Crisis!!!!!!

Trying to converse with anon and Michael G reminds me of the last editorial I submitted to the Journal Times a few years back. They didn't print it, for reasons which will become apparent. Here it is:


I recently asked a professional writer how I might improve my writing. The suggestion was to vary my style, to depart a bit from my usual straightforward, logical approach. Perhaps add some colorful language, some pizzazz. I will give it a try.

We have a crisis looming in our country, like a dark cloud gathering on the horizon... No, that just won’t do... Every two bit writer uses dark clouds on the horizon. I need something better... more ominous... I got it. The crisis is like a mushroom cloud, lunging towards the playground, with big cat paws, swiping at the tender flesh, indifferent to the hopeless cries, the boiling tears... Ah yes, that was beautiful. I am getting the hang of this.

You will be shocked when I reveal the nature of this crisis. Shocked I tell you, like a gonad in Guantanamo. Shocked, like a web surfing local Democrat, like a Halliburton executive losing a no bid contract, like an owl spotting construction equipment, like a public school teacher with a doctor’s bill.

No, it is not the threat posed to the purity of Christian matrimony by the Sodomites seeking state sanction for their sickness, looking to license libidinous lifestyles, accessing acceptance of abominable activities.

It is not the threat of referendum failure, which will turn our houses into liabilities, our children into murderous bloodthirsty gangsters, our playgrounds into opium dens. It is not the associated greed of the penny clutching taxpayers, their unrelenting selfishness, their congealing hearts.

Can you guess the cause of our impending doom? Of course you can’t, you stupid bastard! You could depress the IQ score of entire nations. Your brain has deteriorated like a bank account in the Carter era, like the face of a Cheney chum, like a café in Jerusalem. The drooling, helmeted occupants of the small yellow bus are pointing and laughing at you. Get a life you loser!

Maybe the problem is the niggardly Republicans, determined to spark a race war for the NRA, coupling with the Christians, creating an unholy alliance with the holier than thou, careening society with Hitleresque efficiency towards a merciless theocracy. But not without their pew puppets, tomorrow’s purity police, soothed into certainty by self serving sermons. But alas, it is not the Republicans.

Is it the Democrats, and their condescending intellectualism, and the endless experimentation with discredited Utopian schemes? Is it their Robin Hood politics, offering equal doses of lethargy, sloth and entitlement to consume us. Is it the in-your-face hedonism redefined as virtue? Is it the hypocrisy of preaching equality while amassing political power? Is it their own dangerous religion, the unshakable faith in government, facts and evidence be damned? No, it is not the Demoncrats.

Is it the twin evils of corporatism and consumerism, strip mining our souls? Are we feeding these beasts as they rape the planet, puncturing the pristine Arctic, a fools rush for liquid gold?
Who cares! Let our children deal with the cascading icebergs and bloated polar bear carcasses washing ashore in coastal Colorado.

Mexicans swarming, global warming, gangsta rap, media pap, Islamic threats, Boomer debts, oil spills, corporate frills, voter fraud, system flawed, traffic jams, nuisance spam, toxic sludge, trans fat pudge, mad cow slaughter, poisoned water, molesting priests, earmark feasts, ozone holes, extinction woes, health care blues, Avian flu, doped-up jocks, imploding stocks, gays are bedding, AIDS is spreading, are we headin towards Armegeddon? NO!!! This is not the crisis!

Have I been sufficiently titillating? Have I aroused your interest? Are you ready for the nail gouging, bed board rattling, wake-the-neighbors climax? Well I am going to give it to you baby!
The crisis we are facing is..........the end of reasoned discourse... Duh!