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 Last Water

What would you do if you were the Pope? Dunno? Well, I've been thinking about it. If only because while I live lost in the great desert of the West right now, I once lived near a far off imaginary town by the sea ... let's call it "Salem, Massachusetts" ... and while I was there I was convinced by a friend to seek the counsel of a fortune teller in a big city, let's call that big blob of civilization "Boston," and this sage crystal ball and Tarot card reader told me that in a previous life, I was the Pope. 

Sure, I said back, you say that to all of the guys. It appeals to our patriarichal natures, our paternal peccadilloes, our massive insecurities that tell us, if we know anything at all about the world, we are incredibly small, and that due to these flaws, we like the idea of having the power to burn evil doers at the stake, thus, saving them. We like to launch overseas wars, calling them crusades. We like to pray about just about anything that comes off the top of our heads to large numbers of amazed, receptive people. We like the good business practice that comes from being the middleman.

Kinda like Rush Limbaugh, but with something covering our bald heads. Because we like big hats, too, we older guys do. The bigger the better is what we think. Keeps the head warm. Older guys granted the power to say any silly thing that comes off the top of our heads also like to write big important books as thick as a brick. Limbaugh himself, just the other day, told his massive, terrified audience, that he had just written a book about pilgrims, who had some strange ideas. Strange enough to feel the need to cross the great imaginary ocean -- let's call it the "Atlantic" -- in order to practice a dour, somewhat paranoid thing called puritanism.

I found Mr. Limbaugh's little puritanical book pitch for the kiddies far more interesting than what another similar radio-ready fat cat, Glenn Beck, had: a radio show advertising "Biblical Money Code," whatever that is.

Mr. Limbaugh describes himself as "Talent on loan from God." Pretty Popey, eh?

What Rush was selling on his show, besides his children's book about pilgrims, which turns out, is not that thick, was home security and internet identity theft stuff from "SimplySafe.com" and "Lifelock.com." That latter product, apparently, protects people from online identity thieves. However, it fails to mention what happens when this electronic life locking operative gets sucked up for apparently random reasons by the National Security Agency's out-of-control zombie-technology sucker. Big fish do eat bigger fish. It's just what big fish do. Even in online life, where we are all naked as sin, fish food for the mighty search engines of progress, and suckers for fools given permission to pray about anything they want on radio shows, such as riots before the conventions of political opponents, failures for health care programs for the poor, chaos to reign in the streets, so on and so forth.

When Limbaugh comes back on the air, also broadcast from a far off imaginary place by the sea -- let's call it "Florida" -- what comes off the top of his big head are fear-based baits pitting social security recipients against food-stamp recipients, kinda like the Hatfields and McCoys of the welfare state. And then, everybody gets mad and scared and keeps on listening to Limbaugh.

Yep, Limbaugh is a pretty entertaining guy. He talks of education and uses words like "commentate" in the same breath. Funny voice in the head is Rush, who decries the "low information voter" and then promotes, over and over, his skinny book about pilgrims. He also says a book store that placed his children's book display out front was "leftist leaning." What I never heard on his radio show, which promoted, between this fear-bait, as well as his message to the kiddies about pilgrims, of course, was some rational explanation for the Salem witch trials. "I wrote this book for kids," says Rush. "To try to counter the crap these kids encounter in school." Education "crap" wasn't very well explained, either. Yep, there was low information about that.

Nothing about the witch trials, surely. Such gaps, such gaps, between the here and the there.

I didn't even want to write anything about Mr. Limbaugh, witch trials or locks on life when I started this. Sorry. Especially if there are any kids reading. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Witch trials are even scarier than witches themselves. I just wanted to say something about people who like to pontificate about great issues to folks who can barely conceive of fantasies heard from the remote, desert lands of the West.

What would I do if I were Pope? I would turn off Rush, first, then try to figure out what "Biblical Money Code" is, and explain that in a really thick-as-a-brick children's book. Amen.