The Waterboard by M.W. Thomas

Hallucinating in Chinese

Plan for the New Silk Road

Holy Yak Attack! I read in the paper yesterday that China is reconstructing the Old Silk Road. The Silk Road, you will recall from your history lessons, was an ancient trade route from China to Middle Earth that carried valued commodities such as gold, frankincense, myrrh, and knock-off chariot wheels. It was originally paved with rice paper, but every time it rained, the road turned into vinegar and became pimpled with potholes. Some enterprising travelers discovered they could fill the potholes with sugar and so it became known as The Sweet and Sour Road, from which we get the famous pork dish (the food coloring was added later.)  Later, they repaved the road with silk, which was a major technological advance. The silk weathered the rain much better and a road crew had only to come out with giant steam irons and smooth out the wrinkles afterward. Eventually, the road became moth-eaten and fell into disuse.

Beijing (it was called Peking in my day) seems to think a New Silk Road will revitalize China's economy.  They should consult Coca-Cola first. This modern highway will give China back porch access to western markets where they can sell grainy copies of The Godfather, Star Wars, and Dumb and Dumber, as well imitation iPhones, and other iFads. There will be a kiosk at the Pakistani border where Americans can buy back their Social Security Numbers. Call them Land Pirates. I think this idea is as stupid as it is quaint, and it would serve them right if they exhaust themselves on this pig.

Shipping and Air Cargo are much more efficient means of transport.  The South Koreans build 10,000 cargo ships a day, so their is no shortage of sea-vehicles in the world. Perhaps by the time China emerges from its economic woes, teleportation will have been perfected. I thought the Chinese were supposed to be patient. Silicon Valley will design it, and Hong Kong will build it, and Shandong will provide the stolen illegal version.

This New Silk Road is an idea whose time has come - if you're Confucius. I urge you to write your local Chinese trade representative and tell him or her that this project is an outrageous way to spend another country's money. Then go out for some General Tso's Chicken.

h/t THE WASHINGTON POST

The Waterboard by M.W. Thomas

M.W. Thomas, Candidate for President of the United States

I am pleased today to announce my candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of America.  Let me begin by asking for your vote, before I describe my qualifications.  Because facts have a well-known liberal bias, I will stick to meaty assertions that you can take on faith.  Here’s my position on the issues.

Taxes:  Our party has been accused of fooling the public by calling tax increases “revenue enhancement.”  Not so.  No one was fooled.

Life:  I, like other Republicans, understand the importance of bondage between mother and child.  Just don’t google it.  You might get busted by the FBI, as I did in Chattanooga last year.

Compromise:  My friends, we can and we will never, never surrender to what is right.  If we don’t succeed, then we run the risk of failure.

Human Rights:  I expect the Chinese government to work toward the elimination of human rights.  I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change.

The Lame-Stream Media:  Don’t believe what is reported about me.  I’m not a man who’s leading with his head between his legs.

The War on Terror:  The global importance of the Middle East is that it keeps the Near East and the Far East from encroaching on each other.

Transportation:  Air travel efficiency would improve more if travelers started to go to less popular places.  I am the only presidential candidate talking about this.

The Environmental Protection Agency:  It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment.  It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.

NASA:  Mars is essentially in the same orbit as I am.  It is somewhat the same distance from the sun, which is important.  We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and therefore water.  If there is water, that means there is oxygen.  If oxygen, that means we can breathe.  I promise to go there.

About My Rivals:  Their verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

Poverty:  We Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor.  It’s the other way around.  They never vote for us.  People are not homeless if they are sleeping in the streets of their own home town.  That’s just common sense.

If I didn't mention your issue, no worries. Just think of Slavery and Hitler. Remember that this presidential election is about who is going to be the next President of the United States.  May our nation continue to be the bacon of hope in the world.  Together, we’ll make America grate again.

I would like to thank the United Negro College Fund for sponsoring this announcement of my presidency.  What a terrible thing it is to have lost one’s mind.  Or to not to have a mind at all.  How true that is.  I’ll close with the one word the best describes my candidacy:  “to be prepared.”  God Bless America, the greatest planet on earth.

The Waterboard by M.W. Thomas

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Argument

How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.

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This 1834 epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of my hands down favorites.  The tale is bold, the telling is spooky, and the language is close to the heart.  It is best to read it aloud in your best rendition of a Scottish accent.  Don’t be shy.  Recite it as though you have a toothache and so that the neighbors can hear you.  Let ‘em know you’re a grey-beard loon!

Admittedly, the poem gets off to a slow start.  Our passive narrator meets the Ancient Mariner at a wedding, and is somewhat man-handled into hearing his story.  That’s the first twelve or so stanzas, really all of Part I, but if you can get past that, you’re in for some real action.  Also, the words rhyme, so this is an actual poem (unlike my poems, which not only don’t rhyme, but also have total contempt for structure and meter.)

Oh, and keep a dictionary handy.  Words such as “eftsoons,” “uprist,” “wist,” “gramercy,” “gossameres,” and “clomb,”will intrude.  Okay, and “countree” rhymes with “see.”  That may be outright cheating.

Be sure to keep up with the ALBATROSS.  The albatross is what we would today call a meme on the intertubes.  It is from Coleridge’s Rime that we get the saying, “albatross around one’s neck,” which connotes a heavy burden.

Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

The Ancient Mariner, as it happens, shot the albatross with a crossbow, and it turns out there is a price to be paid for that infraction.  So you cannot skip Part I, as dull as it is.

Among accounts payable for killing the bird is a sailing ship being subjected to an evil wind.  Between the bad wind and the doldrums, the ship goes badly off course.  They encounter a ghost ship (“spectre-bark”), which is a mixed blessing.  The encounter with the dead is evidently miserable, but our mariner is freed of the albatross:

The albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.

Thus ends Part IV.  At last they gain a more favorable breeze.  Or do they?  The ship careens toward the southern latitudes “without wave or wind.”  Is the ship’s company alive or dead?  Things have gotten pretty weird by Part VI.

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze –

On me alone it blew.

Our mariner finds himself in what appears to be safe harbor and is met by the harbor pilot’s boat.  The pilot’s boy is a bit of a loon, and he has to take over the rowing.  Upon landing, he is met by a hermit, to whom he recites his tale.  Who’s crazy now?

h/t Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org

Autumn Sighs, A Poem by M.W. Thomas

Autumn sneaks in

Indifferent to my greeting

I look out the window

At the dog chasing the blowing leaves

How many leaves

Can the old gal gather in her mouth at once?

How many leaves in the forest?

More than the threads of my summer memories

I open the door

And brace myself against the October breeze

How hard will the wind blow?

How hard do I breathe?

Harder than the blacksmith's bellows

Restless now, winter peeks over my shoulder

I take a walk in the woods

And gaze up into the canopy

How many colors are there?

How many dreams unfulfilled?

The day ends too early

I'm frumpy and weary

In my pajamas and slippers

As Autumn sighs

To when else shall I flee?

The Waterboard by M.W. Thomas

Gun Rites

As the cheek-biting winds and frosty nights of Autumn encroach, here we are again processing another mass shooting. I am told again to arm myself against this eventuality. In the inevitable shoot-em-up, I will certainly prevail, because I am the good guy. America is a Clint Eastwood movie. Little does the NRA know or care what a klutz I am. All I know is that I am not entitled to the defense of public safety laws.

Oh, there is money to be made too. With thirteen firearms and countless rounds of ammunition, the gun industry made thousands off the Umpqua shooter. The undertakers made out pretty well too. Stuff happens. Ring us up.

Mind you, I am a Second Amendment supporter, whatever it is you or I think that means. I think hunters, sportsman, hobbyists, and collectors should be able to own pretty much any weapon they wish. There just needs to be meaningful qualifying regulation that protect the public from the feckless.

Are you a curious collector? Do you wish to own a flamethrower? That's great. I think you should be able to do that. But I don't think you should just be able to go online and simply order one and have it delivered to your house. There should be qualifying regulations that you will comply with that demonstrate to us - the rest of the public - that you are qualified to be the caretaker of this dangerous toy. We public don't expect to round the corner and burst into flames in front of the Starbucks. Do you know how to maintain and operate your flamethrower? Do you have a secure place to store it? Will you submit to annual inspections? Do you have adequate private property or access to a safety range to demonstrate the capability of your flamethrower? Do you have a criminal record? Importantly, are you a moron?

Same goes for long guns and hand guns. Why do we sell AR-15s to just anybody? Why sell one to me? I have no idea what I'd be doing with such a weapon. I know nothing about them. Yet I could simply order one online and join the insanity today.

A couple of years ago, a man brought his young son to a gun store in Philadelphia. He bought a hand gun there. Leaving with his deadly purchase, he got no further than the car when he accidentally shot his kid dead. Not part of the reporting: was the gun store owner sorry he sold a gun to an idiot?

Well, we are at an impasse, and I am sure there are Refuters who will say I'm all wet and I don't know what I'm talking about. Stuff happens I hear. But as Aristotle said, The sum of coincidences is certainty.

A Plea for Shared Injustice

In this stock photo, the scales of justice are
incorrectly depicted in equilibrium

In these times of economic flagellation, many of us will suffer inequities and inconveniences. But we will not share in this lumpy distribution of misery equally.  The Haves will escape the slightest annoyance, while the Have-Nots will bear the brunt of every burden.

Why, you ask? Remember that "politics" is the process that determines who gets what and how much.  And who controls politics? The Haves of course. The Haves will not tolerate any irritant within their political body.

Instead, the pain must be pushed down to the powerless. Who are they? Poor folk and people of color of course. People with no money to buy politicians or political ads on TV.

The strategy is simple. The poor must be demonized. If they're poor it's their own fault. They're lazy. Black people want "free stuff." They're alcoholics and drug addicts. Never mind that studies show that the rate of illicit drug use is lower among the poor than the general population (because the poor can't afford drugs.) To drive home the point, politicians (i.e., the Haves) pass laws requiring drug testing as a qualifier for public benefits to humiliate the needy and justify their own claim to a painless existence.

In fact, most poor people work harder than I do. They just don't get a fair wage for it. Walmart employees need food stamps and section 8 housing to survive on a full time job. Losers, right? The important thing, according to our politicians, is that the CEO is left with no itch to scratch.

The Haves complain that they "pay all the taxes." Quoting absolute dollar figures, they state - correctly - that they pay the largest share of revenue into the treasury. Of course they do. They have all the money.

Let's analyze it. For simplicity, let's set up this thought experiment, which captures the essence of how it works:

• I make $1000 a day, you make $10 a day
• We pay our taxes daily
• We each pay 10%

So I pay $100 in taxes, you pay $1. I gripe that it's unfair. I pay "all the taxes." Let's look at it. After taxes, I have $900 to meet my expenses and otherwise spend or save as I like. You have $9. Can you live on $9? By the way, you work for me, and that's all I'm willing to pay you. If I raised your wages, I whine that I will "go out of business."

Indeed, you should be paying no taxes, and hopefully some of my $100 is currently routed to alleviate your suffering. But why should it be that way in the first place? Why, because that is the system I maintain through the politicians I own. Because I am not willing to countenance the slightest challenge to my privileges.

The economic ship of state cannot be righted until the Haves (otherwise known as the "one percent") are willing to shoulder their share of the burden; their share of the injustices in life. Currently, those burdens fall exclusively on the Have-Nots.

We must bring pressure to bear on the American Oligarchy to accept change. A good start would be to apply pressure on Congress to pass a Federal Minimum Wage bill. But we need to work on their morals too. Pope Francis provided an elegant, and even non-sectarian, framework for that during his recent visit. The Have-Nots have some feeble momentum. Let's keep pushing.