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The World Changes
Nov. 14th, 2015 10:31 amNot much humor in the Paris attacks, which, of course, were horrifying on so many, many levels.
But I did find this one story amusing.
It was Isis, of course. Retaliation for the death of “Jihadi John,” I would imagine. (Why does Western media persist in giving these assassins nicknames?)
But before that was confirmed, one of the newspapers I was trolling obsessively decided to fill up space by exploring the differences between Isis and Al Qaeda at some length. You see, kids, Al Qaeda are the good terrorists! They try to strike at targets of clearly defined strategic importance, and they try not to hit women and children. (The operative word there being “try.”)
Isis, on the other hand, targets everyone. No one is spared their nihilistic wrath. They’re like the Black Plague. They’re famine. They’re pestilence. They ride dark horses. They decorate the territories they conquer with decapitated heads. They crucify their enemies; they set them on fire.
I got a kick out of that one.
###
Without taking away from the horror of the Paris attacks, I also feel compelled to note that suicide bombings in Beirut that took out 45 people on November 12 barely got covered at all in the Western press. We figure that’s business as usual for those people, right?
###
It was like 9/11. One slips into this sort of obsessive-compulsive trolling for news. As though each reviewing of the same footage is a cup with slightly different tea leaves in which you can view a slightly revised fortune.
When French police stormed the Bataclan, I wondered how come no one had invented a type of gas that would instantly render everyone who inhaled it unconscious That’s how they do it in the Marvel Superhero Universe, right? The SWAT team dons their protective gas masks; Bad Guys and victims alike inside the target area drop; the SWAT team rescues the victims and drags off the Bad Guys for interrogation and retribution. No water boarding, though. Water boarding is bad.
###
On September 12, 2001, we were living on Franklin Street in Monterey. I woke up with the kind of hangover you get when you’ve just spent 24 hours in front of the tube. Exercise! I thought. Exercise.
So I leashed Xena, our hyperactive Jack Russell terrier, and began the hike up Franklin Street to the Presidio. Monterey’s Presidio is bustling because it’s the site of a very famous military language school, the Defense Language Institute. (Subsequently, when I opened the Little Store, the DLI kids were among my most loyal customers.)
The Presidio had never been off-limits to civilians, possibly because it provides the only access to the lovely nature preserve called Huckleberry Hill where I ran Xena off-leash a few times every week. Jack Russell terriers have a lot of nervous energy, and they do much better in a household when they get regular opportunities to run that energy off.
But when I got to the little gate at the top of Franklin, I was met by guards toting assault rifles. “Stand back,” they snapped. They raised the rifles, and I heard them click.
And that was how I knew that the world had changed.
###
Anyway, I imagine the Democrats can just kiss the next election goodbye – particularly if Hillary “What difference does it make?” Clinton is the candidate.
And that debate over what to do about the Syrian refugees?
Over.
You just build barb-wired fences along all the borders and set fire to the refugee camps.
On the plus side, those barb-wired fences are gonna need guards, so this should be a plus for the Euro-area’s unemployment rate, which officially hovers around 11%.
But I did find this one story amusing.
It was Isis, of course. Retaliation for the death of “Jihadi John,” I would imagine. (Why does Western media persist in giving these assassins nicknames?)
But before that was confirmed, one of the newspapers I was trolling obsessively decided to fill up space by exploring the differences between Isis and Al Qaeda at some length. You see, kids, Al Qaeda are the good terrorists! They try to strike at targets of clearly defined strategic importance, and they try not to hit women and children. (The operative word there being “try.”)
Isis, on the other hand, targets everyone. No one is spared their nihilistic wrath. They’re like the Black Plague. They’re famine. They’re pestilence. They ride dark horses. They decorate the territories they conquer with decapitated heads. They crucify their enemies; they set them on fire.
I got a kick out of that one.
###
Without taking away from the horror of the Paris attacks, I also feel compelled to note that suicide bombings in Beirut that took out 45 people on November 12 barely got covered at all in the Western press. We figure that’s business as usual for those people, right?
###
It was like 9/11. One slips into this sort of obsessive-compulsive trolling for news. As though each reviewing of the same footage is a cup with slightly different tea leaves in which you can view a slightly revised fortune.
When French police stormed the Bataclan, I wondered how come no one had invented a type of gas that would instantly render everyone who inhaled it unconscious That’s how they do it in the Marvel Superhero Universe, right? The SWAT team dons their protective gas masks; Bad Guys and victims alike inside the target area drop; the SWAT team rescues the victims and drags off the Bad Guys for interrogation and retribution. No water boarding, though. Water boarding is bad.
###
On September 12, 2001, we were living on Franklin Street in Monterey. I woke up with the kind of hangover you get when you’ve just spent 24 hours in front of the tube. Exercise! I thought. Exercise.
So I leashed Xena, our hyperactive Jack Russell terrier, and began the hike up Franklin Street to the Presidio. Monterey’s Presidio is bustling because it’s the site of a very famous military language school, the Defense Language Institute. (Subsequently, when I opened the Little Store, the DLI kids were among my most loyal customers.)
The Presidio had never been off-limits to civilians, possibly because it provides the only access to the lovely nature preserve called Huckleberry Hill where I ran Xena off-leash a few times every week. Jack Russell terriers have a lot of nervous energy, and they do much better in a household when they get regular opportunities to run that energy off.
But when I got to the little gate at the top of Franklin, I was met by guards toting assault rifles. “Stand back,” they snapped. They raised the rifles, and I heard them click.
And that was how I knew that the world had changed.
###
Anyway, I imagine the Democrats can just kiss the next election goodbye – particularly if Hillary “What difference does it make?” Clinton is the candidate.
And that debate over what to do about the Syrian refugees?
Over.
You just build barb-wired fences along all the borders and set fire to the refugee camps.
On the plus side, those barb-wired fences are gonna need guards, so this should be a plus for the Euro-area’s unemployment rate, which officially hovers around 11%.
