TALE OF A TYRANT

I am a liar, a twister of truth, a teller of fact turned to fiction, a cheater who cheats with words and ideas with never an honest conviction. I am a teller of tales best untold, of falsehoods of my fabrication. I am corrupt, an unspeakable blot on the record of God's great creation.

I look into eyes of trustworthy souls, then spin webs of disaster. Men are such pawns for well-chosen words; lies make them slaves, I their master.

When I was a child at an innocent age and life became all too abusive, I found my escape from prisons of truth in make believe dreams less elusive.

I closed both my eyes to obvious facts, told myself lies without trying and soon felt secure in the hard shell of sham without foolish comfort of crying. Slowly I learned there is power in love, much greater power in hating. This is the path I chose for my life. I found a world eagerly waiting.

They all stood before me the black and the white, the Christians, the Jews and the others. Each without knowing soon was to spring at the throats of their sisters and brothers. Each would respond to my taut puppet strings, eager to further my mission. Anxious to plunder, to scatter their souls on well-beaten paths to perdition.

This was my plan, this was my scheme, this was my game of beguile. The world quaked and cringed. My mastery worked, at least for a very sort while. When I was exposed as the fraud that I am, the two-faced faker of fury, I was accused by the world I abused, sentenced by my judge and jury.

CONTACT: IT NOW IS A FACT!

"I've done it! I've done it!" the scientist raved. No one believed he could achieve the probably impossible goal he aimed for. But if what he claimed could be done, he'd gain fame by doing what he did: establish voice contact with man on a planet so distant colleagues were insistent it couldn't be done.

By Einstein, perhaps, and a few other chaps. But they were all dead, or so it had been said. Even they had thrown up their arms and said, "Oye vay. There ain't no vay to find a vay to do voht Got don't vant us to."

His father, a scientist in his own right, had had breakthroughs that made news throughout the universe. He'd proven twinkling stars were just lightning bugs in jars collected by kids on Jupiter and Mars as part of a project to project light in spite of the fact such a bright plight was out of sight.

His dad also found the world was not round, but was actually square just like the moonies who lived there. That discovery set the world on end and a few dropped off and were never seen again. He turned to his son and said "No one can talk to someone a zillion million miles away just like, hoo hey! Have a nice day."

But said his son: "I done it, Dad. I'll prove it with my Radrad-radio-yo-yo with a micromaniac yak-yak flow."

His son switched a thousand switches one by one. It took two days and the job was done. Then he turned up the squawker-talker-bleaker-squeaker- speaker, and suddenly voice was heard. It was absurd! It was a voice, yet it was not. It said no words and screeched a lot. It sounded like chimp and her pimp having you know what. Very complex, real high tec interstellar sweller sex.

Sonnyboy was full of joy on his michaelphone, jabbering back in old world Chimpimpumpanese. His Dad said, "Excuse me please. You say this whatchacallitese comes from zillions of miles away? At the speed of light your grandson will be old and gray when your reply finds its way to where you say it's going to go. As time goes, that's mighty slow."

"I know, Dad," said his lad, "but just think how proud you'll be to be the dad of me when we meet a zillion skillion years from now up in that 7/11 in the sky. I can't wait...sigh, sigh, sigh..."

"Neither can I," was Dad's reply.

DAMMIT! IT'S OUR PLANET!

Forget the moon, forget Mars. Be aware, care, be concerned what's happening to this planet of ours. Forget about oil, forget about wars, forget about gas guzzling cars and twinkling stars, just look at the scars our land has endured and we have made scant effort to cure and you're sure to understand the demands we must meet to lower the heat that's depleting and defeating our chance to survive and protect populations of future nations to remain longer alive.

The rude, crude lassitude our leaders exude in defying the fact our acts of genocide kills hills and dales, mountains and streams, hopes and dreams, technicalities we have ignored, claiming we can't afford to waste money making polar regions less sunny, hurricanes milder, jungles wilder, wetlands wetter and so much better, reducing emissions and changing conditions, lest we destroy more than we consume on the way to our doom.
We, the greatest democracy, most hated hypocrisy, do-little nation ignoring devastation of flower and fauna and everything else on a hell-bent road to annihilation.

Bush should not alone shoulder the blame, but his name is synonymous with what's upon us and will get worse next year and the year after next if we fail to redirect our energy to correct what was caused by short-sighted laws and programs that make no sense and contribute to events like immense hurricanes, torrential rains, droughts and out of control starvation, devastation and deprivation.

Who knows what else the world has in store waiting for us on some nearby or far distant shore! Dammit! This is our planet. How long can it survive if we don't keep it alive?

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

What a wonderful world we're living in, but how much better a world it would have been if God had not allowed His children to commit sin, the first and worst crime of all time.

There is nothing in recorded history that gives a clue to solve the mystery of how life started way back when there may have been no strife, no violence, no hate but only love of man and beast and birds that fly in the sky and fish that swim in the sea and every waterway and even tiny insects I expect were there because He had a reason why they should be a part of the first family who shared and cared for all equally.

But somehow God, from then till now, put too much trust in the souls He did entrust to all the creatures great and small. He stood aside and watched them slide into a world of His design until He saw the danger sign, but by then it was too late for greed and hate, lust and mistrust, had infected what He least expected would become of some, not all, He granted birth on this earth.

What happened as his flock progressed and spread far and wide across the breast of this world of magnificence and majesty and what God dreamed the world might be for endless time after He had completed His creativity. Love, sharing, caring, declaring dedication, but also desecration, death and annihilation. bloodletting and violation of the rules of God that went astray. And from then until this day so many among us have lost their way.

Imagine how many have suffered, how many died, how many cried. how many gone before their time, victims of man-created crime, who might have contributed events of glory to the story that even preceded, I do believe, the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve,

If things had worked out to God's plan, we can surmise, Man would be more wise, humanity would not compromise and God would be elated by the world that He created.

IS THERE TRUTH IN BIBLICAL FANTASY?

Are we caught in a world conspiracy that's based on Biblical fantasy that says angels fly invisibly in our midst and insist the Apocalypse is near and when it comes the world will disappear. The true believers are quite sincere and are convinced the end will come this year.

But the apostles of the impossible hedge their bets. The truth be known, those who portend the end say it will depend on the war between good and evil which will cause upheaval on this sphere and the death of every doubting creature who lives here.

Before I tell you more about what the Evangelists have in store as proof the End of Times is coming soon, possibly by this June, I must admit I do not believe a word of it. I am a skeptic, have always been, will always be, and say of every hair-brained theory, prove it to me.

I do not believe in angels, ghosts or devils or any spirits or any mythological illogical apparitions of the fanatical, fanciful faithful fringe. Faith alone is not enough. Truth is based on fact, not fiction. It's not predicated on prediction. That is my conviction. So it be. That is me.

Did you know millions say it's so that 9/11 was a welcome sign of the coming End of Times when Christ will rise again and all believers will be spared and transported to Heaven? Those who believe in prophecy are convinced the Bible is the word of God and His book predicts that death and devastation which rocked our nation and all civilized members of civilization is just the beginning of the end. Nearly 60 percent believe the predictions in Revelation are part of the world's ultimate fatal destination.

As long ago as the sixteenth century, believers feared pictures on government documents looked like the "Mark of the Beast." as it was described in the Book of Revelations.

Sightings are inviting prophecies, believers say. Visions of the Messiah are everywhere, in the exhaust fumes of cars, on wrappings on candy bars, on smoke emissions from cigars. A vision of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich was sold on e-bay, brought about $30,000. And how about this? A talking fish on the way to its slaughter in a New York market
cried out in Hebrew the fear that the end of the world was near. Some believe it is already here and will occur this year, perhaps as soon as June.

If you believe all this and other idiocy, forget fear of a failing economy, welcome floods and droughts and other "acts of God," wars declared and miseries shared. And give three cheers for terror in the Middle East. Has the "Mark of the Beast," as warned in the Book of Revelations, returned to cause devastation to civilization?

If all this unbelievable, widely believed stuff were not enough, a Seattle newspaper asked: "Is Bush the Antichrist?" And a minister cited Bush's support of the "rise in Christian Fascism" as evidence of this belief.

Subliminal messages pop up almost everywhere. Consider the theme of the Bush program, "No child will be left behind." This brings to mind that phrase is also part of the title of a novel based on the Revelations and the Antichrist, "Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days." Is there a connection between Bush's failing program and the novel's description of what happens to those left behind to fight the Antichrist. Possibly not. But with Dubya's weird beliefs and flights of fantastic fantasy, you never can tell.

Well, I'll stick around to wait and see. That is, unless, their predictions come true this June, or soon thereafter.

HEAVEN'S IN A HELL OF A STATE

Have you heard about what's been happening in Heaven of late? The economy's in a hell of a state. The clouds are outdated. They haven't been upgraded since they were created. The Golden Gate is antiquated and the accumulated cumulous clouds are sparsely populated. The real estate is poorly rated and who in heck'll invest a shekel in rundown, dilapidated Heavenly Condos? God knows.

The angels who buy and sell know well why Heaven's going to hell while Hell is booming even while flaming inflation's looming. The economy's hot, which was expected, because it's overpopulated by the loser/winner sinners, the rejected defectives who refused directives from their holy CEO
millions of years ago.

It's preposterous how prosperous hell's become. Its economy is on a roll and the price of coal to fuel its fire keeps rising hire which is not surprising.

The Demon Dow is overjoyed. There are few unemployed. Just to keep hell hot keeps stokers stoking and rocking around the clock. Meanwhile heaven's freezing, hell is booming, God is fuming, What is looming for Heaven and Hell? Only Father Time can tell.

TO DEMONSTRATE GENERATES HATE

We are a nation of immigrants, no matter where or when we were born, We all, in one way are another, were once considered a mass of class known as "the others," the "greenhorns." The foreign born are told, "Go back where you came from." What they forget or ignore, a generation or two before we knew the wonder of this freedom's land their ancestors came to the U.S.A. for the same reason, to be free, to make true their dream of liberty.

Legal or illegal, rich or poor. it doesn't matter any more. They're here, they working, some have achieved more than they believed they could, paid their taxes, paid their way. They're now a part of the U. S. A. They should be treated that way,

My grandparents came from foreign lands, didn't understand the way we spoke. They often were the butt of jokes. They couldn't read. They couldn't write, had no place to sleep at night. But they knew wrong from right. They saw the light of liberty and said, "This is the land for me. I don't want to be a refugee. I want to be a Yankee. An American. To be free. To know no fear. That's for me. It's why I'm here."

At last, they shed their rags, a badge of their past. Chose simple clothes. Saved their pennies, nickels, dimes, in the best and worst of times, learned, earned and paid their way. They were here to stay. The U. S. A. wasn't going away. Neither were they.

Many entered illegally, gave a name (not their own), gave their place of birth but had no ID, record of age or ethnicity, only their word they loved and fervently craved freedom and democracy.

(My mother-in-law came more than eighty years ago as a child, no knowledge of the country where she was born, no birth certificate, absolutely no ID, never became a citizen, married here, had four kids, worked hard and retired on SSI with all the benefits we who are here legally enjoy unquestionably. Yet, she was a refugee until her dying day. She paid her way as millions of illegals do today.

So why the hue and cry and all the hullabaloo about the millions of this generation where there's no doubt about their veneration for this land, threatened with excommunication on a mere technicality? The bill before Congress is just a ploy to win the votes of those who, luckily, came here legally and enjoy all the benefits of citizenry.

It's the shame of our nation that millions must stage a demonstration to protect their rights to be part of the history of our ever-evolving, loving land of the free. Our democracy!

THE ECOLOGIST

Harry stood at the side of the dump gazing at the mound of garbage---he preferred to call it refuse---the throwaways of an affluent economy. A burlap bag hung loosely over his shoulder, he stood proud,

In the past, when Harry cameto the dump to fill his bag with things he could eat, wear or sell he felt a sense of shame and degradation for what he diud.. It was a way to eke out a living, better than working for those clean finger-nailed slobs who held the power of the paycheck over his head. But he had no illusions. "I'm a scrounger, a ragpicker," he told himself.

Things were different now. He had an image, a title. "Ecologist, that's what I am. I help improve the environment, to preserve our national and natural resources."

It was just a few minutes before dawn. Harry had to get up early these days
because if a man wanted to get ahead in this ecological world he couldn't let any garbage slip through his fingers. For years he had the dump all to himself, No one invaded his domain or challenged his leadership at the bottom of the heap. But things had changed. He was no longer the only ecologist in town.

"Amateurs," he muttered. He spat two feet away into an open can that once held baked beans or, maybe, tomato soup. It was hard to see the label at this distance. "Where were they when you had to work for a living, when the only cash items were returnable deposit cans and bottles, when a heavy retread-able truck tire might get you enough for a shot or a pack of smokes. When you had to find an old bedspring or a length of copper wire to afford a flop for the night.

"Better get to work," he told himself. "They'll be coming soon with their dump truck and hired hands, moving in on me."

I AM A SEMI-LITERATE LITERARY POCKETBOOK CROOK

I am a semi-literate very, very literary litterbug, a rat pack who takes hiS loot to the sack and never gives it back. I get a very special feeling stealing things like secondhand, re-re-read pocketbooks which, as most crooks know, can most easily be pocketed when nobody's watching. And even if you're caught you're seldom prosecuted. There's no dispute you've got the loot hidden in your crotch, but what guy will stick his hand down there to recover what your lover will discover on the sheets between the covers?

Actually, I'm against shoplifting, especially when I'm gifting to Shirl, my favorite birthday girl. What if she already read it, takes it back and gets arrested when a requested counterfeit receipt slip reveals her indiscrete relationship with a well-known crook who took the book from the shelf all by himself?

I can see the headline now:

POCKETBOOK CROOK ADMITS HE TOOK BOOK;
GIRLFRIEND HELD AS ACCESSORY TO THE FAX

WHEN PRESIDENTS WERE PRESIDENTS

I am old enough to remember when presidents were members of the human race and knew their place in history would be judged by the way they took care of the entire population of this nation, not just the chosen few who only care about themselves and the hell with me and you.

I am young enough at 83 to remember when presidents served the likes of me and mine, the kind the founders had in mind when they spoke of "We, the People," in hard fought campaigns and, yes! even from the halls of Congress, to the wants and needs of the working man, not just for big shot bosses who worry more about profit and losses, less about the cost of living and giving hirelings an even break, for goodness sake!

I remember vaguely Herbert Hoover, certainly not a shaker, mover, who never cared or shared the pain of factory workers, soup-line standers, soda jerkers, the unemployed who meandered everywhere searching desperately for jobs that just weren't there. His only confession was we were in a depression and nothing could be done about it, the only way we'd get out of it was to sit and wait. The nation waited and debated, then came FDR and a war across the shore that America could not ignore, especially after the Jap attack when we struck back. His creed: serve the need of working man. He did and slowly things began to improve and we were on an upward move.

Roosevelt's tragic death brought to the helm HST---Harry Truman, a true man who faced reality and brought the war to its finality. He knew it had to be. The A-bomb ushered in an era that, for better or for worse, changed the course of history. But it caused Japan to surrender. A blast that knelled the end to war.

Without rehashing everything, the point is that whenever a Democrat sat in the driver's seat, the president strove to meet the needs of all, not just the cartels that swear by oil wells, destroy the ecology, drive up the cost of energy, fuel recession and flirt with depression.

We liked Ike, but what did he do to improve the lives of folks like you? Nixon was forced to resign to avoid more trouble down the line. His VP, Spiro Agnew, as corrupt as a political hack could be, also resigned to save his hind. And now we have GWB. and his presidency is a disgrace as his place in history, few will deny, will testify.

I haven't mentioned LBJ who paved the way for civil rights, fought poverty with all his might, refused a second term because of that damn Viet Nam. But Johnson did a lot to make Uncle Sam proud, unlike the past and present Republican crowd.

For crying out loud, when is America going to learn? You can't trust the GOP. Just take a look at the end result, the insult of Tricky Dick. Agnew, too, who should have gone to jail. And Dubya, the biggest failure of them all. When will Humpty Dumpty Dubya fall off the wall?

CONVERSATION ABOUT GOD

"I have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

"How? The Lord came a long time ago. He didn't like what he saw and so He left."

But He returned incognito, of course. I recognized him in spite of his disguise."

"Disguise? What did He look like?"

"Once I saw Him disguised as a a forest fire. He was burning down trees in the North Pole."

"That means He's a selective god. He couldn't be a forest fire in the cold North Pole where there are no trees."

"Sure. He could be a forest fire in the Sahara Desert if He wanted to. Or He could be anything He desired. Remember, years ago, those baby white seals, they had beautiful fur rich women wanted for high style coats,"

"You mean those creatures were slaughtered by God?"

"No, He wasn't the killers, He was the creatures, He let the killers bash out His brains so He could punish them for their cruelty. He kept changing Himself from one seal to another and each time He got a new set of brains for the ones the killers had destroyed."

"He's a pretty brainy God, isn't He?"

"Yes. And powerful. All He has to do is wink His left eye to become this or that. If He winks His right eye, He becomes that or this. If He blinks both eyes together He's in a dozen places at once being a cat and a dog, a leaf and a log, even both Adam and Eve, and a snake and an apple, I do believe."

"But that event is not in the Bible."

"No. but He'll add it to the revised edition."

ALL ABOUT SENIOR DEMEANOR

You've been told you're getting old. Your kids are aware of it and can't forget what they'll inherit when you're gone. It's an actual, factual reality that they must fret about how much they'll get, Let them know now, not yet, then go in debt and don't worry about your credit. Let it ride as you slowly slide into silly senility and lose the ability to tell a dollar from a dime while you're having a helluva time with money borrowed from the bank at prime.

Seniority is an age and a stage in life when, if you still have a husband or a wife, and even if you've not, use it or you'll lose it. If you think you lost it, jump in the sack and try to get it back,

Don't spend your time guessing how much longer you'll be here. Count your blessings and keep messing, caressing and undressing while expressing words of woo to you-know-who while you try to do what nature, if not the state legislature, intended you to do

Forget the fear of the hereafter which will still be here after you disappear in a year or two or three or what ever more it might be. Defy statistics. Be unrealistic. Go ballistic. And if your kids think you're sick say they're right and admit it. Be glad you did what you done. Wasn't it a lot of fun!

Be thankful if you're still sound of mind and body because that's what everybody wants to be. Even if you're hooked on medications. as long as your disease isn't catching take that extensive, expensive vacation with your significant other and I don't mean your sister or your brother. If you've still got a dad or a mother put 'em in a nursing home and roam to Rome or Timbuktu, Peru or any place that you desire. Set your world on fire before you fizzle out. That's what life is all about.

RACKING UP THE IRAQ COST

The trillion plus fuss that we cuss about and shout about and can't get out of keeps on going up at a rate of $200 million a day and if Bush insists on staying the course, which of course he will, the shitsuation will get worse and worse and they'll carry Uncle Sam away in a hearse towed by a horse, of course, as the price of gas per gal costs more than two drops of booze, a pair of used, smelly old running shoes or a cruise for two in a canoe to the zoo, Peru or Timbuktu.

If we choose to refuse to defuse and continue to pay three more tearful years of dues the USA stands to lose $400 Billion more (and that's a B and it stands for Bush) and that's bad news. And that figure doesn't figure in inflation or the endless occupation, restoration and a long Texas vacation for the leading loser of our nation.

All this being true or true enough to assume tough times to come, how can this country be so dumb as to keep this rum soaked joke in the Blight House until the budget's broke, broke, broke?

THE BIG, BAD BAGHDAD BUDGET

Forget the millions. Forget the billions. Think in trillions, then add a plus. That's what Bush's Big Bad Baghdad War is costing us. There are no longer estimates. Figures are only guesstemates. And no matter what. That' just to pay for bombs and planes and salaries for the brainless brains that got us in it, said we'd win it in a breeze, the time it would take for Sadam to sneeze, say "No thank you. please. Iraq's got no WMDs."

Hussein. the main reason Bush committed treason, may now be in our slammer. But just listen to him yammer-yammer and all the while his so-called trial is delayed while the game of war is being played, raid after raid and it hasn't made a sniff of dif. And if it lasts umpteen-plus more years, as it appears it just might, there may not be anybody left to fight. After all of them and all of us are dead we may choose peace instead.

In the mean time, in the lean in-between time, in this obscene time, with the urgent insurgents on a roll, well bless my soul, it's a whole new ball game going on and on and on and, you bet, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera! It ain't over yet!

FIGHT FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS!

Suzie Q knew she was born in a zoo. But born to who? She had to have a family, a mom and dad like humans do. She knew this was so. What she didn't know was how did she manage to grow to be this monstrosity she became with just a first name and an initial. It all sounded so superficial, so artificial.

Day by day, she sits exposed in her cage aware human apes have clothes to wear and no one dares to stare. She reasons, at least if we wore T-shirts and underwear, we wouldn't be so shamefully bare, with all our parts on display for people to see shamelessly, endlessly.

We look at them dressed fit to kill, they look at us, if you will. in all our crude nudity. Why do they do this while exercising their modesty?

Why is there such disregard for the features of we, the fur-covered creatures? Their hypocrisy causes animosity between us and they. The human mammals say we're just dumb animals. This attitude exposes their stupidity.

So what, they say, if we trammel on their senseless sensitivities, their propensity to share the right to modesty? Humanoids avoid exposing their own sexuality and treat ours with frivolity and the impossibility that we, too, have integrity, odd though humans think that might be.

We apes and monkeys, even deer and donkeys, gnus and kangaroos and all the others in and out of zoos can no longer be the flunkies of the human junkies addicted to things like pot, exotic narcotics and all that rot.

We animals demand our share of civil rights. We so-called dumb animals are not so dumb. And we, too, shall overcome!

PLAYING THE G0VERNMENT GAME

I got my start in infancy, perfection on inspection by my mother who birthed me, the obstetrician who checked my condition and declared me A-OK. When did I go astray, fill my gut with god knows what, shoot up my veins, scramble my brains, develop aches and pains and break bones and take out loans to pay Dr. Jones, who double dips and gyps Medicaid and Medicare, makes me sit around in my underwear, then files claims for every therapy and medication where he gets kickback compensation.

D. Jones, specialist in skin and bones and eveything in-between, knows how to rake in the green treating any part of the anatomy that serves his knack for quackery. He gets big bucks for all the action, sometimes gives me a fraction to keep my mouth shut because I know what he's doing, screwing the system for phony care, stuff he didn't do to patients no longer here, already dead.

Sounds impossible but this is the Gospel, according to Jones:

Medicare, Medicaid, the IRS, the whole damn mess in Washington, couldn't care less as long as bills are cheap and those creeps steal more than a whore at the rubber store. Just play the game of rob and steal, make a deal, kick back ten percent to a guy who cooks the books, more to elected crooks who look the other way as long as payday's every day. The budget, the national debt, the waste? You ain't seen nothin' yet. When the system gets full control, the whole place will collapse. Voting saps won't realize what's going on until all the money's gone."

Doc Jones said, "So what? I get caught. We make a deal, we settle out of court, the Treasury comes up short and old Doc Jones, the sinner, wins the dinner. I got more dough stashed away than the mint prints on a busy day." He laughs. "I exaggerate. But what I mean, I got enough on my plate to last me until my date with hell and then a spell."

And me? I'm pushing eighty-three. What can they do to me? Toss this old man in the can? Like the doc says, So what I get caught. I go to jail, get out on bail. They say pay. My lawyer says, Delay! Judgment day is far away.

CONSOLATION

If I could remember everything I read
I would be a smarter man, indeed.
This is beyond me. I'll do something yet
By creating lots of nothing others can forget.

THE WALL STREET STORY

In the town of Buyn'sale there's a home for losers where broken brokers stay up late to ruminate, cogitate and meditate over deals gone astray that haunt them to their dying day. They await their fate while men still play the Wall Street game of buy and sell and try to earn through manipulation compensation controlled by the disgraced whims of the marketplace.

In their last will and testament investors send their soul to where they know good souls should go It's good-bye Wall Street where reality meets finality and all expectations and anticipations, successful occupations, years of building successful careers can fade instantaneously in the the smoke-filled air of bet and borrow against the sorrow of a tomorrow that can go sour in an hour that took a lifetime to build is killed in the minuets you hesitated and stayed in it.

There goes the long vacation to the south of France for the guy who lost his pants in a moment of unadulterated needless greed when he followed a liar into the fire of uncontrolled desire. There goes a dynasty into unforeseen bankruptcy because its leaders failed to foresee, to their surprise, the
competition on the rise.

This is how fortunes are won and lost. You toss a coin, it ends up heads you do, tails you don't, sometimes no matter how you choose you lose. Who can you accuse? Who can you blame? Pick a name. The name is you. What can you do? Give up like other men. Or bide your time and try again.

Final word: it's back to the drawing board!

WE MUST SAVE THE U. S. A.

Bush is in a dive, his body's still alive, but this dumb-head's brain is dead and so, too, the world might be if we don't dump this lump of clay and hurry on our way to save the U. S. A.

With the whole world growing warmer this alarmer tries to play the charmer and disarm the masses who fell for this horse's asses plea, "Trust me." A lot did that and what they got--- A red hot planet getting hotter, polluted air and water. rules only fools agree will reinvigorate a ship of state sinking at a faster rate than even we could anticipate.

The warning signs were everywhere that we should be aware and beware of what this millionaire set out to do: give this nation to the corporations to rob us blind, all to inflate their bottom line and let the Enrons off the hook after they cooked the book and made it look like what was was not just to get what they got and we who got stuck with their stock fell for that crock of pure Wall Street manure.

Put it all together, the withering weather, the ailing economy and the failing ecology, the lies, the cheating, the self-defeating beatings that our troops are taking, the two thousand plus dead Bush led astray all the way from Day One until their lives were done, add it all up and who's to blame? Not the nit-wits who stole it and still control it, but We the People who let them get away with it. Now we and the world must pay for it.

MY DEAR STUPID CONSTITUENCY:

I ran. Iran, will it be next? I attacked and sacked Iraq, now I can't give it back. Now I'm back against the wall and all I can do is send more GIs to their grave just to save my skin and hope it helps a few Republicans win in the next election/selection before a post-vote inspection finds we once again stole the votes at the polls, the goal we achieved when the Supreme Court ignored the score and did what, it's believed, Supreme Courts are for.

Now, to get Iraq and the pollsters off my back, there's only one thing I can do and that's to force Iran into a Nuke attack where the U. S. will win and get its money back by selling bombs to every nation that wants a mideast confrontation that will leave more oil for sale in the sandy soil.

What if a million Iranians die in a brand new war? You'll have more gas to run your car, for isn't that what wars are for? Yes, that and a quick fix to guarantee a lot more years for the GOP, and possibly, the next presidency, And that makes sense to me.


SIGNED WITH HIS X (G. W. B,)

A DEVIL IN MY BRAIN

A devil reigns at some subterranean level in my brain. I must find the tyrant of my mind and get it out. No therapist or exorcist can do it, only I. Thus, I have meditated and mediated with the monster manipulating me to extricate the demon that dwells in the depths of me.

Did you know that contained in every brain, each tinier than a grain of sand, more complex than the whole of man are millions of cells and in each dwells a programmed thought or mindless memory? There, subconscious concentration causes all kinds of complications, tensions and apprehensions.

Did you know the ego and libido are in a constant state of war for power and each waking, sleeping hour are trying to devour the id that's hidden inside of the hide of of me?

But I have to ask myself this question: am I sure I want to cure myself of all this congestion and walk around with a whitewashed mind who thinks and records his words in invisible ink? Do I want it said that there's nothing in Ed's head but a lot of dead dread and dreary fear left over from a previous yesteryear?

True, I worry about my mentality but am wracked by a sentimentality for what I'll lose to gain what's on the wain in exchange for something strange that I will have to get used to, It's difficult, dramatic and traumatic to trade the old for something new but this is what I have to do.

CLOUDING THE ISSUE

(News item: The Navy has developed a method of creating rain clouds at an average cost of 18 cents each.)

Sky high prices everywhere. Living costs are zooming. But one product's price is fair. The market for it's booming, Buy a cloud for eighteen cents. Hang it o'er your flowers. Life will make a lot more scents every time it showers.

Not to cloud the issue but the cost of rain's declining. If your grass turns brown, so what! Don't grow around a-frowning. Buy yourself a cloud or two. Be happy while you're drowning.

HOT AND COLD

The legless lady jumped to her feet and jumped in the fridge to get some heat

THE PLANTED SEED

When the cold of winter has begun its hibernation in the clouds behind the far reaches of the midnight sun and the warmth and wetness of spring have rejuvenated the land, a healthy seed is planted with loving green thumb hand.

Wrapped in the gentle womb of Mother Earth, the seed takes root and grows. And whether it's a flower, tree or vegetable, before long it emerges in shape and form true to its heritage,

But if the seed is planted improperly in land unsuited to its demands it will die before it is born. Or it will sprout roots which are feeble and branches, stem or stalk that do not do justice to the glorious history of its agricultural ancestry.

So, too, is the seed of man implanted in woman. It may grow in its allotted time to be a human with roots of legs and feet which will walk the face of Earth, branches of arms and a lofty peak of eyes that see and ears that hear, nostrils that breathe in the sweetness of life, a head whose mind records and transmits this to the bodily whole.

The product of a misplaced seed implanted by man into woman may sprout into a full-grown, fully developed, undetectable perfect specimen of humanity, guided and controlled by a misshapen mind and misdirected mentality. There is not a plant, vegetable or plant, tree or bush or honeybee, or any other variety of nature's family than can be ruled by this intricate, compact mass that runs effectively by nature's natural electricity

While every part of the whole, body and soul, can respond and function at every junction normally, a monster of mankind may live within, resigned and confined to insanity.

ONCE UPON A MIND

Once upon a time back a while
When someone acted like a fool
The diagnosis was "senile."
At least that was the general rule.
Age and science have since changed
And medicine is not the same,
Today our values are rearranged.
And doctorS use another name,
Alzheimers is the word of choice
For those who've lost their mental way,
Now there's reason to rejoice
And pray this disease will go away,
The heart still beats, liver's intact.
The kidneys work efficiently.
All the parts respond, react
Except the source of mentality.
The thinking mind has lost its thought
And flounders like a ship at sea,
What irony time and tide have wrought
Where in hides the mystery?
While science seeks a final cure.
Can the mind, once lost, return
Or must vegetation long endure
In a state where they cannot discern
The beauty of a morning sun
Or raise their voice in joyful song
Or find humor in a silly pun
Or even know right from wrong?
What do they see when they look?
What do sounds mean to their ear?
Life for them has closed the book,
They're somewhere. They're not here.

END OF THE WORLD

All your billions and bombs and blood won't be worth a bucket of mud when the killing's over and all that's left are cockroaches and clover, scorched trees and dead honey bees, a fridge full of rotten cheese and dried up seas and a "No thank you, please."

There'll be no disease and nobody to catch it, no chicken or egg or a hen to hatch it and who'd hit a fly ball when there's nobody to catch it? The immense expense for uncivil defense won't cover the expense of cover the cost of reconstruction of unwanted wanton destruction.

There'll be no love, no hate, no too early, too late, no caring, no sharing, no civilization, no today, no tomorrow, no sadness or sorrow, no splashes and clashes, only burned out fields of dry bones and ashes.