Wednesday, February 10, 2010

POL Wars Redux: The Loxodonta Empire Strikes Back (Linger on ... Your Palin Blue Eyes - apologies to Lou Reed)

I'm re-posting a July musing of mine, partly because I'm lazy and partly because it's even more relevant today given the current political environment.  Yesterday's satire and hyperbole become tomorrow's news, sadly.  But still, it'll be mostly a "Re-run."  That's for you late 70's TV aficionados.
It's snowing another couple of feet today after getting nailed with two feet just a couple of days ago.  I already shoveled last night's eight inches of the sleet infused sno-cone filler off my walk this morning, taking advantage of a break in the storm. It's going to be mighty painful shoveling for sure, after today's blizzard dumps another foot or so, with nowhere to put this new load of frozen H2O except to the top of the piles already there (lots of back twisting and muscle spasms in my future).

Before I re-post, I have to note two things I learned last night flipping through the channels that I really didn't want to know:
  1. Michael Jackson made a habit of peeing into bottles rather than a toilet, often doing so in front of others, even casual acquaintances, without a hint of self consciousness.  Apparently, half empty bottles of his wiz littered the Jackson estate.  They say it started back in his prepubescent Jackson-5 days when there were often no bathrooms within easy reach of the stage at the venues in which they performed. Thanks for expanding my Jack-o knowledge to new depths, E.
  2. There's a product called Kitchen Guard for those people who really hate the mess left behind by traditional fire extinguishers.  Damn, I saved my house from burning down but just look at all the foam on the stove!  I guess if the price is right, it might be a fine addition to my kitchen essentials.  Maybe it serves two purposes, a la New Shimmer.  In this case, instead of being both a floor wax and a desert topping, perhaps it's a fire extinguisher and a PAM-like no-stick cooking oil (it is an aerosol spray, after all).
And now, a re-post from early July 2009, enhanced with linked references, illustrations and an updated 2010 present tense!

I figure we're in the early stages of the Empire Strikes Back if one were to apply 'Lucas'-onian ('Lucas'que?) principles to current American political reality. The election of 2008 was the attack on the death star, the climax of A New Hope.  Or, more appropriately, A New Audacity of Hope.  But we're a couple of years yet away from Obama losing his hand to Dick Cheney and finding out the uncomfortable truth about his lineage. (Kenya is not Wyoming? They have similar forms of democracy, I've heard.)

Joe Biden is Chewbacca (or maybe he's Jar Jar, arriving appropriately inappropriate into the wrong movie).

Or maybe I have it all wrong and Cheney is the Emperor.
The appendage, perhaps then, is due to be lopped off by Darth Palin ("Barack, I am your Mother").

Perhaps, too, I also have wrong the particular appendage that is in peril.

It sort of fits, though.

Think about it. Okay, don't think so much - feel about it - the truthiness can't be denied.

They both apparently enjoy basketball (or, in Darth Sarah's case, at least basketball analogies and how apparently all the great basketball players like to leave the game in the 4th quarter). She can see Russia from her house - he saw Russia from his mobile home (Air Force One).

You'd think that her youth would rule such a thing out, but I always thought that she had a little 'Highlander' in her ('There can be only one - please God').

This would all imply that he got his literacy, poise, and sanity from his father's side of the family.

But the opening credits have barely trailed off the screen - we have a long way to go before we have to worry about Ewoks roaming the planet, Hip waders drying in the east room, book burnings and literature lynchings, and Michelle's garden giving way to a smelt pond.

A while to enjoy things before Mrs. Maverick and her Alaskan Geese (apologies to Dr. Green) go to Washington while Jimmy Stewart does cartwheels in his casket.

And that's another movie for another time.  But be forewarned: put your affairs in order while you can.


"I found America hiding in the corner of my wallet
It's a well kept secret, thought that I had better swallow it
Before they make me spit out the truth
Before they find you're lying about your youth

B movie, that's all you are to me
Just a soft soap story
Don't want the woman to adore me
You can't stand it when it goes from real to reel
Too real too real
You can't stand it when I throw punch lines you can feel" - Declan Patrick MacManus, 1979