As The “Ain’t No Bad Dude” World Turns

Brian has been missing in action for several days. Stephanie is first worried, then angry, as he pays no attention to her, and instead hobnobs in Europe with his friends at their “la de da” web sites and blows kisses at Ms. Berlitz.

Will Brian’s jeep start? Will his hamsters be found lying in the shredded newspaper, their rodentary ribs showing, upon his return? Will they instead turn on each other, like a dinner party with Alferd Packer and Jeffrey Dahmer at the Donner’s?

Will Stephanie ever forgive? Will she instead attempt to seduce the noble and ever-faithful Instantman in his Kentucky trailer?

More to the point, has Brian decided to kill off the Stephanie Dupont character?

Find out next week, on “As The ‘Ain’t’ No Bad Dude’ World Turns…”

As The “Ain’t No Bad Dude” World Turns

Brian has been missing in action for several days. Stephanie is first worried, then angry, as he pays no attention to her, and instead hobnobs in Europe with his friends at their “la de da” web sites and blows kisses at Ms. Berlitz.

Will Brian’s jeep start? Will his hamsters be found lying in the shredded newspaper, their rodentary ribs showing, upon his return? Will they instead turn on each other, like a dinner party with Alferd Packer and Jeffrey Dahmer at the Donner’s?

Will Stephanie ever forgive? Will she instead attempt to seduce the noble and ever-faithful Instantman in his Kentucky trailer?

More to the point, has Brian decided to kill off the Stephanie Dupont character?

Find out next week, on “As The ‘Ain’t’ No Bad Dude’ World Turns…”

As The “Ain’t No Bad Dude” World Turns

Brian has been missing in action for several days. Stephanie is first worried, then angry, as he pays no attention to her, and instead hobnobs in Europe with his friends at their “la de da” web sites and blows kisses at Ms. Berlitz.

Will Brian’s jeep start? Will his hamsters be found lying in the shredded newspaper, their rodentary ribs showing, upon his return? Will they instead turn on each other, like a dinner party with Alferd Packer and Jeffrey Dahmer at the Donner’s?

Will Stephanie ever forgive? Will she instead attempt to seduce the noble and ever-faithful Instantman in his Kentucky trailer?

More to the point, has Brian decided to kill off the Stephanie Dupont character?

Find out next week, on “As The ‘Ain’t’ No Bad Dude’ World Turns…”

Missile Sunset

Patricia was home for the weekend from Reno, and we went for a walk on the strand in Manhattan Beach to watch the sun sink beneath the Pacific. As we passed the pier, heading north, I saw a vertical arrow of white smoke, its head a ball of fire rising upward from the mountains above Malibu.

I pointed it out to her. “There’s a launch out of Vandenberg.”

We watched as it continued to move upward, and then curved over, compelled by gravity, as it headed south. The stage flickered out, and a second one ignited.

A couple minutes later, and it disappeared, its propellant expended, its fire extinguished, and its body invisible from the distance of hundreds of miles.

I told her it was probably a Minuteman, perhaps to launch a target thousands of miles southwest, to the lonely atoll of Kwajalein in the South Pacific. In the war, it suffered what was probably the most dense and intensive bombardment in history–thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of pounds of explosives, on a tiny lump of coral, to ferret out or destroy Japanese soldiers dug into it like ants in a hill. Now, it is the launch base to test the weapons that may allow us to knock down smites from our new enemies.

The smoke trail was twirled on the fingers of the jet stream. It was dark on the ground, but the rocket exhaust was dancing in the dying sunlight, lighting the night sky in a sun-drenched kaleidescope of swirling vapor and chemical fumes. It was a beauty both natural and artificial, and we were glad that we decided to take a walk on the beach that night.

When I got home, and heard that the most recent missile test was successful, I was most pleased to hear that my surmise was correct.

Nothing Could Be Further From Making Sense

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

In addition to becoming a hackneyed cliche (a phrase which itself is a “hackneyed cliche”), this sentence doesn’t parse, at least to me. What does it mean?

Does it mean that it’s possible for nothing to be further from the truth than for something to be? It reminds me of the old proof that a ham sandwich is better than eternal bliss.

Premise 1: Nothing is better than eternal bliss.
Premise 2: A ham sandwich is better than nothing.
Therefore: A ham sandwich is better than eternal bliss. QED

I hereby declare unconditional war on this cliche.

“Make no mistake about it…”

That last one actually does makes sense, but I also want to stomp it out anyway because it’s so overused, especially in Washington.

I’m figuring that if we can fully eradicate both phrases, most politicians will be struck dumb(er).

More (Good) Bad Publicity

I’ve tried to keep this a Rall-free zone, but Jane Skinner on Fox News just had on the publisher of the magazine who ran the latest outrage about the greedy firefighters (I think it was Bob Guccione? but I’m not sure), and he was of course defending the stupid thing.

His story:

a) Good satire sometimes offends;
b) He found it very funny;
c) He had no intent to offend anyone by running it;
d) We must draw a distinction between depicting greedy firefighters in the present, and those same firefighters projected ten years into the future, and anyone who can’t do that is hypersensitive.

I agree with (a).

I believe (b) (or at least I have no reason not to believe it–there’s no accounting for taste or sense of humor). To me, it was utterly humorless, and anyone who found it funny is warped, but then there’s no reason, based on that interview, to think that he’s not.

I don’t believe (c)–I think he’s lying.

But the real crux of the issue is (d). In addition to being utterly unfunny, it was utterly pointless.

Good satire has a germ of truth. If his point was that the money flowing into charities is being misspent, there are many appropriate targets at which to aim satirical barbs (like the Red Cross, or United Way). But I’m not aware of any misappropriation or inappropriate expenditures of funds by the NYFD, past, present or (especially) future.

If in ten years, there are some activities by the NYFD that even vaguely resemble what are described in the cartoon, then it might be funny then (or at least as funny as it’s possible for a Rall cartoon to be, which is, if history is any guide, not at all).

But to run it now is not only pointless, it is obviously meant to be simply iconoclastic and cruel, under the thin guise of satire.

But then, consider the source.

The American “Red” Cross

Dennis Prager is on fire about the Red Cross banning songs with the words “God” or “prayer” from their event in Orange County. His take is that they didn’t really apologize–they just regretted that anyone found their decision offensive. It’s not quite that bad. If you read their press release, they do admit that they made a “mistake in judgment,” but the general tone is as Dennis said. They stand by whatever “principles” resulted in that judgment.

This is political correctness run utterly amok, and it seems to have appropriately ignited a firestorm when carried out by an organization called the American Red Cross.

As Dennis says, by their warped criteria, they can’t say “American” and they can’t say “Cross” because these terms are deemed potentially offensive.

That only leaves “Red.”

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!