Hail To The Chaff

As winter gave way to spring, there was too much weather and too much towrite about. Anyone with good sense would have burned the pencils. Everytime Itried to leave the house and avoid the issue I was lashed back indoors bydriving hail and falling branches from the wych elm in the yard. Even the drugdealer on the corner had to give up after awhile and take shelter. I triedturning on the TV for relief but as usual it was hard to tell the risible fromthe ridiculous.

According to my cable connection, here's what was important in the world:

In the wake of the revelation of the existence of a "shadowgovernment," Tipper Gore ran the world's shortest shadow Senate campaign.Al Gore shaved the shadows off his face and issued an utterly bafflingexplanation, far stranger than the beard.

Tonya Harding beat the living hell out of Paula Jones, who turned tail andran then cowered in a corner begging for mercy. Harding showed the depth of hercompassion with a haymaker to the top of the head that knocked Jones into nextweek. Did Bill Clinton send the winner flowers? He should have.

A jury in Texas found that Andrea Yates was crazy before and after butmiraculously sane during the murder of her five children. (During the trial achild was killed by gunfire every two and a half hours in the U.S.)

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney lumbered around the Middle East in Air Force Onetrying to talk about invading Iraq, a subject of no apparent interest to anyonewho met with him. It was the best example of the administration being thrown"off message" since Enron.

Ari ("be careful what you say") Fleischer blamed Bill Clinton forMiddle East violence during the Bush administration. There was no word onwhether Fleischer also blamed Clinton for the visas recently issued to deadsuspected hijackers on Bush's watch.

In Afghanistan, the masterminds of Operation Anaconda, the two-day battlethat lasted two weeks, declared total victory as hundreds of al-qaeda fightersescaped, according to our Afghan allies. (This is what some thought the U.S.should have done in Vietnam: declare victory and get out.)

Who's likely to be caught first? Osama bin Ladin in the mountains ofAfghanistan, or Eric Robert Rudolph in the mountains of North Carolina? Thedomestic bombing suspect, wanted for the fatal bombing of a Birmingham abortionclinic and linked to the explosion that went off in prime time during theAtlanta Olympics, has been on the FBI's most wanted list for almost four years.Will U.S. troops be searching caves in Afghanistan that long? This may soundfamiliar: the FBI stated in 1998 that it "hasn't ruled out anypossibilities," including that Rudolph is dead or has fled the area.

In Washington, Trent Lott threw a major temper tantrum over the JudiciaryCommittee's rejection of Judge Charles Pickering, Sr.'s nomination. It gave TomDaschle something to smile about and will give Lott something to talk about whenhe next speaks to his beloved Conservative Citizen's Council.

Missing from my TV was the news that George W. Bush was greeted withcatcalls, protest signs and "carols of derision" during an appearanceat a St. Patrick's Day parade in Chicago.

Did I just miss it, or was it the "patriotic duty" of the networksto avoid developing this story? The inability of organizers and White Houseadvance men to turn Chicago into the usual obligatory Potemkin Village requiredfor a presidential visit is surely newsworthy.

Fortunately, the ChicagoIndependent Media Center was on the case.

Riddle me this: since Cheney was reported to be traveling in Air Force One,how did Bush get to Chicago? Amtrak? Greyhound? Enron jet?

Perhaps Dubya should have sent the Shadow Government in his place. Somethingtells me our Shadow Government would have known what to do with thoseprotesters.

Anyone who turned off the TV and picked up the New York Times expectingrelief instead found Thomas L. Friedman calling on Bush to send an Americanoccupying force to Israel. "Are you sitting down?" asked Friedman. No,I'd rather go outside and stand in the hail.

(David Vestis a regular writer for CounterPunch,where this piece first appeared, as well as a poet and piano-player for thePacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs)