Mack Hall
Ivana Trump, who is famous for her marriages or something, was required to leave a commercial aircraft at Palm Beach for misbehavior after she waxed wroth at some children who were running and screaming in the aisles. There is no word as to whether the running and screaming children were de-off-un-boarded too.
Anyone who has flown with children will surely sympathize with Ms. Trump; most rug-rats should be stowed below with the other live animals.
Perhaps Ivana and the children should all have been punished by being made to sit together and share a Happy Meal.
If vulgar old women can be shown the way to the bus station, why can’t the terrorists?
Just last week a wealthy Nigerian studying engineering in London tried to explode himself on a flight into Detroit. People who have been to Detroit report that such a desire is common. The terrorist – um, misunderstood youth – boarded at Amsterdam, where airport security is reputedly, like, whoa, dude, this is some good stuff we’re smokin’, huh? He carried on his person explosives which he assembled in the potty and then attempted to touch off on the approach. Some of the other passengers, insensitive brutes who probably watch FOX and have read Sarah Palin’s book, jumped on the unfortunate son-of-a-(rich man) who was but crying out for understanding.
As usual, the perp’s acquaintances report that he was a good fellow, a fine student, and a great basketball player. Well, hey, we all know that terrorists are old grouches who have trouble spelling and don’t like sports.
The poor fellow’s lawsuits against the airline and the other passengers and the makers of his flaming underwear are soon to be announced. The meanies who saved the airliner and over two hundred lives must be punished.
The next day another Nigerian on another flight from Amsterdam to Detroit also locked himself in the potty (which most of us do) and refused to come out during the approach, pleading illness. This time the situation appears to have been one of funny-tummy. Perhaps the man had to sit next to some rotten children. Or maybe he was coming to America for the Obamacare.
Security Czar Janet, one of our republic’s many czars (ironic, eh?), hastens to assure us that air travel is safe, which is why airport security are hassling twice the usual number of little old ladies.
Safe airline travel, eh, your Czar-ness? With screaming children, cursing Ivanas, scheming terrorists, and Nigerian businessmen with explosive diarrhea if not explosives, maybe booking space on the Titanic should be an option again.
Showing posts with label Czars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Czars. Show all posts
Monday, December 28, 2009
Explosive Ivanas
Mack Hall
Ivana Trump, who is famous for her marriages or something, was required to leave a commercial aircraft at Palm Beach for misbehavior after she waxed wroth at some children who were running and screaming in the aisles. There is no word as to whether the running and screaming children were de-off-un-boarded too.
Anyone who has flown with children will surely sympathize with Ms. Trump; most rug-rats should be stowed below with the other live animals.
Perhaps Ivana and the children should all have been punished by being made to sit together and share a Happy Meal.
If vulgar old women can be shown the way to the bus station, why can’t the terrorists?
Just last week a wealthy Nigerian studying engineering in London tried to explode himself on a flight into Detroit. People who have been to Detroit report that such a desire is common. The terrorist – um, misunderstood youth – boarded at Amsterdam, where airport security is reputedly, like, whoa, dude, this is some good stuff we’re smokin’, huh? He carried on his person explosives which he assembled in the potty and then attempted to touch off on the approach. Some of the other passengers, insensitive brutes who probably watch FOX and have read Sarah Palin’s book, jumped on the unfortunate son-of-a-(rich man) who was but crying out for understanding.
As usual, the perp’s acquaintances report that he was a good fellow, a fine student, and a great basketball player. Well, hey, we all know that terrorists are old grouches who have trouble spelling and don’t like sports.
The poor fellow’s lawsuits against the airline and the other passengers and the makers of his flaming underwear are soon to be announced. The meanies who saved the airliner and over two hundred lives must be punished.
The next day another Nigerian on another flight from Amsterdam to Detroit also locked himself in the potty (which most of us do) and refused to come out during the approach, pleading illness. This time the situation appears to have been one of funny-tummy. Perhaps the man had to sit next to some rotten children. Or maybe he was coming to America for the Obamacare.
Security Czar Janet, one of our republic’s many czars (ironic, eh?), hastens to assure us that air travel is safe, which is why airport security are hassling twice the usual number of little old ladies.
Safe airline travel, eh, your Czar-ness? With screaming children, cursing Ivanas, scheming terrorists, and Nigerian businessmen with explosive diarrhea if not explosives, maybe booking space on the Titanic should be an option again.
Ivana Trump, who is famous for her marriages or something, was required to leave a commercial aircraft at Palm Beach for misbehavior after she waxed wroth at some children who were running and screaming in the aisles. There is no word as to whether the running and screaming children were de-off-un-boarded too.
Anyone who has flown with children will surely sympathize with Ms. Trump; most rug-rats should be stowed below with the other live animals.
Perhaps Ivana and the children should all have been punished by being made to sit together and share a Happy Meal.
If vulgar old women can be shown the way to the bus station, why can’t the terrorists?
Just last week a wealthy Nigerian studying engineering in London tried to explode himself on a flight into Detroit. People who have been to Detroit report that such a desire is common. The terrorist – um, misunderstood youth – boarded at Amsterdam, where airport security is reputedly, like, whoa, dude, this is some good stuff we’re smokin’, huh? He carried on his person explosives which he assembled in the potty and then attempted to touch off on the approach. Some of the other passengers, insensitive brutes who probably watch FOX and have read Sarah Palin’s book, jumped on the unfortunate son-of-a-(rich man) who was but crying out for understanding.
As usual, the perp’s acquaintances report that he was a good fellow, a fine student, and a great basketball player. Well, hey, we all know that terrorists are old grouches who have trouble spelling and don’t like sports.
The poor fellow’s lawsuits against the airline and the other passengers and the makers of his flaming underwear are soon to be announced. The meanies who saved the airliner and over two hundred lives must be punished.
The next day another Nigerian on another flight from Amsterdam to Detroit also locked himself in the potty (which most of us do) and refused to come out during the approach, pleading illness. This time the situation appears to have been one of funny-tummy. Perhaps the man had to sit next to some rotten children. Or maybe he was coming to America for the Obamacare.
Security Czar Janet, one of our republic’s many czars (ironic, eh?), hastens to assure us that air travel is safe, which is why airport security are hassling twice the usual number of little old ladies.
Safe airline travel, eh, your Czar-ness? With screaming children, cursing Ivanas, scheming terrorists, and Nigerian businessmen with explosive diarrhea if not explosives, maybe booking space on the Titanic should be an option again.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Dan Rather Wants Our Children
Mack Hall
Like Rasputin’s bloated corpse bobbing up among the ice floes of the Nevka River, Dan Rather has surfaced again.
On the occasion of his latest apparition he wants our children.
In an article syndicated by Hearst, Rather, the famous documents expert, coyly asks if it would not be in the best interests of unity that all young people be conscripted into the military or into some sort of vague “national service.”
Conscription. Press gangs. The draft. Forced labor. Hitler Youth. Young Pioneers. The concept that a human is completely at the disposal of the State is a European idea, not an American one. America has occasionally violated the spirit of its own Constitution and impressed people into the military: the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and, inexcusably, for some 28 years following 1945. Even so, during World War II the draft was more of a management tool than a bludgeon: “Wait your turn; we’ll tell you when we need you.”
But even in a national emergency, conscription is never a good idea.
Conscription is an unconstitutional wrong forced upon the young and the poor by the old and the rich. A child of Congress or of Wall Street is no more likely to be found in a recruit barracks than is a copy of The Federalist Papers.
But Dan Rather wants the government to herd our children and grandchildren into barracks and labor camps. For what reason? To sing Woody Guthrie songs or perhaps The Internationale before huge images of Ted Kennedy? To be required to chant Dear Leader’s recent assertion that America is now a Muslim nation? To dig canals by hand? To be posted to the streets of Chicago to hand out A.C.O.R.N. propaganda?
The toadious Dan Rather subscribes to a benign but incomplete concept of Old Army Buddies – that people of different backgrounds drafted into the Army got to know each other better, and so made a better America.
Well, maybe, but that’s a specious argument that could be made of concentration camps, too. If a stuffy Belgian banker and an ‘umble Dutch janitor share a good conversation together while breaking rocks for a road project, that conversation is not a good argument for the existence of concentration camps.
Am I comparing conscription to concentration camps? Yes, to a not-very-limited extent. When people are forcibly removed from their homes and occupations and put behind the wire into a situation of regimentation with a system of punishments for not adapting to the new order, they have been deprived of the whole basis of the Declaration of Independence, the God-given right of self-determination.
I know lots of fine young people who are off to the military this summer. We can be immensely proud of them because they choose to do so. Another young man of my acquaintance spent the first week after his high school graduation helping teach Vacation Bible School; after that he’s going to work until college in the autumn. Work is probably his choice, but then I know his mom and dad; they’re not into letting their kids loaf around as house guests. And yet another young man brought me my fast-cholesterol at the drive-in the other evening. Good for them. They don’t even know who Dan Rather is; I don’t expect that they would want him or any other old flatulent ideologue ordering them into the camps for the good of the State.
Our recent presidents have been doing a czar thing – energy czars, car czars, and now a salary czar. What next, a children’s-camp czar? We don’t want no stinking czars. We don’t want our children seized by the State, either.
If Dan Rather likes internment camps so much, let him build himself a barbed-wire fence, sentence himself behind it, stand himself to attention two or three times a day, and count himself.
-30-
Like Rasputin’s bloated corpse bobbing up among the ice floes of the Nevka River, Dan Rather has surfaced again.
On the occasion of his latest apparition he wants our children.
In an article syndicated by Hearst, Rather, the famous documents expert, coyly asks if it would not be in the best interests of unity that all young people be conscripted into the military or into some sort of vague “national service.”
Conscription. Press gangs. The draft. Forced labor. Hitler Youth. Young Pioneers. The concept that a human is completely at the disposal of the State is a European idea, not an American one. America has occasionally violated the spirit of its own Constitution and impressed people into the military: the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and, inexcusably, for some 28 years following 1945. Even so, during World War II the draft was more of a management tool than a bludgeon: “Wait your turn; we’ll tell you when we need you.”
But even in a national emergency, conscription is never a good idea.
Conscription is an unconstitutional wrong forced upon the young and the poor by the old and the rich. A child of Congress or of Wall Street is no more likely to be found in a recruit barracks than is a copy of The Federalist Papers.
But Dan Rather wants the government to herd our children and grandchildren into barracks and labor camps. For what reason? To sing Woody Guthrie songs or perhaps The Internationale before huge images of Ted Kennedy? To be required to chant Dear Leader’s recent assertion that America is now a Muslim nation? To dig canals by hand? To be posted to the streets of Chicago to hand out A.C.O.R.N. propaganda?
The toadious Dan Rather subscribes to a benign but incomplete concept of Old Army Buddies – that people of different backgrounds drafted into the Army got to know each other better, and so made a better America.
Well, maybe, but that’s a specious argument that could be made of concentration camps, too. If a stuffy Belgian banker and an ‘umble Dutch janitor share a good conversation together while breaking rocks for a road project, that conversation is not a good argument for the existence of concentration camps.
Am I comparing conscription to concentration camps? Yes, to a not-very-limited extent. When people are forcibly removed from their homes and occupations and put behind the wire into a situation of regimentation with a system of punishments for not adapting to the new order, they have been deprived of the whole basis of the Declaration of Independence, the God-given right of self-determination.
I know lots of fine young people who are off to the military this summer. We can be immensely proud of them because they choose to do so. Another young man of my acquaintance spent the first week after his high school graduation helping teach Vacation Bible School; after that he’s going to work until college in the autumn. Work is probably his choice, but then I know his mom and dad; they’re not into letting their kids loaf around as house guests. And yet another young man brought me my fast-cholesterol at the drive-in the other evening. Good for them. They don’t even know who Dan Rather is; I don’t expect that they would want him or any other old flatulent ideologue ordering them into the camps for the good of the State.
Our recent presidents have been doing a czar thing – energy czars, car czars, and now a salary czar. What next, a children’s-camp czar? We don’t want no stinking czars. We don’t want our children seized by the State, either.
If Dan Rather likes internment camps so much, let him build himself a barbed-wire fence, sentence himself behind it, stand himself to attention two or three times a day, and count himself.
-30-
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