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January
16, 2002
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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Reviews of Gore:
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January
16, 2002
An Angel Appears at
the National Press Club
By John Chuckman
YellowTimes
This morning, an angel--yes, that's right, an
angel-- appeared to a gathering of reporters at the National
Press Club in Washington. The stunningly beautiful creature
with satiny white wings and glowing pink skin announced that
it was appearing on behalf of the Creator for a brief, informal
press conference.
The Almighty wants people to understand
that He is getting mighty tired of being asked ten million times
a day to bless America. It is beginning to grate on His nerves.
Twenty-four hours a day from truck stops, pool halls, jumbo
television screens, and shag-carpeted basement rec-rooms, the
noise just never lets up.
The angel said that it was widely recognized
that few other people have enjoyed so many blessings--heaps
of them, whole mountains and rivers and seas of them--and He
has little sympathy with folks who ask for more. The Creator
regards it as impertinent to be stuffing your face with whole
fried chickens, french fries, biscuits, gravy, and beer while
praying for an extra slice of pecan pie.
He wants other people to understand that
America has no special standing with Him, despite having received
enough material stuff to choke every horse on the planet several
times over. Throwing blessings at America was just one of His
thousands of experiments with life forms, and it has not been
a particularly happy one.
As to taking sides in America's idiotic
wars, Jehovah suspects it's only because the President is from
Texas that he's so addled on this point. The Eternal One has
been mildly diverted once in a while by scantily-clad cheerleaders
and armored hominids bowing in prayer before stadiums full of
Texans yelling for blood. God does have a sense of humor. But
He always credited this lunatic behavior to something in the
water--perhaps too much arsenic or runoff of bovine growth hormone--or
to eating pork rinds. Now He is concerned that it appears to
be national trend.
And that "no special standing"
goes double for the Demander in Chief. Talk about a guy who
has received more than his share and still asks for more! Without
a heavy dose of unearned blessings, this guy would be selling
popcorn in a Cineplex.
God never does endorsements. But if He
did, He sincerely hopes everyone on the planet recognizes that
the Maker and Destroyer of Universes could do a whole lot better
than that.
He would like to remind people that Heaven
is not a gold-plated trailer park with sequined loud-speakers
and fields of tent-meetings. He actually hates country and
western music. He is sick of people who claim they've found
God when all they've found is that they're burnt out at forty.
He can't imagine anyone thinking for a moment that heaven resembles
a baton-twirling finale with acres of big hair and mascara and
preachers blubbering for quadrillions of years about the Clintons,
gays, and the need to send larger donations.
In fact, no one who makes a buck holding
tent-meetings or speaking in tongues or selling self-help books
and tapes ever gets past the Pearly Gate. St. Peter is under
strict orders.
On a more serious note, God was more
than a little upset about that name Infinite Justice, suggesting
as it did that He would ever confuse vengeance with justice.
And He would like it noted that B-52s at thirty-thousand feet
versus peasants with muskets is not His idea of a fair fight,
much less justice.
God had strongly considered suggesting
that this stupid war be ended with just two champions fighting
it out--Osama and Dubya, mano a mano.
But with Dubya felled by a pretzel while
watching football from his couch, He has decided to postpone
the proposal at least until there's a full recovery.
John Chuckman,
a columnist for YellowTimes,
lives in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached at: jchuckman@YellowTimes.ORG
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