January 11, 2006

Can't Make It Up, Department


Some days the news reads like script for Monty Python.

Python News Skit #1
How do you bring a morbidly obese man out of coma?

Doctors hope aroma from some of Ariel Sharon's favorite foods will help rouse the Israeli Prime Minister from his coma. Israel radio said a plate of shawarma -- a sliced meat dish -- had been put in his hospital room... Before a severe stroke last week, the overweight Mr. Sharon had a legendary love affair with food, and ignored repeated medical advice to lose some kilos. (Full Story)

The Palestinians have wanted to punish Sharon for his complicity in the massacre of Palestinian refugees during Israel's invasion of Lebanon 30 years ago. So Palestinians might take more than a little pleasure in the vision that floated through my warped mind as I read the above story:

There's Sharon drifting off towards eternal peace when suddenly his still fully functioning hunting/gathering cerebral synapses catches a whiff of their client's beloved heated shawarma. The light at the end of the tunnel dims as Sharon rallies and begins clawing his way towards the sweet smell of heated shawarma. Salivary glands, mothballed just days earlier, are reactivated. Preparations are made in Sharon's cavernous receiving dock for a fresh delivery of solid food.

As he slowly re-emerges Sharon opens his eyes -- and there it is --- a big, juicy shawarma steaming on plate being waved gently beneath his nose by a nurse.

Sharon's arm rises slowly from beneath the sheets. The covey of doctors clustered around his bed shoot each other an approving glance.

Sharon flexes his fingers several times to relieve the stiffness from a week of disuse. The docs smile broadly.

Then, in a low rubble, he utters his first words. "Shaaaaaaawarrrrrrmmmmaaa! Uhmmmmm."

The medical team beams in collegial unity.

Then he makes his move -- slowly, his hand shaking, his arm wavering as it navigates the 18 inches from bed to plate, Sharon's fingers gripping in preparation, his lips smacking in anticipation ....

When suddenly the lead physician speaks up.

“Thank you, nurse,” the lead surgeon says, “we won't be needing that any longer. Put it on my desk. I'll have it for lunch.”

The nurse pulls the plate out of Sharon's reach.

Sharon's eyes widen and he sputters a garbled protest. Difficult to make out clearly it sounded as though he called the nurse, “Bride of Hitler!” .

“No, no, no Ariel,” the smiling doctor says, “You've had your last shawarma. Now, how about a nice bowl of hot oatmeal and little skim milk?”



Python News Skit #2
By now you know all you think you need to know about sleazoid lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. Ah, think again. This item appeared yesterday on MSNBC.

In 1972 Abramoff ran for student council president -- when he was in the eighth grade -- where he was disqualified for violating the $100 campaign spending limit by serving hot dogs at an election party .... Abramoff also lost a 1976 bid for high school student body president, later saying that was "probably the last time I've really been involved in totally fair campaigns." (Full Story)



Therein lays all the proof I need to affirm that humans are not only born to be either straight or gay, but some are born crooked as well --bad the bone the day the pop out of the oven, probably before.

Python News Skit #3
Finally there was this story:

JERUSALEM - Israel won't do business with Pat Robertson after the evangelical leader suggested Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke was divine punishment, a tourism official said Wednesday, putting into doubt plans to develop a large Christian tourism center in northern Israel. (Full Story)

This story is further confirmation of my long-held theory that the more you get to know fundamentalist Christians the less you like the sanctimonious little bastards. But this is a special case. if there was ever a cynical unholy alliance, it's the joining of Zionist Jews with America's born-again Christians.

The entire basis for this warped relationship is stupifyingly, jaw-droppingly, stomach-retchingly disgusting. The Zionists pander to Jew-hating Born-again Christians because they have so much political clout in this administration. Clout the Born-agains use to pressure Congress and the White House to maintain unqualified support of Israel, both rhetorical and financial.

While the Zionists see that support as insuring Israel's survival, the Born-agains see it as fulfillment of Biblical prophesy. They believe that coming of Armageddon and the “final days,” depend on sparking all out war in the Holy Land. A key part of this process is that, all sinners – and right at the top of that sinner-list are Jews – will be eliminated.

I really don't know how the Zionist thought they could play footsie with these ignoramuses and not get their toes smashed, sooner or later. What the Israeli right just learned about fundamentalist Christians is that letting them into your life is like handcuffing yourself to the Mother-in-law From Hell. From that moment on nothing – and I mean NOTHING – you do is ever going to be right or enough. They cannot be pleased. They cannot be placated. They cannot be reasoned with.

There was a cartoon in yesterday's paper that said it best. A guy was standing a register line holding a tub of Preparation H. Rev. Robertson was behind him. The man had turned angrily to Robertson and said. “No it's not God's punishment. And mind your own damn business.”
Religious fundamentalist – of whatever stripe – can never mind their own business.

So, who needs drugs when we have news like this?