Posts filed under 'Tom's Life and Times'

Netanyahu and Abbas Booked for 15 Rounds; Obama to Referee

Around ten o’clock this morning, I heard an intense flurry of highly-accented yelling coming from the reception area outside my office.  Somebody was screaming obscenities at Gretchen, my blonde, blue-eyed twentysomething Pennsylvania Dutch private secretary.  Line One rang.
“Mr. Collins,” Gretchen calmly informed me, “there’s a Mr. Makat Zayin from the Israeli Embassy here to see you.”
“Send him in right away,” I promptly directed.
“Yes, sir,” she crisply replied.  “Do you have any… guidance?”
“Sure,” I confidently told her.  “To him, the sight of someone like you is tantamount to waving a red flag in front of a bull.  All he can think about is the Holocaust.  Don’t take it personally.” 
In a trice, Mr. Zayin was through my solid oak office doors and ensconced on the chair positioned directly in front of my desk.  I was hardly surprised by that - sitting there indicates a confrontational personality, and I’ve never met an Zionist who didn’t have one of those.  And, of course, I’ve never met an Israeli diplomat who wasn’t a Zionist, either.
“Why haven’t you gotten rid of that [expletive] yet?” Zayin indignantly demanded.  “Didn’t I tell you to fire her?  She’s got no respect!  She’s stupid, too!  Everybody knows blondes are unintelligent!  Can’t you do any better than that?”
“Feh,” I lied, feigning a supercilious air and an indifferent shrug, “the little shiksa works really, really cheap; als, ish kabibble, nu?”
And with those magic words, Zayin stopped dead in his tracks.  After a brief silence, he popped open his attaché case and pulled out an iPad.  Closing the case, he placed it on top and began to employ it in a most furious and ostentatious manner.
“Okay,” he muttered, “let’s get started.  “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to offer Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas several goodwill gestures in exchange for Abbas’ approval of an Israeli renewal of construction activity in the West Bank.”
“So I read at http://news.xinhuanet.com earlier today,” I confirmed.  I understand Prime Minister Netanyahu is talking about releasing some jailed Palestinians, making it easier to move commercial goods within the Palestinian National Authority and removing military checkpoints.”
“Yeah,” Zayin spat.  “For the last twenty months, all we’ve heard from that schvoogie over there,” he growled, thrusting his chin toward the White House outside my office picture window, “is ‘mutual sacrifice with mutual understanding,’ ‘shared futures in the Middle East,’ ‘geopolitical imperatives for peace’ and other such [expletive].  Now he’s finally talked both of them into coming here to Washington for a [expletive] dinner party with him tonight, and tomorrow, they’re supposed to start negotiations again - for what, the tenth time?”
“Something like that,” I confirmed, “depending on how you count them.”
“And so,” he griped, “they send me down here to talk to you.”
“About what?” I gingerly inquired.
“About what else we can offer the Palestinians!” Zayin ruefully sighed.  “That’s what I got.  Did they put me on the negotiation team?  No!  Did they make me security liaison?  No!  Did they put me in charge of media relations?  No!  Did they assign me as military attaché?  No!”  With his left hand, he picked up his iPad, and with his right, he picked up his attaché case, which he held aloft, brandishing it at me vehemently.  “I’ve got a [expletive] attaché case, God damn it!  But do they make me an attaché?  No!  No, they don’t!  What they do is, they send me down here to talk to Tom Collins!”
“Well,” I carefully cajoled, “that’s not so bad, is it?”
“Are you [expletive] kidding me?”  Zayin slammed his attaché case back on his lap, angrily thumping his iPad back down on top of it.  “It’s [expletive] hell!  Now what the [expletive] have you got to say to that?”
“Um… how about falafel?”
“I’m not [expletive] hungry!” Zayin roared.
“No,” I clarified, “I meant, in order to make nice-nice to the Palestinians, you Israelis could give them credit for inventing falafel.”
“We [expletive] invented [expletive] falafel!” Zayin protested.
“Really?” I responded with just a note of incredulity.  “I know you invented pastrami…”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he interrupted.  “The Ashkenazim invented pastrami, corned beef and half-sour pickles.  But the Sephardim invented falafel!”
“Out of the question, then?” I sought to confirm.
“No way,” Zayin declared, shaking his head with firm certainty.  “We invented falafel, and we’re not going to let any Arabs take credit for it!”
“All right,” I continued, exploring another possibility, “how about you admit that their hummus is better?”
“What?”  Zayin sat bolt upright, his eyes wide as saucers.  “Arab hummus tastes like [expletive]!  They put too much garlic in it!  They skimp on the sesame tahini - you hardly even know it’s there!  And the olive oil they use!  Why the [expletive] don’t they just pour in some used motor oil instead?”
“Fair enough,” I pressed on, “no concessions on the cuisine front, then.  But what do you think - couldn’t you promise to stop arresting them for dating Jewish women?”
“There are perfectly good reasons for that,” Zayin argued in a matter-of-fact tone, raising his left hand and ticking off his points on its fingers with his right, “Number One: those Arabs already have a bunch of wives and concubines at home; that’s plenty of women for them, and they sure as [expletive] don’t need to be sniffing around ours.  Number Two: according to the Talmud, every child born to a Jewish woman is automatically Jewish, and we don’t want those Arabs mixing their DNA with ours.  It’s the same problem you Americans have with anchor babies, terror babies, you name it.  We don’t want that kind of thing happening in Israel, period.  Number Three: not to put too fine a point on it, but Arabs are a bunch of [expletive] retards, okay?  Look how many Jews have won Nobel Prizes, then look at how many Arabs - pardon me, but it’s a no-brainer, no pun intended, all right?  Face the facts - this is the [expletive] space age; the age of the microchip and the Internet, all of which Jews invented, by the way.  So who wants to breed their women with a race of morons that still live in tents and herd [expletive] goats, huh?  Number Four: Israel is a Jewish state, and as such, should be a place where a Jewish man can get a date with a Jewish woman without fear of competition from sweet-talking Arabs, athletic Negroes, or goyishe shagitzes with high IQs and/or plenty of money of their own.  Number Five: Arabs all have just about every possible venereal disease on the planet.  I know, because my Aunt Naomi told me.  And now, I’m all out of fingers; so forget it.”
“Well then,” I suggested, “could you perhaps offer to stop prosecuting non-violent Arab protesters in your military courts?”
Zayin looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted an extra head.  “You can’t be serious!”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because,” he replied, with an obvious air of irritation, “there is absolutely no such thing as a non-violent Arab!  It’s in their blood, I tell you!”
“Very well,” I conceded, “if that’s how you see the situation…”
“It’s not my point of view!” Zayin insisted.  “It’s the [expletive] truth!”
“Let’s move on,” I recommended, “without addressing the veracity of that theory, and consider another possibility.  Couldn’t you promise that, from now on, whenever a radical rabbi publicly beseeches… um… He Whose Name Cannot Be Mentioned… to bring down plagues on the Arabs, to destroy them with natural disasters, to strike them dead with bolts from Heaven - whatever - the Israeli government will denounce such behavior as depraved?”
“’Depraved?’” Zayin’s eyebrows shot up skeptically.
“How about ‘immoral,’ then?” I offered.
“’Immoral’?” Zayin sniffed.  “What’s immoral about praying for the destruction of your enemies?”
“Evil?”
“No way it’s evil, not at all,” Zayin declared with an authoritative shake of his head.
“Deplorable?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Execrable?”
“Afraid not.”
“Reprehensible?”
Zayin leaned forward defiantly.  “According to who?”
“Odious?” I proposed.
“Out of the question.”
“Vile?”
“Completely inappropriate.”
“Inappropriate?”
“Utterly incorrect.”
“Scurrilous?”
“Out of the question.”
“How about… impolite?”
Zayin stroked his chin in solemn contemplation.  “Hmm… maybe… ah… no, we couldn’t say ‘impolite,’ either; not honestly, anyway.”
“Well,” I concluded, “how about this, then?  Historically, every time a UN or EU official pleads for justice on the behalf of the Palestinians, the Israeli government routinely issues a press release denouncing that official as a dupe and the Palestinians as international criminals.  You could promise to stop doing that.”
“Which one,” Zayin sneered, “the part where we tell the world the Palestinians are international criminals, or the part where we say that the UN or EU official who sympathized with them is a mindless, spineless, unprincipled dupe?”
“I was thinking…” I cautiously proposed, “um… both, actually.”
Zayin abruptly ceased taking notes on his iPad, opened his attaché case and tossed the iPad inside, slamming the case shut, loudly snapping the cover clasps, and making an elaborate show of twirling the combination locks on them, after which he stood up, stiffly extending his hand.  “Thank you for your ideas,” he slowly uttered in his best diplomatic tone, “I think we can both agree that this has been a frank and productive encounter.”
“Of course,” I said as I extended my hand to his, “and may Israel’s upcoming negotiations with the Palestinian National Authority be just as frank and productive, too.”
Zayin cracked a stiff smile.  “I’m sure, Mr. Collins, that they will.”

September 1st, 2010

Bedbugs, Bedbugs - Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come for You?

My three o’clock consultation today was O’Meanahan, a top-echelon conservative Republican strategist.  To say that he was beaming would be totally insufficient.  To opine that he appeared self-satisfied would be a gross understatement.  To aver that he appeared triumphant would be a pitiful misrepresentation.  No, O’Meanahan looked like the cat that ate the canary, the goldfish, the family dog’s dinner, the baby’s candy and every lamb chop on the kitchen counter, then drank all the beer in the refrigerator.
“Collins,” he chortled as he settled on the couch by the picture window, indicating the White House outside it, “that black-[expletive] [expletive] rag-head Kenyan Socialist is going to be a complete lame duck for two entire years until we finish him off in 2012!”
“Nobody can deny,” I observed, “that the conservative Republicans have done a masterful job of convincing American citizens that our President is exactly that.  At the moment, one in five of them think Barack Obama is a Moslem, one in four consider him a Socialist, and nearly a third of them believe he’s a foreigner born in Africa.”
O’Meanahan threw his head back and laughed heartily.  “Not bad, huh?  You like the way we got half of those pinheads out in the provinces to blame Superspade over there,” he sneered as he gestured again at the White House, “not only for Afghanistan, the recession, unemployment, illegal immigration and terrorism, but the Mosque at Ground Zero and the BP oil spill, too?”
“It’s been a truly professional hit,” I replied, “all the way around.  My compliments.”
“Thanks,” O’Meanahan chuckled, leaning forward expectantly with a maniacal grin, “now - here’s what I want to get from you, Collins - give me your assessment of my latest idea how the Republicans can put another big, fat rat up that [expletive] Ubangi-lipped, Watusi-eared, spear-chucking, tree-swinging, banana-stuffing, mud-colored mulatto porch monkey’s ugly, stinking, crab-infested, dingleberry-covered [expletive]!”
“Allow me to remind you,” I pleaded, “that you are referring to the President of the United States.”
“[Expletive] him!” O’Meanahan shouted.  “It’s a free country, isn’t it?  First Amendment!  I can say what I want about camel-[expletive] Commie jungle bunnies like Obama, and so can Fox News!”
“Having the right to do something,” I chided, “doesn’t necessarily imply that doing it is a virtuous act.”
“Stop talking,” O’Meanahan insisted, “like some postmodern, brie-eating, Derrida-quoting, gay-tolerating, [expletive]-loving liberal!  Save that for your [expletive] Democrat clients!  Quit wasting my time and tell me what I should say when I pitch my latest brainstorm to the RNC!”
Pretending to peruse the documents on my desk, I let him cool off for a minute before I spoke.  Then I looked him straight in the eye.
“Which is?”
“Bedbugs.”
“You want to blame President Obama for bedbugs?” I asked, somewhat more than a little gobsmacked by the suggestion.
“Exactly,” he huffed, crossing his arms across his chest and settling back into the couch to await my response.
“My first observation would be,” I observed, “that bedbugs have been around since humans invented beds; and literally, that’s more than ten thousand years.”
“Impossible!” O’Meanahan objected.  “The Earth is only six thousand years old, at most!”
“Well, okay,” I continued, not wishing to digress into a debate over literal interpretation of Scripture, since once you get them started on that, a typical conservative Republican can go on for hours, “thousands of years, anyway.  I guess my point is, bedbugs were around before Obama became President.”
“Sure,” O’Meanahan shrugged, “so was the war in Afghanistan, and we did a dandy job of blaming him for that, didn’t we?”
“No denying it,” I conceded.  “But let’s face facts here, bedbugs are pretty creepy.  They sneak out under cover of darkness and suck your blood when you’re helpless.”
“Just like Socialists!” O’Meanahan exulted.  “When it comes to Obama’s politics, bedbugs are the perfect metaphor!”
“Perhaps,” I allowed.  “But bedbugs’ only significant threat is simply to make people prone to hysteria and irrationality.”
“Just like terrorism,” he pointed out enthusiastically, stabbing his finger at me for emphasis.  “And we blamed Obama for terrorism, too!”
“Look,” I persisted, “if the Republicans start going on about bedbugs, you’ve got to consider the possibility that folks might blame the messenger.  I mean, once you get them, bedbugs are a problem that takes an incredibly long time to fix.”
“Exactly!” O’Meanahan grinned.  “Just like the recession, and we’ve got practically everybody in America blaming Obama for that!”
“But bedbugs,” I shot back, “are just something that happened during his term of office, aren’t they?  Obama didn’t do anything to cause the crisis, did he?”
“Obama didn’t do anything to cause the BP oil spill either,” O’Meanahan parried, “and we managed to get twenty-six percent of the public to think he’s responsible for it!”
“But aren’t bedbugs,” I objected, “something the city or county board of health would deal with?  Aren’t bedbugs essentially a local issue?”
“Yeah,” O’Meanahan nodded, “that’s true.  But so is the Mosque at Ground Zero.  And wasn’t Obama stupid enough to involve himself with that anyhow by making a public statement at the White House Ramadan Feast in favor of the Islamo-fascists who are building an edifice to commemorate the Al-Qaida fanatics who died murdering four thousand Americans on 9/11?”
“It’s not,” I pointed out, “an edifice which commemorates anything.  It’s supposed to be an interfaith community center.  But otherwise, I see what you mean.  So, all right; but you have to remember, bedbugs are not native to the United States.  People are bound to realize that foreigners are responsible for them.”
“Bingo!” O’Meanahan yelled.  “Just like illegal immigration, which we have, as of the latest polls this morning, succeeded in getting three out of ten Americans to blame Barack Obama for!”
“Bedbugs,” I resolutely continued, “are everywhere.  They’ve invaded New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Miami, you name it.  It’s going to be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute that bedbugs are a widespread misfortune that befalls a lot of people, none of whom are at fault for it.”
“Two things,” O’Meanahan proclaimed.  “Number One: that’s just like unemployment, which we got most Americans to blame Obama for last year!  And Number Two: screw that minute, okay?  Because our studies show that the average American can’t think about anything for more than thirty-seven seconds!”
“Outstanding,” I congratulated.  “A most convincing argument, if I ever heard one, that if we’re going to blame President Obama for Afghanistan, the Great Recession, widespread unemployment, runaway illegal immigration, rampant terrorism, the Mosque at Ground Zero and the BP oil spill, we might as well blame him for bedbugs, too.”
“Precisely,” O’Meanahan cackled.  “And who could possibly contend with impeccable logic like that?”
“Nobody who votes Republican,” I readily admitted.  “But I strongly suggest that the RNC test the concept on focus groups of independents and moderate Democrats before sending the usual slanted background materials, biased talking points, and code-word laden propaganda scripts to your customary gaggle of conservative pundits.”
O’Meanahan scrunched his face into a hideous mask of incredulity.  “Why should I advise them to bother with doing that?”
“The gross-out factor,” I explained.  “None of the things you have blamed Obama for are anywhere near as icky as bedbugs.”
O’Meanahan’s expression changed from mindlessly curious to shallowly nonplussed.  “Icky?”
“A vast majority of people find insects in general and bedbugs in particular, to be extremely yucky, icky, gross-out disgusting,” I emphasized.  “The very thought of bedbugs will make them literally sick to their stomachs.  And thinking about bedbugs will surely cause them to suffer.”
“So what,” O’Meanahan shrugged with a true sociopath’s nonchalance, “we’ve been making them suffer for decades, getting them to vote against their own interests by stirring up their emotions of fear, greed and bigotry.  It worked for Nixon, it worked for Reagan, it worked for Bush Senior and Bush Junior.  [Expletive] the people who vote for us - they’re only good for what the Republican Party elite can get out of them.”
“True,” I agreed, “in the past half century, the Republicans have played on many emotions and irrational ideas to achieve power, but this will be the first time they attempt to harness nausea.  And my gut feeling is - nausea won’t work.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I concluded, “if you get them feeling like they’re going to vomit on Election Day morning, they won’t go to the polls.  And if millions of Americans don’t go to the polls and vote Republican on Election Day…”
“Then what?”
“Well… nobody can stop them.”
“Thanks,” O’Meanahan sighed with a distinct air of resignation.  “I’m glad I ran this bedbug thing by you before suggesting it to the RNC.”
“You’re welcome,” I told him frankly.
“So, it’s time, I guess,” O’Meanahan murmured, “for me to get back to brainstorming up something else to blame Obama for.”  With that, he rose, shook my hand, and got up to leave.
“O’Meanahan!” I cried out as he touched the doorknob.
“Yeah?” He turned to look at me despondently.
“Nice try.”
He gave me a brave and noble nod.  “Thanks again.”
“So,” I bid him in farewell,  “tonight…”
“Tonight what?” O’Meanahan interrupted.
“Sleep tight… and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
“You’re one hell of a cold son of a [expletive], Collins,” he nodded with a tight smile.  “Stone [expletive] cold.”

August 26th, 2010

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