August witnessed the Democratic National
Convention transform itself from the usual extended session of
group therapy to a religious awakening. And one other thing—those
ritualistic liberals who at the end of the Cold War asseverated
that Russia had been a paper tiger all along were again exposed as
boobies. On August 8, Russia invaded Georgia with a massive
military strike. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin insisted that the
assault was in truth a peacekeeping measure to save scenic South
Ossetia from the Georgian brutes, but students of geopolitics
speculate that the action was really meant to pressure former
Soviet Bloc countries to remain in the Russian orbit. How
persuasive this Russian aggression will be remains uncertain.
Already there are signs that recent Russian belligerence has
triggered vigorous countermeasures from liberal-minded
internationalists in the region. Throughout the Balkans, statues of
American pop figures are being put up as “good luck charms against
war,” according to Bloomberg News. In 2005 progressives in the
Bosnian city of Mostar endeavored to ward off violence by erecting
a bronze statue of the kung fu movie star Bruce Lee. Last year
people in the Serbian city of Zitiste heaved up a muscular statue
of the Sylvester Stallone movie character Rocky as a safeguard
against war and bad juju. Now, in August, hundreds of reggae fans
in the former Yugoslavian city of Banatski Sokolac have unveiled a
handsome Bob Marley statue to oppose Russian aggression or any
other inconvenience. Actually, if things go the way attendees at
the Democratic Convention anticipate, the United Nations will be
able to withdraw UN peacekeepers everywhere and leave in their
place statues of the Prophet Obama, hand held out in warning, mouth
wide open, milk and honey flowing from his pantaloons.
The Democratic Convention began on August 25
with its usual reminders of the widespread suffering prevailing
throughout America, save on the country’s Republican-dominated golf
courses. The convention ended with a mass movement of Democrats and
even members of the godless media headed toward a spiritual
awakening. All were turning to Sen. Barack H. Obama, the party’s
presidential nominee, for salvation and an occasional act of
healing. Even the party’s many Unitarians and yogis felt a
supernatural goosing. The only recorded miracle that the Prophet
worked during the convention occurred on opening night, when a
satellite hookup between the candidate and the faithful in the
convention hall showed that he was in Kansas City, though he
rumbled, “Hi, I’m here with the Girardeau family in St. Louis.” So
there you have it. He was in two places at once. Not even the New
York Times editorial page tried to explain it in earthly terms. In
point of fact, leading up to the convention Democrats were mildly
apprehensive that—just as the Clintons had warned—the nominee was a
greenhorn ass. His poll numbers were flat for most of the month.
Sen. John McCain seemed to be creeping up. Finally, the day before
the Denver convention commenced, four tornados touched down
southwest of the city, and the Prophet raised not a hand against
them. On the day after the Prophet’s official nomination, Sen.
McCain tapped Mrs. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and former mayor
of Wasilla, Alaska, to be his running mate. She is a former beauty
queen, an NRA member, and the mother of five. Her executive
experience outpaces the Prophet’s four years to zero. Moreover, she
has a very presentable husband even if, as the ever helpful New
York Times reported, he received a DUI 22 years ago. In Katmandu,
Nepal, Maoist female lawmakers canceled that country’s beauty
contest.
More good news on the Global warming
front—nudism’s popularity continues to spread, at least
south of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in non-Muslim
purlieus. Though who knows what is worn beneath those sultry
burkhas and under a fat mullah’s St. Francis of Assisi outfit? In
the United Kingdom, an enterprising Lincolnshire naturist has
announced Britain’s first nude interior decorating service. Mr.
Nick Male, a ravishing 37-year-old, has informed the press that “I
work more now than when I left my clothes on.” Presumably he wears
deodorant and waxes his legs, for he sounds like a serious chap. “I
don’t do titillation and soon get rid of people looking for that,”
he insists while remaining coy about precisely what “titillation”
might be. Is it some thing way up there on the stepladder, Mr.
Male? In the small Italian town of Mondragone, a Roman Catholic
priest, Fr. Antonio Rungi, has canceled his planned beauty contest
for nuns, which he billed as the world’s first beauty contest for
women of the cloth. The cancellation came after his superiors
threatened to box his ears, theologically speaking. “It was
interpreted as more of a physical thing. Now, no one is saying that
nuns can’t be beautiful, but I was thinking about something more
complete.” Fr. Rungi did not elaborate. MSNBC, the cable news
channel for the Angry Left and people with a twitch, has found its
replacement for Mr. Tucker Carlson, the mini-con whom the network
abandoned earlier this year. Mr. Carlson, after dutifully following
management’s orders—discarding his bow tie, appearing in Bermuda
shorts, wearing a propeller beanie on his late, late, late night
show—has been replaced by an Air America radio host, Miss Rachel
Maddow, who has overcome adenoidal disorders and mad cow disease to
lift left-wing Air America’s ratings from naught to negligible all
over urban America. Air America remains unknown in locales like
Wasilla, Alaska. Miss Maddow has attracted accolades from media
critics across the spectrum: from the Washington Post’s Mr. Howard
Kurtz, who called her “a breakout star,” to the Maoist Nation,
which chirped, “Maddow didn’t get here by bluster and bravado but
with a combination of crisp thinking and galumphing good cheer.”
Precisely what the ex-bloggers who serve as Nation editorialists
mean by “galumphing” remains obscure, though it could be a
reference to the fact that Miss Maddow lives with her lesbian
girlfriend, the J. Fred Muggs look-alike Miss Susan Mikula, in
Manhattan and Northampton, Massachusetts. Frankly, after all these
years one would have thought that gaybashing would be beneath the
Nation’s humorists. But hypocrisy is not unknown among American
leftists or progressives or latter-day saints or whatever the hell
they call themselves.
Actually Miss Maddow and her friend may not
even be staying in the United States for long. The mayor of Mount
Isa, Queensland, Australia, has urged women of a certain sort to
migrate to his remote town in the antipodean outback. Said the
plainspoken mayor, Mr. John Moloney, Mount Isa is a town for “ugly
ducklings to flourish into beautiful swans.” He called on the
“beauty-disadvantaged” to head south and avail themselves to the
town’s plastic surgeon and famed practitioner of cosmetic
dentistry. How, incidentally, do we know that the toothbrush was
invented in remote Mount Isa? Because if it were invented elsewhere
it would be called the teethbrush. An old Arkansas joke that, but
it bears repeating, and Mayor Moloney’s hick town brings it to
mind. Finally, worries that terrorists have weaponized mushroom
soup were allayed after investigators for Ryanair determined that a
passenger’s violent reaction to the mushroom soup that spilled out
of an overhead locker on a Ryanair flight from Budapest to Dublin
was dangerous only to him. The wretch is one of a statistically
insignificant number of people allergic to mushroom soup. So
airline passengers can take their soup with them, albeit in tiny
bottles. This crisis is over.
