Day late and a dollar short? More like: I missed a couple of hours, please forgive me. I decided to go to sleep early and get up early and write the ol’ essay as it is far too hot to write in my tiny apartment once I get home from work.
Sweat, sweat; Pant, pant.
Drops of heat cascade into my glasses all day long requiring numerous forehead pat downs and many spec squeegees. The radio blares the increasing Middle East temperature.
Hot, hot, hot! Can you feel it? Hot, hot, hot. {ENTER Carnival dancers}
Islam vs. Jews.
I am beginning to view the entire novel of activity in the Middle East as one big boring sport like Baseball. There is one big endless set of seasons sewn together by countless games and never ending innings watching a little ball get lobbed and smacked around while grown men run in circles. Real slow. Real boring. On it’s best day nausea presents itself as a meek sign of interest.
Pretty soon someone is going to market this concept and make a lot of money. Think of the conflict merchandise you could be selling. “Tell Mohammed to go back to His Cave” in bold letters across t-shirt fronts. “Hate a Jew Today” printed on hoodie sweatshirts. Black, mesh back ball caps with three big white letters across the top, “I.E.D.” A whole industry waiting to spawn. Soon we can have “Endless Conflict” themed birthday parties for our kiddos. There will be a trading card game, like Magic or Poki-man, dedicated to the historical volley of the land formerly known as Canaan. I wonder if the players will be able to concentrate on machine gun firing and missile launching with so many new found fans that are going to show up to gaze at the action from the galley, up close and personal. Think of the vacation packages that we could sell. Don’t-miss-the-boat leisure time villas with no return flight included.
Sunday at the big block party barbeque, cracking open a cold beer, the mesquite smoke dancing around the nose hairs hiding up high, “How about that Hezbollah, huh? They’re having a great season. It’s going to be tough this season when they meet the Jews for the big Canaanite Series in Beirut this summer!” The rabid fandom will spread and hot passionate debate will ensue far more than it even does today. It already has the nostalgia at eye level and engaged, “Remember when the Jews moved from Europe to Palestine and were renamed the Israelis?” Kind of frightening.
The Israelis think of themselves as a big Dynasty team that time and time again gets to the “Big Game”. The Islamic teams tend to always be in the underdog role moving from town to town in order to boost bleacher and box seat sales. Support is essential to any successful organization.
You could even flip this around and look at it on the stage of the Global theater, respecting War. We are quite familiar with the good guys vs. the bad guys, axis vs. allies, axis of evil vs. allies of freedom. How about National League vs. American League? All of the National League guys fight, argue, bitch, moan and pitch their ideas and then one is allowed into the “Big Game”. Al Queda had a great season a couple years back but because of free agency and some persistent injuries they really haven’t achieved greatness since. This is definitely an Iran/Hezbollah race this year and in the American League it is neck and neck between America and Israel. It is a very competitive year.
Random acts of injustice and violence in the name of one cause or the other are like autograph sessions in between games. Little encounters with a souvenir of remembrance to remind us to keep coming out to the games and to continue purchasing fan man gear with the team’s logo on it. Flag sales are up all around the World. If support crumbles, Team profits are down and the CEO’s don’t like that.
There are little All-Star games that get played in places like Serbia and Boznia which high light some of the more well known players along with some work horses without whom none of the truly stellar games would be possible. Darfur and Somalia are kind of like Olympic versions of the game.
I am not trying to belittle what is going on over there, not at all, but quite the opposite. More people in this country care about sports than they do anything else, including War - or “Conflict” as it is so trendily called today. If we all knew our history and participated on some civic level, beyond the duty of voting which is hard enough to get people to do, then we might be able to actually resolve the issues without being hindsight drivers. We might become insightful. Jeesh, what would the Country or the World be like then?
Our lack of insight and intelligence can more easily be summed up by some of our fellow Americans who have become bleacher seat by-standers to a behemoth bar brawl, the thousands of Americans who were in need of evacuation from Lebanon.
First point: Are people traveling to places like Beirut, Tel-Aviv, Baghdad, or any other dangerous, unstable city or country, and expecting to be 100% safe the entire time really serious? Are they that ignorant or unengaged with reality? To expect that, even remotely, I think is foolish. It is comparable to having a “safe” expectation of walking through North Korea speaking your mind with no repercussions. Again, not going to happen!
Second point: We find that school buses for the exodus would have worked just fine. Either the Dutch or the Danes evacuated their citizens on buses headed to Syria. The people on the luxury cruise ship being evacuated to Cypress were disgusted enough at those conditions can you imagine what the ingrates would have said about the bus? Paging the ACLU, ACLU you have a telephone call.
Third point: I heard a Lebanese woman call into a radio program yesterday exclaiming that the World, specifically the U.S.A., should be disgusted at itself for not rescuing Lebanese Christians along with their respective citizens who were there vacationing, working, or on general hiatus. This woman is the reason I scream back at the radio when I listen.
Fourth point: The media should be suicidal and unsupervised at a razor blade factory for comparing this to Katrina. Regardless of how any of us feel about Katrina and the aid, or lack there of, that followed; we all should be smart enough to recognize that the two are ENTIRELY different. I can only hope and pray that we are all smart enough. If you need help to understand beyond the very obvious I suggest making a parallel graph or a flow chart highlighting the major events, instances, and locations and compare. This should help a lot to any of you who are on the fence when wanting to make the connection or not.
I don’t like sports but I like peanuts and hot dogs. I like the nostalgia of the stadiums and fields. I like the catchy go-get-’em unity chants and songs that are screamed and acted out. I like the anthems. I like the mascots. I hate sports.
The new sport anthems will be available on the benefit record that will save everyone from everything, due out in time for Christmas.
Ring tones available by New Year.
I'm sure that MTV will want a bite. One of the captured Israeli soldiers will be released and will be hosting Total Request Live sometime around Labor Day.
Syd Barrett died this past week. Maybe that is why this is all happening. Screw baseball and holy lands, I’m blaming it on Pink Floyd.
That explanation works just fine within the boundaries of my reality construct, it works just fine indeed.
Like a good Republican, when all else fails blame Rock and Roll.
Saddle shoes and argyle sweaters do not make you retarded, just ask Long.
Stick out my tongue and spit the blood.
I’m worth a Deuce …