Who Cares Who Owns The Media? -- 6/1/2003

Today, after a long and ludicrous debate forced upon it by "interest" groups such as Internet users and those concerned with freedom of speech, the Federal Communications Commission will issue a completely just ruling.   Let us all hail the abolition of an antiquated system of rules that prevents large companies from owning a newspaper and a television station in the same market! We welcome media companies, those most backward-looking of all capitalist enterprises, into the 21st Century.   Please allow me to be the first to say: Howdy-do, neighbor!

The FCC's critics obviously have no conception of how the media works.   I've worked for many newspapers and magazines, and appeared on television somewhere between four and eight times.   I can tell you for certain that the corporate owners of media outlets never, ever, ever influence content, particularly when it comes to environmental news.   So stop worrying, you ninnys.   The situation has improved drasticallly.   Why, I remember 1974 like it was 2000.   At 4 PM on any given weekday, your only viewing options were Zoom on PBS, a showing of some old movie like Key Largo on a UHF station, and reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show.   Now look at our choices.   Surf Girls, for one, on MTV.   J Lo's Top 10 Hot Motorcycles on VH1.   Black Judge Court on WGN.   Truth Report with Shep Smith on Fox News.   And those are just my four favorite stations.   There are so many more, some of them sports-related, some of them geared toward women, some of them showing loud Japanese cartoons.   So how can people honestly say there's no diversity in media?

Essentially, with satellite-based programming, DVD's, the Internet,I-Pods, cell phones, and many other inventions that I don't know about, one could argue that people have access to too much information, from too many sources.   That's what the FCC is trying to correct, and quickly.   We are, after all, engaged in a war, a war on Terror, a just war without end, and this is no time for independently-owned media outlets to fall into the hands of people who might oppose the President and his policies.   That's why I'm glad Michael Powell is in charge of the FCC.   He's just the man to keep the rabble in line.

I believe it was my mentor at Oxbridge, Sir Francis Crapshoot, who said, "an excess of information, if controlled by a excess of providers, inevitably leads to public confusion, followed by free thought and free elections.   This can never be healthy for a country fortunate enough to be led by a man sent by God to bring peace and prosperity to all corners of the earth willing to practice abstinence before marriage."   I believe that says it all.   Antiquated rules of media ownership just get in the way of our divine mission.

There should be one exception to the rule changes, though.   The Teabagging Network must continue to be owned by the Danish man who currently runs its programming.   Without his knowledge of the ball-dipping arts and his extensive video library, a great sexual practice would fade into the dusk.   But I don't really care about any other outlet.   Let Clear Channel buy them all.   Clear Channel seems to know what it's doing.

Today's Special Guest: Christopher Hitchens! -- 5/30/2003

By Christopher Hitchens

I have written a long review of Neal Pollack's book, “I Loved Him: The Trials Of America's Greatest President,” which will appear in the July issue of I Used To Have Intellectual Integrity magazine.   It is a political review, bitter and recriminatory in tone, and if you care enough you will just have to read it in full, or possibly translate it into Russian.   I am not willing, and nor was I commissioned, to burden the readers of this fine magazine, paid for by a generous grant from Richard Mellon Scaife, with a detailed rebuttal of Pollack's accusations that I am a pretentious, alcoholic womanizer who cloaks his frat-boy antics in Auden references.   Why should I?   It's so obviously not true.

Even a brief accusation or suggestion against oneself, when made in print, often necessitates a long, pompously-written reply, full of its own special brand of thinly-diguised slander.   Pollack's book is nothing but sexual hagiography masquerading as a politcal tract.   I do not want it suspected, because I know you all care SO much, that I have nothing to say about the comments that chiefly concern my own role as destroyer of the realm.   So here is my response.

The pages that deal with me number approximately 250 out of 900, vastly underestimating my role in Clinton's Washington.   The majority of them appear in a chapter misleadingly entitled “Fuck Christopher Hitchens, Who Used To Be My Friend."   A “friend," by my definition, is someone who doesn't show up at your house reeking of gin at 3 AM, claiming he's going to "get you but good."   A "false friend" is one who gets you but good but doesn't tell you he's going to.   I have many such acquaintances.   Neal Pollack, on the other hand, belongs in a third, more sinister category.   His entire conception of Clintonian Washington seems to rest on the premise that there were Inquisitors afoot who wanted to take the President down by unethical means, a claim as absurd as it is reactionary.   Now, some quibbles.

On page 115 it is stated that my affidavit calling the President a "distended penile membrane" was delivered in tacit collusion with Kenneth Starr's secret financial backers.   I was merely reporting what I'd read in the press.   And since when was it a criminal act to use the President's sex life as a platform for carrying out an obscure vendetta?

On page 349 it is stated that Pollack cannot remember the lunch with me and my beloved wife where he dumped a pot of coffee in my lap and placed his hands on her breasts, saying "I want to lick your ta-tas, you sexy bitch."

On pages 503-4 Pollack dares state that Jeff Gerth of The New York Times, one of the greatest reporters in human history, may have been politically motivated in his reports about the Whitewater scandal and subsuquent Clintonian misdeeds.   I can say with absolute certainly, because we attend the same Summer Camp For The Bylined Willing, that Gerth was merely doing his duty as citizen of empire.   The destruction of the President was merely an inevitable consequence of his courage.   Also, I do not "suck ass," as Pollack claims.

On page 619, Pollack claims to be my long-lost brother.   He did make such a claim back when we were "friends," but only because he wanted to sleep with my wife.   I found this out when he attempted to brain me on a rowboat on an Italian lake as part of a grand, if somewhat unpremeditated, plot to steal my identity.   This became clear at the Vanity Fair party at my house after the White House correspondents’ annual dinner, when he walked around saying to guests, "Hello, I'm Christopher Hitchens.   Has anybody seen my beautiful wife? It's nearly time for her to fellate me, as she does every night at this time!" Absurd.   My wife rarely fellates me.   I told you this would be trivial.

On page 850, Pollack says that "I made friends with Hitchens's friends the novelists Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie."   Totally false.   I once brought Amis and Rushdie to dinner at Pollack's house, but only because Rushdie heard that there were going to be blond chicks there, and because Amis needed to meet Pollack's orthodontist.   The evening ended badly, with Pollack saying, "Rushdie, you're a self-involved nicompoop who wrote his only good book 15 years ago, and Martin, you're a closet Stalinist who will pay for your thought crimes."   He was right on both counts, but he was still cruel and unstylish.

On page 908, he states that "history will forget Christopher Hitchens, but Bill Clinton will live forever in our history books, thoughts, and dreams."   Hardly, Pollack, hardly.   I am the Orwell of our time, one of only 300 reporters with the courage to gloat over the conquest of Baghdad.   I called Mother Teresa and Henry Kissinger on their shit! That took balls.   What has Bill Clinton done for the world?   Compared with the contribution of me, Christopher Hitchens, nothing.   Lies, Pollack!   Goddamn sedition!   Carol!   Where's my Scotch?

I Still Loved Him: More Trials Of America's Greatest President -- 5/29/2003

It appears that the Bush Administration is being criticized by the Red Cross for its treatment of war detainees at Guantanamo Bay.   In other news, Amnesty International yesterday condemned the U.S. for its human-rights record at Guantanamo, saying that it has "lost the moral authority" to prosecute the War On Terror.   Once again, false accusations are being levelled at the Bush Administration by third-rate thinkers.   What in the world do the Red Cross and Amnesty International know about moral authority? Just look at their respective track records! OK, so their respective track records are impeccable.   But they're still wrong.   We were attacked on September 11, 2001.   We should, therefore, be allowed to do whatever we want, in secret, for the rest of recorded history.

Now, another short excerpt from I Loved Him, my forthcoming memoir of my years as Bill Clinton's Number One lickspittle.

THE LAST STARRFIGHTER

Since Clinton hired me as his right-hand sycophant in 1993, I'd fought off so many gates.   There were Travelgate and Filegate and the first half of Whitewatergate, and a lot of other gates that we managed to plug before you found out about them.   Things began to get sticky when Monica Lewinsky entered the scene.   You don't need to hear any details from me right now, but suffice it to say that I was in the room when she wore the blue dress, and the President let me take pictures.   If this book sells poorly, I'm definitely fielding offers.

One day, the phone just started ringing, and it didn't stop for three years.   I got a call from a producer at ABC news who also worked part-time as a clerk for Kenneth Starr.   I was already on the line with a Washington Post reporter who played golf with Starr four times a week, while also exchanging email with a prominent television opinionmonger who belonged to Starr's secret high-stakes poker group, where the players gambled for leaked information, not money.

"Linda Tripp tells me that the President is a goat-fucker," the producer said.   "Do you deny that?"

"YES, GODDAMN IT!" I said.

"Do you have categorical proof that the President has not, in fact, fucked goats?"

"I'm almost positive," I said.

That night, ABC News led with the story that the White House was trying to conceal from the American people the President's proclivity toward bestiality.

"We've got some problems here, Bill," I said.

The staff was busy jumping through open windows.   Then a fax came over the secret transom.   Apparently, Paula Jones had sent Kenneth Starr a copy of Monica Lewinsky's affadavit about Gennifer Flowers, even though all parties in the Jones case were under a court gag order not to disclose important information, or even to talk at all, which Starr made irrelevant when he read their diaries aloud on Meet The Press.

"What the hell is going on?" The President said.

For the first time ever, I saw Bill sob.   I went behind his desk and rubbed his shoulders.   It was going to be OK, I told him.

"Don't worry about these people," I said.   "They have no real power.   This scandal will blow over in a week."

Another affadavit buzzed through the fax.   I put three cigarrettes between my lips and lit them all.   Man, I'd taken off a lot of pounds since the scandals started.   I only weighed 45 pounds now.   But I didn't care.   I just wanted to win.

TOMORROW: DESTROY ALL HITCHENS.

I Loved Him: The Trials Of America's Greatest President -- 5/27/2003

In January 1992, I decided it might be fun to cover the Democratic Presidential primaries.   I didn't have any particular publication in mind, nor was I going to seek one.   Like all the great campaign journalists, I planned to simply ride the story's natural arc.   Eventually, editors would learn I was out there and the bucks would just start pouring over me.

I entered primary season with no party affiliation, ideological orientation, or knowledge of who was running.   You could have colored me stunned, then, when I found myself getting gradually drawn into the most extreme political melodrama in American history.   Some, including me, would even say that I fell in love.  

Yes, I loved Bill Clinton.   There's no shame in that.   Many lesser men than I have loved lesser men than he, and for less noble reasons.   Now here, for the first time anywhere, I'm telling the true story of my love, in an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir of the Clinton Years, I Loved Him: The Trials Of America's Greatest President.   It's a story of love, betrayal, intrigue, power, but mostly love.   For when the cheers stop, all we have is love.   I understand that, and I think Bill does too.

For the next three days, I'll be excerpting my book in this space.   This summer, *cough* *cough* will publish it in all its 954-page glory.   Please buy it.   My many lawsuits left over from the Clinton Years are ruining me! Now enjoy, and understand me a little bit more.

THE SEDUCTION

When Bill and Hillary stepped onto that platform in that downtown Chicago hotel, red-white-and-blue balloons poured out of the ceiling around them.   Bill beamed and gestured broadly to the crowd, with the confidence of a king.   I knew then that he was going to win.

My heart swelled.   My hands began to sweat.   I felt myself growing erect.   What?   This never happened to me on assignment.   Such strange feelings I was feeling! Such fluttering butterflies!

I looked at Hillary.   The feelings subsided immediately.   I looked back at Bill.   They erupted anew.   Oh, god.   I'd fallen in love with a Presidential candidate.   That's when I knew that I had to stop being a reporter and start working for him immediately.   I had so many skills, so many connections, so much desire to act creepy in public on his behalf.

Stephanopoulous was passing by the grandstand.

"George," I said.   "I have to to talk to Clinton.   Tonight."

"I don't know," George said.   "He's pretty busy."

I began to sob.

"PLEASE!" I said.   "I've got so much to say to him!"

George swatted at his female admirers like so many flies.

"I'll see what I can do," he said.

Two hours later, I stood alone in the middle of the ballroom, up to my knees in confetti.   I would wait all night, even all week, if I had to.   That's how determined I'd become.

Finally, Stephanopoulous appeared.

"Come with me," he said.

We went to an oak-panelled room deep inside the hotel.   Rahm Emmanuel and David Wilhelm were there, drinking Scotch and smoking fat cigars.

"We fucking fucked 'em," Emmanuel said.

"Fucking A we sure fucking did," said Wilhelm.

"Gentlemen," said Bill, as he strode confidently into the room, wearing a robe and slippers.   "Such language!"

He instantly fixed his beautiful gaze on me.

"Hello," he said.

"I....I want to talk to you," I said.  

"I know," he said.   "I greatly admired that piece you did in The New Republic about..."

"Estate tax reform," I croaked.

"Yes," he said.

"It's absolutely essential that I become your most trusted advisor and yes-man to shield you from whatever horrific scandalous accusations might be flung at you by your most unscrupulous conservative opponents," I said.   "I'm willing to sell out everyone I've ever met so I can stand by your side.   Damn those who would call me a sycophant! I know what's right, and I'll defend what's right!"

He leaned into me, put his hand on the small of my back, and placed his lips just tantalizing inches from my ear.

"We're going to do so many sleazy things together," he said.

TOMORROW: Love takes a powder when Ken Starr comes to town.

Iran So Far Away -- 5/27/2003

At last, the Bush Administration has woken up to realize that the real threat to our national security isn't Al-Queda, or Iraq, or Syria.   Our true enemy, our natural rival for dominion over the Middle East, is Iran.   In case you were too busy "enjoying" yourself this weekend, let me recap.   The United States has cut all diplomatic ties with the Iranian government and is engaging in various subversive activities to attempt to destabilize the country.   Our allies in this quest are a highly trustworthy group of gentlemen called The People's Mujahedeen. Don't be skeptical.   In the past, when our country's faced trouble, The People's Mujahedeen have always come to our aid.   Isn't it about time we returned the favor?

The Saudi Arabia bombings a couple of weeks ago were horrible, the works of conscienceless killers.   The only logical response to those attacks? Pin the blame on a sovereign foreign government and do everything we can to get that government out of power.   It worked in Afghanistan, and it worked in Iraq.   We deposed their governments using bunker-buster bombs.   Sure enough, there's no more terrorism.  

Wait.   OK, so there's still terrorism.   But now we know, thanks to the highly trustworthy People's Mujahedeen, that most terrorism comes from Iran.   The People's Mujahedeen should know, because the Bush Administration has classified them as a terrorist group.   To get rid of terrorism, we must hire terrorists to fight the terrorists, which makes plenty of sense.   It requires a leap of logic so small that I don't feel the leap even needs to be taken.   If we use terrorists to help us get rid of Iran, or at least its government, then there will be no more terrorism, this time guaranteed.

Let's assume the inevitable.   Iran is toast.   There's still the important matter of deciding how to prepare that toast, which, as you know, goes well with both butter and jam.   Or both.   Or neither.   Today, as President Bush meets with his Council Of Elders to decide the fate of Iran, it's a good time for us to review our options.

1.   We could bomb Iran.

2.   We could wait a few weeks, and then bomb Iran.

3.   We could embroil the world in a sham five-month melodrama, present sketchy, even false, evidence of Iran's nuclear capabilities before the United Nations, set impossible-to-meet deadlines, bully all dissenters into submission, and then bomb Iran.

4.   We could invade Iran while we're bombing it.

5.   We could invade Syria while we're bombing Iran.

6.   We could, technically, invade Iran while we're bombing Syria.

7.   We could admit that our prosecution of the War On Terror has veered horribly out of control and reduce our military presence in the Middle East while still working with international police, spies, and possibly even assassins to knock out key Al-Queda leaders.

I like all the scenarios except for number seven, which was proposed by a liberal reader with whom I'm trying to sleep.   But it doesn't really matter which scenario plays out.   We win.   We always win. Draw your curtains, Tehran!   She's gonna blow!

Bragging Rights -- 5/25/2003

Another scandal has struck the New York Times, leaving those of us who despise the Times more than anything else on earth to ask: How long before Times editor Howell Raines is dragged naked by his feet through midtown Manhattan and spat upon by the millions of victims of his journalistic crimes? How long before The New York Times is forced by law to halt publication until certain people who haven't been allowed to grace its pages for many years are allowed back into the newsroom to begin rebuilding the paper's shattered reputation? Not long, I hope.   And I'm definitely available.

This particular scandal has more than likely claimed the career of Rick Bragg, the guy at the Times who liked to write about the South.   Many people, but not me, considered him the foremost writer about the South of our time.   It's a crime against humans that the Times didn't call Bragg on his creepy mendacity earlier.   I've always been skeptical.   One of my hobbies over the years has been to collect Rick Bragg Southern feature leads, many of which seemed a tad inauthentic at the time.   Now I'm redeemed.   Let me share a few of them with you, and you can decide.   And if you've found others, please send them to me.   It could be a little game that we play.   Enjoy.

March 7, 1997

OXFORD, MS--Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.   They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence.   Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree.   They took the flag out, and they were hitting.

June 13, 1998

ATLANTA--Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

October 22, 1998

BIRMINGHAM--Big wheels keep on turning, carry me home to see my kin.   Singing songs about the Southland, I miss Alabamy once again, and I think its a sin, yes.

November 5, 1999

JACKSON, TN--We got married in a fever, hotter than a Pepper Sprout.   We've been talkin' 'bout Jackson, ever since the fire went out.   I'm goin' to Jackson, I'm gonna mess around.   Yeah!   I'm goin' to Jackson.   Look out Jackson town.

March 3, 2001

MAYCOMB, ALABAMA--When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow....When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident.   I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that.   He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

January 17, 2002

LOUISVILLE, KY--The Camptown ladies sing this song: "Doo-dah! Doo-Dah!" The Camptown racetrack's five miles long.   Oh, doo-dah-day!

March 1, 2003

CHARLESTON, S.C.--I wish I was in the land of cotton.   Old times there are not forgotten.   Look away.   Look away.   Look away.   Dixie Land.

How did no one ever catch this guy? Oh, the corruption!

Off the record, for those of you in Southern California, you should come see me perform next Saturday night.   Information is here. The event I'm emceeing, Wet Daddy, is the second one down the page.   To emcee Wet Daddy! A dream to be devoutly wished! The scheduled appearance by Jayson Blair has been cancelled due to general revulsion.

Around The Horn With Dr. Smartypants -- 5/22/2003

Last Sunday The New York Times declared blogging fashionable.   I knew that years ago, when I was the first blogger, but I still have never been more stylish than I am today.   With the world and my thoughts moving at approximately equal speed, I'm continually developing opinions on many topics.   And you're continually eager to read my thoughts, sometimes to the point of masturbation.   That's what makes me the hottest purveyor of news-based web opinion.

Much has gone down since my failed adventure in Cuba.   And despite what this guy says, I WAS in Cuba earlier this week, not New York City.   Besides, I don't know how to wink.

Here, then, we go.   Around the horn.

ITEM: FCC chairman Michael Powell, son of baseball great Boog Powell, is trying to ram through changes in broadcasting that would allow large companies such as Clear Channel and Kellogg's to own all television and radio stations in local markets.   For convenience, I've developed friendships with most major world media titans, so I'm not worried that this will affect me financially.   Still, we should be somewhat vigilant to ensure that the high quality of local television news, with all its diverse viewpoints, doesn't decline, particularly the Supertracker storm system, which keeps us all dry.

ITEM: The Democratic Leadership Council, led by Al Frum, denounces the volunteer Internet supporters of Presidential candidate Howard Dean as "activist elites."   Dean fights back on his blog, saying he will not be "crucified on a cross of gold."   I'm very amused by all this infighting among the Democrats, which only serves to point out the final wisdom and courage of President Bush's tax cut, a plan that intends to eventually make us all wildly wealthy by gradually eliminating certain unncessary government programs, such as public education and hospital care for the impoverished elderly.

ITEM: New York Times reporter Chris Hedges is booed off the stage for criticizing the liberation of Iraq during a commencement speech at a small Midwest college.   Serves him right.   My experience as a commencement speaker has taught me that graduation day is time for two things: Hypocritical platitude and hanky-panky under the robe.   All else is dross.   May Hedges get swept into dust, like the rest of the Pravda Times, as the Jayson Blair debacle causes the worst newspaper of all time to disintegrate in the swirls of journalistic history.

ITEM: Right-wing radio host Michael Savage is suing a website that relentlessly criticizes him.   Savage's claim? Trademark infringement! What a jerk.   Go to the besieged site and help if you can.  

ITEM: Ancient U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, in yet another futile speech on the floor of Congress, calls the liberation of Iraq an "unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation." In this extraordinary speech, Byrd claims that the Bush Administration lied to the world about Iraq's military capabilities and potential threat, that it's permitting Iraq's infrastructure to further decay, that it's abandoned Baghad to lawlessness, that it's handing out lucrative contracts to cronies, and that it's ignoring Iraq's pleas for self-government.

To which I say: Yeah? So? We won, as I predicted, and gloriously.   We can do whatever we want.

That's all for this week.   Out of respect for my dozens of international readers, I'll be posting on Monday despite the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S.   Then, on Tuesday, tune in for the first installment of my memoir of my years as a Clinton advisor.   It's called I Loved Him: The Trials Of America's Greatest President.

See you then.   Unless Michael Savage decides to sue me.

Rescue in Guantanamo: The Untold Story of Iraqi War Bride Fatwa's Harrowing Ordeal and the Greatest Living American Writer Who Risked Everything to Save Her -- 5/22/2003

Hello, my friends.   While you've all spent the week shuddering under the weight of Jayson Blair's collected thought-crimes and also the hideous prospect of his multi-million dollar book deal, I've been in Cuba, performing services useful to the preservation of democracy.   How do you feel about yourselves now, you carcass-pickers? What a way to live, by making snide comments at the expense of people you don't know, partly out of envy, partly out of ignorance. Personally, I prefer my way.   The high way.

But enough cutting down of my lessers.   I now present a narrative, greatly condensed because no one's paying me.   It will certainly change the way Americans feel:

Roger and I arrived in Havana at dawn on Monday.   At the airport, we immediately applied a thin coat of suede polish to our faces, and dressed in custom-made white jumpsuits that read: Fidel Laundry Service: We Clean Unless You're A Poet Or Journalist Critical Of Fidel.   Viva Fidel!

We figured that would be the perfect cover for us to sneak into the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, where a BBC film crew was waiting in the bushes to chronicle the rescue of my Iraqi war bride Fatwa from the clutches of the world's mightiest fighting force ever.   All we needed now was to steal a truck.

"Roger," I said.   "Do your magic."

"Yes sir," he said.

Roger, my beleaguered manservant, comes in handy in many ways.   He's a tailor and a chef and an excellent bookkeeper.   Also, he's trained as a master locksmith and carjacker, and served as a consultant for the Oscar-quality film Gone In 60 Seconds.

Sure enough, within 60 seconds, we had a truck.

"Man," I said, from the passenger seat.   "This truck is slow!"

"It's a 1947," Roger said.

Still, we were faster than most of the other cars on the trans-Cuba highway, and within 20 hours, we found ourselves on the verge of Guantanamo.   I got out of the car and said the secret word:

"Yoo-hoo!"

The BBC crew appeared sheepishly.   They looked hungry and dirty and frankly annoyed.

"Catching the U.S. government doing evil can be a lot of work," the correspondent said.

They loaded into the back of the truck, hiding under a pile of soiled guayberas.   Roger drove up to the gate.   I flashed my forged Friends Of The Miami Mafia I.D. card.

"Here to clear some uniforms," I said.

The guard at the gate said, "It's not cleaning day today."

"Floor it, Roger!" I said.

Roger floored it.   The truck roared through the gate at three miles an hour.   The guards couldn't chase us because they were laughing too hard.   Let them laugh, I said.   We'll expose their crimes.

The scene was quite horrible.   Against a post, cruel Marines lashed an innocent Afghani.   Other prisoners shot hoops on a bent, netless rim.   A group of teenagers huddled in a far courtyard, making lanyards and singing Cumbaya.   In the back, the correspondent said,

"Is there no end to American cruelty and deception?"

But still, I wondered.   Where was Fatwa? So many buildings, so many wretched captives, so many electroshock therapy screams.   As our laundry van desperately careened about, I spotted a sign that read Iraqi War Bride Hospital.

"Roger!" I shouted.   "Stop the fake laundry truck! She's in there!"

"Are you sure?" he said.

"I have a hunch!"

Roger took over, as his training warrants.   Off went our laundry-service costumes, to reveal camouflage.   On went our grenade belts.   We tumbled out of the car.   He tossed me a machine gun full of blanks.   The camera crew behind us, we stood on either side of the door.   Roger kicked it in.

"Go!   Go!   Go!" he said.

We burst into the main hall, firing and lobbing smoke grenades.   I kicked over a cot and liberated some pillows.   All about was screaming and confusion.   The camera crew, it seemed, had little experience in wartime.

When the haze lifted, I saw Fatwa sitting on the edge of her bed, playing cards with a handsome young man in a white lab coat.

"Oh, hello," she said.   "How nice to see you again."

"I'm here to rescue you, my darling!" I said.   "In the name of the Constitution of the United States Of America."

"Don't be silly," she said.   "If I needed rescue, I would have called you."

"What?" I said.

"What?" Roger said.

"WHAT?" said the BBC people.

"This is Dr. Tolliver," she said.   "I've fallen in love with him and am leaving you forever."

"But..."

"No arguments.   He doesn't make me sleep in a separate bedroom and doesn't make me watch Mr. Personality."

"But..."

"We're moving to North Carolina as soon as he's done with his 'dentistry' experiments on some Shiite prisoners.   Together, we will fulfill our dream of producing deadly new pathogens that could wipe out humanity if used for evil purposes."

"This is a load of bollocks," said the BBC guy.

I have to agree.   Somehow, my life doesn't ever go as expected.   The Cuba trip was expensive, and without Fatwa, I won't get the federal funds to promote marriage that I've been seeking to pay off my poker debt to William Bennett.

As we flew back to the Mount Winchester International Airport, needlessly first class, Roger said to me, "Well, sir, that was a failure."

"I know, Roger," I said.   "I know.   Who will marry me now?"

Lizz's Last Stand -- 5/21/2003

We're back on orange alert, 2 major members of Bush's staff have resigned within days of each other and all I can think is HOLY SHIT THAT FAT, BLACK KID WON AMERICAN IDOL!!!!!!

Just kidding, kind of.

It seems kind of freaky that Ruben's win will get more press tomorrow than Christie Whitman's resignation from the EPA or the Bush administration's desire to replace her with Josephine Cooper, the head of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.   Yes, that's right.   The group that lobbied for lower emission standards for SUVs may soon control the arsenic levels in your water, the monoxide in your air, the poisons on your vegetables... Oh, dammit!   We're too late as it is.

But maybe Ruben does deserve more press than the soon-to-be former head of the EPA or Cheney's former assistant.   After all, this new American Idol belted out show tunes at the drop of a hat and was willing to perform jazz hands on national television! Now that, my web friends, is dedication.

At the same time, however, I could never actually watch more than 15 seconds of American Idol at a time.   Maybe it's the flashbacks of auditioning for community/elementary/middle school/high school theatre or having to sit through countless showcases for my actor friends in New York.   Or maybe it's knowing that I'm terrible at singing, dancing and acting and having the taste to not force others to watch me flail helplessly and off-key onstage.   (Instead you have to read my words because I reckon myself a writer.   Ha ha ha ha ha.)   Or maybe it's that I blame American Idol for all those God-awful imitators — Fame, My Kid Is More Talented Than Yours, All American Girl (not with Ms. Margaret Cho) and Star Search 2: The Search for Arsenio's Gold.

But what can you do? Your vote obviously doesn't count, your voice is ignored and you're still wearing those same pants from yesterday.   Oh, wait, that's me.   Well, I'm going to take some NyQuil and go to bed.

Love, Lizz