"Henry?"
"Yes dear?"
"When our son came home today, he was very curious. He was asking me all sorts of questions about... you know." She busied herself straightening this and that. "I think you need to have a talk with him"
Henry's eyebrows jumped and his pipe drooped from his lips. "Goodness Janet, don't you think he's a little young?"
"If he doesn't hear it from us, he's just going to hear about it from the kids on the playground."
"I suppose you're right." Henry sighed. "I'll go talk to him." He stood up, kissed his wife on the cheek, and headed up the stairs to Jimmy's bedroom. Jimmy was in his pajamas, saying his nightly prayers.
"Hello son."
"Hi daddy!"
"Your mother told me that you had some questions..."
"Yeah daddy. A bunch of the older boys at school were talking about... y'know..." He took a deep breath. "About last week's report from the Senate about intellijence failures before the Iraq war."
"Yes son, that's a popular topic these days."
"But I don't understand what's going on. What happened?"
"How about you get into bed and I'll tell you all about it?"
Jimmy wriggled underneath the covers and grinned up at his father. Henry sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Well, let's see here, how to explain this... Let's say that you had a big jar of-- what's your favorite kind of cookie?"
"Peanut budder!"
"Let's say you had a big jar of peanut butter cookies, up on the kitchen counter by the stove."
"Yum!"
"Yes. Now let's say that the president of the United States came over to our house, and when no one was looking, he stole and ate every one of those cookies!"
"Hey! That's not fair!" Jimmy looked genuinely angry.
"Now let's say that sometime later, people noticed that the President had cookie crumbs all around his mouth. So the president ordered an investigation to find out why he had cookie crumbs around his mouth."
"But he had crumbs around his mouth because he ate my--"
"Yes, yes. Let me finish."
"Sorry daddy."
"So many days later, the investigators write up their conclusions, and they announce that there were crumbs around the president's mouth because cookies were stolen."
"We already knew they were stolen! The cookie jar was empty! Did the prezident get in trouble?"
"No, he didn't. The report didn't say who took the cookies, did it?"
"But... but... when are the investigaters going to arrest the prezident?"
"Well, they can't arrest him until they investigate the cookie theft."
"When will they do that?"
"Oh, I don't know son. Not for a long time, I suppose."
"But... but..."
Henry smiled and mussed his son's hair playfully. "Don't you worry. The President didn't leave you empty-handed."
Jimmy's timid smile grew. "He left me something in my cookie jar?"
"Indeed he did. After the war, the president made sure that your cookie jar was filled with the corpses of thousands of good little Iraqi boys and girls, just like you!" Henry smiled, and rose to leave.
He stopped just before closing the door behind him. "Do you want me to leave the light on?"
Jimmy didn't speak.
"I'll just leave it on then. G'nite, champ."
LOL....poor kid.
Posted by: Lindsey at July 17, 2004 10:22 AMI love it. Get Your War On vs My Pet Goat.
Posted by: Andy at July 17, 2004 09:26 PMThis is the best synopsis I've read. Also it made me hungry. Mmmm... peanut butter cookies.
Posted by: Mr. Peterson at July 19, 2004 11:21 PMI can't remember when I've read a more pointless story.
Posted by: Defiant at July 24, 2004 11:23 AMLying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it. Both projects focus on our media-marinated world, political lies, corporate tyranny, and the folks fighting the good fight against these monsters. All brought to you by Jake Sexton, The Most Beloved Man in America ®. contact: jake+at+lyingmediabastards.com |
Media News |
November 16, 2004Tales of Media WoeSenate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first. And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate. Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly). The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know. Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media? Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once... Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners. Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker. More Media News |
Quotes |
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." -Jonathan Swift |
Snapshots |
Damn. That joke would have been much funnier if I'd said "apprentice" instead of "intern". |