NOTES FROM SRI LANKA.

(February '04)

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02/01/04

Me-oh my-oh...

Hear that? No, not that; the other sound. Yeah, that's the one...that low hum of activity, like we're crouching in that giant beehive where a nefarious Robert Duvall met his doom in the Time Tunnel. That's the sound of that smooth-running Big Green machine fairly shaking the walls of the Cheney Hammer Mill, pulling all the ends of our various projects together in the middle. The sound of power. Or not. Could be Mitch Macaphee left his television on again...in which case, that low electrifying hum is channel 7's test pattern. I always get those two mixed up. 

Why have I left my bed at 3:00 a.m. to scribble down these incoherent lines? Cappuccino. Too many fucking cappuccinos with Mitch, Trevor James, and the rest of the deep space analysis team temporarily housed over at our website headquarters up the road a ways. There's one of those coffee vending machines in the commissary over there that makes cheap cappuccinos (crappy-cheapos, as we call them) and the web team kept setting them up as we watched footage from the Mars rovers and studied potential sites for exploration and colonization on the red planet. Pretty heady stuff, even without the caffeine. You can see why I'm doing hand-springs at this late hour. It's anticipation, friend...anticipation. 

As might be expected when accepting a government commission of this kind, the Bush administration has sent a special liaison to observe our preparations -- Rear Admiral Hermann Von Gonutz (ret.), on loan from Rumsfeld's retinue of intelligence experts, I suspect. The good admiral has done a great deal more than merely observe, however, dropping anchor more than once in the middle of Trevor James Constable's slide show and throwing his nine pence in. He seems to be set on the notion that Mars is a prime candidate for "regime change," prodding at the projection of the red planet with his blunted ceremonial sword. "The reds have had the run of the place for too long," spake the admiral, and Gung-Ho nodded quietly to himself. This was useful, certainly...still, first things first, right? We had yet to establish with any scientific certainty that there was indeed a regime to change on Mars. (The admiral assumed they were commies because of the famed Martian canals, clearly the product of some massive centralized public works program.) 

There has been a minor glitch in obtaining security clearance for Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Now I can understand caution and all that, what with a war on...but carding people at the entrance of the Cheney Hammer Mill seems like taking caution a step too far -- I mean, there's nothing but discarded hammer components in there, and yet every time Marvin runs the security gauntlet he sets off a dissonant orchestra of bells, klaxons, whistles, etc., and a team of rent-a-goons from Gung-Ho's compound wrestle the poor fucker to the ground. John patiently explained to admiral Von Gonutz (ret.) the physics of why Marvin might be setting off the metal detector even after emptying his pockets, but I'm not sure it sank in. (Never ran into this problem on his pirate ship, apparently.) So we started putting a badge on Marvin. Next week, it'll be sandwich boards. 

As we work through all this preliminary shit, we're trying also to keep pace with our recording project, dividing our time judiciously between the studio and the situation room. Matt has decided to assign the task of music project manager to the man-sized tuber -- a strange choice, admittedly, but tubey does at least serve as an avoidable visual reminder of the work we have yet to do. There are other incentives to finishing the album, as well...like the nagging feeling we all share that Mars doesn't want to be explored. Can't explain it, but every time I look at those deep-space photos, I get a sense of foreboding. (Usually it's food photography that has that effect on me.)

Immaculate Deception. The story wasn't true, and they knew it...but it wasn't a lie. That's what's become of the withering threat that loomed darkly over all of us a year ago...the hidden pathogenic arsenals...the boatloads of toxic chemicals...the terrifying armada of balsa-winged intercontinental attack planes whose rubber-band engines were coiled and ready to go on 45 minutes notice...the legendary mushroom cloud and illicit yellowcake uranium...the mobile bioweapons labs in boxcars or trailers (depending on the week)...all have joined the armory of the invisible. The amazing Mr. Kay (strong advocate of the war) has returned from the land of menace with nothing in his rucksack. No fat man, no little boy. No big tank o' V.X.  No American-bred anthrax from long ago. Nothing. Oh...and no one lied. They tell a story so demonstrably bogus any four-year-old could have seen through it, and now that it's fallen to pieces, they still plead innocence. 

It's worse than that, actually. They're still lying about it. Just a couple of days ago, Dubya repeated the pathetic lie about the invasion being triggered by Saddam's refusal to let inspectors in. He knows that's false, and yet he says it anyway. That's called lying. Cheney very recently repeated the lie about those Iraqi trailers being bioweapons labs -- not true, and he knows it. But he also knows the effect such comments have on a distracted and overworked populace -- that fairy tales take root, like the ludicrous belief shared by half of all Americans that Saddam planned 9/11. And like in Orwell's Animal Farm, they gradually alter their slogans to alter popular reality -- hence last year's "weapons of mass destruction" gradually became this year's "weapons of mass destruction related program activities." (Though Cheney still speaks confidently, if incoherently, about Iraqi WMD's.) How can there be any doubt about their dishonesty in the run-up to war when they are still practicing it today? 

Of course, the Hutton inquiry let Blair off the hook on his government's stoking the fires of war partly by means of the "dodgy dossier" on Iraq that most certainly overstated the "threat" posed by Hussein's regime. There, too, we have the curious spectacle of a leadership indignant over the fact that people have drawn the only rational conclusion based on the available evidence. The difference in Britain, of course, is that because such a super-majority of the populace have been strongly against the Iraq war, the mainstream British press has been a significant degree more critical of the government than their pathetic American counterparts. This has bitten the BBC in the ass, though not too many people over there appear to be fooled by the Hutton whitewash. Still, Blair is doing his triumphant little "who's your daddy?" strut while he can, having survived yet another close call. Given the disaster his U.S. friends have dragged him into, one can't help but feel the next round may knock him out of the ring...and there will be a next round. 

Above all, how many more will have to die in Iraq before these people are held accountable for what they have done...and continue to do? 

luv u,

jp

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02/08/04

Left his miiiind...left his miiiind...

OK. What's the M.O. on that 2480-C? Gotta get that P.D.Q. That's an N.G. on your F.Y.I. -- the N.S. 487 is ix-nay on the udder-ray, comprendez? I says, comprendez? What am I, speaking Swahili? 

Oh, sorry...I forgot who I was talking to. Our special attaché from the Bush administration, rear admiral Hermann Von Gonutz (ret.), insists that we use this blasted code when we speak to one another or to the press, and after a while it just takes over your tiny brain. The man is security-obsessed, I'm here to tell you -- it's kee-razy. Here at the Cheney Hammer Mill, we've got laser beam entry control sensors on all the doorways, steel bars at the entrance to the courtyard, and even a tiny digital camera attached to the toilet paper dispenser that snaps your picture and sends it to John Ashcroft if you take more than five sheets at a time. (The admiral is so paranoid that he carries his personal belongings with him at all times, including a mysterious chest that probably contains his life savings...or something.) 

This latest spasm of precautionary measures came early this week when Trevor James Constable detected some unidentified radio signals emitting from somewhere deep within this compound. At first, the admiral surmised this was some kind of hoax and ordered his Gung-Ho rent-a-goons to impound Trevor James's orgone generating device, the very instrument that had alerted us to the mysterious signals. (It took a call from Trevor James's old friend Curtis LeMay to get his patented brainchild out of the brig.) Next, admiral Gonutz had the mill turned inside-out by guys in hazmat suits wielding metal detectors (I found one of them scanning the mother board of my Roland A90EX for subversives). This, of course, was also fruitless. That was when we got the lasers, motion detectors, and other high-tech garbage that makes our lives impossible -- the hope being some culprit will obligingly trip an alarm somewhere in the course of his/her nefarious rounds. No soap. 

Not surprisingly, it was Marvin (my personal robot assistant) who cracked the case of the concealed sputnik. In a coded message from his stock ticker, Marvin informed us that the man-sized tuber was, in fact, a natural radio source, like a mighty lode stone. This would explain the inability of admiral Gonutz (ret.)'s teams to pinpoint the transmitter -- it also explains that annoying RF interference we keep hearing during our rehearsal/recording sessions. After all, the man-sized tuber has been in charge of our CD project for better than a week now. He's been right there in the control room, looming over the faders and throwing in his unsolicited two cents about how polyrhythms affect vegetable locomotion. (We won't let him actually run the faders, though...our control room submix is handled by Marvin's pet monkey, "Squx.")

Marvin's discovery opens up new and intriguing possibilities for our portion of Dubya's lucrative new space exploration project. Instead of "manned" flight to other planets, we could start with "man-sized tubered" flight to other planets. Tubey could be the vanguard for an entire army of potato-like space pioneers. It's perfect -- we could never entirely lose track of him, since he emits his own little homing signal (no batteries required). No more wasted hours playing "where's Waldo" on planet Mars just because some micro-PC processor won't boot properly like 99% of its cousins back on Earth. That enormous root vegetable could fulfill the destiny foretold by that front page feature in the Sri Lanka Times last year, just before our last interplanetary tour -- First Tuber In Space! That's one small step for man...one giant leap for man-sized tuber. 

So that's the RD on Team B.G.-2004. Jeezus. Next time you read this column, we'll probably be using semaphore. Bloody admiral!

Money Talk. Economic recovery come to your door yet? Mine neither. All I get is happy talk in the paper and on the Internet. Yahoo's news headlines had one the other day, tucked between Martha Stewart's trial and Janet Jackson's shocking anatomy: Outsourcing Good For Global Economy. I'll bet all those folks whose unemployment checks stop this week were encouraged to hear that. And I'm sure they also take great solace in gleeful reports of increased productivity, which (of course) means that their former co-workers are being compelled to do the work they used to do before their positions were eliminated. (Ted Rall has a great cartoon about productivity -- check it out.) Nice to know you're missed back at the plant. 

It's difficult for me to get my head around these Orwellian concepts of bad=good, like "jobless recovery" and this idea that any process that leaves thousands out of work and destroys whole communities can be considered "good" for the global economy. Which part of the global economy? It is astounding how deeply ingrained this cost-benefit analysis mentality has become -- there are billions of people being left behind by corporate globalization, and yet because some scribbler can argue that billions of others are deriving some benefit, this piracy can be termed positive, on balance. Somehow, being broke and overworked should be something to strive for because of all the good it brings to investors...and because it's better that being unemployed, though the jobless make their vital contributions, as well. (Unemployment went down a tick this month, but not enough to make Lord Greenspan nervous that the proles will start demanding the raises they haven't seen in five years.) 

Back at the frat house...I mean the White House, they've had to put a chill on the endless toga party to appear as if they're willing to find out what went wrong with intelligence on Iraq (except for Rummy and Cheney, who still proudly  wear the togas of historic cluelessness). I'm sure this will be pursued every bit as vigorously as the 9/11 probe or the investigation into the Valerie Plame pig-fucking operation. Dubya figures that, since he's got a lot of buds in Congress, he can just act like he's all three branches of government rolled into one scrawny package, launching investigations on himself, appointing "independent" commissions looking into his errors/misdeeds/etc., and having it all work out swell after the election is over. And if it starts looking like trouble at any point, he can just have Cheney go on a camping holiday with the judge. 

That's the beauty of an old-boy network like Dubya's. When the fix is in, it's in for good. 

luv u,

jp

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02/15/04

Okay, then...

Lights flashing. Bells ringing. Which alarm is that...or is it just the bloody telephone? Sounds like somebody's blowing on one of those party whistles with the trombone slide -- what's up with that? Am I supposed to do push-ups or run to Saudi Arabia? Damned if I know.

Our admiral-approved "readiness" program is an unbelievable sham, but a necessary one, I'm told, if we want to keep those procurement dollars rolling in by the bushel-load (and we do). Apparently no one back at NASA told our Bush Administration "minder" admiral Hermann Von Gonutz (ret.) that we have actually been out in space before...many times. Readers of this column know this all too well; our interstellar exploits are plastered all over the archives and constitute the very pith and marrow of our narrative as a virtual rock group. In fact, our first chronicled deep space tour included then-candidate Dubya Bush himself as part of our retinue of hangers-on (check out our tour log for details). The good admiral seems blissfully unaware of this...frankly, he's blissfully unaware of just about everything, stalking around the Cheney Hammer Mill like Banquo's ghost with that great steamer trunk on his shoulder (what's in that thing, anyway?), issuing orders, bumping into walls, and frightening the mongooses with his cheap pirate talk. 

We're being treated to the "full monty" from a behavior modification standpoint. Admiral Gonutz is determined to condition us to react instantly to specific stimuli, aural, visual, and tactile. You know -- a bell clangs and you recite the Gettysburg address...that sort of thing. He's trying to mold Big Green into this fully regimented human machine that he will operate via remote control. (Yes, he actually has a remote control hooked to his belt, damn him.) Trouble is, we can't keep all these fucking signals straight. I mean, the bell that signals us to hit the retro rockets is just a quarter tone lower in pitch than the bell that alerts us to clean out the nuclear power core. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but it can make a crucial difference out in the trackless void of deep space, already. 

So Gonutz has this little keypad remote control he lugs around (along with that mysterious trunk of his) that runs all of his Skinnerian signaling devices. He uses it like a joy buzzer, just to see us jump...like when I'm napping on the reception area couch or when we're in the middle of a drum take, goddamn him. (When our next album comes out, listen very closely for the sound of bells. Those are not for a psychotropic "freak-out" effect...those are the bells of Gonutz.)

Okay, now here's a bit of irony. While we're being programmed like primitive robots, Marvin (my personal assistant) has managed to retain his free will, as it were. In fact, he has somehow garnered a small promotion from the admiral, who now seems to like our mechanical associate. So technically, Marvin outranks us now...and has occasionally been seen working Gonutz's remote control. Oh sure, I know...Marvin has always been the soul of humility, right? (Aside from that brief period of insanity brought on by a programming error...) Well let me tell you something, my friend. He may seem like Mister Good-Bot to you, but he's just as susceptible to the failings of human nature as you and I. Put power in his hand, and he will use it. Mark my words...before this is finished, I'll be his personal robot assistant. 

Much as it might seem to you that we've utterly lost control of this situation, I am glad to report success in our effort to put the man-sized tuber forward as our vanguard space traveler. Even admiral Gonutz could see the impeccable logic of sending a "homing" tuber up into space ahead of us...though earlier he seemed more determined to make "Squx" the monkey our first comrade in the cosmos. Tubey's being fitted for his flight gear as we speak, and we should be going rocket shopping next week, if the weather's good. So next time you see me, I may have a rocket in my pocket. (And no, it has nothing to do with that patch I ordered over the internet.) Then for the man-sized tuber, it's destination Mars...or the moon...or one of the other ones...the admiral is keeping that information close to his chest. (What the hell is in that chest, anyway?)

KLANG! Whoops...that's the calisthenics bell. KLANG! Must....bicycle...KLANG!...to....Nepal....KLANG!

Service. While literally scores of Iraqis are killed almost daily and U.S. soldiers are marching into eternity two-by-two, the bizarro political forum we call the news media is focused on claims and counter-claims about Bush' rich-boy stateside posting and Kerry's antiwar activities thirty years ago. I can't remember when I've witnessed the White House press corps so confrontational with a Bush spokesperson -- now if we could only get them to grill McClellan on the current rolling, burning disaster Dubya has gotten us into in Iraq. Oh, sure...it's amusing as hell to hear journalists tie some presidential flak in knots with his own shabby and transparent evasions of fact, but for Christ's sake -- is there any question that Junior went into the air national guard to avoid being shot at? Isn't that the real point of illumination here...that an ostensibly pro-war rich kid and son of a congressman benefited from his daddy's connections to stay stateside while some poor-ass fucker gets shipped off to a pauper's grave in his stead? If there is a story here, shouldn't it be that the most enthusiastic proponents of today's war were keen to avoid service when their ass was on the line?

So used to being on top of the world, the Dubya crew reacts strangely to sustained criticism. I think the chief himself looks a little punch drunk just lately, to tell the truth, his unscripted remarks a tad sloppier than usual, his damage control over the recent "outsourcing is good for you" comments from a staffer coming off as disjointed and strange. (Wolfowitz has been coming up with some marvelously incoherent ravings, as well.) One wonders sometimes if they can really pull off this re-election campaign, even with cartloads of cash (fundraising for the prez has been running at about $600k a day -- not chump change). A Steve Perry (no relation) article posted on the Counterpunch website last week cited an interesting study of polling data on Bush. The chart looked like one of those living room gallery paintings with a three-peaked mountain in the background -- his three peaks being, of course, post 9/11, the Iraq invasion, and the capture of Saddam Hussein. His numbers drop off steadily after each peak...and each succeeding peak is less prominent than the one before. The conclusion is obvious: he's basically an unpopular leader who benefits, like all presidents, from crises, at least initially. 

This means, of course, we can expect several things in the coming year. One is some kind of precipitous military action, perhaps involving the capture of Bin Laden, or some kind of easy in/easy out bombing raid on the enemy-of-the-week (Syria would be my guess, since that's the name that comes up most frequently amongst the neocons). The other is a post-convention crush of negative campaigning, with a lot of nasty ads about Kerry's alleged botox treatments, his cozy relationship with corporate donors, his grainy image seated at an anti-Vietnam war event somewhere near Jane Fonda, etc., etc. Karl Rove, Inc., knows that this could be a close one, so I'm certain they'll save the bulk of their $200+ million war chest for the closing weeks of the campaign. If they get enough people discouraged with their alternatives and enough people motivated by jingoistic fervor, they stand a good chance of keeping Dubya in control. 

As one who expects little good of national elections, I can only say that I'll probably be pulling the ghastly little lever this November...if there's any chance it will send these clowns back to obscurity where they belong. 

luv u,

jp

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02/22/04

Ahoy, ahoy, ahoy...

Greetings from space patrol central, Dubya's vanguard cosmic exploratory team way over here on the other side o' the oit. Way over the ocean. You need a mighty periscope to see us...or you need the Internet. And if you could see us, who would doubt that we go around in shiny red helmets and carry scrootch guns and special "space cadet" lunch boxes. That's what space patrols do, right? "Take me to your leader," and all that. 

Well...I hate to disappoint any of you out there, but it's really not like that at all. Regular readers of this column know that your friends in Big Green are kept on a pretty short leash these days, the other end of which is firmly in the grasp of our Pentagon "minder," admiral Hermann Von Gonutz (ret.), who has duly infiltrated and commandeered the Cheney Hammer Mill (where we live), rigged the joint with motion detection sensors and particle beam access control devices, and (worst of all) enlisted our trusted companion Marvin (my personal robot assistant) as his executive officer, probably owing to Marvin's experience with the local constabulary. That's what this particular tale of cosmic adventure has been all about -- arrogance, paranoia, and betrayal. Leaves a bitter taste (or is that the bloody Tang?).

Just as I had suggested last week (I'm frequently right about these things), Marvin has been abusing his authority through frivolous use of the admiral's pavlovian behavior modification alarm system. That's right -- our robot "friend" got his little brass fingers on the remote control and started making us jump around like chimps, disrupting our recording sessions and waking us from a sound sleep with a signal to "man the battle stations" or "form a bucket brigade." It got to the point where I would be half-way through some mundane task before realizing that I'd been prompted into action by that sadistic automaton. That's what I call successful training. (Years from now, I'm certain whenever I hear a low shop whistle, I'll feel an irresistible urge to start building an earthen barrier around the launch site.)

How did our rocket shopping expedition go? Pretty well. I think we've snagged the right little booster to carry the man-sized tuber on his historic "first" journey. I use the litotes because, as many of our loyal readers know, tubey has, in fact, been up in space before with us. Moreover, he has done his traveling in our ultra-modern Jupiter 2 replica...a far more sophisticated vehicle than any multi-stage single use rocket. So why the charade? It's simply to keep the admiral and the administration happy and to keep those borrowed federal dollars flowing our way at full speed. Why, if we made a big deal out of our extensive space travel, they might fell compelled to shit-can this whole manned space program idea. That would be a disaster for us, our creditors, and our fellow NASA contractors...so mum's the word, you dig? (As the politicians used to say in the New York State legislature, don't break my "rice bowl" and I won't break yours...like any of them ever lived out of a "rice bowl.")

Our efforts to prepare the man-sized tuber for space travel have been many and varied. Most have been upon admiral Gonutz's suggestion, like the exercise wherein we chuck tubey off the roof of the Cheney Hammer Mill. The admiral says you've got to learn how to fall before you learn to fly, and he looks like he knows more than a bit about that. Maybe he's lugging around an extra parachute in that big steamer trunk of his. Or maybe not. (One of these days, we're going to find out what he's got in there -- maybe when sFshzenKlyrn gets back from his Hubble-stumping expedition he can use his trans-dimensional perception to help us out.)

Well anyway...I've got to go. Marvin is sounding the electronic command to climb into our spaceman suits, climb up on stilts, and act like a bunch of morons. We don't want to do it, but if we resist...we may not get the dog biscuit...and that is somehow deeply disappointing to me. I'm coming, Marvin...I'm coming!!

Sweet Treason. Our recording project is moving along at a snail's pace. But we have started tracking what I've always thought of as the first Big Green song ever -- a bizarre little number Matt sent me for my birthday 19 years ago called Sweet Treason, penned years before we started this madness in earnest. Will it make the final cut? Only the future knows...and it's not talking. 

It's War. Another week of sickening losses in Iraq and festering U.S. funded insurrection in Haiti and Venezuela (I smell Reich, Negroponte, and Abrams in all this). In the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Sharon has a free hand, propped up by our billions and cheered on by denizens of our loony sham-religious right, who condemn young Jesuses and their families to death and despair every day with their support for trigger happy hyper religious Israeli settlers. This works for Dubya -- his malign neglect will garner him votes this fall, as will his recess appointments of Judges Pickering and Pryor, the former an apologist for cross-burners, the latter a fanatical anti-abortionist Alabama Attorney General. Two more prime candidates for the coming Scalia Supreme Court.

There's more, but I hardly need tell you about it. If you've read this far and are still with me, you probably know the litany of complaints about the Bush Administration. In many respects, they don't represent a radical departure from the institutional malevolence carried forward by every president in my lifetime -- perhaps just a slight acceleration on key fronts, such as foreign policy, economic inequality, and environmental deregulation. Unlike many Democrats these days, I recognize that the Clinton presidency was a disaster for the poor at home and for Iraqis, Timorese, Palestinians, Columbians, and many others abroad. But for me, this has become personal. Dubya should be chucked out of office for what he has done...not because a Kerry presidency would be a dramatic improvement (with a national security advisor like the disgusting Rand Beers, I have my doubts). 

Dubya lied us into unnecessary wars. He has protected the second amendment rights of 9-11 terrorists while assaulting the privacy rights of women who have had abortions. He has installed a self-anointed (literally!) soldier of god at the head of his justice department, there to make paper dolls out of our constitution and throw a burka over lady liberty herself (not to mention running terror war investigations with the insight and competence of Dragnet's Joe Friday). His arrogant pursuit of global hegemony and "full-spectrum dominance" likely contributed to the historic intelligence bungle that was 9-11; it has most certainly left almost 550 Americans dead in Iraq, over 100 in Afghanistan, and thousands maimed...not to mention many thousands of casualties among the victims of these military adventures. He has opened the U.S. treasury to unprecedented plunder by his wealthy and corporate friends, setting up our remaining social infrastructure for an inevitable crash down the road a ways. 

For all that and more, Dubya has earned his defeat at the polls. Let's not disappoint him. We can deal with what comes after...after. 

luv u,

jp

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02/29/04

G'day,

Squx? Squx! Is that you scrambling around on the roof like a monkey (which, of course, is what you are)? Put that moldy breadfruit down, tell your spaceman friends to go home, and stop making so much bloody noise when you know I'm trying to sleep. Either that or come down here and help your uncle Joe prop his eyelids open long enough to find his way to the coffee machine. Squx! Front and center!

Listen to me -- I'm starting to holler like that ridiculous admiral Gonutz (ret.), the ossified naval officer Bush's Pentagon stitched on top of our little space exploration outfit out here...a cartoon pirate who seems more than a bit like a younger version of the Captain Bligh-like character that Shanghaied Will Robinson, Dr. Smith, and the Robot during the second season of Lost In Space. A real noisy old goat, full of tired nautical euphemisms and an unnatural fondness for goat cheese. Hey -- when I hang around with someone long enough, I start aping their mannerisms and assuming their speech patterns, no matter how asinine. That's the way of it, so shove off if y' don't like it, y' sputterin' codfish. (Damn! Must...stop....pirate...talk...)

Much as I have taken on some of his rhetoric, I could never imitate the noise admiral Gonutz (ret.) made when he stumbled upon our replica Jupiter 2 spacecraft -- the one we've toured most of the charted universe in, unbeknownsed to him. Mitch Macaphee, our science advisor, had quietly parked the vehicle in one of the sub-basements of the Cheney Hammer Mill, where we were sure it would remain unknown to the admiral, who was clearly not ready to make this astonishing discovery. Then this past Monday evening, Gonutz washed down his hardscrabble seadog's supper with one too many tankards of ale, mistakenly chose the door just starboard of the can he was seeking, and staggered down the long, winding staircase that lay behind it, ultimately wandering into the arches where the J-2 sat purring like an interstellar warp-drive kitten. As it happened, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was giving the ship a fresh coat of Turtle Wax when his chest mounted web cam caught the admiral stopping short, shaking his head, emitting a loud ox-like moan, and keeling over backwards. 

To this day, I'm not certain how the three of us got the guy back to his bed (I only know my neck still aches and John has a slight limp). In any case, it does seem to have been a week for dramatic discoveries -- Gonutz with the split-level saucer...and us with that perplexing trunk of his. When the admiral fell backwards, the chest he carries on his shoulder toppled to the floor. I know you'll call this unfair, dishonest, even criminal, but there it was, the lock sprung, the lid slightly ajar, the jar slightly a-lid, its tantalizing contents nearly visible through the opening. After we lugged our overweight bureaucratic overlord up to his "cabin", we returned to the cellar and threw the box open wide. 

No, it wasn't the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa, Sr. No, it wasn't Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. And no, it wasn't the repository for the holy grail. The chest actually contained one of those rubber life rafts that inflates with a little compressed gas cartridge. My guess is that the good admiral has needed to make a few tight escapes in his time, so this little device was something of an insurance policy for him. (Man -- I was sure it would be at least part of the trillion dollars that's gone missing at the Pentagon over the last 25 years. Scuttled again!)

Well, now that the Jupiter 2 cat is out of the bag, we may have to do some fast talking in order to keep our appropriations doggies rollin' rollin' rollin' our way. After all, the man-sized tuber has a date with destiny coming up, perhaps as early as next week. We've got a missile all primed and ready for him...so he's just one short countdown away from the spaceman hall of fame. Or, failing that, the vegetable hall of fame. (We're hoping to get him featured on HGTV's "Garden Giants" at some point -- maybe space travel will grease the wheels a bit.) Either way, he'll be the biggest bulb in the bushel, that's for sure. 

No News = Good News. Hey, did you hear that Dennis Kucinich came in second in the Hawaii primary with somewhere between 25 and 30% of the vote? Neither did I. How about that big story on how members of the Haitian terrorist paramilitary group FRAPH (closely linked to our CIA and DIA) are providing some of the muscle behind the "opposition" forces that have spilled over the border from the Dominican Republic (armed with U.S. M-16's, grenade launchers, etc.) and taken over half of Haiti for the Duvalierist oligarchy now so impatient with popular rule? Nope, I missed that one, as well. And the shocker about how ex-Apartheid South African intelligence operatives -- their hands still stained red with the blood of Namibians -- have been working for Don Rumsfeld in northern Iraq, training a new generation of counterinsurgency (i.e. terrorist) forces? Nothing in my paper about that, either. 

Our local Gannett daily did have at least three front page stories on Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ", all of which took a vaguely (and sometimes not-so-vaguely) proselytizing tone (one article quoted a nervous young atheist waiting in line to see the movie on how he feared this depiction of a strangely northern-European looking Jesus being graphically tortured to death might "convert" him). I had to dig deep inside to find notice of the two U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq on that particular day. One wonders if that story would have been more prominent if the managing editor's kid was on the firing line. In any case, the world is alight with the fires we've been stoking in Haiti, Colombia, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq...pretty much anywhere you look, and our "news" media considers very little of it "news". 

Last week the PBS affiliate in Syracuse (WCNY) ran a hilarious panel discussion on how well the media is doing. At issue was a recent poll that said only 1/3 of Americans trust major media news outlets. Examining this issue was a panel that included newscasters from two local network affiliate TV stations, a guy who represented the local Clear Channel stations, a guy from the local monopoly daily newspaper, the dean of the Newhouse School of Journalism at S.U. (another white guy)...in other words, all people deeply vested in local media institutions. The surprising consensus? They're all doing an excellent job, thank you very much. And if their mission is promoting the abysmal ignorance of the consumers of their "news products," I'd have to agree with their assessment. Thanks to them, everybody knows what Janet Jackson's right tit looks like, and practically nobody knows about the sickening six-year war in the Congo that has taken between 3 and 5 million lives...never mind the rich minerals trade U.S. and other western companies conduct with the various combatants that fuels the slaughter. (Read about it here.)

For Christ's sake, people have to look to the Pentagon and Fortune Magazine to hear that global warming is a problem. If that isn't a problem, I don't know what is.  

luv u,

jp

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