A Discordian Moment From September 11th

OK, I just stumbled across this in a news magazine. Probably everyone else knew before I did, because, hey, IT HAPPENED 10 YEARS AGO.

So, anyway, it was mentioned in one of the commentaries on the universal condemnation of the September 11th attacks. They said, QUITE CASUALLY, that Yassir Arafat -- supposedly the dean of Middle Eastern terrorists -- donated blood to aid the bombing victims. No, man, it was his own blood.

It already messed with my head ENOUGH that they gave him the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. And of course, it messes with my head EVERY TIME I THINK ABOUT IT that the fabulous cash prize originally came out of the fortune of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite.

Life is funny sometimes, I guess.

This Week's Staggering Discordian Moment

If the first responders in this photo are looking a bit stymied, hey, I CAN RELATE.
It can't be every day, EVEN IN ZANY-ASS SCANDINAVIA, that a common citizen of the realm can come home to find a DRUNKEN MOOSE dangling from the neighbor's apple tree. The news stories I've seen do not relate if there were any witnesses to the disaster, to explain HOW THE FUNK THIS EVEN HAPPENED.

They also do not answer the burning question on MY mind: WHAT COLOR WERE THE APPLES ON THAT TREE? We can see a few scattered on the ground in this photo. There are two red ones...and two golden ones. I'm trying not to jump to any conclusions here. (If I did, I might get stuck in a tree myself.)

Is It Just Me?

...Or are these two guys REALLY HARD TO TELL APART?

I mean, they're supposed to be bitterly pitted against each other in the 2012 presidential race, but whether you're looking at a photo or an editorial cartoon, MITT ROMNEY AND RICK PERRY ARE AS ALIKE AS TWEEDLEDEE AND TWEEDLEDUM.

My suggestion is this: they should TEAM UP and become running mates. I see a number of advantages to this approach. They supposedly agree on very little, but no matter whose platform you support you are bound to get SOMETHING you want out of the deal. I hardly need to point out the advantages of being able to swap places at speech time, or when there's a boring funeral of a foreign dignitary to attend when only the wrong one is free to go and the other has something else that can't be missed, like a really important round of DISC GOLF.

And, above all, there's the SAFETY factor. I picture the next Jared Loughner's or Squeaky Fromme's forehead puckering in confusion. "Dude, which one of them do I aim at?" Of course, that could TOTALLY BACKFIRE. The VP, seething with fury at having to be SECOND BANANA, could ice the President and take his place with NOBODY THE WISER.

I HARDLY NEED TO POINT OUT that this strategy could work out just as well for red-blazered lookalikes Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. OR JUST AS BADLY. Hey, the only way to tell them apart is to get them to PARTIALLY DISROBE so we can read their Underoos. (Hint: Palin's shows ALL the Founding Fathers; Bachmann's has John Wayne Gacy.)

We could also do-si-do AGAIN and have Romney run with Bachmann, Perry with Palin, and REALLY have some fun. The possibilities for role-swapping, intramural political sabotage and outright ASSASSINATION fairly boggle my mind.

September 11th -- Ten Years Later

Above you can see a photo of the restored, repaired, tidied-up PENTAGON. And we, as Discordians, all know what that means: THE ILLUSION THAT EVERYTHING IS IN ORDER IS REPAIRED, TOO. Let's review the state of the nation:

>> Stagnant unemployment. How many jobs did the American economy produce last month? ZERO.

>> We're still in a war. Ten years now and we're still going at it. In fact, we're almost out of the one war, but we started another so that we still don't look like we're slacking off. Hey, AT LEAST THOSE MILITARY PERSONNEL HAVE JOBS. (For now.)

>> Of the ones who have served and come home, between 8 and 10 thousand veterans are currently homeless. Niiiiiiice.

>> People still make ignorant comments about Muslims. In a recent example, I heard someone say that our president has a "terrorist" middle name. Niiiiiiice.

>> Middle-aged people, who would normally be sailing smoothly towards retirement, are still cracking up right and left. They think they have rats eating their insides, or that Jesus is telling them to KILL, KILL, KILL. That level of madness.

>> Baby Boomers, in the wake of their formative political experiences including the Vietnam War protests, Watergate, and the Civil Rights movement, are now turning Republican en masse, like so many lemmings over the cliff.

>> Everyone around here is still talking suicide. Or doing it. Niiiiice.



Yep -- SITUATION NORMAL, people. Everything is under control.

CONTAGION

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT! YOU CALL THIS AN APOCALYPSE???

OK, let me COOL MY JETS here and proceed in a reasonable manner.

>>sob<<

This 2011 release, NOW SHOWING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU, is about a deadly flu bug that spreads like wildfire, and kills one out of five people infected. Kate Winslett, Larry Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle and Elliot Gould are trying to SOLVE THE MYSTERY of how it started and what will stop it. Jude Law is blogging like mad about his own theories on the matter. Matt Damon is trying to keep his daughter safe from the illness after losing his wife and son. WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON THIS BIG-BUDGET DISASTER PIC:

>> When I see a film apocalypse, I want to see some dang human suffering. WHAT KIND OF PITIFUL KILLER FLU IS THIS? You cough a few times, have a tidy little seizure and die with a startled expression. Please! There isn't a single case of projectile diarrhea. No bleeding eyeballs. No coughing up of ropy green phlegm into the horrified face of the next victim. The only fun part of the death in this movie was when we got to watch the medical examiner, rather grodily, autopsy an actress who is rarely captured on screen even BREAKING A NAIL. That was kind of cool. BUT IT ONLY LASTED A FEW SECONDS.

>> When I see a film apocalypse, I want to see BODIES. Lots and lots of bodies. Lined up in hallways because there are no hospital beds left. Heaped for bonfire disposal. Being torn apart by starving dogs in a deserted city. All I saw in THIS lame picture was a single, very neat trench, with a couple dozen victims tidily Saran-wrapped and lined up carefully along the bottom. I didn't even get to see them die! When I hear Larry Fishburne speculate that 27 million people have died, I WANT TO SEE SOME OF THEM. Otherwise, come on, where's the disaster?

>> When I see a film apocalypse, I always, without fail, witness at least one grim-faced discussion about how to prevent widespread panic. But the panic never comes. Damn it, I want to see some panic. Give me a little civil unrest! The possibilities here should have been ENDLESS. But aside from one brief moment of mayhem in a pharmacy checkout line -- NO DICE. What you got instead were a lot of deserted streets, with every car neatly parked, every house intact, quiet as a Sunday afternoon. THY EVEN KEPT THE SNOW SHOVELED ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE LETHAL CRISIS. Sheesh.

>> Jude Law started out to position himself, in this movie, as the equivalent of Mathias in The Omega Man. THEY BLEW THAT, TOO. I couldn't believe it. Not a single scene of the Forsythia Army carrying Jude on their shoulders to take over as Prime Minister in an impromptu election...That would have been a blast.

>> Everyone is supposedly quarantined, seizing on the floor, or already dead, OK? The world is theoretically in chaos. But the infrastructure? It's fine. Nobody is chopping up the living-room furniture to heat up the oatmeal. Everyone is still texting away merrily. People's clothes are clean and nobody that I can see is starting a fistfight to claim the last bucket of drinkable water. SOME APOCALYPSE.

>> Last thing we see? The vaccine is released and ORDER IS RESTORED. Gag me with a fruit bat!