The Meandering Path to Joe's Rainbow

Just to prove he's a sociopath, Joe Lieberman is determined to run anyway, and perhaps help send a Republican to the Senate instead of Ned Lamont.
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In her foreword to Paul B. Courtright's book, Ganesha, Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings, scholar of religion and mythology Wendy O'Flaherty writes, "One can start from Ganesha and work from there in an unbroken line to almost any aspect of Indian culture."

Through an inverted, inside-out - or, to use the Tantric term, "left-handed" - version of the process, one can begin with any aspect of the macabre farce that is the "war on terror," proceed in a jagged, drunken stagger, and end up at Joe Lieberman. That is to say, the logical pathway to understanding the strange case of Joe Lieberman - as strange as a case of spontaneous human combustion - can begin almost anywhere. Let's start in England.

In England you can't bring liquids or gels onto an airplane. In the USA you have to take off your shoes in the airport security line. Put them together, and you've got a conspiracy by the Goyishe Occupation Government (GOG) to pick on people with gel insoles.

And it's about time. I pity the fools who wear those gel insoles in their shoes. Gellin' like a felon indeed. Gellin' like Magellan - indeed NOT. Magellan got to travel, unlike you. At last, those weirdoes who gloat about squishing around in orthotically enhanced footwear will get what's coming to them: a swift kick in the pants!

But not before the great USA and the great UK get together and form the greater UKSA.

Speaking of the USA, am I crazy, or does Michael Chertoff sound a little like Betty White after a mild stroke? Or are both true? And how is Betty White doing these days? I apologize for joking about her health. I have wonderful memories of her excellent comic acting as Sue Ann Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Just thinking about her in that role makes me smile. Anyone know how she's doing? I mean, God forbid, and knock wood, she shouldn't have a stroke, keyn ahora.

Danger is everywhere. Here in the Midwest, those of us who travel between Chicago and Detroit via Indiana (and of course you little people in Indiana, whoever you are) don't worry about gel insoles so much as we do about invisible objects shattering our car windows somewhere on Cline Avenue. The police are blaming a sniper, though no bullets or pellets have been found. No buckshot. Not even tiny meteorites. Not even chunks of Pappy Yokum's rock salt. Not even a few crumbs of dark matter.

I seem to remember reading about a phenomenon exactly like this in a book I had as a kid, Stranger Than Science, by Frank Edwards. Edwards, in the same book, also told about David Lang, who took a step out his front door one day and disappeared - stepped right out of reality. No one ever saw him again. Unlike Joe Lieberman.

Edwards also told the story of Mary Reeser, who spontaneously combusted in 1951. The case is shrouded in mystery. The weirdest thing about it is, she was seen wearing flammable pajamas, smoking a cigarette, and snacking on Secanol just before the mysterious event - I kid you not. And yet the occurrence is still considered a mystery, or was by Frank Edwards - that's the most mysterious thing of all. A woman on downers, wearing a crepe paper nightie and holding a burning stick of leaves between her lips goes up in flames - yet an adult human being still can't figure out how it happened. It's quite eerie.

Back to terrorism: The whole taking the shoes off thing, Mr. Chertoff or Ms. White, whichever of you is running this medicine show - the taking off of shoes, sir or madam, is idiotic. And now you're gracious enough to let us to bring our nail clippers on board in our carry-on luggage. Tell you what, I'll leave the nail clippers at home if you just LET ME KEEP MY SHOES ON!! It's like some pathetic superstitious ritual - if you put your shoes in the dish tub and send them through the conveyor belt tunnel, the plane won't explode. Just look at what we're doing! One doofus tries unsuccessfully to blow up his shoes, and for the next decade we're living in a world Friedrich Dürrenmatt might have hallucinated if he ate a whole Franz Kafka full of acid.

And even then only if Ianesco gave him rabies first.

I guess we should be grateful for small things. Aside from not getting blown up, I mean. Like, thank goodness no one's tried to blow up a plane by spontaneously combusting themselves.

Our only recourse then would be to fly empty planes back and forth - it would just be too risky to allow people on board.

Twenty-four alleged creeps are arrested in England before, thank goodness, putting a plot in motion to blow up planes, and that reminds us the world is a dangerous place. See, I already knew that. When I was growing up, Richard Nixon was president. The government was run by creeps. Now it's run by sociopaths. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The terrorists are sociopaths, too, of course. The sociopaths are running everything.

Then again, one man's sociopath is another man's statesman.

Just like one man's stolen election is another man's mandate.

Could there be anything worse than today? I'll tell you tomorrow.

But remember, we're still only at orange alert. That means put your shoes in the dish tub, drink your breast milk so we know it's not nitroglycerin, and stick this totalitarian tracking device up your ass. Now, don't you feel better? No? Well then, sign up for military service and get yourself over to Iraq so the CEO of Bechtel can get another solid ivory mansion with harp-seal-skin wallpaper. Oh, and to protect my right to say these things.

Yes, that's the paradox of free speech, people of Earth and Connecticut. If you live in Cuba, you're not allowed to criticize the government. But here in the USA, we can - which is exactly why we shouldn't. Our government allows us to criticize it, which makes it such a benevolent government we all ought to realize it shouldn't be criticized. And don't forget, those poor youngsters are over there in Iraq protecting your freedom of speech, which the government gave you - and which therefore you mustn't use. You want those kids over there fighting for nothing?

Listen, I'm just glad I'm not starving or seriously ill or imprisoned or being tortured or dodging bombs and bullets or made homeless by a natural disaster and my society's unreadiness to come to my aid. Freedom of speech, in this world, is like cable TV. If you've got it, great. Enjoy yourself.

Then again, life with free speech compared to life without it is the difference between eating fresh, delicious ceviche and chewing on a dry twig. But again, if you've got the ceviche, enjoy it.

I really don't get this formulation: those kids are fighting in Iraq to protect my freedom of speech. I mean, if you believe that, I guess that's your right, but you're wrong. First of all, I have the right to freedom of speech because I am a human being, and the only one who can defend it is me - just as if it were my health, or my ceviche. So if you're thinking of going over to Iraq to protect freedom of speech, maybe you should rethink that - especially if you don't like what I say. Or if you don't like ceviche. If you're thinking of going over there because fighting in Iraq is the right way to keep Islamic fundamentalism from taking over the West, well, that makes a little more sense. It's still mistaken, as until we invaded Iraq there was no connection between that country and 9-11 - but at least it's not quite as fabulistic and disingenuous as the freedom of speech formulation.

We are beginning to accept something, in the arrested adolescence of our rationality as a species: War is normal. Violence is normal. If you're lucky, like I am, and live in a place where violence is unusual, you should take time out and appreciate that. Go ahead. Okay, that's enough. And if you, kid, want to go over there to Iraq because you want to protect the place you live, or even the place I live, from becoming a place where violence is normal, that makes even more sense. I still think it's the wrong means to the goal, but at least the goal is rational.

Seems like the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is the place ya oughta be, if you want to shoot at the creepy sociopaths who are scheming to turn the USA into a place where mass violence is normal. Or maybe you should apply to join up with Scotland Yard, or the CIA, and stop terrorist activity before it stops you. The whole sending of innocent people to torture centers may be a bit problematic, unless your goal is to live in a world where torture is normal. And that seems to be one goal of the Bush Administration.

So trying to remove from positions of power everyone enabling the Bush Administration also seems a good way to prevent sociopaths from turning our country and many others into places where mass destruction and violence are normal.

And getting a supporter of the Bush Administration out of a position of power is exactly what the Democrats of Connecticut did in the primary election. And, just to prove he's a sociopath, Joe Lieberman is determined to run anyway, and perhaps help send a Republican to the Senate instead of Ned Lamont. Because it's just that important to Joe Lieberman that Connecticut elect to the senate a Democratic who supports the Bush Administration. The voters in the Connecticut Democratic primary look shrewder in their judgment of Lieberman's character with each day that passes.

Now, I understand there's controversy over what those voters meant when they chose Lamont over Lieberman. But I think we can all agree it wasn't: "Keep chasing that rainbow, Joe!"

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