Viva, la difference.
by Tom Elko

L-R: The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada; George W. Bush and the First Penis on display.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien recently said something that struck me as profound, and if you are familiar with the Prime Minister, anything profound he says is worth listening. Foremost, he is a French-speaking man with an incredible knack for hacking to pieces the English language at the perfect moments (www.thislife.org, episode 65). This may mean he does it on purpose. I would like to believe so. Canadians have to stand up for themselves, not like they get bullied or mocked, but just because we are their neighbors and we are Americans, except for those of you who opposed the war, like the Canadians.

So, this statement he made, it was in regards to the Canadian legalization of gay marriages. They are decriminalizing marijuana as well. How better to stand up for yourself, than go in the opposite direction of us? How brilliant is that? And this is how he backs it up:

”You have to look at history as an evolution of society."

Ok, everyone settle down. Now I know there’s been a crazy shit happening lately. Since the last presidential election, which you should never forget, we’ve had a really huge terrorist attack, a subsequent war in Afghanistan (were soldiers are still dying even today) and a just for shits and giggles, we took a victory lap by destroying Iraq (no sign of liberation yet) so everyone in the whole freakin’ global sex community knew who had the biggest phallus! USA! USA! USA!

I have to admit, I didn’t really know how I was going to work this next bit into the column so I didn’t really try. This is an untainted paragraph taken from Bush’s last war cry before we let him (them) do what they wanted:

"First, some ask why Iraq is different from other countries or regimes that also have terrible weapons. While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone -- because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States."

I don’t think he wrote it himself. But if I may indulge myself and make a few changes, you can decide which version is more true.

"First, some ask why the United States is different from other countries or regimes that also have terrible weapons. While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from the United States stands alone -- because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. The United State’s weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small sovereign nation, has struck other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States."

“Yes, I have a question. George Bush never used chemical weapons to kill anybody.”

Well, not thousands of people…only over 130 Americans…

"They’ve had full access to the courts and they’ve had full access to have a fair trial,” Bush said of the 132 convicted criminals executed in Texas since he took office in 1995.

But a recent investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that 43 of those inmates were represented by defense attorneys who have been publicly sanctioned for misconduct. Forty others, the Tribune reported, had lawyers who presented no evidence or only one witness during the critical sentencing phase of their trials. And dozens of others reportedly were convicted with the help of unreliable physical evidence or the testimony of non-credible witnesses.

Bush’s aides insist that the media is exaggerating the deficiencies of the Texas system and maintain that the death penalty will not be a decisive issue in the campaign.

And if you haven’t heard of Tulia, Texas do a quick internet search and see what you find…

Now, I really to keep calm while writing this, but, if you think about these things in anything but a selfish way, it's so damned difficult not to get pissed. But I’ll whip all of this wicked injustice around to a zenith, in the blink of an eye. What Jean Chrétien meant when he said “you have to look at history as an evolution of society” was 1) that society changes, but people need to ensure that it changes for the better, evolves, progresses and 2) that America is not doing this, and if you won’t the Canadians will.

God bless them, may they never have to close their borders in the event of crisis.

Cut Taxes, Raise Hell Y’all

By Tedward Fitzhume

Hi, my name is Ted and I’m not an Elvis fan, but I know he grew up poor, became really rich, recorded “In the Ghetto” and then sometime after, died on a toilet. Bob Zimmerman grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota, a taconite mining town, changed his name to Dylan, got the hell out, and then became really rich. It's a cliché in rock and roll and a mantra in hip hop. Grow up poor, get rich with music. So my question is, are the tax cuts good for rock’n’roll?

The Only Thing That Trickles Down is Piss

I’ve noticed that no one really pays attention to politics, so I’ll cut to the parts that are the most rad. First thing you got to know is that the country is broke, but don’t worry, there isn’t a collection agency big enough to take on the US of fucking A. But, on the other hand, government is forced to cut programs and services. But, on the other hand our military has plenty of cash (that’s an employment opportunity for you college grads and high school drop outs out there). I know what you’re saying right now, “Fuck that, I wrote a forty page Lit thesis so I could be an administrative assistant.” Well, I have news for you buddy, a B.A. on your resume won’t get you a job like having “Abrahms M-1 Tank Captain Feb. 2003 – March 2003.”
        The other part of this tax cut you should know about is that it’s the same dirty tricks the right has been pulling since 1980. Voodoo, Trickle Down, I forget what they’re calling it now because I have done no research for this article. But it's bullshit man! You gotta believe me.
         In any case, the problem with this type of economic theory is that it relies on the kindness of rich assholes to pull through. Gluttony is a sin and we’re all guilty, but not as guilty as most of the people richer than us, and I say this assuming Blastitude readers are not a classy bunch (Queequag excluded). I suppose if the wine is flowing like water, and the coke turns your mustache gray, then I would assume that there would be some truth to this theory. But the cold hard truth is that they’re passing it off as an economic stimulus. Sure a rich man might throw a wild party with lots of top shelf booze and narcotics floating around, offering to pay a thousand dollars to anyone willing to let him snort coke off their dick, but in these economic times, I’m just not sure that happens quite so frequently.

Caught With Your Pants Down and Your Thumb Up Your Ass

Karl Rove thinks Americans are stupid, and this is the most successful political strategy in recent memory. Why else would this guy pair up with Jr. back in the heart of Texas? Former leader of the College Republicans, then college drop out, and then the most powerful non-elected person in the United States, and he got there thinking that you, yes, you the reader, are in fact an idiot. You either won’t vote, won’t care, won’t understand or you will blindly support what you believe is moral and just without truly understanding what it is you are yelling about. Liberate Iraq indeed. So we might as well come out and say it…
       Yes, you were lied to, deceived, mislead, misinformed, duped, suckered, and made to look like a real jackass by your own government. You should be outraged and ashamed. There are no “weapons of mass destruction” as GW put it, but never defined. There was no perceived threat, just make believe threats, to American lives. The people of Iraq had it bad, but tens of millions more had it much worse, well, at least they used to have it worse than the Iraqis. Who would have thought that after we remove the government that chaos would fill the void? But in America we went along with it and today we don’t like to talk about it much, its time we move past the war and on to other less uncomfortable things, just two months after it ended. This is nothing short of a humiliating moment in history.

But What Will We Do About the Derelicts and the Un-cool?

Back to the tax cuts. So, programs and services get cut, which is what the Right wants to happen. Its a matter of reducing the size of government, and the states have the right to go along with it. Remember that the only reason that this is going on is because Karl Rove took us all for idiots and we thanked him by electing a wave of Republicans into various levels of government. Of course, education is one of the first things to go in our new broke-ass way of life, which only encourages us to become idiots, and it only gets worse for there, so I’m going to sum it up by only using music as an example.
        First thing to get cut is jazz band. And that makes real jazz less nerdy, because nerds will no longer be exposed to jazz through high school jazz band, and jazz can once again be cool. Which is good. And those cool kids who were in jazz band just because they liked music, like us, will have to move into the garages and basements, which is also good."
        Now not only will jazz get better, and the garage and basements get better, but there will be a lot more poor people who will have the slim opportunity to rise and be the next Elvis, Dylan, or Eminem. So, to sum it all up, the tax cuts are the worst idea ever, and really good for rock’n’roll. How do you like that suckers?

More by Tedward Fitzhume.........

Review of William Safire

The dark prince of the Old Grey Lady tickles me pink, and I’m not ashamed to say it. His weathered face has that “Chuck Heston” smile that is at once hard to resist by the conservative women folk and, at the same time, seems to say in a knowledgeable elder sort of way “listen kid, I have some wisdom to impart on you.” Personally, his visage makes my skin crawl in that hippie pinned in the corner of the Pizza Shack by a cop with a GED and a nightstick kind of way. “Listen kid, I’m going to make sure you don’t get a job and people call you fag while you walk down the street, you pink-o son of a bitch.”

Review of Joe S. Harrington

The Prince of Darkness at the Ol’ Brown Dolman Bowl that is Blastitude has yet to tickle me through one chance encounter, but we won’t close the book on that chapter. With his tussled hair and his beer in tow, his winsome smile seems to say “have you bought a copy of my book?” while at the same time saying “go away” and also “did you know one of the original copies of the constitution was written on hemp?” A confusing hell to find yourself in indeed.