Humor

The shooting of John Lennon in 1980 was staged, or at least he didn't immediately die.  Or at least that's the premise that launches a hilarious work of fiction called "Life After Death (For Beginners)" by Michael Gerber, in which -- among other things -- Lennon tries to discover who killed him and whether it was for money or politics or love.

I guess it doesn't sound very hilarious, and I'm guessing that Yoko Ono, who has been a friend to the peace movement all these years, might not find it hilarious, since she serves as the butt of many jokes.  Other butts of jokes include John himself, the other three Beatles, their manager, Jackie Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gloria Swanson, Elvis, and above all the human race -- which sort of makes it nothing personal for all those other people.

As imagined by Dave Lindorff

My Fellow Americans.

I stand before you a chastened president. I made a mistake. Two mistakes really. (wild applause from Republican side)

I thought that Congress could do its job and through the
deliberative process, produce a health care reform plan that would win
broad support across the aisle and among all of you. But I’m afraid
that I was wrong. Health care is an enormous industry—maybe the biggest
and most powerful industry in the country—and it has far too much power
in Washington. Literally thousands of lobbyists, carrying tens of
billions of dollars in campaign contributions—have invaded these halls (and my house!) (relieved laughter)
and distorted the process, and in the end have stymied reform. (some hissing)

Meanwhile, I have realized that the answer has been staring us in the face all along.

By Dave Lindorff

I don’t normally bother commenting on the writings of columnists like David Brooks, but today I can’t help myself.

Brooks earlier this week wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times elaborating on a blog on the site Marginal Revolution,
in which that site’s two economists speculated on what would happen if
a solar event instantly sterilized everyone, male and female, on the
side of the earth that was facing the sun at that moment, and if that
side happened to include both the US and Europe.

By Dave Lindorff

When Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi heaved his two shoes at the
head of President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad,
he did something that the White House press corps should have done
years ago.

By Dave Lindorff

By Dave Lindorff

I’ve been getting some emails that refer to Barack Obama as a
“Manchurian Candidate,” a guy who is somehow hiding a secret radical
and/or Muslim jihadist agenda that will burst forth if he’s elected
president. There is a certain idiot factor at work here, since if Obama
were a closet Weatherman, who somehow learned of and adopted that 1960s
college dropout organzation’s creed at the tender age of 8, it would
have clashed badly with any Muslim teaching he might have picked up as
a student in an Indonesian public school at the same time (he attended
an Indonesian public schoolfrom the age of 6 to 8 before transferring
to a Catholic-run institution).

But since some low-wattage and conspiracy-minded people seem ready
to believe this kind of stuff, let’s consider John McCain’s early
background, and the possibility of his being a Manchurian Candidate
too. Fair’s fair, right?

By Dave Lindorff

Sarah Palin stated again, most recently in her interview yesterday
by ABC’s Charlie Gibson, that she has foreign policy experience because
as governor of Alaska she has been in charge of that state’s National
Guard, and because Alaska is, doggone it, “right next” to Russia.

This made me feel pretty good, because it made me realize that I
have a whole lot of skills and experience which I hadn’t really
appreciated before and that I could perhaps use to get myself out of
this freelance journalism profession, which is not all that great from
a financial perspective.

By Dave Lindorff

Okay, I have to vent here. We all get a little crazy sitting alone
at our keyboards in this business, and it's finally gotten to me.

I know there are serious signs of a complete mental breakdown in the
US, with polls reporting that millions of people are actually excited
at having a low-rent religious fanatic who consistently mispronounces
pundit as "pundint" (shades of Dubya!), pilfers state funds for her
family's personal use, lies about her alleged opposition to Washington
pork, claims the bloody war in Iraq is "God's will," forces her
17-year-old daughter to make a momentary mistake into a lifetime one by
marrying the kid who got her pregnant, and refers to blacks as "sambo"
and to Alaska's indigenous people as "arctic arabs," running for vice
president on the ticket with a man who is a walking medical disaster
waiting to happen.