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June
6, 2003
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
June
4, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal
Walks
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity
Jason
Leopold
Manufacturing the Iraq War
John Chuckman
Blackmail as Policy
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Summit: Peace or Pretense?
Issam Nashashibi
Sharon's Sword of Damocles
Steve
Perry
Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript
June
3, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and
the Slaughter in Aceh
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Tells All
Elaine
Cassel
We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message
from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!"
Tom
Crumpacker
The Politics of US Cuba Policy
William
S. Lind
Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq
Sam
Hamod
The Final Brick in the Wall
Uri
Avnery
The Altalena Affair
Hammond
Guthrie
Stepping into Some Deep DARPA
Steve
Perry
The WashTimes'
al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive"
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
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Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
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Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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June
7, 2003
Waitin' On the Flood
Talk Dirty Scary
Monsters
By ADAM ENGEL
I don't know how these folks get by, make "rational"
decisions, operate heavy machinery, vote (hah, hah), or even
feed themselves when they let guests at a three-month-old boy's
Baptism make a whore outta his five-year-old cousin - not with
sticks, genitals, or funny instruments, but with words. Sodomized
with sentences. That's not how it happened in The Odyssey. But
barbarians that they were, the sackers of Troy had at least some
concept of how to behave on social occasions - and how to punish
those who didn't. That's how the whole Trojan War thing started,
isn't it? Well, leave it to Americans to cheer the burning of
cities for the benefit of intangible corporations while their
own children are morally defiled in their own damn green-lawn,
upper-middle class backyards. During an allegedly "holy"
occasion, yet.
So, here we go AGAIN: a passel of adults
too baffled by THE MAN inside their heads to know how to behave
in a genuine 'situation.'
The Golf Thugs on the lawn were hanging
around in their summer suits, drinking beer, talking about golf
and business, business and golf. Economy should bounce back now
that 'we've' settled the 'problem' in Iraq. Something about cleaning
a boat for the new season; also stuff about cars and access to
certain channels on cable television.. They were big. They were
fat. They were boring and desperate. They needed something. Dial
1-800-MESSIAH. Or perhaps it was simply a job for Tiger Woods.
I went to where the food was served.
There, men and women ranging from zaftig to rotund, elbowed each
other (and me) for first dibs on some kind of mayonnaise-potato
glop; frankfurters and sugary beans; limp white coleslaw; sweet
sauerkraut and All American Burgers with processed cheese food,
fried onions and bleach-flour buns (too late for these folks
to worry about mad cow disease, you betcha!). I dropped out of
line and grabbed a beer from a cooler and saw little Stephanie
talking animatedly to the Golf Thugs on the great lawn. Real
show-stopper, that kid. Cute as sin in her party dress. Always
the entertainer, I thought. Her five-year-old wit even penetrated
the chitinous crania of the Golf Thugs.
I went into the house, the Old Manse,
to pee. Upstairs, far from the mumbling crowd, Stephanie was
in the room her mother had once lived in as a girl. Face down
on the bed. Crying lungful sobs, as little girls do, clutching
an old stuffed animal her mother had clutched long ago, I assumed,
when in similar distress.
She sat up straight and wiped her eyes
as soon as I entered. Very adult-like. Twisted her face into
a kind of smile. Pretended she merely had something in her eye.
"What's the matter, kid?"
"How much will you give me to 'talk
dirty'?"
Say WHAT?
"I'll charge you a dollar for every
naughty word I know."
"What are you, crazy? Where'd you
learn such a thing?"
Of course I knew where she learned how
to 'talk dirty.' I guess she'd provided the Golf Thugs with more
entertainment than I'd dared assume. I felt like a character
in a Salinger story.
"The men outside said they'd give
me a dollar for every naughty word I know and I could buy a Barbie
with it. They even taught me new words. But I still don't have
enough," she started crying again, and laid the money on
the bed to show me the extent of her vocabulary. She knew, or
was taught, six bucks worth of naughty.
Her grandfather came in, wanted to know
what was the matter. I told him, so she wouldn't have to.
"I'm not supposed to use dirty words,"
Poppy. "I don't like to."
"Of course you don't," he said,
looking at me - for what? Help? Advice? I don't know squat about
dealing with adults, let alone children.
Stephanie's mother, who may or may not
have recognized ghosts of herself in her old room, arrived and
held Stephanie as Poppy gave her the low-down.
"Good god," she snapped, and
soothed her daughter, who by now was crying quite hysterically.
I suppose it was good that she was upset, but maybe not. She's
a very smart kid. Might be better if she were less aware of the
degenerate world around her.
"It's nothing, baby. They're just
ignorant, stupid men."
"They're scary. They're scary monsters,"
said Stephanie.
Quite right.
"But now I can't get a Barbie!"
she began to cry again. Well at least she was still a kid, with
kid's priorities.
Her grandfather, staunch supporter of
the War Against the Grandchildren of Iraq, did a smart thing.
He told her that he would take her, that very moment, in the
middle of this big party he was hosting, to buy a Barbie Doll.
But first, she had to give him the "dirty" money, and
he would replace it with "clean" money. She handed
him the six crisp bills in exchange for six rather ragged ones
and a twenty. Enough, I assumed, to bag a Barbie at the local
Mall. He gave me the "dirty money" and loudly ordered
me to get rid of it, that it was worthless. I think the kid caught
the drift.
As soon as they left the Mother lit a
cigarette, using her can if diet-whatever as an ashtray.
I suggested that now that the kid was
gone, I could go look for her husband and some other guys and
we could teach the Golf Thugs the protocols of the guest-host
relationship (not to mention a few innuendos regarding child
abuse, statutory rape, or whatever they might call it). Did her
father keep any baseball bats or other "weapons" in
the house? I knew he had plenty of golf clubs.
"Are you crazy?" she said.
"Am I crazy?"
"This is my nephew's Baptism celebration."
"I don't care if it's his Second
Inaugural Ball. Something really bad went on here and it's gotta
be...I don't know, the place should be purged..."
"So you're going to just go out
and start a fight with these men in the middle of my parents'
backyard."
"Hell yeah. They tried to turn your
five-year-old girl into a prostitute."
"How DARE you say that! Nobody touched
Stephanie."
"You don't know that. And even if
they didn't, you think paying a five-year-old to 'talk dirty'
doesn't fall into the category of buying sexual favors?"
"Mind your own damn business. I
don't want to hear this. Nothing happened. Nothing that can't
be undone. My husband and I will talk to Stephanie. She'll forget
about it. Her grandfather's out buying her a Barbie Doll for
god's sake."
"Oh, a Barbie! That'll solve EVERYTHING."
She calmed down and explained she didn't
want the kid to have to deal with the naughty word episode of
her life ever again, and that any action, especially violent
action, would just make it worse, and even if she did something,
which would certainly not be violence, at her nephew's baptism,
it would be to call the Police and that would entail putting
Stephanie through yet further trauma, so why didn't I just be
a good guy, butt out, and drop it.
Made sense, but still...
Not even Odysseus had a case this cut
and dry (he was away for twenty years; and Penelope was well
over eighteen). None of the suitors tried to pervert any five-year-olds
in Ithaca, I don't think. What if we did do the "unacceptable"
and beat the hell out of the Golf Thugs, or at least humiliated
and ejected them? Don't bar bouncers do the same every week-end
for far lesser crimes? And what if we broke a few jaws and ribs?
Who would they complain to without explaining the uncomfortable
fact that they paid a very young girl to 'talk dirty to them?'
Why is it so hard to punish grown men for abusing a child? Yeah
sure, you could go to the cops or a lawyer and press charges
or whatever, but that would be 'inappropriate,' 'unseemly.' Don't
want to drag the kid into some cesspool courtroom drama. But
even a decent back-yard drubbing? I suppose that too would have
been outre. Don't wanna make waves.
It's THE MAN in us, of course. The Golf
Thugs may be merely representatives of THE MAN and his sexual
power games, but HE is in all of us. It's one thing to beat on
Weird Uncle Harold who works the corner news kiosk and is usually
naked beneath his wrinkled trench coat, but patriotic, hard-working,
Golf Thugs in suits who come from 'good families' and are raising
'good families' of their own? Nein.
And none of that crap about "they
didn't touch her." Five-years is the prime age for learning
vocabulary, languages, general concepts. Has THE MAN ever actually
poked HIS thing in you? Yet HE'S been in you since always. HE'S
still in you.
I imagined Stephanie fifteen, twenty
years from now, dressed as Barbie. Then undressed in some old
college professor or corporate executive's sweaty bed. Talking
naughty. Words that have been in her head so long she hasn't
the faintest idea when she learned them, or where.
It began to rain, as usual (it must have
rained at least forty days and forty nights this "Spring;"
when will the Flood come finally and wash this mess away?), which
was a bummer because I'd just stoked up a cigar. I was out front
on the driveway. I took out my pen and notebook, wrote "Scary
Monsters" on a sheet, wrapped the "dirty" bills
in it, and tucked the package under the wiper of an SUV, complete
with Old Glory sticker on the windshield. My Salinger moment.
The car might or might not have belonged
to one of the Golf Thugs. Probably not. But it doesn't really
matter, does it?
Adam Engel
has no illusions about rye fields or saving children from precarious
cliffs. He waits for the Flood or perhaps a Meteor. Big rock
hurled from a disgusted, pissed-off Cosmos. bartleby.samsa@verizon.net
Today's
Features
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
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