.
But what about the poor deer!
It was murdered by a disturbed human.
But this wasn’t the first time:
In April 2005 he was found guilty of felony mistreatment of an animal after he killed a horse with the intention of having sex with it! He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and two years of extended supervision.

Bless the beasts and the children!
Curse the cruel and inhuman psychos!

READING BETWEEN THE LIES

NOTE: George W. Bush's words are followed by those of Mad Plato.

"Four years ago today coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to remove Saddam Hussein from power. They did so to eliminate the threat his regime posed to the Middle East and to the world."
[Even though he had no WMD and a very powerless military after my Daddy smashed it in Gulf War I.]

"Today, the world is rid of Saddam Hussein. And a tyrant has been held to account -- for his crimes -- by his own people."
[I now await an account from my own people for my crimes.]

"At this point in the war, our most important mission is helping the Iraqis secure their capital."
[Although our presence in Iraq for four years hasn't done this yet, or turned on the water and electricity.]

"Prime Minister Maliki and Gen. Petraeus emphasized that the Baghdad security plan is still in its early stages and success will take months, not days or weeks."
[Of course by months we mean years.]

"I want to stress that this operation is still in the early stages; still in the beginning stages."

[And there will be many more stages in the next five, ten or twenty years.]

"And there will be good days and there will be bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds."
[Just as the sun comes up and the sun goes down.]

"It could be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home."
[But lead us not into temptation and deliver me from evil, this is what should be done.]

"The terrorists could emerge from the chaos with a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they had in Afghanistan, which they used to plan the attacks of September 11, 2001. For the safety of the American people, we cannot allow this to happen."
[And if you believe this then you also believe that I can think and read.]

"Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won. It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through."

[Even after thousands and thousands more soldiers and civilians have died, the same question will linger: What have we won?]

SHINE THE KLIEG LIGHTS ON THE LIES: TO PARDON UNPARDONABLE CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS IS UNPARDONABLE

“This criminal regime must now be brought to an end. Impeachments of Bush, Cheney, and Gonzales, followed by felony indictments and trials are imperative if the rule of law in the United States is to be preserved.”

Paul Craig Roberts

3/20/07

[Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury in the Reagan administration.]

To pardon Scooter Libby would be unpardonable.

It would be wrong.

But Mr. Libby will probably get pardoned by George W. Bush before the latter exits (I first wrote escapes) the White House.

The White House is no longer that white.

I suppose Bill Clinton began the process of turning the White House into a whiter shade (and stain) of pale before George W. Bush began occupying it.

But George W. Bush’s (and Dick Cheney’s and Karl Rover’s) deceptions, for which Scooter Libby became their scapegoat, have further stained America's alabaster domicile.

Some radical voices have called for Dick Cheney to resign.

Other media mouthpieces have asked for Libby to be pardoned immediately.

Deceptions under George W. Bush’s administration will not disappear even if I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is pardoned.

Nor will these go away:

Pre-Emptive war based upon false information and fabrications.

Illegal Spying.

Torturing [&Ignoring the Geneva Convention].

And now the Decider does not want Karl Rove (or anyone else) investigated and questioned UNDER OATH.

Gee…I wonder why.

"There are bombshells waiting to detonate on the torture scandal, on Iraq, and other dishonest and illegal gross abuses. For instance, the ACLU released a CIA letter in November confirming the existence of "a directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees." This confirms a May 2004 email from the FBI’s "On Scene Commander" in Baghdad regarding a secret "presidential Executive Order" permitting extreme interrogation techniques considered illegal by the FBI including "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods," stress positions, and military dogs."

"The Justice Department has so far blocked release of Bush’s secret order. If this Bush order becomes public, it may be akin to a 1972 memo from Richard Nixon specifying the exact methods of lock-picking the Watergate burglars should use. Bush’s involvement in the torture scandal may be far deeper than Nixon’s involvement in Watergate."

"The Bush administration has survived because it has succeeded in keeping the lid on so many scandals. Any change in top personnel raises the risks of lids slipping. New appointees will not want to put their heads on the chopping block to cover up crimes that occurred before they got the corner office."

"Democratic subpoenas are beginning to darken the D.C. sky like the English arrows at Agincourt. The subpoenas and scandals generate congressional testimony which spur the number of political appointees who could be indicted for perjury. The scandals are accelerating while support for the Bush administration seems to be collapsing."

"At best, Bush may need to award more Medals of Freedom this year than ever before. At worst, he may need to resurrect Gerald Ford and his all-inclusive "from the first day to the last day" pardon for himself and his nearest, dearest co-conspirators."

James Bovard
March 20, 2007
[James Bovard is the author of the just-released Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, and Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil.]

CELEBRATING CIVIL WAR AND CAR BOMBS: Fourth Anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
George W. Bush
May 2, 2003

"Today, we are safer, but we are not yet safe."
George W. Bush
September 11, 2006

"This operation is still in the early stages; still in the beginning stages.
It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through."
George W. Bush
March 19, 2007



TODAY IS THE DAY BUSH'S BOMBS FELL
TO SHOCK AND AWE IRAQ INTO HELL.

NO MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
OR VICTORY WON.

ONLY EMPTY WORDS
TO GET THE JOB DONE.

THE DECIDER ALWAYS KNOWS WHAT IS BEST
FOR THE UNITED STATES AND ALL THE REST.

SWEET BEAN

I'm on my way to buy a ton of cocoa.

Although I ingest Vitamin C, B-Complex and low dosage aspirin every day, I'm also going to slug down as much cocoa as my digestive system (and brain) will tolerate.

I'm always eating chocolate.

I know that I am addicted to it.

I just bought a little tin of dark chocolate truffles for my wife which I put in the refrigerator.

I haven't told her yet about them being there.

You can guess why.

I hope I don't read in five or ten years that all of the cocoa that I intend to eat was not quite what it was touted to do.

Well, I'm here at the chocolate factory.

Time to shovel the cocoa into my truck bed.

It's cocoa time!

“Epicatechin is biochemical found in teas, wine, chocolate and some fruit and vegetables.

Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, believes that epicatechin is so important that it should be considered a vitamin.

Hollenberg has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna people in Panama. He found that the risk of 4 of the 5 most common killer diseases: stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes, is reduced to less then 10% in the Kuna. They can drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week.

Natural cocoa has high levels of epicatechin.

'If these observations predict the future, then we can say without blushing that they are among the most important observations in the history of medicine,' Hollenberg says. 'We all agree that penicillin and anaesthesia are enormously important. But epicatechin could potentially get rid of 4 of the 5 most common diseases in the western world, how important does that make epicatechin?... I would say very important'

At the moment, the science does not support epicatechin having an essential role. But, Fabricant, who is vice president scientific affairs at the Natural Products Association, says: 'the link between high epicatechin consumption and a decreased risk of killer disease is so striking, it should be investigated further. It may be that these diseases are the result of epicatechin deficiency,' he says.

Currently, there are only 13 essential vitamins. An increase in the number of vitamins would provide significant opportunity for nutritional companies to expand their range of products. Flavanols like epicatechin are removed for commercial cocoas because they tend to have a bitter taste.”

Cocoa Benefits Could Be

As Important As Penicillin

ScienceDaily.com

3-13-7

Q & A

Is it fair to tie funding for the war in Iraq to a deadline for pulling out the troops?

No it isn't fair.

A deadline should have nothing to do with funding troops who are currently in Iraq.

But this is how the recalcitrant Republican Neo Con robots can get away with continuing a lost war.

Democrats know this, but don't want to filibuster in order to halt funding.

They are more interested in their jobs and re-election.

The Iraq War will continue until aliens take over the planet.

What does it mean when almost half of college students binge drink or abuse drugs?

It means that they like booze (and drugs) more than they like books.

How can Sen. John McCain recapture his maverick reputation?

He can't.

He went too far to the side of the Decider.

McCain's side is now like the Decider's.

McCain's position is a cul-de-sac because the war is already lost.

But he still asserts that there is a chance the U.S. will "win".

McCain's mantra that the job was not done right because there were not enough troops to begin with is wearing thin.

A SUCCINCT CHAT BETWEEN BUSH AND DICK

George W. Bush: Dick?

Dick Cheney: Quack, quack!

George W. Bush: Where's Rove?

Dick Cheney: Quack, quack, quack!

George W. Bush: He's helping Al Gonzales write his resignation letter?

Dick Cheney: Quack!

George W. Bush: But what about you?

Dick Cheney: Quack, quack, quack, quack!

George W. Bush: O.K. I understand. It's your heart, isn't it?

Dick Cheney: Quack!

George W. Bush: O.K. I've got to start writing my memoirs.

I have to put some good parts in before any more bad things happen to me.

Dick Cheney: Quack, quack!

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

BUMPER CARS COTTON CANDY AND THE LAUGHING LADY

It was like the arrival of Spring when Lakeside Amusement Park had its opening day.

Inside were rides, games, ice cream, cotton candy, hot dogs---and

The Laughing Lady.

She was a big and clownish-looking figure that made a shrill and droll laugh.

She was still laughing when I visited the park a few years ago.

(I never would leave the park until the fat lady laughed.)

Lakeside had a red dome that could be seen for miles away while going up and down (north or south) on Sheridan Boulevard.

This red cupola was a signpost, the symbolic marker for the fun and joy within the park's secure gates.

This dome was like God:

It was always there.

My favorite rides were the bumper cars and the midget cars.

My least favorite rides were the Ferris wheel and roller coaster.

On the west side of the lake were large sucker fish (I guess they were carp) that splashed around with gaping mouths, waiting for popcorn to be thrown into their gullets.

One year I went with Martha Doris on a date to the park.

We went on the train ride around the lake.

When we went through the tunnel we kissed and didn't stop until we came out.

It was indeed a tunnel of love.

On another occasion I had a date with Joann Babbs.

She had firm, volcanic-shaped breasts that had me in their thrall.

She baled hay in summers to develop her beautiful chest.

Another squire got wind that I had brought Joann Babbs to Lakeside.

His name was Dell Shimpf.

He had already tried to beat me up at the junior high school where he and I attended, but my older (and much bigger) brother had taken care of him.

Now, however, he was in the park, and looking for a chance to pounce.

I took Joann on one ride after another to avoid the little thug.

I went on the ride that has a "rocket" at each end.

When it went round and round all of the change came out of my pockets, but my eyes were on Joann Babbs (you can guess where).

I felt a little sick.

I also kept my eyes on the lookout for Dell Shimpf.

And there he was!

I quickly took Joann's hand and we went to the little boat ride.

I stayed in the little boat with Joann and watched Dell Shimpf and his boys watching me and Joann moving in circles in our little boat.

I guess they had better things to do and finally left.

Joann and I left, too.

And as much as I wanted to, I never made contact with her breasts.

The Laughing Lady was still laughing when we left.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

ASK AND TELL

“The gay wall of this gaudy tower
Grows dim around me — death is near.”

Edgar Allan Poe

I've never liked the word gay as a synonym for homosexual.

I've never liked the words queer or faggot either.

What to use?

Fairy?

But that gives a hard and unfair slap to the twinkling face of Tinkerbell.

Maybe just use “plain, old” homosexual.

I always wait for my students to giggle when we read an old poem that contains the word gay.

It isn't fair to the bards who wanted their gay to mean:

animated, blithe, bouncy, carefree, cheerful, convivial, festive, frivolous, frolicsome, fun-loving, glad, gleeful, jocund, jolly, jovial, joyful, joyous, light-hearted, lively, merry, mirthful, playful, sparkling, spirited, sprightly, sunny, vivacious ETC.

And what about the phrases the Gay Thirties or Gay Paris?

They aren’t about homosexuals.

I must admit that I am somewhat of a homophobe.

Does this mean that I’m not sure about my own nature?

I don’t think so.

Men who have sex with other men have never seemed “normal” to me.

And to say that these men are gay has never seemed the right word to use.

Do they have gay sex?

Yes, I suppose they do.

This word gay got me in trouble years ago when I had a job in which I called schools throughout the country to ask for and update the names of their school personnel to be published in a directory.

One time I called someone named (her first name I forget so I have made one up) Bonnie Gay.

The first words out of my mouth were:

“Boy, I bet you have a lot of people who say things…”

Before I could finish Ms. Gay hung up.

I recorded her name in the directory, but I also made a few of my own changes.

I changed the street address to Lesbian Avenue.

I also gave the school a new name (I forget what it was.)

I know these were mean and inappropriate things to do---and I should not have mentioned anything about her name---but I still altered those names.

It produced in me a…

Gay feeling.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!