Scott’s Top 10 Reasons

Dear Dave:

So, you still ignore my Top Ten Lists, do you? You don’t know real talent when you see it. You think you’re too good for me, huh, Mr. Fancy Pants! Well I’ll tell you a thing or two. I not only have a master’s degree, I even started a PhD once. Remember when Jodie Foster said to the corrupt psychiatric warden “I went to UVa, doctor. It’s not a charm school.” Guess what–yeah! That’s where I began my PhD! OK–so I never finished. Now I’ll let you and your silly staff (if you can stop groping them for a second, Mr. Molest Man) all speculate wildly as to why I never finished. (hint: it wasn’t because I thought it was piled high and deep).

Don’t care? OK, I’ll make it multiple choice so at least you don’t have to brainstorm. This particular exam question assumes the form of Dave’s Top Ten Reasons I Never Finished my UVa Doctorate:

[drum roll]

Number 10: I knocked up one of my freshman groupies.

Number 9: Fell in love with the Provost’s daughter.

Number 8: Knocked up the Rector’s wife–or was it (b) above? I forget.

Number 7: Peed on Edgar Allan Poe’s dorm room wall at the Academical Village.

Number 6: Told a visiting lecturer that Thomas Jefferson was the main character in a really bad 1970s sitcom.

Number 5: Lied on the admissions application form when I said I came from da hood, yoh, to introduce more diversity to the student body.

Number 4: Failed to buy Microsoft stock in order to pay the tuition some day.

Number 3: Decided I really belonged at some fourth-rate state U in Illinois to get a master’s in English as a Foreign Language.

Number 2: Was seen fraternizing with an instructor from Charlottesville Community College.

..and the number-one reason I never finished the UVa doctorate:

I never found the right classroom building.

Scott has taught English as a Foreign Language at overseas corporations and universities since 1986. He currently works in Saudi Arabia.

Sarah Palin Embraces Nietzsche and Alberto Gonzales

Comics aficionados may remember Bizarro World (or something like that), an ugly, angular, twisted parallel universe in which Superman had a craggy face and was almost as evil as Glenn Beck.

In contrast to the dark side, there is also a fifth dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the sign post up ahead.  Your next stop—Perfect World!  A world in which congressmen and women are the opposite of what we experience in the here and now. Where Sarah Palin tells the truth and has an IQ of over 80. Where Dick Cheney shuts the hell up and peppers his own face with birdshot.

A Demockracy.com reporter inadvertently penetrated the inter dimensional portal into Perfect World after tripping over a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall’s porch. The White House press corps reporters all looked like Brad Pitt, Mandy Moore, Matt Damon and Julia Stiles and everyone spoke in very counterintuitive ways.  The calendar on the wall said February 2013.

“President Palin,” someone said, “After 9/11, don’t you feel we must sometimes ignore the ambiguous, the gray, and focus on good and bad, right and wrong, in the Middle East?”

“All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.  All things are subject to interpretation.  Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.  I reject power for its own sake and embrace the search for truth, always. Y’all don’t mind if quote Nietzsche now, do ya? Hee hee hee.”

Madam President, would not the U.S. be justified in invading Iran based on that country’s lies and deceptions?”

“No, for as I said, I embrace the search for truth, not power for its own sake, and certainly not for some barbaric notion of preemptive strikes or regime change. Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to me than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.”

“Madam President, should the Republican Party take its rightful place among the creationist evangelicals in order to secure a landslide victory in the midterm elections?”

“The Republican Party will as always stand for intellectuality and the search for truth and not pander to religious lunacy. Nietzsche said, “In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. How’s that for some philosophy for ya!”

“But what about the right to life issue, Madam President?”

“Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true:  they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms—in themselves such judgments are stupidities.”

Later, in the Oval Office with Vice President Alberto Gonzales…

“Al, although I appreciate personal loyalty, you must know that loyalty to your country and nation of laws is paramount, ya follow? Ask not what you can do for me; ask what you can do for your country.”

“Indeed, Madam President. And I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

“Well said, Al, and with feeling. Tuggin’ at my heart strings, aren’tcha!”

“And I remembered all the words, Madam President.”

“Yes, ya certainly did, Al. What a wonderful photographic memory you have. You shoulda been a lawyer.”

“I am a lawyer, Madam Palin. That’s why our Constitution stands firm and strong.”

“You’re a unique man of integrity, Al.  I’d embrace ya but I don’t wanna distract ya. Ya know how hot I am.”

“Once a beauty queen, always a beauty queen, Madam President. In fact I am finding it exceedingly difficult to focus on my work with that blouse you’re wearing.”

“Yah! D’ja like it? Anyways, at bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once upon this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.”

“Thank you, Madam. Well, the integrity of this administration is the envy of the free world. And now if you’ll excuse me, Madam President, it’s time for me to go out and rescue stray kittens.”

“Very good, Al.  I’ll be in the philosophy section of the Library of Congress if you need me.”

Teabagger Fossils Found on Noah’s Ark!

I think I can safely assume that Teabaggers believe only white Christians go to heaven, that the Big Bang and evolution theories are Satan’s fabrication to distract us from spirituality, and that dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark. Does that about sum it up?

But perhaps it all makes sense. Genesis states that the Ark contained every “every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” both “clean” and “beasts that are unclean.” No doubt, cool and scary dinosaurs not only thundered, and thumped, but also creepethed, and thus would qualify.

It’s not well known, but there were also prehistoric Teabaggers and evangelist preachers on Noah’s Ark. The reason it’s not well known is because the T-Rex ate them all. That razor-toothed Jurassic predator was probably hungry, but he also became cranky whenever fundamentalist ministers started yammering about creationism and family values. He was, moreover, confused and upset by the constant thumping of the Bible—which was admittedly a work in progress but already had a satisfyingly solid cover—and which he mistook for the footsteps of a dilophosaurus. The noise was all the more misleading because every time the Bible got thumped, Noah’s water glass shook like the one in Jurassic Park.

Enough already, so T-Rex simply chomped down on the preacher in mid-sentence: “We are all sinners in the eyes of Gawd! Ah have sin–arrghhghglugg!”

I suspect T Rex was smarter than we think, besides having big sharp teeth. He knew full well that when choosing a tasty appetizer, one should always eat the most annoying one–thus securing not only a half-day’s worth of protein but also some blessed silence.

Mrs. T, on the other hand, found herself enraged by one particular creeping thing that creepethed upon the earth, an overweight bald human given to incessant happy talk divorced of all reality. And so it came to pass that his happy talk was interrupted in mid-stream with a big gulp: “We have in fact made great progress, Noah. Now, I know some polls show that 78% of the creepy things that creepeth upon this Ark believe there’s a catastrophic flood in progress. But I believe most creepy things also want us to overcome this flood. We don’t need this Ark at all, Noah. Not only can we win the war, are win—arrghhhglugg!”

And God spake unto Noah, behold, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, that all living things have a Purpose, and that the most fearsome and cool dino of all existeth to rid the earth of creationists and happy talkers and all wicked beings that creepeth upon the earth.

Tiger Sets off Balloon Girls and Sarah Palin

Washington—December 10. Tiger Woods broke his extended silence today to deny any romantic involvement with Sarah Palin. “No, Sarah Palin is not one of my mistresses,” he told reporters. “She’s not even one of my pinup girls, although she does have a great body. Wow, have you seen that braless pic where she’s painting her walls?  All right, I did have that one taped in my country club locker, but the dog ate it.”

Asked about alleged text messages to the former Alaska governor, Woods spoke emphatically . “No, no, no.  I didn’t tell her she’s ‘hot.’ I said it’s hot in Florida. I said I could use some of that seaside view of Russia right now. I wasn’t interested in her romantically, and my intentions were purely honorable and political in nature.  Why couldn’t she release a copy of her birth certificate? I said. I figure as long as she’s a birther, let me see hers. How do I know she’s not a Russian?”

In Ohio, meanwhile, eyewitnesses reported seeing 14 to 17 former Woods mistresses spill out of an errant UFO-like helium balloon when it crash-landed and sustained a tear in the fabric. The young women were not immediately available for comment because they were busy scrambling through a nearby cornfield, reading their text messages.

Elsewhere, Libyan president Moammar Gadhafi admitted to reporters that all of his famed female bodyguards were Tiger Woods’ girlfriends. “These brave Libyan women withstood the colonialist-imperialist hegemony of American infiltration, of ruthless penetration into our glorious purity. Death to golf!”

A spokeswoman for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, meanwhile, could not be reached for comment because she was also busy reading text messages. NFL officials say they are still investigating why the Cowboys cheerleaders have “for months been cheerleading golf tournaments instead of football games and disappearing into the club house afterwards.”

“This is highly unusual and most irregular,” said one official who asked not to be identified. “Normally, football cheerleaders cheer-lead football games, not PGA tours. I have to wonder what they’re thinking. Well—to be honest, we don’t get the pick of Rhodes Scholars. Most of our pom-pom girls think ‘foreplay’ is a golf term.”

Friends of Tiger Woods identify Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California and anti-gay marriage activist, as one of the golfer’s minor conquests. Asked for comment, Prejean said opposite sex marriage is a holy sacrament and that she had believed Woods when he’d told her he was single. “Duh, I think music is the universal language,” she said, “and my hope is for world peace. My ambition when I graduate from community college is to help the hungry children of the world.”

Woods refused to comment on the alleged relationship, but did respond to rumors about a liaison with U.S. Secretary to the United Nations Susan Rice. “Hey, Susan is undeniably babe-alicious, and I mean hot,” Woods said in a news conference. “But she’s way out of my league. She’s beautiful but too cerebral for me. Her brain is to the UN what my golf swing is to the PGA tour. Wow, I tried, though. I swung and I missed, if you’ll pardon the baseball metaphor.

“But I categorically deny having anything to do with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. That was a nasty rumor started by Angelina Jolie. She’s always jealous, that little so-and-so, just because I jilted her. First she tells Brad all about me, hoping the guy would beat me to a pulp, but it didn’t happen. So she makes up this nonsense about me bonging everybody in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Didn’t happen. Except for Amber Tamblyn and America Ferrera. They’re just so hot. Come on, give me a break—what sporting man could resist?”

Secret New Weapon: Serena Sends Taliban Running for Hills

Inserting myself into one of the remotest regions of Afghanistan—and embedding myself with no one in particular except a sheep farmer named Tirkluckless—I interview him. I do this mainly because he can talk, unlike his sheep. The intelligence he provides me, however, is stunning. As a bandit in A Fistful of Dollars once stated, “In these parts, a man’s life can depend upon a mere scrap of information.”

“You seem pretty calm, Tirk,” I say. “The Taliban are howling at the door, and not a NATO soldier within 50 miles, yet you calmly tiptoe around the sheep dip without a care in the world. What’s that all about?”

“Did ye not know, oh infidel? The American drones circle above like eagles—I can certainly hear them, as they interfere with the bah-bah-ing of my sheep and therefore I cannot sleep when I’m trying to count my sheep. Anyway, there are not only drones but the CIA has also secretly inserted Serena Williams into the foothills of the Forbidden Mountains.”

“What? Serena Williams? Come on.”

“Indeed, it is true, oh unbelieving one. She has been sighted on several occasions, cursing the wolves and frightening them to death. She even outruns them and eats them for breakfast.”

“If this is true, Kirk, it’s still incredible. She makes the Special Forces look like girl scouts.”

“It’s Tirk, not Kirk. My full name is Tirkluckless. How many times must I remind you of that, oh clueless Trekkie nerd? Be careful or I shall smite you. I come from a rough neighborhood. Last week, down near the capital, I was watching a full-scale battle between NATO forces and Taliban insurgents, and a ladies’ tennis match broke out.”

“Good heavens, that is a rough neighborhood. I take it Serena was there?”

“Yes, she was. She is a one-woman Special Forces, to be sure. Already she has crushed many a Taliban with her powerful thighs and decapitated others by hurling tennis rackets with superhuman agility and accuracy. Still others she curses to death with unimaginable slurs calculated to defeat their manhood. Yes, oh beardless one, the mountain villagers sing folk songs about her. They call her the Wild Woman With Huge Haunches and Thighs That May Crush a Man into Ragged Pieces. Oh—I’m getting excited; I had better to stop now.”

“Uhm—no, please, go on. I’m sure you can control yourself.”

“She is also veddy beautiful, you know, and she’s having breasts like mangos!”

“I seem to recall that line from A Passage to India.”

“What, those Shiva-worshipping heathen?”

“Now, now, I think the Serena-lust is getting the better of you.”

“Well, there are always my sheep with which to—“

“Ahem. You were saying?”

“You must understand this is a lonely place, sahib. Indeed, before you there was ne’er a white man to be seen in these hills since the days of W.C. Fields in the 1930s. He had lost his corkscrew, you may recall, and was forced to survive on food and water.”

“Such a contingency would be unfortunate, yes.”

“The word in the hills is that Osama bin Laden watches ladies’ tennis on satellite TV and he shivers with fright as we speak. I have seen a sneak preview of a new video he will release, denouncing women in sport—and women in general, of course. He promises to hack off the arms of any female who dares to bare her arms, let alone use them to hurl tennis rackets at him.”

“How do you feel about this?”

“Well, he’s not all hell and brimstone, actually. He has a heart. He says the point is negotiable and that if the USA will call off Serena, he will settle for a ladies’ tennis referee position at the US Open.”

“He really is scared.”

“He said the officiating call was in error; there was no foot fault and therefore as punishment the referee’s tongue must be removed and Serena’s fine must be canceled.”

“A man of mercy, I see.”

“Praised be to the heavens, Serena shall return home and I shall return to my sheep in peace. If we run out of wolves and Taliban, she might develop a taste for lamb.”

From Bangkok to Bangalore, What Isn’t Outsourced?

In an age of shrinking economies and a time when it seems nothing is made in the USA anymore except financial scandals, many pundits say the question is not what is outsourced but simply what is not. In California, a state with governance marred by bankruptcy and disputes between Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature, discussion of outsourcing has morphed into radical action: the governor decided last week to outsource the California legislature to China.

“Yah, I’ve had enough already with the little girlie-men in de California legislature, you know?” the governor said on Meet the Press last Sunday. “Dis is it. I’m gonna CRUSH deir little GIRLIE-MUSCLES and send dem all to China to squabble over dere! If dey don’t like it, dey can lump it. A few sessions with a bunch of tight-wadded Chinese bean counters is just what dey need. Let dem shut up and enjoy some dim sum for a change while I balance da budget.”

In Beijing, however, the Chinese government was less than receptive to the idea. “We already have provincial legislatures,” trade minister Shi Guangsheng said yesterday. “First of all, this is not a trade issue. If the Americans wish to outsource all their private-sector employment, we are more than happy to assume ownership of the American middle class. But the California Congress would most likely find little to occupy them in China. We already have provincial legislatures, and besides, we don’t have any girlie-men in China and frankly we don’t want any.”

California lawmakers aside, it is well known that just about everything else American has already been outsourced. Americans no longer even lick their own stamps, that function having been exported to dingy streets from Bangkok to Bangalore. In Bangkok, Thailand, the stamp-licking company sign, tucked away between the fishmongers and laundries, says ME LICKEE, YOU LIKEY? Inside, what looks like a sweatshop is actually a stamp-licking room with part-time workers assiduously licking American stamps and sticking them on envelopes that will be shipped back to the United States, thus explaining why U.S. First Class letters are so often delayed.

In Bangalore, India, the stamp-licking concession belongs to the Sir Leaks a Lot Corporation. Asked about the misnomer, Operations Manager Varnish Singhalong told a Demockracy.com reporter, “Ah, yes, that was an English error. Because we can’t spell very well in this organization. But it doesn’t matter anyway. We are stamp lickers, not a call center. Besides, ‘Sir Licks A Lot” doesn’t sound very dignified. “Sir Leaks a Lot” might at least suggest we are plumbers.”

New outsourcing initiatives in the U.S. include the exporting of obesity. US customers call up the International Lardbutt Company in Cambodia and buy them a gallon-sized Slurpee for five cents, which the foreign surrogate proceeds to slurp down by proxy and get fat.

And the American’s hunger pangs? “Hey, I suck it up,” said one happy male customer in Houston. “A little rumbling in the tummy is worth it. I slim down and I feel like I’m a patriot, exporting death by obesity to the heathen abroad. The time difference of 12 or 13 hours means the poor devil has to get up at three in the morning to suck one down, but hey, nobody put a gun to their heads forcing them to get paid slurping Slurpees in the middle of the night. I’d call that a pretty good job.”

As for Hollywood, it was only a matter of time. “Hollywood has essentially been outsourced to Bollywood, no doubt about it,” a studio executive who wished to remain anonymous said. “Bollywood makes more movies in a year than McDonald’s flips burgers, and for one-tenth the cost. By the way, are burgers still made here? Anyway, why should we pay Brad Pitt millions for his pretty face when we can give some crooner in India a couple of bucks and a pack of Marlboros to sing and dance around the script? We’ll save hundreds of millions a year that we can pay ourselves in bonuses.”

Are there any projects in the works? “Our first Indian film will be a Mumbai remake of Michael Clayton with Arjun Rampai in the Clooney role and Preity Zinta as the Tilda Swinton character,” the executive said. (The Swinton role of “Karen” has been changed to “Kali.” Kali is the name of the wife of Shiva the God of Death referred to in the original version.) A journalist who was shown pre-release clips from the famous Clayton ending reports a song-and-dance fest featuring a love triangle, angry parents and a hero who fights and defeats a plethora of gangsters, none of which has anything to do with the original plot, although some modified dialogue remains. “See, now, that’s just not the way to go here, Kali,” Rampai croons in sync with his dance steps. “You know, for someone as smart as you, you really are lost, aren’t you? I’m the easiest part of the equation, and you want to kill me? Don’t you know who I am? I’m a fixer. I’m a bagman. I fix anything from illegitimate caste-climbers to bent Maharajas, and you want to kill me? Five million rupees—that’s to forget about your lower-caste origins.” Kali tiptoes across the set, arms flailing, singing “This discussion will have to take place in another setting, oh yes, oh yes, take place in another setting!” Rampai swirls to her side and belts, “DO I LOOK LIKE I’M NEGOTIATING?”

All Play and Carrie Bradshaw Makes Scott an Unholy Boy

One of Bill Maher’s funniest antireligious moments on TV was the time he put up a photo of three asinine-looking clerics at some interfaith dialogue. You had the Greek Orthodox guy in his stupid hat; next to him was a Muslim mullah with the big turban, and then there was this bishop with his big stupid hat. So here are these three old men in Halloween costumes talking about their gods and moralities and the only thing they could agree on was that sex is bad.

“Why is sex bad, anyway?” Sarah Jessica Parker said to me plaintively, in a dream I had from Sex and the City. Actually she didn’t say that; I just wrote it for effect. But I did dream about her. She’s not even my type, physically speaking (I like Asians), but I dreamed of her overnight hugs, kisses, and highly charged intimate passion because her personality in the TV show was so appealing. Well, OK—so was her body, not to mention the gorgeous hair. Obviously the Lord abandoned me that night to my evil thoughts. Within the space of three weeks I dreamed not only of Carrie Bradshaw but also my beautiful Vietnamese physician and my Chinese ex-wife’s sister. At least I got my Asians in there, but the consensus among the religious is that I will burn in hell for all eternity. Repent! I must repent my sinful subconscious!

One thing the religions all agree on is that they each have exclusive rights to the correct answers. Others may be partially correct, but only my religion has all the correct answers. You ask me if my religion offers the correct answers? What a dumb question. Of course it does, otherwise I wouldn’t belong to it, now, would I? I know it’s the correct one because my parents and my clerics and people like me have been telling me so all my life.

It’s so comfortable not to have to think, to have clerics and parents and the lowest common denominator of sheep do the thinking for me.

It is said by some that Mormons believe they will become gods in the afterlife and get their own planet if they’ve been good during their mortal lives. Others deny it, but frankly I am not interested in doing enough research to determine definitively whether Mormon families inherit their own planets. I give it as much credence as Catholics thinking, to paraphrase Bill Maher, they’re actually eating the flesh of a 2,000-year-old dead god when they suck on the wafer. It’s not even worth my time contemplating other than to make it grist for my anti-religion mill. Come on, life is short; use your brain cells for something reasonable. Joseph Smith believed in moon men, for Christ’s sake, who looked like us and lived for a thousand years.

Decades ago, when I was a child in the Netherlands, young Mormon missionaries on bicycles wearing short-sleeved white shirts and skinny ties visited us on a weekly basis to impart priceless truths. My parents were religious nuts too, so we had a weekly Battle of the Religions. I liked the final logic of the Mormons, though: “The thing is,” they said, “all the religions tell you they’re right. The difference is, we know we’re right.”

Right.

By the age of 16, I knew I was done with religion.

Theatre of the Absurd is a regular satirical column at Demockracy

Cheney Seeks True Love Online

Where has tricky Dick been lately? I know, I know, Nixon done died. I mean Dick Cheney. Where is that bigmouth. Where are the pearls of wisdom reminding us he was always right and Obama is wrong about everything? Can anybody help me find him? Like Dave Letterman, I want to know who the hell I’m supposed to make fun of after this old trooper fades away. Certainly not Michael Jackson; forget about that.

Oh—just got a news flash.

Houston—

From: admin @ missmatch.com

Sent: Friday, June 23, 2009

To: Dick Cheney (dickhead @ hottiemail.com)

Dear Dick:

Your photos and profile for Missmatch.com have been approved! You now have your NEW PASSPORT to a new love, a new life, a new adventure! Given your record as former Vice President, however, we would like to emphasize that “a new adventure” at Missmatch.com refers to new adventures in love and life, not invading countries all over the Middle East. Now it’s up to you to find Miss Right Wing!

But here at Missmatch.com we don’t just take a shotgun approach. We genuinely want to help you find the right-wing girl. Our state-of-the-art, highly personalized database has already prepared a starter kit of sexy female neocons to write to. Click on the following profiles, submitted for your approval:

1. Ann Coulter (Look for her profile name DCDOMME!)—describes herself as tall, blonde, lanky as Twiggy, with a caustic wit that can drive you to distraction. She enjoys a good argument, long walks on your chest, crushing hands, and romantic candlelit dinners that involve dripping the hot melting wax on your nipples.
2. Harriet Miers (Look for her profile name MATUREBABE!)—says she’s a “mature babe.” We know you’ll overlook the wrinkles on this hottie because you’ll love her for her mind. And for an evangelical Christian whom George Dubya nominated for the Supreme Court, she’s pretty darned nonjudgmental. She’s described Dubya as the most brilliant man she’s ever met, so she’s right (no pun intended) up your alley!
3. Condi Rice (Look for her profile nickname, NICERICE!)—your compatibility score with this sexy Ph.D. goes right through the roof when you consider she talks just like you! For example, she once said, “This is the democratic process at work….what you’re seeing with this process is the Iraqi people embracing American-style democracy.”  What a dreamer! Just like you, Dick—and she plays piano, too. A true Renaissance babe, brown sugar for your coffee.

The rest is up to you, Dick. Go get ‘em! Shoot ‘em if you have to.

Sincerely,

Missmatch.com Management

P.S. We are sorry but not surprised you were rejected by eHarmony.com. Our competitors at eHarmony accept only beaming goody-two-shoes types, which you clearly are not.

From: texasfewextrapoundschick  @ match.com

Sent: January 31, 2009

To: dickhead @ hottiemail.com

Dear Dick:

You do have a way with words that make me hot. I love the decisive way you keep repeating “in fact,” tempered occasionally by “if you will.” You said you are “in fact in the final throes, if you will,” of any attachments to your former wife. But since everybody knows you are divorced from all reality in the first place, how the hell do I know you’re really divorced from your wife? And why am I having trouble believing you after you posted pics of Brad Pitt to represent you in your profile? I was mesmerized at first, but really you’re an old fat guy with a pacemaker. And by the way, who hacked my computer and deleted all your emails to me?! What other lies are you telling me…and living with?

Yours,

Disappointed texasfewextrapoundschick

From:dickhead@ hottiemail.com

Sent: January 31, 2009

To: texasfewextrapoundschick @match.com

Dear Fewextrapounds:

I think you are on the last throes, if you will, of your sanity. Those photos are in fact ME, and they are RECENT. Less important than physical accuracy in imagery, I think, is that the American people want me to look like Brad Pitt. As for my health, except for the occasional heart attack, I’ve never felt better. OK, as I admitted before, I am mentally not quite as sharp as I was when I was Vice President. Tell you the truth, hon, I had a bad day yesterday when I mixed up my Viagra pills with my Valium. I had a stressful job interview with Halliburton so I had intended to take a Valium, only I took a Viagra by mistake and when the woman HR officer shook my hand I had an orgasm. This was most unfortunate, and I in fact did not get the job, and furthermore it made my pacemaker run amok. Later, that night, I had a date with Condi Rice. (She had me at “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” you know.) Well my pills were still mixed up and I took the Valium that night instead of the Viagra and fell asleep just as I started to kiss her. She’d put me to sleep before, playing Mozart on the damned piano, but this was ridiculous.

Let’s face it, girl, you and I need each other. Just because I peppered your husband’s face with birdshot and I mix up my Valium with my Viagra doesn’t mean you should shut me out. I believe in fact you will greet me at your door as your liberator. I am prepared to face my responsibilities and am willing to use force if necessary.

Yours,

Dick, sad, confused but decisive

Top Three Reasons I Think I Can Write Top Ten Lists

Dear Dave:

So—you’ve seen fit not to hire me, huh? Reject all my submissions, will you? Well so be it. I have a few TOP TEN LISTS OF MY OWN, YOU KNOW!

Sincerely,

Scott

Top Ten Reasons Justice Souter is Leaving the Supreme Court:

10. He’s been offered a stand-up comic gig in the Poconos.

9. Doesn’t really like climbing New Hampshire mountains—it’s just that he got fresh with Justice Ruth Ginsberg and she told him to take a hike.

8. You can’t get a decent maple snow cone in Washington.

7. Needs to bone up on constitutional law by watching “Matlock” reruns.

6. “I want to spend more time with my groupies,” he said.

5. Missed 19 seasons of “Guiding Light.” Must fill the hole in his life.

4. In DC he keeps getting mistaken for General Petraeus and ordered back to Iraq.

3. Embarking upon an epic search to find a footnote he lost during his “intellectual lobotomy.”

2. Feels strange attraction to “The Mummies” rock formation in North Woodstock, NH.

…and the number one reason Justice Souter is leaving the Supreme Court:

1. Prefers to judge wet t-shirt contests.

Top Ten Reasons Hot Married Moms Should Have an Extramarital Fling With Me:

10. I can spell a-f-f-a-i-r.

9. I fell off the turnip truck in a classy neighborhood.

8. Learned recently that “foreplay” is not a golf term.

7. I speaka de English

6. Wondering if I’ll find money under the mattress when I flip it.

5. Dave Letterman might hire me after reading this.

4. My bra size is also—oops. Never mind.

3. Need another reason to commute 43 miles on Houston highways.

2. I’m the Avis of playboys but I try harder—get it?

…and the number one reason to have an extramarital fling with me is:

1. Anticipation? Anticipate THIS.

Speaking of marital and extramarital affairs, I now have the

Top Ten Reasons Miss California Campaigns Against Gay Marriage

10. Born too late to campaign against interracial marriage.

9. Thinks male gay sex results in babies with two penises and four testicles.

8. Even Rock Hudson was married to Doris Day…wasn’t he?

7. Duh…

6. While performing breast implants, surgeons accidentally transplanted her jellied brain to her breasts and inserted a cadaver’s brain in her head.

5. What’ll people want next—to marry their dogs?

4. “I’m married to Jesus, and Jesus wasn’t gay. Jesus was married to God,” she said. “Oh, wait a minute. It’s only Catholic nuns that are married to Jesus, right? Never mind.”

3. Duh…

2. She got confused and made a mistake. When she was 11, her mom told her no more PLAY marriage (with the creepy boy next door).

…and the number one reason Miss California campaigns against gay marriage is:

1. Wants to marry Elton John.

Teaching College in Dubai: Osama on the Screensaver

After 13 years in the desert Middle East, I carry certain sentimental longings of home: Green leaves, black clouds, hard silver rain (or soft rain of any color, for that matter), and the change of seasons.

Still, “The UAE is like a resort compared to Saudi Arabia,” say the weekend visitors who come to escape Saudi, a nation run like a vast, gender-segregated prison. They are amazed that dating is allowed, abayas (those tent-like black burkas) are not required, and you can have a real drink. Their jaws drop (the better to imbibe mass quantities of beer) and exclaim “Boy, you guys have got it made!”

Imploding economy aside, Dubai is still the place to go in the Middle East. It’s a modern-day Casablanca on steroids, a soon-to-be over-the-top, oversized, outlandish version of Las Vegas that even without the casinos will make Vegas look like a quiet hamlet in Vermont where the biggest excitement came in 1952 when Mad Dog Madden chopped down Mortimer Pumblechook’s maple tree in a fit of syrup-producer envy. Dubai Developments on hold are supposed to include replicas of the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, giant ships in the middle of the desert and, according to one account, “a huge snow dome that looks like Superman’s home planet.” Until then, Dubai’s got pubs, nightclubs (yes, alcohol flows freely), really big malls (Emirates Mall has an indoor ski slope), tropically landscaped beaches and the world’s highest concentration of hotels.

“Ah,” says my mythical cigarette-smoking fat man in the hotel café, “And how long do you staaayyy in Casablanca?–I mean, Dubai?”
“Who can tell, sir–who can tell?” I reply, patting my inside pocket to feel the letters of transit that are signed by General De Gaulle and cannot be rescinded or even questioned. “I live in Dubai. Perhaps I will die in Dubai.”

This smog-encrusted jewel by the sea supposedly sports about 100,000 British residents installed in their newly owned condos (built by Pakistani laborers laboring under slave-like conditions and wages). The Brits have apparently eschewed the old Spanish Costas for the more cosmopolitan trappings of Dubai. But do they know the summer temperature in Dubai soars to 120 degrees F. with 90% humidity? Thank goodness for air-conditioned malls with indoor ski slopes. Who knows–fake London-style drizzles and fog may be just around the corner from that Burberry shop.

In the summer of 1997, after a year of underemployment in Houston (where at least I had bought a house with my Saudi earnings) I accepted a job at a government women’s college in Dubai. Government colleges in the UAE don’t take any guff from teacher-drones. The job was well-paid, to be sure, with the usual package of tax-free salary, free housing, and annual ticket money to your home of record, but if you stick up for yourself, you’re out the door. It’s the first college I’ve seen where a teacher was fired within 10 days of his arrival (during orientation and before classes even started). This was disturbing, I thought, given that the usual procedure is to wait until instructors have actually entered a classroom and taught a few incompetent lessons before booting them out the door. The college president has to answer to the education minister–a Royal Family Sheikh. One time His Excellency saw a class picture with a male instructor and noticed one of the women students had her hand on his shoulder. Swhoosh! That was the sound of the teacher flying out the front door and onto the next plane out of here. Kissing the Sheikh’s ass doesn’t help either: the computer hardware lecturer who sat near me should have kept his mouth shut when His Perfumed Magnificence stopped by our workstations. “Would you like some tea, sir?” he offered.

The Sheikh glared at him. “WHAT ARE YOU, A LECTURER OR A TEABOY?” he thundered back.

Our abaya-clad students added to the underlying sense of anxiety, considering, for example, their reaction to the latest Palestinian intifada during which they screamed insults at the college president, who was American, and sent emails to some American teachers accusing them of being Jews. The local Arabic-language press also ranted about our college being riddled with Jews, an accusation that was both false and, of course, racist. I remember what I was doing in the Middle East on September 11, 2001, four years after I joined the college, although it’s not very dramatic. I certainly wasn’t George Clooney racing across sand dunes in an SUV, trying to save the Emir. I was in a classroom with a lot of other teachers receiving instructions on operating our new laptops.

“Have you heard about this plane crash in New York?” somebody said nonchalantly. “Something about a jetliner crashing into the World Trade Center. It’s bizarre.”

I screwed my face up. “Sounds unlikely to me,” I said. Later, as the facts filtered in, an Arab faculty member scooted past me, stopping just long enough to blurt, “I tell you something–it’s only the Israelis who stand to gain something from this!” Another was overheard saying it was about time the Americans got what’s coming to them.

Some students had Osama bin Laden screensavers on their laptops. Others came to my cubicle to dispute my intelligence and teaching methods with insulting remarks. My classes became a nightmare. Finally, the next July, I resigned from the college and took a position in Abu Dhabi at the Petroleum Institute, a men’s university where the students were surprisingly affable. It is reassuring to note that the UAE is, with a few exceptions like that silly women’s college, and compared to Saudi Arabia, actually a fairly gracious and friendly country. At least I didn’t have to listen to Rush Limbaugh.

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