“Gimme a minute, that Squeaker’s gavel has to be up here somewhere.”
The House of Reprehensibles is fixin’ to gavel itself on the noggin again starting at noon Swamp time, and you’ll want to have the popcorn and soda within easy reach.
From the sound of things Charlie McCarthy is prepared to give away everything that makes the Squeaker’s gig even halfway meaningful in order to get his pampered paws on the gavel.
Then the Freedumb Fighters will grab said gavel and run away, giggling. “Psych! Now we want a blood oath to the Constitution, mandatory open carry in the House Chamber, and the Squeaker has to do a daily dance on TikTok. In his tighty-whities.”
This is why it’s a bad idea to negotiate with terrorists. Their planning stops at the hostage-taking stage. From that point on it gets Western real quick, all horseshit and gunfire.
Look! Up in the sky! Is that the white smoke signaling that a new Poop has been elected by the House of Reprehensibles?
Nope. Just morning clouds over the Sandias. But Charlie McCarthy has been dancing on his many, many strings overnight, trying to attract an audience that is more of a fan base and less of a lynch mob, and the show resumes at noon Swamp time.
I see he has Orange Julius Caesar in his corner now, which may be like having Dracula as your cut man.
The checkered flag for one year doubles as the starter’s pistol for the next.
Brand-new year, same old feeling:
What now?
I’ve been doing laps on this circuit since March 1954, and I suppose I should be happy that I haven’t been black-flagged yet.
2022 was the first time I’ve been off the clock for an entire calendar year since I signed on with the Gazette Telegraph back in 1977. That’s what I call an extended pit stop (props to the mechanics at Social Security for the fuel and new rubber all the way around).
You’d think that after such a lengthy pause for the cause I’d have decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. Nope. Pissed it away cycling, running, hiking, grocery shopping, cooking, playing with the cat, reading, watching TV, and dicking around on the Innertubes. When I wasn’t asking “How high?” whenever Herself barked “Jump,” that is.
The old man took up real-estate sales when he retired from the U.S. Air Force, but that’s not for me. The only thing I ever sold successfully (other than free-range rumormongery to publishers) was weed to hippies. It was loads easier for a prospective buyer to commit to a $12 lid and there was less paperwork involved.
“Need any papers with that?”
“Naw, man, I got a pipe.”
And unlike publishers, the hippies paid up front.
Hey, maybe I should run for Squeaker of the House? Looks like Kevin McCarthy isn’t getting the trade-in value he’d expected for that scratched-and-dented soul of his with its four bald retreads, the weird stains in the back seat, and the air freshener that ain’t quite gettin’ ’er done.
Naw. That’d be worse than dealing weed or words. Imagine having to listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene while pretending to care what she’s going on and on and on about. I’d have to start smoking that shit again.
If you live long enough, despite the flu’s best efforts, you’re bound to learn something.
Knights in white satin.
For instance, in my ignorance, I always thought that the phrase “Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out” was of comparatively recent coinage. It sounds like something U.S. Col. John “Nits Make Lice” Chivington might have said at the Sand Creek Massacre. Or maybe Lt. Col. Allen “Islam is Not a Religion” West while torturing a captive in Iraq.
But according to Charles P. Pierce, who recently took note of a New Republic piece on a fondness among the right-wing intelligentsia for the good old days of medieval Catholicism and other European niceties — “Constitutionalism, Enlightenment rationality, religious freedom, and republicanism are out. European aristocracy, crusading holy orders, and mysticism are in,” — writes Graham Gallagher — the phrase has its roots in the 13th-century papal crusade against the Cathars in southern France.
Here’s Charlie:
Back in those days, of course, Roman Catholicism had armies and its temporal power was unsurpassed. Theological disputes were conducted at the point of a sword. The crusade against the Cathars in the south of France killed more than a million people, many of whom died simply because of where they lived. It was this latter sanctified savagery that gave us the infamous battle plan explained by Arnaud Amalric, a Cistercian monk and the official ambassador from Rome to the armies arrayed against the Cathars. Before the crusaders massacred almost everyone in the town of Beziers, Amalric is reputed to have said, “Kill them all. God will know his own.”
And you thought it was an inconvenience when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came calling, brandishing their Watchtowers. Just wait until a flying squad of these new warrior monks rings your bell. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that the intellectual heirs of these ring-kissing brigands might not be fans of Tom Lehrer.
We’re taking out the garbage, but we’ll be back later for some observations and a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat (if Officer Obie doesn’t get us en route).
While you wait, walk into the shrink, wherever you are, and sing a bar of “Alice’s Restaurant.”
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