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Vanished in a puff of smoke and pink mist

 

 
Dinosaurs are extinct, no argument.  Where disagreement begins is what caused dinosaurs to check out.

Scientists weighed-in by delving into the provable with a matter-of-fact methodology that advanced a single plausible cause:

  

A rogue asteroid strayed off-course and collided with Earth, creating violent shock-waves that reduced all living matter to pink and green mist.

  

Conspiracy theorists never miss an opportunity to thrive on the dark side.  They offered hundreds of sinister scenarios, but ultimately consolidated to promote one:

 

Dinosaurs were the first victims of population control.  Government "cooked the books" by intentionally designing census forms with no categories for dinosaurs, and census-takers were unable to include the beasts in the count.

 

Cartoonists suited up in greater, yet wackier numbers, and dived into the improbable with a what-the-hey lunacy having its own impenetrable logic: 

 

Gary “Far Side” Larson theorized dinosaurs became extinct because they failed to heed the surgeon general’s warnings about the dangers of smoking cigarettes.

 

Dan “Bizarro” Piraro believed dinosaurs missed boarding Noah’s Ark by an hour because they forgot to adjust their watches for daylight savings time.

 

My theory is Anti-freeze was not yet invented, so dinosaurs were ill-prepared to ride out sub-zero termperatures and marauding glaciers.

 

Science, conspiracy or cartoons, it all works.  So no matter how you look at it, pink mist or a puff of smoke, just like that - Poof! - Dino the dinosaur was gone!

Adios “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” hello folly

 

 
  
Another legend turns 65.  On August 9, 1945, the second of two experimental party-poopers dropped in on the city of Nagasaki and pootered in Emperor Hirohito’s chicken teriyaki.

 

America recruited two A-bombs to sell Japan the wisdom of surrender.  Three days earlier "Little Boy" made a 15-kiloton presentation in Hiroshima.  Up next came "Fat Man" who came in and closed the deal.  Six days later the Emperor gave up and America got ink.

 

Little Boy and Fat Man received mixed reviews.  They ended the war, yet opened the hatch for a culture of dubious merit.  The next 50 years witnessed Godzilla and a host of other uranium-enriched mutants, alien abductions, Area 51, conspiracy theories, Dr. Strangeglove,  paranormal paranoia, the Cold War, grade-B sci-fi movies, and climate change, for all we know.

 

And during the next 5 decades the world endured the threat of mutually-assured destruction, code-named for a nuclear Armageddon capable of reducing both hemispheres to molten lava.  Then the villainous Russky empire imploded in the 1990's.  It was good-bye to global hand-wringing.

 

Then, 65 years after the atomic debut, as if with memories of a blank slate, US leaders would commit to a deal to reduce its nuclear bandalero – a strategic move designed to guarantee global tranquility by making it safe for despots like Madmood I’m-a-dippy-jerk to have his own chemistry set and play with it too.

 

America's new leaders, the Borbons in wingtips – they learn nothing, forget nothing.  Adios Little Boy and Fat Man.  Hello folly.

Images, memories and the significance of 65

 

65 years ago President Truman dropped a whoopee cushion in Emperor Hirohito’s underwear.  Between August 6th and August 15th, Japan’s vision of hemispheric domination was atomized and World War II ground to a halt.

WWII left a legacy of mayhem and violence, documented by thousands of wrenching images.  The nine days in August 1945 added its own iconography:  the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the formal surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri.

 

Earlier this year another iconic event passed 65 – the US Marines capture of the island of Iwo Jima.  Iwo is recalled for its strategic importance, because it was a major stepping-stone in an initiative to blunt Japan's ambitions.

 

In February 1945 the US military saturated Iwo with air and naval firepower.  Days later, the Marines landed to begin an up-close battle with a heavily-entrenched Japanese army.  After four days of combat, five Marines and a Navy corpsman broke through ranks to scale the highest peak on the island and valiantly erected one of the iconic images of the war:  the raising of the Stars-and-Stripes atop Mt. Suribachi.

 

7,000 US Marines gave their lives to take Iwo Jima. 18,000 more were wounded.  These selfless acts made possible the defeat of an aggressor, and, more importantly, preserved continued freedom and liberty for future generations of Americans.

 

65 years later, on another island, Manhattan, Americans enjoying the freedoms that others died to preserve have taken the astonishing step to permit an invading horde of fanatics to raise their symbol of victory on hallowed WTC grounds!

 

65 is an iconic number.  It denotes the age of retirement when workers are put out to pasture.  Seems that memories are retired at 65 as well.  Seems that Iwo Jima now is just a fading anecdote.  How quickly we forget.  How else to explain the Ground Zero Mosque?

 

Say it ain't so!

True shoe tales – backstory to a nursery rhyme

 
  
Ever wonder how nursery rhymes got started?  I do, when my mind is vacant and fills up with deep questions like, what prompted an old woman to live in a shoe?  My thoughts drift.  Mmm...

"A young artist named Carmen set out to paint shoes

but the shoes were so many she was unable to choose

Then along came a no-good named Willy the weasel

he slinked into her life and slithered next to her easel

He opened a fifth of vintage Scotch whiskey

and soon the two of them began to get frisky

Now Willy he was slower than a turtle

but young Carmen she was amazingly fertile

Carmen's much older now and wiser than before

Willy's still a weasel and she showed him the door

Then Carmen packed up and moved into a shoe

she had so many children what else could she do?"

 

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Don't quit the day job just yet.

Tap into the awesome power of prayer

 

 

Time for disclosure.

 

I’m not a praying kind of person.  Haven’t been since middle school days when we were taught that power of prayer was the best way to answer questions we barely had the language and wisdom to ask.

 

Then arrived our coming of age with the need to set goals.  We learned that personal energy sometimes greased the skids where prayer alone did not.

 

The problem with prayer is that its benefits are not obvious, nor immediate.  Unless one is committed to the ideology of prayer, the perception of its relevance wanes, particularly with the discovery that goals can be attained with focus and application.

 

With many mixed messages and arguments against it, prayer is stressed to keep a foothold in daily lives.  It's easy to see how the regimen of prayer withers when forced to compete with more riveting distractions.

 

Time for another disclosure.  Prayer has been on my mind lately, mainly because the nation's dismal state of affairs has been plaguing my thoughts, too.  This is not the country I once knew, nor is it the country I expected it to be. 

 

If I had known 2010 would see a nation under the spell of an amateur illusionist with a messiah complex bent on transforming the universe into his image and likeness, I might've kept up the regimen of prayer.  And I would've prayed less for what I thought I wanted and more for what I didn't:  an Obamination.

 

But maybe it's not too late.  Maybe we can still avert the terrible calamity of Obamination by tapping into the power of prayer.  And why not?  Hey, I'm in, so please join me in spreading this simple prayer-chant:  "No-Mo-O!  No-Mo-O!  No-Mo-O!"

 

Just think of it!  An email campaign to unite the nation in chanting to vanquish the Anointed One and his army of useful idiots.  Awesome!  Bring it!

The wit and the ogre – a dynamic duo

 

Dear Chrissy,

 

I've been following the recent posts about Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady's assessment of his heretofore supporters, the Boyz.

 

You and I agree there’s no call for making disparaging remarks, in public or private, about someone’s sexual orientation.  But Brady’s a deranged breed, so you can’t expect much from junkyard dung-piles like him.

 

Still, the Boyz’ disappointment in Brady must be wrenching, so maybe you can share with them a little vignette (total fantasy, of course) to buoy their spirits.

 

Imagine this unlikely pairing:  Comedian Ross Mathews riding papoose-style on the back of former heavyweight Randy “Tex” Cobb (think “Master-Blaster” in the “Mad Max – Beyond Thunderdome” movie, and you get the visual).

 

Mathews, a regular on Chelsea Handler’s comedy show, is a razor-sharp wit who might’ve mentored under Dorothy Parker at the famed Algonquin Hotel.  Cobb gained notoriety in a heavyweight fight against Larry Holmes when he blocked all of Holmes’ punches with his face, then later starred as “Leonard Smalls” in "Raising Arizona."

 

Ross and Randy, the wit and the ogre, a dynamic duo. They patrol the hiways and biways in pursuit of truth, justice and the American way. Then, from the fetid pits of decay comes this menacing voice: "Hey, you buncha f**cking faggots!"

 

Oops!  Big mistake! 

 

Okay, Chrissy, your turn now, he's all yours!