Hear that scraping sound? Dragging my ass this morning. Literally. Don’t lo0k at me like that — you know what I’m talking about, that blog look you always give me. I can see you in the back there… don’t try to hide behind the fat guy!
Sorry if I came across a bit touchy just then. This has been a long hard slog, but I have no right to take it out on you — you who have stood with me every league of the way. Damn it, I’m ungrateful! But isn’t that the way it goes with pop band denizens. Anyways…. our wayward breeze did come along eventually, and pushed us on our way-ward. (Or forward, as it were.) Once we were clear of the strange psycho-miasma surrounding the dreaded Sea of the Weekly World News, we were able to navigate using something other than Trevor James’ Orgone Generator (which, with the polarity reversed, acts as a crude bio-plasmic compass. It’s a little hard to explain, actually. Okay… just drop it, all right?)
Right, right — back to my tale of woe and intrigue. We were on the high seas for several days, making fairly good time (as pops used to say), when Marvin (my personal robot assistant) spotted the silhouette of a substantial coast line to our port side. Land! But what land was it? Iceland? Greenland? Long Island? It was hard to be sure. We thought it best to send a scouting party in the long 
boat to check it out before attempting to land. Trouble was… no long boat. (We didn’t even have a short boat.) Matt, John and I began to roll our eyes around the ship’s cabin, searching for a gullible… I mean, workable solution. Which one of our party had the greatest natural buoyancy? The answer came quite quickly…. BIG ZAMBOOLA — a true living, breathing floatation device.
Well, friends… Zamboola went ashore and did the recon, as they say (looking more than a bit like that “Rover” critter from the sixties TV show The Prisoner), quickly determining that we had, indeed, sighted land and that — yes — it was indeed the land of our homestead, the besieged, much maligned Cheney Hammer Mill, which we call home. 
(Did I say that it is our home? The mill? Okay, then.) Next step: get the ship on dry land. But how to accomplish this? Though it was capable (until recently) of interstellar travel, and has of late been modified to serve as a sea-faring vessel, the imitation J-2 space cruiser has zero capability as an over-land vehicle. We needed some means of locomotion — not wind power, not ion power… something that would give us traction for the long road ahead.
When it came to a vote over who would be elected to drag the ship back to Colombo, Marvin won by three votes. (My vote was on posi-Lincoln, but that was out of bitterness… sheer bitterness.) So forward we went, propelled by the power of Marvin’s ion reactor. Hammer Mill, here we come! Giddyap!
At the same time, we’re hearing more and more about how our leaders are “losing patience” with the Iraqi government, and there’s been some suggestion of a possible coup, martial law, etc. (see Saigon 1963). One can see a screw job in the making, for sure — a well-worn imperial gambit. Those damnable natives; they just can’t get it together! (See Saigon, pretty much any time between 1946 and 1975.) This whole Iraq thing was going great until they got in the game. 
Correct me if I’m wrong (honest — there’s a comments form!) but I believe the mission now is to keep George W. Bush from looking bad… well, worse, let’s say. As long as we stay in Iraq, his political allies can ride around on their unicycles and tell all who will listen that Dubya is like Lincoln and Truman, taking political heat for an unpopular but necessary war, later to be vindicated by history and celebrated as strong and visionary leaders (Lincoln for saving the union; Truman for building the U.S. empire). If we leave Iraq now, that fiction evaporates. So 20, 22, 28, 35-year-old Americans are dying in combat to preserve Bush’s bogus claim to future greatness. That, at least, is what it looks like, since they appear to have no real plan behind what they’re doing. Just keep it going. Like Rumsfeld suggested last week, the War on Terror may never end. Sounds like wishful thinking to me. 
What’s this I spy with my little eye? ‘Tis a man in a wee lifeboat. Soggy, nautical-looking gent with a captain’s hat on. Smoke rising lazily from the bowl of his pipe. Looks to have been out here a while…
around us. Our pilot Marvin (my personal robot assistant) spotted an albatross — t’was then we knew we were in for a rough passage. Shiver me timbers, I’ll be a peg-legged polevaulter if we didn’t spy a small craft off the starboard side, its master a lone ship’s captain, his haggard features bearing a tale of many months at sea… or perhaps years. Aye, an eternity in the doldrums, perhaps. His pipe still lit, he gave a jaunty little dance… and I knew. T’was the captain of the Titanic. We had entered the dreaded Sea of the Weekly World News.
the orgone generating machine from functioning as our weather-maker. If we wanted to avoid being trapped in supermarket checkout lines for all eternity, we needed to find an alternative source of power — one strong enough to push us clear through to the subcontinent. There was only one option: Big Zamboola. But would he do it? We formed an ad hoc delegation and brought the proposal to our beachball-sized planetoid companion. (He’s been hovering in the power core for the last week or two, pining for the Pleiades).
One of the study’s authors, Les Roberts (recent candidate for the democratic nomination for congress in my hometown district), seems to me not at all the hysterical exaggerator type. A physician and epidemiologist, he has been working on public health issues for many years, including time in war zones like Bosnia. This study is a follow-up on the one his team released a couple of years ago that put the number of “excess deaths” (i.e. those resulting from the U.S. invasion) at that time conservatively at 100,000. (The administration hated that number too, as I recall. )
Whatever the pols would have you believe, if this new Iraq casualties study is anything close to true, this is truly one of the major bloodlettings of our time — Rwanda league, for sure. But even if it were closer to the lower figures I hear the administration bandying about — a mere 50,000 or 100,000 — isn’t that bad enough? Isn’t the real crime that those deaths are so unimportant, regardless of their magnitude? For chrissake, does anybody still think that this war was unavoidable? If we’re close to unanimity on that, isn’t it time we consider the degree to which we are responsible for the suffering in Iraq? Is it somehow less disturbing to imagine a 2:1 ratio of Saddam’s killings to our own than something closer to 1:1, when we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of bodies in either case? Shouldn’t totals like this bother us at least as much as some lame-ass Congressman pulling a boner on teen pages?
Ship ahoy, ship ahoy… who wants to marry a sailor boy? Washed ashore, washed ashore… How’s the rest of that cheesy Hollywood shanty go? Mitch? Trevor James? Marvin (my personal robot assistant)?
Reader’s note — “attempted” is the operative word in that last line. Sure, we made the sail unfurl and we climbed aboard, expectant of a rapid deliverance from the tropical tedium we had endured over the past weeks. And, well, nothing happened. Nothing. No wind. No freaking wind, here in typhoon alley. We beckoned to our resident quasi-meteorologist (Mitch Macaphee) and asked him what was what. He consulted his pocket weather satellite device and shook his head mournfully. We were in the midst of a kind of tropical doldrums — not even a lazy breeze to push us out to sea. This was the limit. As if it wasn’t bad enough that we should have to resort to wind propulsion to get us out of here… now wind turns out to be at a premium. (Perhaps Mitch was right about that coconut fuel idea. Or perhaps not.)
After a bit of head scratching, it was Trevor James who came up with an idea worth considering. How about training his patented orgone generating device directly on the main mast and turning up the volume to eleven? How’d that be? But was it practical? “Sure,” said Trevor James. “We just lash the O.G.D. to the hull and crank her up.” Mitch had some quibbles about leverage and the principles of thrust, but who the hell cares what he thinks, eh? The idea had more merit than chucking coconuts in a reactor chamber and tossing matches at them in hopes they would cause a mighty fire — one mighty enough to destroy Tabunga. (Tabunga? I’ve been on this island way too long…) So, okay, Mitch. Next time we want to stop the Tabunga, we’ll give you a call.
Quite a spectacle this season, and I don’t mean the changing leaves. Our Republican friends trying to cling to power, fucking things up with such consistency that even so moribund an opposition as the Democrats can give them cause for worry. Still, there’s no day so sunny that the Dems can’t coax a little rain out of it. Hard to see what kind of dramatic difference they would make in power after having provided a dozen votes in the Senate to eliminate habeas corpus protections and give the president extra-constitutional powers and unprecedented legal immunity. Sometimes it seems like they feel they’ll only get to run the store by giving it away first. Weird people. But that’s what corporate money does, I guess — it just promotes a mind-numbing sameness; a narrowing of the political spectrum so that there will be virtually no risk of the ownership class’s interests being threatened. Our republic is definitely in trouble if only because the vast majority of people can find no effective political means of addressing our most pressing problems. Encouraged towards cynicism by both parties, they are increasingly likely to drop out of the political game altogether. 
That is why I’m putting some effort into this campaign — not because I’m all that fond of the Democratic candidate, but because Cheney and Hastert and Dubya want the seat so bad. Let’s face it, whoever is elected in November will work to bring federal contracts, projects, and cash home to the 24th district — that’s a given. They all bloody do it. The only meaningful point of comparison is which set of national policy priorities either one is going to support. If Arcuri wins and the Dems take over the House, John Conyers, Barbara Lee, and Dennis Kucinich will be banging the gavel at committee meetings. If the other guys win, it will be Boehner and Foley (well… not, Foley… though something tells me he’ll still be busy with Boehner… pronounced “boner”). That is enough reason for me to help put Arcuri over the top, then return to normal agitating the day after. 
What’s this? Parchment? Could just be old vellum, you never know. Look for the watermark, that’s what Mitch always says. Kind of crisp and, well, fragrant, quite frankly. Good lord, throw that thing away. 
Wow. Listen to me, dissing Marvin. I have been here too long. So what’s holding us back? Well, a spacecraft with no engine, for one. Not likely to fly again soon, even taking into consideration the scientific “brain trust” we have on hand here on Ben-Lostawhile island. Just try making an ion-magnetic interstellar drive run on coconut shells. Just try. (Mitch did, and the result wasn’t pretty.) Believe it or not, the most practical suggestion came from anti-matter Lincoln — throw a mast and a mainsail on the top of the mock-jupiter 2 and push it into the water, then use some worm-eaten piece of driftwood (posi-Lincoln) as a rudder. Lash a rope to the rudder handle and call it “mother hubbard.” (Okay, that last suggestion wasn’t so constructive. But it was better than what Mitch came up with. Coconut reactor vessel, indeed!) 
make no difference. I feel like standing in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and shouting, Hey, fuckers! Those antiwar freaks were right about everything. Think there’s a chance they may be right about pulling the troops out, too? But let’s face it, these are very cynical times. People seem to have neither the energy nor the inclination to join a political fight they sense is pointless — that of convincing a bi-partisan Washington pro-war consensus that it’s time to abandon the Iraq project, shut down the permanent bases, pack up the gear, and pull out…. maybe even pay reparations for the mess we’ve made of the place. Most people think the war is stupid, not worth the cost, etc., but there’s no fire in the belly, because they’re not being compelled to a.) fight the war, or b.) pay for it. “Not my problem” seems to be the operative phrase. 
Maybe I’m wrong. (Has happened.) Maybe people will vote on the war this November and send the Republican congress packing out of sheer frustration. I know I intend to work towards that end, knowing that it is a minimalist approach to making a difference. (I live in a key congressional district that’s up for grabs this fall — more on that later.) Interestingly enough, the sentiments of the Iraqi people — those upon whom we have bestowed the toxic blessings of Bush-league democracy — seem to count for very little. Recent polling shows a solid majority of them want us out, while more than sixty percent support attacks on U.S. troops. (Not sure what those two statistics reflect, but they could mean that some Iraqis want us to stay so that they can shoot at us.) Seems to me that, at the very least, we should take these people at their word. But, of course, Bush is sticking to his line, now apparently relying on a fraudulent ABC television docudrama (or melomentary) to substantiate his suggestion that 9/11 was, basically, Clinton’s fault. 
Day six. Lifted my head, shook the sand out of my hair, and looked around. Picked up notebook and pencil. Started scratching out some notes. Starfish attacked me from behind — not good. Dropped off to sleep. Day seven…
Aside from the journal, things have been pretty quiet here on Ben-Lostawhile — quiet as a grave since we made landfall last week. Once the fires in and around the ship went out and Matt, John, Mitch Macaphee, Trevor James, the two Lincolns, and I were finished hopping up and down on the sand, clasping our smoking feet recently pan-seared on the super-hot hull of our space vehicle, we took a few moments to inspect the damage, looking for tell-tale signs of irreparability, like… well, like major navigational components missing or large breaches in the hull. We found nothing like that, but as you may remember, our engine was blown to atoms by Posi-Lincoln (whose master’s license was revoked more than a century ago, after he got tanked up and drove the monitor into a giant starfish — a lost chapter of history, to be sure), so we weren’t going anywhere fast. Or slow, for that matter.
Plantains. We found lots of plantains. But no two-hour shirt services to speak of, at least not within walking distance. Dejected, I sat on an overflowing chest of pirate treasure and tried to work out how we were going to survive on such an un-cosmopolitan outpost in the middle of the … well… I’m not even sure which ocean it is. The only one who seems relatively happy with this miserable exile is the man-sized tuber, who has planted himself a few hundred yards from the beach so that he can hit on this mango tree. (He’s been in space far too long, that boy.)
We’re talking about grabbing people in the middle of the night and dragging them off to some “dark site” (perhaps the basement of a suburban home, who knows?) with no legal recourse. We’re talking about lashing people to boards and holding them under water. We’re talking about beating them senseless and fucking with their minds until they don’t know their own mother’s name. And we’re also talking about shipping them off to third countries where they’ll get even worse — the full spectrum of coercive technologies, modern and medieval. Some of the Republican leadership in the Senate framed this as a battle for American “values,” though they appear to have caved as of this writing. They had also raised a more practical question of leaving our military people at risk of ill-treatment and our leaders and commanders at risk of prosecution for violations of international law. 
In fact, the worse their treatment the better, and if Bush can convince them that ill-treatment somehow makes them more safe, that’s better still. These base instincts are the same ones that inspire snickers at stories of prison rape, a staple of late-night television comedy monologues. Prisoner abuse constitutes the ultimate dehumanization, placing someone in a position of utter powerlessness, then systematically depriving them of dignity, basic physical security, and in some cases, life itself. Ugly as it is, prisoner abuse reflects a strand of our culture that’s as American as apple pie. Think about Abner Louima, the Haitian fellow who was beaten and sodomized with a nightstick by Rudy Giuliani’s NYPD. America’s mayor, wielding America’s nightstick. It’s in the blood, my friends.