Human Rights Day?

"It doesn't matter if you're in the CIA Torture Report or not!" exclaimed Henrietta ("Button") Samuelson.  "I just don't want to get serious."  Her father had always told the Chair of the Heurich Society not to date men in the CIA, and now she finally had a good excuse to break it off.

The former CIA agent sharing a quick burrito with her at District Taco protested vehemently.  "Haven't I always been good to you?!  Don't I always support you in the meetings whenever other people are criticizing you?!"

"I don't have time for this!  Operation Ukulele is starting in an hour!"

"Uh, about that."

"What?" asked Samuelson.

"I just got a text from my buddies saying the heat is turned up too high to do renditions right now."

"We didn't hire them to take her to a secret CIA prison and torture her!  We just want her on a plane back to Ukraine!"

"It's not that simple right now.  For one thing, they can't even find a pilot willing to do black ops flights anymore.  We're just going to have to come up with another plan."

"Darja has gone as bonkers as Beckmann!  We have to wash our hands of them as rapidly as possible!"

"What if we planted evidence in their apartment linking them to torture sessions in Poland?"

"What are you talking about?  Every torture session is accounted for and documented already!"

"Not ALL of it," said the former CIA agent sheepishly.

"What do you know about it?  You just told me you weren't involved!"

"Of course he was involved!" yelled the ghost of her father, Henry Samuelson.  "The only thing you've confirmed is that he's not in the report!"  (Samuelson--who had never hesitated to assassinate targets in cold blood during his own CIA days--agreed with those interrogation experts that torture was a waste of time.)  (Assassinations were a much better use of time--that and overthrowing governments.)

His daughter could not hear him, but she felt a cold breeze on the back of her neck.  "Did you torture people?" she asked.

"It wasn't torture!  It was enhanced interrogation!" he protested.

She dug her fingers into his nostrils, tilted his head backwards, and used her other hand to start shoving chili beans into his nose.  "What did you do?!" she screamed.  He pushed her away roughly, and grabbed a napkin to blow his nose into.

"Dude!" a horrified onlooker exclaimed.  "Are you OK?"

"Oh, he's fine!" exclaimed Button Samuelson.  "I'm just doing enhanced interrogation--he has no objection, and it will stop as soon as he answers my questions!"

A few miles to the south, ersatz mail-order bride Darja was preparing another Ukrainian stew for Glenn Michael Beckmann, who was busy reading the CIA Torture Report.  "Wow!" he called yet again from his computer.  "This really reminds me of those great stories about Pol Pot!  Show no mercy!"

Darja (a Russian posing as a Russian-speaking Ukrainian) walked out of their Southwest Plaza kitchen.  "Taste this," she said, shoving a wooden spoon into his mouth.  "You want more onion?"

"Whew!" exclaimed Beckmann, tears already forming in his eyes.  "That's enough onion! Your pregnancy cravings are getting wicked!"

"Why you say this?" she demanded.  "My baby not wicked!"  (She was very defensive about her demonic hysterical false pregnancy.)

"I just meant you're craving too much spice and too much onion!  Maybe you should start cooking separately for me?"

"Never!" she screamed.  "Never, never, never!  You no want my cooking, I take baby back to Ukraine!"

"Hey, settle down!" Beckmann said.  "I'm not angry at you--I'm just having trouble with your cravings."  She quieted down enough to let him put his arms around you.  "Wow, for a minute I thought you were going to knock me to the ground and start feeding me stew through the other hole, woman!"

"That's ridiculous!" said Darja, who had grown up poor and would never waste food.  "Only cheap things should be used for torture--like bleach and ammonia!"

"On that we can agree, my sweet ukulele!"

Back downtown, the Justice Department's torture expert, Atticus Hawk, settled in for another long night with a bag of Red Bull, empanadas, and jelly beans.  And Angela de la Paz, for the first time in a very long time, sought out Ghost Henry.

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COMING UP:  Congressional whacks.