Continued

The August Conspiracy

(The Lord High God is unhappy with fussing, feuding and failure in the United States and has told the Archangel Gabriel to come up with a plan – or else. Gabriel and his archangel colleagues Michael, Rafael and Uriel are in a staff meeting where Gabriel has captured attention with his fabled, but certainly not fabulous, horn skills.)

Gentlemen,” Gabriel said, “the solution is obvious.” He waved his horn in a grand gesture that caused Michael, Uriel and Raphael to shrink away by reflex.

“Dude, could that thing like not be here?” Rafael asked.

“But it’s such a good idea that I’m inspired!” Gabriel protested.

“Such inspiration a laxative should be good for,” Uriel muttered while Michael impatiently drummed the table before snapping “Gentlemen! The business at hand!”

“As I was saying,” Gabriel continued with an annoyed look, “the solution is so obvious it’s the center of our target.”

“Perhaps you would be good enough to share exactly where that might be,” Michael observed with a smile that could have etched glass.

“Rock on!” chirped Raphael, while Uriel looked away muttering.

“Such impatience!” Gabriel said, turning towards the white board and getting the Moving Finger’s attention. “Erase, please.” The letters of fire disappeared.

“Now a large circle,” Gabriel instructed the finger, which began a curving trail of fire. “A bit larger please!” Gabriel chided and the Moving Finger complied, erasing the false start and etching a circle of fire that now spanned the whiteboard from top to bottom.”

“Label it ‘USA’” Gabriel commanded.

“Penetrating insight, that” Michael sniped as the Moving Finger complied, but Gabriel chose to ignore it. “Now another, smaller circle in the middle,” he told the Moving Finger, and label that one ‘Washington, DC’.”

“So… of what use this is?” queried Uriel. Michael just sniffed and Raphael played with his ear studs.

“Gentlemen, please!” Gabriel demanded. “Did not the Lord our God demand a reduction in “fuss, feud, fight and fumble in The United States?”

He got nodding, grudging consent.

“And I ask you,” Gabriel continued, “is Washington, DC not the absolute center of these displeasing acts –and countless others – when Congress is in session?”

“Do you think there will come a point when you will tell us something we don’t know?” Michael asked with poisoned sweetness?

“Aha!” crowed Gabriel. “You see what you think you know, but know not what you see!”

“Say whut?” Raphael asked.

“Say this!” Gabriel cried, grabbing the Moving Finger, which wriggled in futile protest. “Flame on!” he yelled as he used the struggling digit to write “IN RECESS” across the circle labeled “Washington, DC.”

“If we just get Congress out of town, all the evil that it does will dissipate!” Gabriel said in triumph.

“But what happens when it comes back?” Michael objected.

“That wasn’t the assignment!” Gabriel said, calling for a vote…

“So Lord, by almost unanimous consent, the Staff recommend an August recess for Congress,” Gabriel explained before the Throne of the Almighty.”

“Michael objecting again?” God asked.

“Well..” Gabriel demurred.

“I always thought that boy was a Republican at heart,” God said. “But best can’t always be the enemy of better. We’ll do it!”

And so it came to pass that in the last three weeks of August, wisdom and serenity came upon the United States as Congress decamped. No foolish laws were passed, nor legislators bribed, nor C Street Commandos compromised. And the time was called Recess. And the Lord God was pleased.

But the Archangel Michael was distraught and came before the Lord saying “Lord, while they do not sin for three weeks, when that period ends surely will Congress return to the ways of evil!

But God said unto Michael “Hey, it’s Congress. You want a miracle or something?”

###

The August Conspiracy

And so it came to pass that the Lord God looked down from the Heavens upon the United States, and what He saw was Not Good.

“They fuss!” the Lord rumbled. “They feud, fight and fumble!” he thundered. “They talk much but accomplish little!” he pealed with lightning-flash emphasis.

“Yes, Lord,” said Archangel Gabriel. He seldom said more when God was in one of these moods.

“’Yes, Lord!’” God mocked. “’Yes, Lord!’ Gabriel, I want plans! I want action! If I wanted a parrot, I’d make one!”

“Yes, Lor..” Gabriel started, then remembered being an archangel was lots better than being a parrot. “Forgive me, I meant to say we’re staffing those issues as we speak and we’ll be back to you shortly Lord!”

Well, you could judge that a lie if you were a Commandments Strict Constructionist. But Gabriel followed the Liberal Activist view and told himself that since he was a member of the staff and was obviously considering what God wanted, one could certainly argue that his statement was a truth-in-development.

“Or a parrot in development!” the Lord interjected. “Now git! And don’t come back until it’s fixed!”

Gabriel got. That all-knowing stuff could be a real nuisance.

By the time he got to the Archangel Headquarters, Michael, Raphael and Uriel were waiting in Conference Room A, where a Moving Finger had just etched the white board with “Break The American Deadlock!” in letters of fire.

“Took you long enough!” snapped Michael, the most senior among these equals. Gabriel offered an Economy-of-Fingers salute and slid into his chair. “I suppose you guys have some ideas?” Gabriel smirked. He looked to Uriel. “Uri?”

“So maybe a flood we should send them,” said Uriel. “A flood like what no other, a flood...”

“It’s been done,” Michael cut him off. “And it didn’t work then, either, Uri I think what we need is bold, decisive action. Cost and loss control. Wipe that slate clean and repopulate with better stock.”

“Cool, dude!” cooed Raphael around his lip studs. “Massive! But I guess I must have spaced out about telling The Man the stuff He created in His Image wasn’t the righteous goods.”

“Well!” Michael and Uriel both started explaining, but, stopped goggling short when Gabriel materialized his trumpet and puckered.

“No dude!” Rafael shouted. “You promised”

“You did!” echoed both Michael and Uriel. Biblical citation aside, Gabriel suffered from the Thin/Tin Trumpet Syndrome – thin lip, tin ear. Anyone who heard him play once worked hard to avoid twice.

“Maybe a little ‘What A Wonderful World’ guys?” Gabriel said, pulling a white silk hankie out of his sleeve.

“Not if you play it, it won’t be” Michael said. “Besides, as you above all should know, we’re here to solve a problem,” Michael added, pointing to the still-glowing white board.

“Ohhh, yeahhhh!” Gabriel smiled, lifting the horn to his lips, but pausing to look around the room. Michael had hands over his ears already, Uri was edging toward the door and Raphael was stuffing note paper in his ears, working hard to get it around multiple studs.

Gabriel lowered the horn ever so slightly. “Or maybe you’d like to hear about this idea I had?”

“Yes! Please!” the other archangels roared. “Please!” they begged, with Raphael adding “Just no horn, man, OK?”

“Well,” said Gabriel smiling, “it goes like this. . .”

To Be Continued. . .

###

States: Kid Hunting OK

Kid Drivers Dangerous

America’s Founders batted .900 on the Bill of Rights, knocking issue after issue out of the park in a triumph for democracy, individual rights and common sense.

But they struck out on the Tenth Amendment, which says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

That’s the so-called “State’s Rights” amendment which has been used to bless all sorts of mischief including the civil war, segregation and letting nine-year-olds carry lethal weapons.

While states generally limit driving a car to persons at least 16 and often with lots of training, some states have no restrictions on a kid toting a 30.06 while he hunts without adult supervision.

Driving is restricted because cars can kill people and using them requires mature judgment. Texas, for example, joins 46 other states and the District of Columbia in a graduated driver’s license program with firm requirements for those below 18.

On the other hand, Texas law permits someone nine years old to hunt deer alone. Which means the nine-year-old’s unsupervised judgment is in control of a weapon that can kill anything in a circle more than half a mile in diameter.

Not to pick on Texas, because it’s a paragon of intelligence compared to Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont and Washington. They set no minimum age at all, so it must be perfectly legal for an unsupervised five-year-old to tote a shotgun as long as he or she is “hunting.”

If those kindergarten kids are hunting brains in their state legislatures, they’re plumb out of luck.

Since anyone must be 18 years old to purchase a rifle or shotgun (21 for a handgun), what about a national law saying those are the same ages for unsupervised hunting?

But that would be a Common Sense pitch, and the Tenth Amendment’s record shows no hits on that pitch in years.

While gun advocates will say that it should be up to parents to judge when a child is able to carry a lethal weapon hunting without supervision, the rest of us will only agree when they let their eight-year-old daughter take their midlife- crisis sports car on a solo spin.

In the meantime, states which would lock down schools because a ten-year-old brought a Cub Scout pocketknife to class will have no problem with the same ten-year-old carrying a .30-.30 in the woods behind the school as long as he’s got a hunting license.

All if which is why we need to add to the Tenth Amendment so it says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, unless the States and people are being Really, Really Dumb.”

It would be an improvement.

Until it happens, if you’re walking down a street in many states and a tiny kid says “Bang! You’re Dead!” you might be.

###

Hell of an Improvement?

Damnation Upgrade

Projects Proposed

Hell needs an upgrade.

For years the default Final Destination has been damned stubborn about sticking with the eternal punishments outlined by Dante in the Inferno – boiling blood, whip-cracking demons and such.

Sinners, on the other hand, have embraced and even pioneered new technologies that put sin as far ahead of punishment as bankers collecting bonuses after bailouts. Since Dante hasn’t written anything in years, here are suggestions for new sections of Hell and those who should populate them.

To Repeat These Choices, Press Star would be the section of flaming Hell reserved for those who bought, designed, installed or maintained the menu-driven answering services that so effectively keep service centers service-free. Sinners would be issued cell phones with calling areas the size of lobbyist integrity and battery life equal to Congressional nonpartisanship. While flames barbequed them, sinners would have to navigate the menu-driven system until they reached a demon operator, who would tell them that Hell’s offices were closed but that they could try again tomorrow.

***

And then I said would be a Hell of eternal darkness, where sinners would try to find escape by following echoes of the intimate details they spouted on cell phones to annoy others on public transportation. They would also be surrounded by demons roaring into other cell phones as though speech and transmission volume were the same. When not bellowing, demons would inflict the torments wished by anyone who sat next to the sinners on the 5:22 to Morristown.

***

Next! Would be a Hell reserved for those who see that the left lane will be closed in two miles and so zip ahead in that lane until they clog the right lane by trying to cut in. They would be placed in right-lane-only cast-iron cars that grew one degree centigrade hotter every minute stuck in eternal traffic.

***

Say what? Would be a Hell reserved for those who played their personal music devices so loudly that anyone within five feet risked deafness. Those devices would be permanently implanted and set to play whatever tunes the sinner most hated. “Greatest Polka Hits” would serenade rock lovers, while tonal dog barks on “Jingle Bells” entertained jazz aficionados.

***

Prove It! Would be a Hell reserved for the conspiracy junkies who clogged public discourse with every whacko theory imaginable. Sinners would twirl in a whirlwind of superheated charge and countercharge, able to escape only when they were able to grab and hold on to a rare Passing Fact and keep it from being destroyed by a fellow sinner.

***

Health Care would be a Hell reserved for those who fought universal health care. They would endure every disease, pain and suffering their opposition caused others to endure, their only comfort being that the suffering was not rationed and that they were free to move from one suffering to another.

***

Downsizing would be a Hell for those who shed employees to inflate profit margins and their bonuses. They would spend eternity having all bodily orifices downsized while demons busily stuffed them with upsizing layoff notices written on razors.

***

Finally, Deadline would be that section of Hell reserved for journalists who would write in a perpetual August where the only matters of note would be fun, family and friends. It would be excruciating, having to say something when there’s nothing much to say. Most, however, would sink to the occasion.

###