Science Friction

i haven't written for a while, the reason being a major depressive episode .... you know why? you know what could make me disconsolate, inconsolable, and down? feel forlorn, hopeless, and helpless? wake up in the mo'nin'/feelin' so bad/lawse hab de wuss ol' feelin'/man mos' evah done had?

misunderstimating amerkans and their joodishal system, that'll do it for sure ..... why, just last editorial i'd forecast the death sentence for zacharias moussouai ..... but he didn't get it ..... he got a life sentence, which pissed him off, arab fundamentalists off, christian fundamentalists off (pro-lifers are really pro-death) and, of course, the united states government off ..... because we needed more bread with our circuses: nice, white skwushy roll-a-whole-loaf-up-into-a-fist-sized-ball-because-it-has-no-substance wonder bread, which means a show trial and a fall guy demonstrating how together our government is when it comes to protecting us, which means whacking out some poor schizzy thought-disordered wannabe wanker who is so fucked up he couldn't even qualify for being president of the united states .....

sometimes it just makes you wonder: what are our tax dollars going for? judicially speaking, i mean, because we know that every penny we pay improves the quality of corporate .... i mean, our ..... lives ..... remember that o.j. simpson walked right out of the courtroom and onto the golf course, where he'll tee off with ken lay (o.j.! o.j.! it's the one-armed man! he's your caddie!) ...... the police who played fungo with rodney king's face, they strolled off into pension-land .... and i can't keep track of all the others who were presumed innocent .... and found to be innocent .....

thank god we got martha stewart, that uppity bitch .... i rejoiced when she got sent up; i never could fold a napkin like she did .....

but that's all beside the point ....

is there a point? gee .... stick with me and we'll both find out ....

when i was young i read a lot of science fiction ..... today's stuff, which i don't read (unless you count the New York Times and The Washington Post, which fall into the realm of delusion and fantasy) seems to be science fantasy, wizardry and sword-cum-spaceship stuff, like you have to use a sword in the world of the future because we can't afford to manufacture munitions anymore, something i know that we'll never see happen: when it comes to choosing between guns and butter the phrase "eat hot lead" takes on new meaning .... or it's very high-tech sociological fiction, where you need a degree in calculus and a mainframe computer to keep up with the story line .... but in my day there was a world of imagination to be found within our solar system -- earth, mars, the moon; venus, neptune, uranus; jupiter and beyond -- that kept us round-eyed with wonder at the staggering visions of things that might transpire within our own time and our own tomorrows, all in our own backyards .....

someone just forwarded me an internet link to a spy-cam set up over a bald eagle's nest ..... sure, i like looking at the little eaglets sucking up regurgitated moose lips, but a number of thoughts occurred to me .... well, let me back up and say that thoughts always are occurring to me and ......

oh .... was that you, saying, what's the point, doctor pete? what's the fucking point? sure, bald eagle chicks are neat; we like chicks, honest we do, and so does dick cheney .... but what's the fucking point?

well .... george orwell, eat your lo-carb heart out .... i don't want to shock you, but i think the point is that the future is here, and it's here right now ..... the future dawns every day, and it never seems quite as rosy or as exhiliarating as it did when i read about the terraforming of jupiter, or the strange creatures that lived in the asteroid belt, or the alien artifacts that intrepid but doomed space explorers stumbled into, thinking that their fortunes were made .....

who could, way back when cars had tailfins, have imagined something like the internet and how it could streamline our shopping, which (along with duct tape, visqueen, and cans of tuna underneath our beds is the best way we can keep winning the war on terror) allows us to go deeper into debt to the chinese even as we ship more jobs overseas and close up all the retail outlets that aren't mega-chains?

there was a common thread through many of the sci-fi stories back then, along with buxom space-ladies and ray guns, and that was how devious, oppressive, and ill-intended the government was .....

well, all the predictions about flying robot cars didn't pan out; the interplanetary colonies didn't come to pass; the life of ease, with robot servitors, makes me spit my cocktail onion across the mixing console, but they got it right about the government .... the fact that you can sit back and watch a mother bald eagle feeding her eaglets macerated weasel spleens doesn't hold a candle to what the national security agency has been doing to you and your phone calls for over four years, and now the bush nominee for heading the cia, general michael hayden, is the very guy who's been running that program .....

coincidence?

i don't know, but i'm sure their intentions are good .....

people's capacity for idiocy is legend, and if i had a dollar for every slobbering cretin who, not realizing how labor intensive family is, wet themselves and shrieked, twins!?!?!?! how WONDERFUL!!!!!! my sons' college career would be guaranteed ..... and i'd have a pair of au pairs working 'round the clock .... and i'd be off diving fiji's somosomo straits right now .....

these must be the same over-medicated droolers who, when polled a few days ago, said that they were all for the government monitoring the phone call of every single american over the last four years, and who showed no concern that there was no end of citizen spying in sight ..... oh, sure, polls aren't really indicative of trends .... you can manipulate their outcomes by the way you phrase the question ...... "do you think your civil liberties, which you can't recall but can take for granted because they're always protected by a benificent and paternal government, might be noodled just ever so itsy-bitsy teensie-weensie little nibblets by george bush, an upright christian god-fearin' white man who wants to listen in to your phone calls ..... so he can stop the godless dark-complected religious fundamentalists of islam from coming over here ..... and fucking your daughters?"

by now you're wondering, what's the point, doctor pete, you fucking old misanthrope, you?

well, the point is, republicans suck satan's cock, and i shouldn't have to tell you that any more, but i do anyway .... the point is, christians are set to overthrow the constitution of this country and make fucking--and thinking--a capital offense ..... the point is, "they've" got your number, in more ways than one, and there are any number of "thems," ranging from your government to the corporations that run it, you little renewable natural resource, you ..... and you should know that without my having to tell you, yet again ..... and i marvel, over and over again, at how little "they" think of us, and how we go right along with "them" ..... hey, america! supply and demand! the market's regulating itself! here's a hundred bucks for your gas! oooooh, me for that! hey, america! here's nine dollars tax credit for you ....... wow, my cup runneth over!!! ...... hey, america! just keep voting republican and laisser le bon temps rouler! let's do the katrina shuffle! eeeeeee, ain't we havin' fun?

and george?

take my kids ...... please ...... so they can serve in your wars of empire .... and pay off the debt you'll be saddling them -- and their kids -- with .....

the real point is, i've not written because it's so depressing--not like "they" (and our democrats are complicit) -- aren't counting on your feeling overwhelmed, powerless, and adrift--as you see continued depredations, inroads, incursions, thefts, deceptions, and major rectal penetrations perpetrated on your quivering little rosebud of a hole by our government .....

and why do i perseverate on rectal penetration? perhaps because there are so many assholes in positions of profound power, whose sole mission in life is to fuck you, fuck with you, and fuck you up .....

but you already knew that, as you knew that 63% of the american sheeple think it's okay to have their phone records recorded, turned over to the military, turned over to religious groups, turned over to corporations ..... ooooooh, as long as you vote for george bush, who's a manly man, we'll be okay ..... well, let me back up a moment and say, in the world of the future -- which is here now -- the whole process is so streamlined that the voting is done for you, no muss, no fuss ...... because the fix is already in and the machines and mechanisms are rigged ..... and there's nothing you need worry about because your government is in control .....

and jeb's coronation hat is in the dynastic ring .......

thank god for ketel one!

next: dr. pete makes sense