BlameBush!

Former Nazi Guard Hastily Pens Children's Book

While awaiting extradition to his native Ukraine yesterday, former Nazi concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk quite possibly broke the land speed record for writing children’s books. Hastily scribbled in crayon on several rolls of prison-issued toilet paper, “The Madcap Adventures of Ivan, the Treblinka Teddy” is the charming tale of a friendly little bear who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd and engages in the sort of wild, reckless mischief that all young boys do. One night, while Ivan is enjoying a few beers with his wacky friends, things get out of hand they sort of “gas” a few million people. As penance for his sins, Ivan spends the remainder of the story suffering in a living hell - or, as some people call it, “Ohio”.

I can respect the powerful message Ivan sends to young kids to stay in school, do their homework, and resist peer pressure from genocidal fascist regimes. But the whole charade comes off like a desperate ploy to capitalize on the outpouring of love and support the Hollywood Community bestowed upon Tookie Williams, a gifted children’s author who was brutally murdered by the Nazi governor of California simply because he plugged some honkies and a couple of gooks. Demjanjuk, on the other hand, is a racist and a bigot. Unless he magically transforms into an esteemed senator from West Virginia, he deserves nothing but scorn and contempt from the aging cast of M*A*S*H and rap artists alike.

However, I’m sure he would make an excellent keynote speaker at the next Republican National Convention.

Democrats Release List of Remaining Civil Liberties

From listening in on the telephone calls of disabled school marms in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, to forcing innocent web surfers to purchase fattening NSA cookies, a handful of unelected plutocrats have devoted 2005 to systematically eroding our civil liberties. Likewise, 2006 will most certainly usher in a whole new litany of human rights abuses for the sake of Bush's silly War on Terror.

On the bright side, the Chimp's bumbling incompetence may be a blessing in disguise, for congressional Democrats have released a small list of the few remaining civil liberties that Bush's Department of Homeland Security hasn’t quite got around to destroying yet.

According to the report, the Bush junta has so far failed to:

Install intrusive surveillance cameras to spy on little old ladies at high-risk chemical plants.

Install monitors at borders and every international seaport and airport to covertly screen for radioactive material without a warrant.

Employ fascist police-state security measures to transform the nation's most cherished buildings, transportation systems and other infrastructure into glorified American Gulags.

Brand foreign "undesirables" like cattle with a computerized system that takes their fingerprints and photographs as they enter and exit the country, so that they may be easily rounded up and tortured if their skin is too brown.

And thanks to the watchful eye of our democrat leaders, Bush has yet to:

Create an Orwellian government database to quickly spread bogus terrorist alerts to state, local and private industry officials for the sole purpose of scaring people into electing Republicans.

Thank Goddess the Shrub has spent the past four years asleep at the wheel. It's still too early to celebrate, though. According to Homeland Security Fuhrer Michael Chertoff, his jackbooted Nazi thugs will begin tagging visitors in a fashion reminscent of Jingus Khan by the end of the year. There's no reason to believe that the Shrub won't make a move on our few remaining civil liberties as well. He'll probably claim that he needs to erode our most precious freedoms in order to prevent another terrorist attack. But with the unwavering diligence of the New York Times and leading democrats, we can insure that he never does.

Bush's Unholy Crusade Against Radioactive Muslims

The Bush Junta has long used the so-called “War on Terror” as an excuse to incite fear and erode our civil liberties. But now shocking new evidence has come to light that suggests Bush may have been defending us against “terrorist attacks” much sooner than we would like to believe – at least before receiving any clear instructions from the 9/11 Commission or the United Nations. It seems that right around the time Bush’s CIA was listening in on the phone conversations of retired beekeepers in Dubuque, Iowa, his FBI began monitoring innocent Muslim sites for radioactivity – and without even bothering to obtain a warrant.

This, the latest of a long list of Bush scandals, is offensive on so many levels. Not only is it a blatant violation of our Constitutional Right to Privacy, but it also presumes that radioactivity is a crime, and one that Muslims are most likely to commit. Most Muslim-Americans who just happen to be highly radioactive - whether as a lifestyle choice or an accident of birth – have never committed an act off terrorism. They live peaceful, law-abiding lives, and should be treated with decency and respect, not stigmatized by bigots with badges.

Of course, there are always a few bad apples that may be glowing for purely illicit reasons, but we do the Radioactive Muslim Community a great disservice by automatically assuming they’re all a threat to our safety. Instead of singling Muslim sites out for scrutiny, all businesses and residences of any kind should be subject to monitoring. The FBI should randomly draw an address out of a hat, and the occupants of The Sunnydale Retirement Home would be asked to remove their shoes and spin around in circles while a uniformed lesbian prods them with a Geiger counter. America hasn’t had a single hijacking since Norm Mineta implemented this brilliant policy at the airports, so there’s no reason why the FBI can’t do the same.

Many who aren't of Arabic origin, nor highly radioactive, may find this approach somewhat of an inconvenience. But once we tolerate racial profiling in any form, we play right into the hands of those who plotted and carried out the 9/11 attacks – the unelected terrorists in the White House.

Another Month in Nazi Germany

The United States Senate voted unanimously last night to extend the infamous US Patriot Act by a month, condemning millions of Americans to another thirty days of totalitarian oppression. No big surprise, considering that the only senator who showed up was a Republican. I guess we should be thankful he didn’t abolish a Woman’s Right to Choose or reinstate slavery, too, since there weren’t any Democrats around to prevent him from doing so.

I realize that this is the time of year when most Democrat senators would prefer to be back home, lighting their Holiday Trees and kicking over nativity scenes. But it is far too dangerous to leave Republicans alone in Congress without proper adult supervision. We were lucky this time – Senator Warner only prolonged the inevitable for another 4 weeks. But there’s no telling what kind of damage a Republican can do to this country if such an embarrassing incident ever happened again. Without the strong moral guidance of Democrat senators like Ted Kennedy, a less moderate conservative could have lowered taxes, strengthened property rights – or worse.

I hope that when the fate of the Patriot Act comes up for a vote again next month, Harry Reid and other elected defenders of our civil liberties will make an effort to attend. Otherwise, it may a long time before any of us can check out a book at the library again without being hauled off to Gitmo.

Movie Review: Brokeback Mountain

After 50 years of being ignored by an offensively heterocentric Hollywood movie industry, the Gay Community is finally getting its much deserved day in the sun, thanks to the brilliant new film, Brokeback Mountain.

Frankly, I was surprised the right-wing haters running the country allowed Brokeback be shown at all, concerning its subject matter. Americans simply aren't European enough to embrace softcore gay porn on the big screen. A beautiful story about two men in love is a serious threat to their antiquated notions of masculinity, especially when displayed by their beloved archetype of unapologetic machismo - the American cowboy. But every seat in the theatre was filled and all eyes remained glued to the screen from the opening credits to the climactic finale three very short hours later.

The film begins as a down-on-his-luck rodeo cowboy, played wonderfully by Heath Ledger (A Knight’s Tail) travels to a mysterious island populated by a primitive tribe of drag queens. Looking simply resplendent with his flowing blonde mane and skimpy pink negligé, Ledger catches the eye of a disturbingly hirsute Jake Gyllenhaal who whisks him off to his secret love nest deep in the jungle.

***WARNING! SPOILER!!!***

The film goes off on a weird tangent at this point, with Gyllenhaal fighting a series of dinosaurs in an unconvincing melange of CGI effects that were reminiscent of the giant elephant battles in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ - and me without my Unholy Kazoo. Like something out of a bad 1930’s horror flick, Gyllenhaal roars and pounds his chest ad nauseum in a yawningly cliché display of male dominance over his rivals. But then the movie redeems itself as the two starry-eyed lovers take a romantic steamer trip back to a pre-1960’s New York, only to face an unenlightened citizenry that isn’t quite ready for two flaboyant homosexuals prancing up and down Fifth Avenue in cowboy hats. In the movie’s heartbreaking climax, Gyllenhall is ruthlessly gunned down by fundamentalist Christian Conservatives as he attempts to scale New York's phallic monument to white male hegemony, the Empire State Building. There wasn't a dry in the house, folks.

Once in a generation, there comes a film that challenges the status quo and dramatically changes American culture for the better. By a bizarre coincidence, most of these movies star John Travolta. But hopefully, Brokeback Mountain will do the same to our primitive concepts of "family" that Saturday Night Fever did for popular music. Even with its flaws, Brokeback offers us a rare glimpse into a deep, primal love that heterosexual males such as myself will sadly never experience, and most others never even witness outside of a prison rape scene or a gorilla exhibit at the zoo.

Three toots off the ol' hooka for Brokeback Mountain, a cinematic triumph. I thoroughly enjoyed it, which only proves how socially enlightened everyone already knows I am.

Sometimes the Voices in the Toaster are Right

They said we were “paranoid”. They called us “moonbats” and “conspiracy nuts”. But despite the best efforts of Skull & Bones and Halliburton, Americans are finally learning the truth: George Bush has been spying on everyone. Not just on so-called “terrorists” - which would be bad enough - but on decent, hard working Americans right here at home.

Compounding his heinous crimes is Bush’s stubborn insistence that his felonious actions were “constitutional”. That’s a mighty big word for a moron. I almost believed him myself until I took a break from wallpapering my condo with aluminum foil and consulted my personal copy of the Living, Breathing Constitution. There was a Woman’s Right to Choose, of course. The Right to a Living Wage and the Right to Free Health Care as well. There was our good ol' Freedom from Religion, exactly where the ACLU left it. But for the life of me I couldn’t find anything regarding a peeResidential authority to tap the telephones of unsuspecting soccer moms. Perhaps Bush thinks that since he was never truly elected, he is therefore exempt from the limits society has placed on the powers of Republican presidents. Or maybe he just likes to stare at people through two-way mirrors secretly installed in their bathrooms.

Whatever his excuse, he has stolen something sacred from us. The utopian dream that was once America has been turned into a fascist police nightmare ruled by an authoritarian oligarchy. It’s what I like to call “Orwellian”, in reference to that chilling novel of the same name.

No use looking for it, it’s probably already banned.

The Phony War on Christmas

We’ve all heard the horror stories. To uphold the anti-Christian ideals of our Founding Fathers, community leaders across America are finally taking the necessary steps to sterilize their towns of any religious imagery. Nativity scenes are banned from public areas. “Christmas Trees” are changed to more tolerant “Holiday Trees”. Kris Kristofferson is shunned like a topless dancer at an Amish wedding. At last, the normally exclusive holidays are becoming more accessible to everyone, and it’s pushing all the biblethumping Whos in Whoville right off the deep end. “It’s a War on Christmas!” is the desperate cry from the religious right, their hysteria fueled by hate radio and digital brownshirts.

I’ll let you folks in on a little secret: there is no “War on Christmas”. It’s all a lie concocted by the right-wing media to distract attention away from the quagmire in Iraq. Go ahead! Decorate your silly little Christmas tree and guzzle your spiked eggnog in honor of 2000 years of religious genocide. Whatever you do in the privacy of your home is your own damn business, as long you keep it there and away from the eyes of impressionable children. Let’s leave the “Come to Jesus” crap at home and preserve the public arena for anti-war marches and gay pride parades.

And that goes double for any fundamentalist punks who get their Christmas jollies terrorizing hard-working families. Several local cells of the American Taliban have been roaming my neighborhood like packs of wild dogs, singing songs about Baby Jesus and leaving mysterious baskets of fruit and cookies on the doorsteps of their unsuspecting victims. Personally, I’ve found that an ordinary lawn sprinkler provides excellent protection against such unwanted visits from the yodeling God Squad. I had three or four hours of blessed peace and quiet last night before a knuckle-dragging neocon starting pounding on my door and yelling obscenities at me.

“Turn it off, you stupid jackass! Water is leaking through the ceiling five floors down!”

Well, you should have thought of that before you sent your snots up to proselytize at a progressive, you intolerant bastard.

I am constantly amazed by the selfishness and insensitivity of some people, especially so close to the Winter Solstice.

Terri Schiavo Sure as Hell Never Wrote a Children’s Book

There wasn’t a dry eye at Seattle Hemp Products today over the tragic loss of two American heroes. Comedian Richard Pryor was cut down in the prime of his life last weekend by a peeResident who simply won’t tolerate a little bit of laughter in his New World of Darkness. Then, with the untimely passing of one comedic genius, came the brutal murder of another. Stanley “Tookie” Williams was viciously slaughtered by the Nazi governor of California this morning, but SchwarzenHitler’s barbaric crime will not go unpunished. His heartless display of inhumanity has already earned him widespread raspberries from the Hollywood Community, and an official condemnation from each of France’s three major political parties: The Socialist Party of France, the Workers Party of French Socialists, and the Party of French Socialist Hairdressers. It’s only a matter of time before the Governator needs a haircut, and then he’ll get what’s coming to him.

The tragic events of the past few days more than this progressive can bear, I spent most of the morning in my cubicle, wracked with sobs, damning the hypocrisy of it all. It just doesn’t make any sense! How can so-called “pro-lifers” fight so hard to “protect” the pathetic “life” of a brain dead Florida woman, but then turn around and march a beloved children’s book author to the guillotine?

The obvious answer is, of course, that Tookie is a Black man. An educated one, no less. Every Nobel nomination he received and every commencement address he gave ran contrary to the conservative idea of white supremacy. The brain dead Florida woman, on the other hand, was by definition “brain dead”, and therefore shares a special kinship with the uneducated cro-mags of the red states.

Tookie also earned the ire of the racist right by devoting his entire life to the cause of peace and social justice, writing several popular children’s books encouraging kids to steer clear of street gangs and commit their armed robberies a cappella. Even from behind bars, he was an inspiration to thousands of gangsta rappers and inner-city TV sitcom stars. If permitted to live, he surely would have inspired other death row inmates to pen their own books, spawning a whole new genre of children’s literature written by multiple murderers and serial killers.

Brain Dead Florida Woman, on the other hand, spent 15 years sitting on her big, fat ass while others waited on her hand and foot. She was loved and adored by no one, save her parents who were certifiable religious nuts. Her “life” wasn’t even special enough to warrant a Joan Baez concert to preserve it. Indeed, her very existence was nothing but an obstacle to the happiness of her husband, the Right to Die movement, and progressives in general. Once again, she was a conservative to the very core.

In the end, Tookie’s bright flame was extinguished by a corrupt judicial system specifically designed to keep blacks down, while the brain dead Florida woman was allowed to pointlessly linger on past her sale date.

Has the whole world gone completely mad?

Schwarzenegger to Terminate Beloved Children’s Book Author

Like "The Duke" before him, Arnold Schwarzenegger has become indistinguishable from the characters he plays in his movies. Instead of “terminating” every Sarah Connor in the phonebook, however, Ahhhnuld has taken it upon himself to snuff out beloved children’s book authors with cute, cuddly sounding nicknames. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a cookie knows that a man whose name rhymes with a sweet chocolaty treat doesn’t deserve to die, but time is running out for Tookie.

Stanley “Tookie” Williams made some mistakes in his youth, sure. Who hasn’t? Who amongst us can claim that they’ve never shot a man twice in the back for 120 bucks and laughed about it, even in a metaphorical sense? We all have blood on our hands, and none of us are innocent in this world. Not even the so-called Christians, who preach about casting stones and forgiveness, but are the first to cry “fry him!” whenever a fuzzy ol’ teddy bear brutally murders an entire family. Hypocrisy to the extreme. But while none of us are without sin, very few have redeemed themselves through a series of popular children’s books or a touching Hallmark Movie Presentation based on their life, starring that really nice gentleman who played Ray Charles.

The outpouring of grassroots Hollywood support is a further testament to Tookie's innocence. B.J. Hunnicutt wasn’t camped out at the state capitol the night they fried Ted Bundy. John William King, the white man who dragged James Byrd to death behind his pick-up truck, hasn’t received any conjugal visits from Danny Glover or Snoop Dogg. No, it takes a special kind of murderer to earn the respect and admiration of our most beloved entertainers, but that insensitive son of a Nazi in Sacramento doesn’t seem to give a damn.

Tookie certainly won’t be the first innocent man murdered by a Republican governor. Bush sent John Wayne Gacy to the gas chamber in complete disregard for all the pretty paintings he did of happy clowns while on death row. But if we as a society start executing people with cute and/or cuddly sounding nicknames, who will be next? Nipsey Russell? Soupy Sales? Captain Kangaroo, perhaps?

Boomer Esiason has nothing to worry about, though. After all, he's white, and Conan is huntin’ Negroes this holiday season!

The Full-Figured Womyn with the Thyroid Problem Ain't Singin' Yet!

They say that in the final moments of your life, you can see a bright tunnel of light. I can testify, however, that it's a warm, orange glow that welcomes you at journey's end, pouring into your restless soul and filling you with peace, love, and contentment. Death, I have discovered, isn’t so bad after all. And it smells just like burnt pizza.

Suddenly, I felt a burly hand grab my shoulder, yank me from the sweet arms of eternal bliss, and brutally toss me to the cold kitchen floor. A hunchbacked, ogreish creature grimaced down at me through a cloud of pungent smoke, her bulbous lips twitching like two smashed slugs on a skillet; the beads in her golden hair glistening like fresh dingleberries on a yak’s backside.

“Peaceblossom?”

But before my astonished eyes, her once beautifully pockmarked features and natty tumble of hair dissolved into a hideous, close-cropped visage with a pinched face, thick, horn-rimmed glasses, and a pointy, squidlike beak. Alas, it was not my former significant other who may or may not have been a member of the transgendered community that greeted me in the afterlife, but a demon borne straight from the very depths of hell.

“Myranda!" I wheezed. "What are you doing here?”

“I got your message at the video game store that you were going to ‘get baked’, so I rushed right over,” she chirped me. “I knocked and knocked but you didn't answer. Then I smelled burnt hair and patchouli coming from your condo, so I let myself in and found you here with your head in the oven, and.…”

Sudden realization crossed her face. “Oh my Goddess, Larry!” she gasped. “It’s Weblog Awards time again, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” I replied, stroking the charred remains of my goatee. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Dammit, Larry!” she snapped. “In case you weren't aware, Americans are finally turning against the Bush junta and this hopelessly unwinnable war! It’s your progressive blog and others like it that are cutting through the right-wing veil of optimism and turning the tide! You simply can’t give up now!”

“Give up?” I would have raised an eyebrow if I had one. “Who said anything about giving up? I have no intention of giving up, snookums! While my head was on preheat, it came to me like Ariana Huffington in a wet dream: For years, I’ve been pursuing a strategy of failure. The more I post and the harder I fight to win one of those stupid awards, the less chance I have of ever attaining peaceful coexistence with my competitors. So I devised a cunning plan that will insure my ultimate triumph in 2006. I call it the Howard Dean Strategic Withdrawal to Victory!”

Myranda winced at me. “Is that a slice of pepperoni stuck to your face?”

“The Howard Dean Strategic Withdrawal to Victory,” I continued, ignoring her remark, “is brilliant in its simplicity. To convince my enemies that I mean them no harm, I’ll start to slowly blog less frequently, until eventually I’m not posting any original content at all.”

“You mean like that Frank J. dude?”

“AIEEEEEE!!!!!!” I shrieked, sticking my fingers into my ears. “DO NOT SPEAK THE NAME WHICH MUST NEVER BE SPOKEN!!!”

“But - ”

“LALALALALALALALALALALALALALAL!!!!”

“Larry - “

“EEEEEEEEEE AYEEEEEEEEE AYE OHHHHHHHH!!!’”

Myranda snatched up the hemp handbag I gave her last Earth Day and headed for the door. “I’m leaving,” she said with exasperation.

“Cutting and running, eh? Coward.”

“JERK!” she spat back at me.

I blinked. “’Jerk’? Ah, it always comes back to the politics of personal destruction, doesn’t it? Fine then,” I growled, pointing to the door. “Get out of my house, you flat-chested, horse-faced slut, and don’t come back unless you can have something nice to say. And an X-Box 360!”

Victorious, I strutted back to the kitchen, the sound of the door being slammed still ringing in my ears.

Jerk, she called me!

I cranked the oven up another couple hundred degrees.

The inciteful rhetoric from that woman is totally counterproductive. Whatever happened to polite civil discourse and reasonable discussion in this country, anyway?