American Torture Better than Iraqi Torture

     "When Saddam Hussein tortured us, it was very unpleasant," said a Shiite expatriate who preferred to remain anonymous. "He beat us and flayed us and caused us all sorts of physical pain. But when the Americans torture us, they make us simulate sex acts, which is much nicer than getting beaten with a stick."
   "I agree with him," said a Sunni who found himself imprisoned by Americans in the very same torture chambers used by the Hussein regime. "Under Hussein, when they attached electrodes to you, they worked, and when they forced you to engage in sex, there was nothing simulated about it. The Americans use fake electrodes just to scare you, and they only pretend to rape you for a photo opportunity."
   "When Saddam's henchmen pissed on us, they always set us on fire first, then pretended they were doing us a favor by putting out the flames." said another Shiite. "It was humiliating. The British way of pissing on us is much more straightforward and humane."
   "We are much happier with the invader's form of torture," they all said in consensus. "Thank God for George W. Bush."

Photo gallery of American "torture-lite."

"And each, though enemies to either's reign, 
Do in consent shake hands to torture me"
- William Shakespeare: Sonnet 28 -

Letters

1. This may have been the best book review I ever read. Groovy. I've always thought of nihilism as impotent realism. Scar tissue without a cause. A tempting destination but such a short trip.

JD
2. Sir,

Domain Name Search; www.stopmartybeckerman.com
Registrant:
   Marty Beckerman 
3. I just saw this joker [Marty Beckerman] on Bill O'Reilly's show last Friday night when I was channel-surfing.

I'm not crazy about kids acting out sexually either, but Beckerman and O'Scumbag sat there and blamed it ALL on the Women's Movement!

(Yeah, right - putting prayer back in public schools and women back in the kitchen will solve all of the world's problems and make things safe for the Bush Family Evil Empire.)

You know, it really pisses me off when conservative wingnuts like O'Reilly and Cal Thomas pontificate about how ALL Baby Boomers did drugs and were sexually promiscuous.  (To use a 1960s expression, that just "wasn't where it was at" for me.)

Of course, when the lady O'Reilly had on there tried to express her opinion, O'Sleazy did what he does to everyone who doesn't march lockstep with his view of the world...cut her off!

O'Reilly is such a pompous ass and this Beckerman guy reminded me of an older Arnold Horshack, only not as nice!
Terry C
NJ

4. For the record, Kerry threw his RIBBONS over the fence, not his actual medals. The Ribbons are what was worn on Dress Uniforms, because the actual medals were deemed to "clunky". It also has been confirmed he was approached by 2 or more vets in wheelchairs, who couldn't reach the fence, and who asked Kerry if he would throw their medals over the fence for them. Kerry has showed off his Purple Heart, Bronze and Silver Stars to anyone who has asked to see them. Just recently by a journalist from Salon, I believe......It's my belief that he will not go out of his way to grand stand, by showing them off in a Press Conference...

Sincerely,
Robert in Seattle
5. You won't hear anything about President Bush or Vice President Cheney throwing their Vietnam medals away! That's why I support Bush/Cheney in '04!

- Monroe Eeks: Bakersfield, CA -
6. Come the Rapture, can I have your car?

- Xarvon, Alien Investigator -

Percentage of Casualties from Friendly Fire

World War II: 21% 
Korea: 18% 
Vietnam: 39% 
Persian Gulf: 49%
Donald Trump: 100%
 

 

Spanky,

Thank you for braving time and space to contact me.

Nothing is trickier than writing a script that's supposed to be non-fiction. The artistic problems don't even come close to approaching the magnitude of the legal problems. This e-mail could go on for miles if I got into all the specifics, so let me start by directing you to The Bachelor's Baby where I tell my own personal story of how I turned my life into a movie of the week. Rather than focus on how to DO the gig, let's focus on how to GET the gig.

First of all, why should your subject choose YOU to write a script about them when you apparently have no experience doing such a thing? It's an enormously complicated task that requires not just the skills of a screenwriter but of a diplomat and an extremely anal lawyer. You don't just need permission from your main character but from absolutely every other character, down to the smallest extra. Your guy can't take a cab without your getting permission from a cab driver. If you don't get permission from a cab driver, then you HAVE to fictionalize the character so that they're absolutely nothing like the cab driver your main character actually used. The job consists of balancing the true story of the guy you've got permission from with the mandatory fictionalization of just about everything else. If you don't have the skill and experience to do that, then you are, in fact, not the right person for this job. If I were your guy, I'd hire someone who knew what he was doing. 

That doesn't mean you can't get it. Skills can be learned, but it's going to take a lot of research because every word you write is a potential lawsuit.

If you send your subject your version of a scene from his own life, it's pretty much guaranteed you're going to get some details wrong and you're going to piss him off. Don't do it. If you're going to send him a "sample," make it a sample of your work that's completely unrelated, something whose only purpose is to show your skill as a screenwriter. You can't even begin writing individual scenes without extensive research. Start with a treatment. The spine of the story. The very first decision, and it's much more complicated than you think, is where the story starts and ends. Like everyone, he sees himself as the hero of his own story, but the hero's journey in any story has to contain their fatal flaw that they overcome. A lot of people don't like to look at examinations of their flaws, so I'm afraid you're going to have to fall back on flattery. Start out making them look good, then, further down the line, start exploring their problems. Part of the gig is THEIR fantasy fulfillment, especially if you're working for THEM.

Prank of the Week

Go into MS Word or similar program on a co-worker's computer and add an entry to the AutoCorrect feature. This is a very simple prank that will send the novice user into a frenzy. Configure the AutoCorrect option to replace the word "the" with the phrase "you're an idiot!" They will usually panic and start scanning for viruses.

Your Government at Work

108th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 3687

To amend section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, to provide for the punishment of certain profane broadcasts, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

(1) by inserting `(a)' before `Whoever'; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

`(b) As used in this section, the term `profane', used with respect to language, includes the words `shit', `piss', `fuck', `cunt', `asshole', and the phrases `cock sucker', `mother fucker', and `ass hole', compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms).'.

Don't Take My Word For It

"Knowledge will not acquire you: you must acquire it."
- Sudie Back -

"News, far more than art, is artifact."
- Marshall McLuhan -

    "Faced with a drinking problem, business failure and the potential loss of his family, he rediscovered Christ through the Midland, Texas, branch of a Community Bible Study group.
    "In the process, Bush moved to a belief system more absolute than that of his Episcopalian family or wife Laura's Methodist upbringing. He embraced evangelical Christianity, which considers the Bible to be the unblemished word of God and heaven barred to non-believers in Christ's divinity.
    "The concrete result is a president who is the leading proponent of applying the evangelical movement's values to domestic government, from opposing abortion and gay marriage to federally funding social programs run by religious institutions."
- Kay McFadden: "The Jesus Factor" and George W. Bush -

"All religion is just someone who has an imaginary friend."
- Dylan Moran -

    "Darkness is powerless in the presence of light. The relationship between light and darkness in the everyday world reveals a profound secret of spirituality. Spiritual darkness can exist only in the Light’s absence.
   "It is a universal law that desire is increased when others demand you to grow. It is very difficult to change by yourself because, well, you are who you are. But if you pay close attention, you will find that the people who come into your life are not there by accident. They are channels for the Light, sent to awaken and inspire in you the desire to change. If you are open, they can lead you to a whole new place of desire you're not even familiar with."
- Yehuda Berg -

"An actor is not quite a human being, but then, who is?"
- George Sanders -

"Cheney's biggest trick is making George Bush wake up every morning and believe he's the president."
- John Dean: Worse Than Watergate -

"There are two types of dictatorship. There is overt, in your face, control like communism and fascism; and there is the most effective control of all - the covert dictatorship that masquerades as freedom. People do not rebel against not being free when they think they are."
- David Icke: The Fourth Reich is Masquerading as "Liberation" and the "War on Terror" -

"Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, the pretenses and evasions of euphemism, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of empiric fact, common sense,and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled a curmudgeon."
- Edward Abbey -

"No mulligans, except on the first tee."
- George W. Bush, speaking to reporters August 7, 2001, the day after he was handed the PDB that Ms. Rice said only contained historical data -

"Those that I fight I do not hate, 
Those that I guard I do not love;"
- W.B. Yeats: An Irish Airman Foresees His Death -

    "Can you feel John Ashcroft's hot, predatory breath bearing down on your life and your box of vibrators and your adult DVD collection and snatching away your copy of "Weapons of A-- Destruction #2" and smacking you across the face with a Bible, all before skipping off to the dungeon to feed the flying monkeys?
    "Because while 9/11 and the process of gleefully decimating your civil liberties via the USA Patriot Act may have delayed him a few years, Ashcroft & Co. is back on the anti-porn warpath, hell-bent on slashing and burning its way through the porn industry like a priest through an all-male boarding school -- oh wait, bad analogy -- like a hot knife through butter -- nope, not that, either -- like a Halliburton exec through Baghdad -- there, that's more like it -- as the U.S. Justice Department sets its sights on punishing the sex industry and eradicating porn and making the world safe for uptight danceless ultra-pious non-drinking white men once and for all."
- Mark Morford: Is Your Porn Safe?  Lock up your daughters and hide your smut, John Ashcroft is on the anti-sex warpath, again -

    "I first figured that Gaza might be for sale when Ariel Sharon was accused of corrupt real estate dealings in Greece. And I was right too. Sharon has put together a real estate package in Gaza that is a sleazy developer's dream: Trading that run-down Gaza dump for the eloquent olive groves and high rises of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Score!
    "That's like trading the South Bronx for The Garden State -- including Princeton, Washington Crossing AND Atlantic City. That's like dumping Mediterranean Avenue and buying the Boardwalk. AND Park Place!
    "But wait. Won't the Palestinians at least come out of the deal owning Gaza? Isn't that a trade up for them? They will now own houses and hotels, right? Wrong. Palestinians will not be passing Go. And they will not be collecting $200. They will not be owning Gaza. Ariel Sharon will still own Gaza. What the Palestinians will be getting from this real estate deal is the right to continue to live in a prison, a jail and a slum.
   "Being an Arab these days is chillingly similar to being a Jew in 1939. The only difference I can see is that instead of Prescott financing genocide, we now have his grandson George."
- Jane Stillwater: Ariel Sharon: Real estate developer extraordinaire -

   "• When life hands you lemons, make lemonade: When Bill Clinton won office in 1992, Cheney lost his. His friends at Halliburton were more than happy to give him a job - as CEO.
   "• It's all about the bling bling: By 2000, he was pulling in $36,086,635 from the oil-services company.
   "• Machiavellian politics pay off: In 2000, George W. put Cheney in charge of a team to select a running mate. Cheney chose himself.
   "• Think outside the box: After creating the Halliburton empire, Cheney turned his attention to creating a new energy policy for the United States. Using his world-famous Rolodex, the vice president merged two seemingly unrelated areas of administration: dealing with rogue states and capturing oil fields."
- Mike Pope: Cheney's career is an inspiration -

"In order to be walked on, you have to be lying down."
- Brian Weir -

    "Greetings to you in the name of our Allah i got your e mail through the help of my nurse who scanned the internet and gave me your mail. I am Mrs Mariam Khalid a devoted muslim, a new muslim convert of 74 years old after being converted from a christian family by my husband. For quite a good number of years now, I have been suffering from cancer of the breast and fibroid of the womb which has for a long time now affected my health and from all indications my condition is deteriorating by day and by my doctor's prediction I have less than six months to live.
    "My husband who is now late was killed during the US/British attack  against the president of my country (Sadam Hussain). My late husband was a member of the contract award committee of the republican ministry of  petroleum and resources of Iraq under the regime of Sadam Hussein."
- Hajia Mariam Khalid: rewriting the Nigerian bank scam to take advantage of the war in Iraq -

"It is only important to walk on the real ground, to act on the basis of reality. The slightest phoniness, and you fall into the realm of demons."
- Liao-an -

"Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst."
- Marcus Valerius Martial -

"Make sure to be in with your equals if you're going to fall out with your superiors."
- Jewish proverb -

"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."
- Paul Boese -

"Generally speaking, the clever are not wise. Neither are the wise clever; they are innocent. But there is a type of innocent cleverness a combination which resides only in the mansions of superior wisdom."
- Jacob Klatzkin: In Praise of Wisdom -

"The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling?"
- Margaret Gatty -

"One who imitates what is bad always goes beyond his model; while one who imitates what is good always comes up short of it."
- Francesco Guicciardini -

    "An Iranian court has ruled the United States should pay $600 million in compensation for supplying ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons, the official IRNA news agency said on Wednesday.  IRNA said the money in the case, brought by Iranian war veterans and disabled, should be paid to survivors of attacks on the town of Sardasht which borders Iraq.
    "Iraqi gas attacks killed thousands of Iranians and Iraqi Kurds in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. Hundreds of thousands died on both sides and Iran has thousands disabled by chemical arms."
- Reuters -

"A miracle cannot prove what is impossible; it is useful only to confirm what is possible."
- Maimonides: Guide for the Perplexed -

"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?"
- Jean Cocteau -

"The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases."
- Carl Jung -

"Yearn to understand first and to be understood second."
- Beca Lewis Allen -

"The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool."
- George Santayana -

"Leap, and the net will appear."
- Julie Cameron -

"If there's no wound on the hand, that hand can hold poison.
Poison won't penetrate where there's no wound.
There's no evil for those who don't do it."
- Dhammapada, 9 -

"Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."
- David Lloyd George -

"Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment."
- Baltasar Gracian: The Oracle -

    "I joined the Air Force to protect our borders and our people, not the financial interests of Folgers, Chiquita Banana, and Exxon. We've had enough corporate wars. No more Iraqs. No more El Salvadors. No more Kosovos. No more Colombias. These are not isolated incidents of stupidity. They are part of a long, bloody history of foreign policy being conducted for the financial benefit of the wealthy few. It is a new colonialism. It violates our Constitution. It endangers our people. And it is TREASON.
    "As a pilot who flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam, I can tell you that the best thing our government can do for its combat veterans is to quit making more of them."
- Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Ret.: Some Dare Call It Treason: Wake Up America! -

"If you want to make God Laugh, tell him your future plans."
- Woody Allen -

Everything Else

I came to that place, you know where it is, where we all return once in a while, where everything stops and we catch up with ourselves, where everything is new, where the dividing line between past and future gets away with us, where we watch things happen rather than wait to have them described, where we flow with the current, no matter how fast its coming at us, no matter how treacherous the shores.

Today's satire becomes tomorrow's reality faster every day, so don't let them get away from you, those moments where realities coincide and you get a glimmer from what could be a gem of truth floating amid the flotsamedia and jetsumedia. History and memory play tricks. The older they get, the less defined are the distinctions. 

Have memory and history started to contradict themselves? Has your inner journalist kicked in? Have you started to question everything? Remember this golden rule: "It's only memory if you actually remember it. It's only history if it's false and people believe it."

MD

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