March on Washington stops traffic; politics go on as usual.
"Ugh, I can't believe they even invited anybody from Congress to speak here!" said Professor Buddy Lee Trickham. "I loathe and despise Congress!"
"Everybody hates Congress, but you can't throw out the baby with the bathwater," said Bridezilla,
"Are you calling that Congressman a baby?" laughed Trickham.
"There are good men in Congress--you just have to know which ones," said Bridezilla (who didn't like any of today's speakers). "I still don't understand why you feel it is a Southern duty to attend the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington! My ancestors never had slaves!"
"Your ancestors had indentured servants tending their tobacco fields, and that's hardly something to get on a high horse about!" lectured Trickham.
"Still, no slaves!" pouted Bridezilla (who had once kissed a black man at a wedding reception and now felt perfectly immune to conversations about racism).
"The Civil Rights movement was about what was still happening in this country--especially in the South!"
"Are you lecturing me, sugar?" asked Bridezilla, batting her eyelashes in the expert way she had learned from her beauty pageant coach many years earlier.
"You are maddeningly attractive when you're indignant!" cooed Trickham. "I don't know why you don't do trial work--Virginia juries would just eat you up!" And with that, he threatened to toss his attorney girlfriend into the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, but this was a rather idle threat as they were well in the back of the crowd. He kissed her, and her ego soared.
"Maybe I will do some trial work--just for you!" said Bridezilla.
Much further up in the crowd, Peri Winkle's urban guerrilla field trip members were also a little bored with the chosen speakers. ("I wish Jay Z were here." "Or Kerry Washington!") The Washington Post "Metro" reporter was dismayed by how little moved the teenagers were by the historic event. The truth was, they were little moved by anything he had shown him in the past few years of radical outings. No matter what he showed him about the ecology or politics or sociology of their home city, it was all just another diversion for them--another show. Fashion and music and sports--and being famous for fashion and music and sports--mattered far more to them than he cared to admit. And while his mentoring had helped land a few of them Post college scholarships in recent years, most of them still saw the world through a filter he would never understand. To them, Jennifer Lopez and LeBron James were just as important to society as Sonia Sotamayor and Barack Obama. And none of today's careful speeches seemed in any danger of electrifying a generation....He yawned, and realized how wonderful it would be for a musical act to come out now....
A few miles to the north, the Heurich Society members were still straggling into the Brewmaster Castle conference room after their horrific commutes around the March on Washington traffic. ("Why didn't you warn us?") Henrietta Samuelson said it wasn't her fault--she had asked to meet on Thursday. ("Well, you didn't tell us about the march today!") She reminded them they were in the business of intelligence gathering and operations--it hardly seemed her responsibility to let them know about facts that were easily ascertainable from every news outlet in the city. ("If you call a meeting, you have a responsibility to schedule it when there are no impediments to our arrival!") Samuelson thought most of these old men should have given up their driving licenses and switched to riding Metro years ago, but she struggled for a better response than that. ("You'd better have a plan for Syria, after what we went through to get here!")
"You know, you're not the ones who got gassed last week!" the exasperated Chair retorted. "Maybe you should count your blessings! And since at least two of you had a hand in getting those chemical weapons into Syria, perhaps you should share with the rest of us what your plan is?! Or are you happy with the arrival of a U.S. warship ready to pour gasoline on the flames of Middle East violence?"
"Sometimes I wonder if you have the stomach for this work, Button," hissed the former Chair.
"Maybe not," said Samuelson. "My father told me to have Angela kill you if you ever crossed me, but I'm just not cold-blooded enough, I guess."
The two locked furious gazes for what seemed a very long time, without a sound heard in the room except intermittent squishy noises from one unfortunate jelly doughnut caught in a mouth at the time. At long last, Condoleezza Rice crackled over the speakerphone: "Well, we've all thought about that from time to time, but our mutual interests are too compelling. Why don't we start with the latest status reports from our current agents in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, shall we?"
A few miles to the east, Charles Wu was visiting the bedridden Angela de la Paz again in Dr. Devi Rajatala's home. (His young daughter had already finished her three-minute visit, so Delia was now exploring the rest of the house, under the watchful eye of Dr. Raj.) "I know they're talking about Syria today," said Angela.
"I'm sure you're not missing much," said Wu.
"You know, they have more influence in the Middle East than you think they do," said Angela.
"No doubt, but it will never be enough. There are too many generations of revenge woven into the tapestry of their history, stretching all the way back to the time the fertile crescent lost its fertility and the nomads fought their way out of the cradle of civilization."
"I'm surprised to hear a Chinese person talk about the cradle of civilization being there," replied Angela.
"I deal in facts--not myths," said Wu.
"Fact: " said Angela, "far more have died in Syria from conventional weapons. Why is a chemical weapon an excuse to invade?"
"I have no idea," said Wu. "Only people who have never been in a battle would think chemical weapons are uniquely uncivilized."
"But you've never been in a battle?" challenged Angela.
Wu sighed deeply. "A couple," he said at last, and that was true.
"And you've dealt in nuclear secrets," she challenged again. (He made no reply.) "And the U.S. is the only country that has ever dropped nuclear bombs." (He nodded.) "And Obama and the CIA drones are killing people all over the entire world."
"And you unleashed a young demon on the Taliban," replied Wu.
"Are you talking about Eeteebsse or me?" she asked.
"You're no demon," Wu said.
"But I'm just as hypocritical as everybody else," said Angela.
Wu carefully recrossed his legs. "Nobody can get everything they want in the world," he said, "least of all, a world that they want. That's why it's important to prioritize."
"Everybody says all you care about are money and loose women," said Angela.
"Clearly not, or I wouldn't be spending my Saturday afternoon bringing you flowers," smiled Wu.
"You just want to use me," said Angela, who distrusted herself for wanting to believe he really was a more decent human being than Henry Samuelson.
"I think we can accomplish goals together, even if our priorities are not the same. And I don't think getting out of bed will necessarily mean you are ready to get back to work for the Heurich Society." He got up to go. "Call me when you're ready."
"I might not be combat-ready until after I have this baby: it's a high-risk pregnancy."
"Your chi has never been higher," said Wu. "I think this is the year you'll learn how much you can do without lifting a finger." He went out to collect little Buffy Cordelia, and told Dr. Raj to let Angela drink as much as she wanted of the Chinatown herbal tea he had brought from Lynnette Wong.
Back at the Brewmaster's Castle, the former chair of the Heurich Society headed out to his car to phone Solomon Kane about taking care of Button Samuelson--and pinning the blame on Charles Wu. The War on Error was your biggest error of all, you little bitch.
***************************
COMING UP:
Climate deniers the Koch Brothers hire Prince and Prowling to set up the winning combination of shell corporations to fulfill their dream of purchasing newspapers and editorializing about the beauty of pollution for the rest of their (toxin-shortened) lives.
"Everybody hates Congress, but you can't throw out the baby with the bathwater," said Bridezilla,
"Are you calling that Congressman a baby?" laughed Trickham.
"There are good men in Congress--you just have to know which ones," said Bridezilla (who didn't like any of today's speakers). "I still don't understand why you feel it is a Southern duty to attend the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington! My ancestors never had slaves!"
"Your ancestors had indentured servants tending their tobacco fields, and that's hardly something to get on a high horse about!" lectured Trickham.
"Still, no slaves!" pouted Bridezilla (who had once kissed a black man at a wedding reception and now felt perfectly immune to conversations about racism).
"The Civil Rights movement was about what was still happening in this country--especially in the South!"
"Are you lecturing me, sugar?" asked Bridezilla, batting her eyelashes in the expert way she had learned from her beauty pageant coach many years earlier.
"You are maddeningly attractive when you're indignant!" cooed Trickham. "I don't know why you don't do trial work--Virginia juries would just eat you up!" And with that, he threatened to toss his attorney girlfriend into the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, but this was a rather idle threat as they were well in the back of the crowd. He kissed her, and her ego soared.
"Maybe I will do some trial work--just for you!" said Bridezilla.
Much further up in the crowd, Peri Winkle's urban guerrilla field trip members were also a little bored with the chosen speakers. ("I wish Jay Z were here." "Or Kerry Washington!") The Washington Post "Metro" reporter was dismayed by how little moved the teenagers were by the historic event. The truth was, they were little moved by anything he had shown him in the past few years of radical outings. No matter what he showed him about the ecology or politics or sociology of their home city, it was all just another diversion for them--another show. Fashion and music and sports--and being famous for fashion and music and sports--mattered far more to them than he cared to admit. And while his mentoring had helped land a few of them Post college scholarships in recent years, most of them still saw the world through a filter he would never understand. To them, Jennifer Lopez and LeBron James were just as important to society as Sonia Sotamayor and Barack Obama. And none of today's careful speeches seemed in any danger of electrifying a generation....He yawned, and realized how wonderful it would be for a musical act to come out now....
A few miles to the north, the Heurich Society members were still straggling into the Brewmaster Castle conference room after their horrific commutes around the March on Washington traffic. ("Why didn't you warn us?") Henrietta Samuelson said it wasn't her fault--she had asked to meet on Thursday. ("Well, you didn't tell us about the march today!") She reminded them they were in the business of intelligence gathering and operations--it hardly seemed her responsibility to let them know about facts that were easily ascertainable from every news outlet in the city. ("If you call a meeting, you have a responsibility to schedule it when there are no impediments to our arrival!") Samuelson thought most of these old men should have given up their driving licenses and switched to riding Metro years ago, but she struggled for a better response than that. ("You'd better have a plan for Syria, after what we went through to get here!")
"You know, you're not the ones who got gassed last week!" the exasperated Chair retorted. "Maybe you should count your blessings! And since at least two of you had a hand in getting those chemical weapons into Syria, perhaps you should share with the rest of us what your plan is?! Or are you happy with the arrival of a U.S. warship ready to pour gasoline on the flames of Middle East violence?"
"Sometimes I wonder if you have the stomach for this work, Button," hissed the former Chair.
"Maybe not," said Samuelson. "My father told me to have Angela kill you if you ever crossed me, but I'm just not cold-blooded enough, I guess."
The two locked furious gazes for what seemed a very long time, without a sound heard in the room except intermittent squishy noises from one unfortunate jelly doughnut caught in a mouth at the time. At long last, Condoleezza Rice crackled over the speakerphone: "Well, we've all thought about that from time to time, but our mutual interests are too compelling. Why don't we start with the latest status reports from our current agents in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, shall we?"
A few miles to the east, Charles Wu was visiting the bedridden Angela de la Paz again in Dr. Devi Rajatala's home. (His young daughter had already finished her three-minute visit, so Delia was now exploring the rest of the house, under the watchful eye of Dr. Raj.) "I know they're talking about Syria today," said Angela.
"I'm sure you're not missing much," said Wu.
"You know, they have more influence in the Middle East than you think they do," said Angela.
"No doubt, but it will never be enough. There are too many generations of revenge woven into the tapestry of their history, stretching all the way back to the time the fertile crescent lost its fertility and the nomads fought their way out of the cradle of civilization."
"I'm surprised to hear a Chinese person talk about the cradle of civilization being there," replied Angela.
"I deal in facts--not myths," said Wu.
"Fact: " said Angela, "far more have died in Syria from conventional weapons. Why is a chemical weapon an excuse to invade?"
"I have no idea," said Wu. "Only people who have never been in a battle would think chemical weapons are uniquely uncivilized."
"But you've never been in a battle?" challenged Angela.
Wu sighed deeply. "A couple," he said at last, and that was true.
"And you've dealt in nuclear secrets," she challenged again. (He made no reply.) "And the U.S. is the only country that has ever dropped nuclear bombs." (He nodded.) "And Obama and the CIA drones are killing people all over the entire world."
"And you unleashed a young demon on the Taliban," replied Wu.
"Are you talking about Eeteebsse or me?" she asked.
"You're no demon," Wu said.
"But I'm just as hypocritical as everybody else," said Angela.
Wu carefully recrossed his legs. "Nobody can get everything they want in the world," he said, "least of all, a world that they want. That's why it's important to prioritize."
"Everybody says all you care about are money and loose women," said Angela.
"Clearly not, or I wouldn't be spending my Saturday afternoon bringing you flowers," smiled Wu.
"You just want to use me," said Angela, who distrusted herself for wanting to believe he really was a more decent human being than Henry Samuelson.
"I think we can accomplish goals together, even if our priorities are not the same. And I don't think getting out of bed will necessarily mean you are ready to get back to work for the Heurich Society." He got up to go. "Call me when you're ready."
"I might not be combat-ready until after I have this baby: it's a high-risk pregnancy."
"Your chi has never been higher," said Wu. "I think this is the year you'll learn how much you can do without lifting a finger." He went out to collect little Buffy Cordelia, and told Dr. Raj to let Angela drink as much as she wanted of the Chinatown herbal tea he had brought from Lynnette Wong.
Back at the Brewmaster's Castle, the former chair of the Heurich Society headed out to his car to phone Solomon Kane about taking care of Button Samuelson--and pinning the blame on Charles Wu. The War on Error was your biggest error of all, you little bitch.
***************************
COMING UP:
Climate deniers the Koch Brothers hire Prince and Prowling to set up the winning combination of shell corporations to fulfill their dream of purchasing newspapers and editorializing about the beauty of pollution for the rest of their (toxin-shortened) lives.
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 2:50 PM
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