A is for Appendicitis -- Behold the Republican horde. Oh, how the pain pierces. I have a bladder infection and my pyloric sphincter valve acts up. My heart hurts. The lungs hyperventilate and the pancreas won't pancreate. My nose doesn't smell and the tongue is numb. Don't be merciful -- disembowel me, draw and quarter me. Deliver my body parts to the feeding trough of Fox News. I am tarred and feathered and publicly humiliated. The spleen is the worst. It ruptures with anger. Bring on a rusty scalpel, scrape it out, and lay it at the feet of Mitch McConnell.
B is for Bubonic Plague -- I was bitten by a flea that lived on a rat that infested right wing radio. Stupid me, I tuned in. I am coming down with a fever, my lymph nodes ache, and my rash resembles roseola. The epidemic spreads through the bodies of liberals and is borne by alienation. My doctor advised me to turn off the 24-hour news cycles, but the voices persist. I have resorted to wearing a flea collar.
C is for Clone -- See the victors behind their Pepsodent smiles propped in a line behind a microphone. Listen to their hollow paragraphs in their perfectly vetted sound bytes. It's the well-worn party line uttered by plasticine faces in uniform ties. Each head above its stuffed suit is interchangeable with the next.
D is for Demarkation -- The Berlin Wall was bound to fall. The people on both sides longed for each other. It was only a matter of time. But the Wall which runs down the Congressional aisle is a mightier thing. How unanimously opposed are the blue and the red regarding every proposed idea. Each filibuster and obstruction solidifies the chasm and no one tunnels underneath to reach across. Don't be deluded by all the back-slapping. Knives are concealed in those palms.
E is for Elizabeth Warren -- There are a few brave and clear voices in the cacophony, two or three, like oases in the desert, that speak from the heart with common sense. They are not afraid to say "corruption." They are not afraid of hatchet men. They do not prostitute themselves to corporate johns. Elizabeth is an untarnished voice for fairness, as though fairness somehow matters.
F is for Father Knows Best -- What family homes need fundamentally are lovely staircases with lovely bannisters. And wives and children should pause there with Father and exchange familial cheer. Ozzie paused at the steps with Harriet, Robert Young with Jane Wyatt, and Ward Cleaver with Wally. Ward gave The Beaver some awful good counsel on those first few steps. I bet the dashing Ronald Reagan paused there too, set down his briefcase, and asked Nancy about her day. Can't we just go back to TV's yesteryear, to a time when white fathers knew best, when everyone knew their place?
G is for Gas -- Another of my ailments. As my breakfast regurgitates, I bloat. I've been bloated since November 4th. I get by on massive handfuls of Tums and watching Stephen Colbert. But if I chance upon a Limbaugh or a Hannity or an O'Reilly a-bloviating, I swell up like a balloon and require a puncturing.
H is for Hemorrhage -- About three years ago, I was working at the Antrim County Courthouse when a commotion erupted. A middle-aged woman had fallen on the icy steps outside which caused a sizable gash on her forehead. She was brought inside for some first-aid, but it was obvious as the blood streamed down her face that what she needed was an ambulance. The noise escalated with her frantic protests. "I'm begging you!" she pleaded. "Don't call an ambulance! Please! Please! I don't have health insurance! I don't have any money! I can barely eat! I'll be okay! I'm begging you! Don't call an ambulance!"
I is for Involuntary Exorcism -- Former Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, recently elected to the Colorado legislature, once performed a so-called exorcism of Barack Obama because the President was "possessed by demons." In addition, the chaplain claims to have exorcised homosexuality from a lesbian on the Internet. Klingenschmitt also said, “You know what, citizens, if you don’t have a gun, I’m telling you – as a Christian chaplain – sell your clothes and buy a gun. It’s time.” The new state representative crushed his Democratic opponent by a score of 70 percent to 30.
J is for Jesus -- Would Jesus want the poor to sell their clothes to buy guns? Ask your nearest Navy chaplain.
K is for Koch -- Eighty individuals on this planet have more wealth than half of humanity. Each one has more stuff than 437,000,000 human beings combined. What is wrong with these people? Not the 80 freedom-loving job creators, but those ignorant masses who seem content to have nothing. There are hundreds of self-help tutorials available in bookstores.
L is for Lily Livered -- You've got to hand it to the Tea Partiers: they speak their minds and refuse to compromise. They don't kowtow. Democratic candidates should take a lesson. Instead, they become master sell-out artists, tiptoeing through tough questions so as not to alienate voters. They distance themselves from an unpopular Obama, and take marching orders from the fickle trends of favorability polls. Talk your empty talk and sell your souls, you ballot whores!
M is for Money -- M is also for Monstrous, an apt word for the Supreme Court when it opened the financial floodgates to political influence. Such a sublime name: "Citizens United". United against what? Democracy? Is money the root of all evil? In American politics? You bet your sweet ass, it is.
N is for No More Fish -- Republican James Imhofe will become chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Imhofe believes climate change is a hoax with 99 percent of scientists conspiring. Meanwhile, the Apocalypse has a new due date: 2048. That's when the world's oceans will be empty of fish, predicts an international team of ecologists and economists. The cause: the disappearance of species due to overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. Imhofe must abhor sea bass.
O is for Ostrich -- Our heads are immersed in sand. Or to be exact, our heads are immersed in screens. Listen, one in three incoming college freshmen can't identify the two sides who fought in the Civil War. Wow. Is it because they were never taught? Is it because they never listened? No, I think it's mainly that most students don't give a shit. And why should they? In a world where smartphone messages saturate our discourse, the importance of Gettysburg gets suffocated by billions of instantaneous updates in our need for relationships.
P is for Person -- The Supreme Court decreed that corporations are people, too. Just like you and me. You know that panhandler down on the corner of Front and Park? That's Enron trying to make a comeback. When my daughter was little, she liked to have sleepovers. She would never ask, "Daddy, can I have Exxon over to spend the night?" She knew the shareholders would never give permission. While corporations are now bona fide human beings, they don't need to stand in a line to cast their votes. They simply buy them.
Q is for Queasy Stomach -- I may be coming down with nausea-induced malaria. Or maybe my gut is giving me notice. It's a feeling that I ride a mule train bound for the canyon's bottom, steered by a team that leads from fear. It's a feeling that Ignorance and Greed are taking us down. Then again, it could be a tapeworm.
R is for Refugees -- Imagine that Quebec is overrun by a powerful drug cartel that commits atrocities on such a scale that families by the thousands flee to the borders of New York, Vermont, and Maine for refuge. The Quebecois arrive with gruesome stories of rape, kidnapping, and deprivation. Unless they join the cartel, they will be killed. Would we open our doors? I think not. They have French accents. They are not our problem. Send in troops to secure the border.
S is for Sciatica -- I have two pains in my butt. One pain radiates down my left side and into my leg. Ibuprofen helps. Another pain moves up my right side and into my gall bladder. These pains have different sources. The one on the left is caused by an inflamed sciatic nerve. The pain on the right is caused by corporate palm greasing and is known among liberals as The-Gall-of-it-All. As we witness Congress getting an approval rating of 10 percent but still getting re-elected 90 percent of the time, the right side flares up. A real pain in the ass. Ibuprofen is of no use.
T is for Twenty First Graders -- The Second Amendment was crafted, some 225 years ago, to ensure that citizens had the right to own a rifle. But in those days, it took a shooter about 45 seconds to load a single, leaden ball. I agree with the NRA that we should return to the gun-owning spirit of our founders. Let us return, then, to the Age of Muskets and its implicit rejection of modern gunnery. It would be impossible for a wannabe mass murderer to expect much success. For example, a psychopath in pursuit of first graders would have to deal with his ammo pouch, gunpowder, wadding, a lead ball, and his ramrod before he could begin his rampage. His targets would be long gone by the time he pulled back the trigger. And drive-by shootings would be a thing of the past. Imagine how cumbersome.
U is for Umbilical Cord -- I used to have one, or should I say, my mother and I once shared one. Even though the physical thing was buried in the back yard long ago, the figurative cord still survives. I remember watching the Democratic National Convention in 1960 on our little black and white when my mother was a backer of Adlai Stevenson for President. During the nominating, my mother sprang from the couch and cried, "Stevenson! Stevenson!" I was eight. So I also rose and shouted, "Stevenson!" Mom was always an enthusiastic liberal and I have absorbed her leanings through our umbilicus and right up to this day. So blame her, not me.
V is for Virulent Disease -- Blessed are the heroic doctors who treat Ebola and initiate policies to contain the epidemic. Vile are American politicians, with no medical credentials, who prey on public fears for personal gain and try to transform the crisis into us-versus-them quicksand.
W is for the War on Christmas -- My brother and I fought this war on Christmas morning in 1958. Santa Claus brought me a rocket launcher that sprang rubber-tipped missiles in high arcs across the living room. My brother and I took turns trying to knock the angel from atop our Christmas tree, and in our fun-filled exchange, a dozen ornaments shattered on the floor. The real Santa was not amused. Oh, how I wish there were a real war on Christmas. We could fight to prohibit corporations from three months of product-hyping propaganda and keep right-wing idiots from spewing "War on Christmas" nonsense from their putrid pulpits. To everyone else, happy holidays!
X is for Xcept One -- Every developed country in the world provides healthcare to all its citizens. Thirty two countries. Universal coverage. The first was Norway in 1912. The second was Belgium in 1945. The most recent was Canada in 1994. Twenty years ago. To repeat, every single developed country provides healthcare to all its people, young and old, rich and poor, everyone. All countries, of course, Xcept one.
Y is for "You lie!" -- For part of my childhood I grew up in the Jim Crow South with its segregated schools, segregated bathrooms, where bigotry was always in the air. Fear of African-Americans was masked as hatred, and when a child is imprinted with these non-stop messages, deprogramming takes a long time. It has taken me a long time. When South Carolina representative Joe Wilson shouted, "You lie!" at President Obama in 2009, I fear his inner child raged from that Jim Crow imprint. Racism can dance its way around points of policy and hide behind the economics of fear, all the time unaware of itself. It's damn hard to pin it down. But with Obama at the helm, bigotry rises and shows off its true colors in obvious and not so obvious ways. Even though Republican Wilson was formally rebuked by the House of Representatives, the rebuke occurred along party lines.
Z is for Zen -- Thank you for listening. I hope you didn’t mind. I feel much better. I really needed to lance the boil. My double vision has unified. No more visits to the proctologist and no more Xanax. The bubonic plague continues to infect, of course, but I have withdrawn. It’s bad for the health, all this blaming and ranting and pumped up pride, to feel so wronged. I’m off to the ocean now to watch birds. With waves at my feet, I love to watch pelicans as they bomb the water for fish and then arise to feast like a big-bellied family at Thanksgiving. I must go down to the sea again. Time with pelicans may be short.
