Goodbye August...Hello September!

Watching the truly unbelievable and heartbreaking sights in what looks like New Orleans makes me want to take drugs and worship God, dervishly, to make reality go away. I'd like to close my eyes and open them to a brand new world where the events of the past week along the Gulf Coast never happened.

Like my father would say, I'd like a lot of things, wouldn't I? Wishing and praying cannot erase the past, and it appears now, to have little effect on the future. God, who I believe exists, has either chosen to punish the city of New Orleans and thereabouts, or was helpless in the face of Mother Nature, who he is not. I don't know which is scarier. And yet again, it is Man, who will rise to the occasion, as best he can, to mitigate the disturbance of the peaceful state.

We will be quite animated by our religious physicians in the coming weeks to look to God for sustenance and faith. Can we also ask for answers? And reasons. May we implore God to explain himself and his actions. Or if this is not the act of our God, then explain his impotence.

We are his children. We need to know.

Joe Postove

Notes On God

It is astonishing how God can ignore the world.
To abandon his child with the wave of a hand.

Is it simple faith and obeyance that he demands?
The little children in the park can perform that sleight of mind.

Is it worship and awe that he stipulates, if we are to remain?

Perhaps we should move into the outer world of God.

And love the Watchmaker.

Who has disappeared.

jp

A VERY SPECIAL MR. LIBERTY SUMMERTIME RERUN!

As we close out our summer inventory, here's a classic 7/11 hating post from just a few weeks ago. The demand to repeat it came from God, who I wish not to ignore. ENJOY!


Thank God I'm Alive!

I was almost killed in a pretzel related traffic accident this morning while pulling out of the 7/11 (damn them to hell, btw) parking lot. Not killed so much as really almost creamed by a car, broadside. Thankfully, I was only smudged, with a shmutz of chocolate from my donut alfrescoed on my lips.I had just bought my breakfast, after finishing my paper route a little early.

Whenever I do get it over with early, I enjoy throwing any extra papers I may have, hither and thither, over and yawn onto the porches of people who do not subscribe to the paper. Hopefully, one day, a young woman will respond to the paper clanking her screen door, and come out in one of those delightful nightys that Dorothy Lyman used to wear on "Mama's Family". Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

So I reached into my bag of sandwich, candy bar and pretzels as I drove out of the 7/11 lot. My eyes trained on the road, spying for oncoming traffic were diverted down to the bag where one of the pretzels had hooked itself onto one of the others. You know, like pretzels do. But this was different. I was driving. I know I should have stopped and unhooked the pretzels from each other. That would have been the safe thing. But I felt that my 30 plus years of driving would carry me as I attempted to untangle the pretzels and continue into the street.That would have been the wise thing to do. But I was over confident. And therefore was nearly killed.

Dig this:

OBITUARY:

Joe Postove, of Norfolk, news boy for the Virginian Pilot was killed today as a car smashed into his while he was trying to untangle a couple of pretzels.There will be no service because of his stupidity. Postove, 48, leaves a sandwich, bar of candy, double chocolate donut and an open bag of pretzels. Those wishing to honor his memory should watch out when they eat and drive.

The moral of this story?When dining at 7/11, eat in the store. No matter how nasty the criminal clerks are. Over by the Slupie machine is a good place. It's good and sticky there, so your stuff won't slide away.

Joe

Dippin' Sauce

There are things that upset me more than others. Nuclear war, baby killing, UPN, and those elastic socks you wear to weddings that leave a mark on your shin because they're so tight, all push my brain to one side and leave me insane.

And then there are things, perhaps not as bad as some of the above, that still worm their way into my head and make me even insaner.

I love commercials. They are capitalism's version of a rectal exam by a very nice doctor. We all need that when we get to a certain age, and just as the ass needs to be in the hands of a competent M.D., commercials should swing with the verve of youth, and give us a nice introduction to all of the fine products out there that we all want. Desperately.

However, sometimes Madison Avenue decides to get fancy, and produce commercials that are indeed memorable, but it is the spot that you retain, and not the product. This is NOT good for business. No matter how slick.

This brings us to Dippin' Sauce. I have grown to love, appreciate, covet, and even consider stealing this wonderful new product, so I'm told. It's DIPPIN' SAUCE dammit!

What is dippin' sauce, sir? I can hear the choir on the commercial singing just how great it is. I realize that you must either dip something into the dippin' sauce, or perhaps it is the sauce itself that dips. And makes for a wonderful meal.

Assuming that it's food. I am the foremost expert on my floor, in my apartment house, on dippin' sauce. But when the children come to me, as one day they will, and ask, "Joey, what is dippin' sauce? I will have to turn away, and then turn around and give them the latest news on the new pay toilet across the street from my apartment. Because at the end of the day, my dippin' sauce knowledge is sorely lacking. Or is that nicely lacking? But pay toilets I know.

Oh Dippin' Sauce, I am a prisoner of your delights. Whatever they may be.

I do the best I can with the little I have to work with.

Joe

Brother

My brother and his wife just left after spending two days here in Norfolk, continuing on to a wedding in New York. They live in California, and rarely make a trip here, as there is nothing to do, and now with everyone dead (except his old boss) no one to see.

I count myself in the "no one to see" category. I don't know how brothers are supposed to behave when they grow up. Or even if there is a "supposed to" set of rules. Besides, we had different fathers. This did not separate us, however. We're separate because of everything, and nothing. And yet because we are brothers we continue to see each other.

This could be stupid and futile, or hopeful and futile. It could be stupid and hopeful. Both our fathers are dead. Our mother is dead. And yet despite being eleven years apart, our familial commonality, the set of peculiar circumstances that both brought us together and apart allows for an unbroken connection, for life, no matter how frayed.

And so I see my brother and his wife. And enjoy their company. And hope for the best.

I may be stupid, though.

Joe

Miss America Leaves Town!

I reported in this blog back on July 11th that the Miss America pageant had been kicked off of ABC TV and was moving all of her stuff over to "Hee Haw" where I thought perhaps trouble might start abrewin'.

All slickered up in her cowgirl boots and heavy makeup, Miss America now plans to leave Atlantic City, where she had been layed for 85 years, and mosey on over to a new town. This new found confidence is a good thing, but I think she may be in for some trouble if she can't find the right set-up.

I suppose Nashville would be the natural place. But I had a nightmare last night that Miss America and Ernest Tubb had been involved in a murder-suicide at the Motel 6 behind his restaurant, and I'm so afraid that my dream could come true.

Miss America, dispite her new fangled ways, pushup bras, and morning after pills, is still an American institution and needs protecting by those who love her.

If she must leave Atlantic City behind (and I don't know why. AC is just coming into her own with legalized prostitution and easy divorce laws to compete with Las Vegas) then we should work hard to find her a nice place to hang her stockings.

I'm thinking Branson. That little sucker town needs a little sexing up, anyway.
We'll see.

joe

Ground Hog Day

Twelve years after it was released I finally got around to seeing "Ground Hog Day" with Bill Murray this afternoon. It is that rare film that makes learning life's lessons fun while seeing a great movie.

"Day" makes it into my select group of uplifting films that don't preach, and leave you alone to enjoy them, even if you don't get it.

In "It's a Wonderful Life" our hero learns what life would be like if he had never been born, and gains insight into the importance of the individual and how one soul can affect many. In "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" Francie grows to understand the importance of the self, and being true to it's heart. And in this film, Bill Murray, in a fanciful, yet as believable as any movie can be, has the opportunity to live one day, the same day (Ground Hog Day) many times over, and over that time learns how to become human.

About half way through what seems a maddening, nightmarish trick of God, Murray realizes that he is being given the chance to learn, from one day, with the occasion being a holiday and therefore having many of the same events, how to figure life out. Like stringing a thread through a needle, he is that slow. But as the day continues, and begins again every morning at six, he gets it. That this is his one chance that no one else gets, to practice life as it happens, with real people and real things, in real time, until he gets it right. It's almost like being born old, and by the time you hit life's prime, you've got it!

Real life ain't the movies, but we can learn from them. From "Ground Hog Day" I learned the importance of paying attention.

Because tomorrow is always another day.

joe

Pat Robertson...The C is for COMEDY!

The head of the "Christian" Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson says we ought to send some covert agents out to Venezuela and assassinate the president there. So much for Pat's understanding of the meaning of "covert". Although that would be a neat little fake through the middle; to have our national "Director Of Religion" say it on tv and then have our guys really go ahead and do the job.

The Reverend Robertson could be a patsy here. It may be that his is the same voice that Bobby Fischer hears in his fillings, and causes dogs to pee in their pants when Japanese cartoons are on. Admit this much; the man is mezmerizing. Not in a "Mezmer" kind of way, so much as a combination of Edgar Cayce and Top Cat. You put those two together in one man, and I would get a cool diabetic high.

But I'm off message a bit. What I really want to know is when Pat is going to tell our goons that he's ready to meet Jesus.

Tune in then for a "very special edition" of the 700 Club.

Joe

5th Avenue vs Clark Bar

After I finished my paper route this morning I stopped into 7/11 (this is a different one than my regular near the house. I am getting tired of the easy familiarity of the staff there and their interest in my eating habits and why I don't smile more at 6 in the morning) to pick up some breakfast.

The sandwiches are having a contest whereupon you peel off a sticker on the box, you get a free extra piece of garbage that they want to promote. I have no objection to that, except that sometimes you get gum and then other times you win a neat extra, like a hot dog, or a big bag of chips. I cheat and peel off the sticker before I get to the counter. I'm no fool. I'm not going get stuck with the shit they can't give away when there are goodies like chips and candy bars that I would rather toss down my gullet.

Which brings me to candy bars. Today I won a free candy bar that I was unfamiliar with, so the Chinese lady who runs the place said "take any candy bar...Any one you want". This sounded against the rules, but that's ok. When the Chinese lady says I can take any candy I want, I do as she says.

I wanted a Clark Bar, an old reliable that you can eat anywhere, even the opera or in court. I picked up my prize, took her back to the van along with my chicken salad sandwich, carrots, and pretzels, and proceeded home.

If you have read my blog before, you know that food in my bag does not usually get all the way home, that I usually play with it, and eat some, before I haul it into my apartment. I unwrapped the Clark Bar, greedily, but with the experience of someone who had eaten this type of candy bar before. It tastes something like a Butterfinger, but is firmer, and of more resolute form.

I am driving along, eating my free candy, messing with the radio, when to my great astonishment I looked at the wrapper, which was brown like a Clark Bar, but which instead said 5th Avenue! The whole time I was eating a 5th Avenue, thinking it was a Clark Bar!

I thought about it; shoved the last bit down my throat, and said to myself, in whisper, "isn't that something".

jp

A Gerald Ford Moment?

I was watching "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" this morning when during a round table with Senators Hegel and Allen, both Republican, but with very different views on the war, I believed I heard George Allen gasping for air, desperately trying to right himself from a question that knocked him off his cocky strut. Here is my post to the ABC.COM message board about what I heard. Enjoy!

"During the debate between senators Hegel and Allen (of my state, VA) I believe I heard the sound of Mr. Allen burning and melting as he responded to the problem of Iraqi soldiers having other loyalties besides the central government; that there is the problem of militias and other bodies which the soldiers we are trying to teach to run one country have adjacent adherence to. That until we can correct this significant problem, leaving them to their own destiny won't happen.

Senator Allen immediately chimed in with what I heard to be a "the Soviet Union does not dominate Poland" moment as he seemed to spit and sputter that this is not unlike our own system in America, where the military and our other troops in Iraq ALSO have loyalties to home states and state militias and we can expect this in Iraq. Don't worry be happy, it happens everywhere.

Senator Hegel and George Stephanopoulos seemed very quiet for a few moments there, apparently wanting to clear the decks to give Senator Allen as much room as he needed to calmly and tidily tie his own noose to hoist himself out of serious consideration for "08. Did I hear too much in that? If I heard correctly, am I making too big a deal out of it?"

Joe Postove

Same Sex Marriage-NO GAYS ALLOWED

I have always supported the right of people of the same gender to walk in front of a bus going 60 mph, that is to get married, just like straight folk.

Now, two Texas drinking buddies have come up with a new twist on the old buggery two-step.

Two straight guys, Bill Dalrymple and Bryan Pinn of Waco, Texas (I love Waco...If only that they do not discriminate between wackos very much) want to travel to Canada and take advantage of their legal right to marry someone of their own sex. Both Bill and Bryan (who I guarantee are straight...I saw them not having sex) have a deep, respectful friendship of longstanding, that they would like to turn into a "till death do you part" scene.

Both have several failed "het" marriages under their belt (maybe that was part of the problem) and realize the financial and social benefits male matrimony could bring them.

Why should gays and lesbians have all the intrasex fun? It was not all that long ago that men and women could write letters inked in deep amour' with no shame and no inference that there was a sexual component to a love between men and men and women and women.

My own grandmother lived with a woman for many years, after both had been widowed. If anyone had ever suggested a tinge of pink to this relationship, they would have been whipped. It would never have occurred to any of us that this was anything but a nice friendship. But it was a marriage of sorts. They did all the things a married couple do (except hate each other..And no sex of course) and when my Gram left this relationship at the age of seventy to remarry in West Virginia, it was a blow to Aunt Gussie. She sank into sad singlehood, while Gram blossomed into old age, reborn as part of a differently sexed, married couple.

Marriage is NOT all about sex. Why not marry your best buddy? It's same sex, not same sexual orientation that the gay lobby is pushing for anyway.

And besides, the word on Homo Street is that they can turn these guys sooner or later anyway.

jp

Mrs. Sheehan And The Wretched Right

Having been a radio talk show host, about two lives ago, I know how these guys work, and how competent they can be in their ignorance. Today, listening for the very last time to that fat wretched bastard toad, Rush Limbaugh, I finally realized that there can never be new lows for bottom feeders like him. He is an able ass, and here's why.

On the show today, he claimed that Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside of the president's compound, and her plea for peace and disengagement from our pay toilet in Iraq was disrespect to, and a sullying of her dead son's reputation.

This from a stoned freak who skipped out on his own "service" during Vietnam (legally..Let it be said). The most dangerous thing this shit filled, brain dead, after birth ever did was get married three times, all to women who took little time in seeing through to the wretched core of this pseudo-person.

Rush Limbaugh has always been criminally hateful, and one must wonder how much longer (and fatter) he can live with himself, as long as his slanderous lies and unamerican, hackneyed, moth-eaten, musty, stereotyped, threadbare invective against a true hero like Cindy Sheehan continues.

Probably quite some time.

joe postove

Mrs Sheehan, George Bush and Lysistrata

Before you take another thought on what should be the next step in the anti-war journey of Mrs. Sheehan, please check out this Blog which makes a very good point about the Greek play "Lysistrata" and how the world could be changed if women simply withheld womanhood, in all of its manifestations, until men stop killing the earth with its wars.

George Bush should not meet with Mrs. Sheehan. Frankly, it does the movement more good to have her serve as a martyr (which she is, of course), and besides, what could this most incompetent and unfeeling of men say to her now? How could he even look at her?

It takes a special kind of metaphysics to try and save an entire world by killing off our future one boy and girl at a time.

For this time, sanity exists within Cindy Sheehan. We should gather at her feet.

joe postove

The Most Profound Of Things

As I was tooling the old stinky trash can full of newspapers along the outside of a motel this morning, delivering them to each room, a thought so new, and yet so obvious in its profundity, occurred to me. It caused me to stop, allowing the trash can of papers to roll away from me in my disregard, as I pondered something that I don't believe ever propped open my mind, and jazzed my brain cells quite like this.

Have I ever been in someone else's sexual fantasy? God, I'd like to know, but I wouldn't want the person who had me tell me. As a man, I have a sexual thought every 3 seconds. And there are times when you could fry an egg on my mind, it's so hot with sexy thoughts. But that's me. I have been with thousands of women since I was "of age" (nine), but I would have to reduce that by thousands if I included real living women. That's not as pitiful as it seems (yet remaining pitiful, all the same) since all men have sexual fantasies, of which only a tiny fraction are ever put into gear.

But what about them? Have I been incorporated into ladies "night thoughts". Or perhaps even girls from school who haven't seen me in years continue to keep me in their catalogue? I don't think I would know how to behave in someone else's fantasy. I know I wouldn't have to do any of the "work", but yet, I sense a deep need in me to control the thoughts of others. Even if it means inventing a brain scanning device to see what goes on there. And fix me up if I'm of a need.

However, I realize that private sexual fantasies are not public property, and I would have no more right to intrude into Danni Ashe's "Fun Story Of Sex Time", anymore than she would have to intrude into mine. But I wanna anyway.

What if a man is having fantasies of me? If I ever go to prison for any of my crimes, my great fear, naturally, is being gang raped by the brothers from the "Nation Of Islam". This is a typical male horror. But I'm not sure if I would consider it a compliment or not if just some guy ran me through his parade of sex, along with his other gay friends? I should grow up a little, and just accept that what is, is. And not worry so much about who is thinking what about me.

I will allow all to enjoy me in their own way. But keep it to yourself.

jp

Mayberry Doctor Devises Technique for Lengthening Limbs

Mayberry Doctor Devises Technique for Lengthening Limbs
by Johnny Lips

People whose limbs are short — either because they were born that way or because of amputation or accident — can get longer and better limbs thanks to a procedure developed by a Dr. Uncle Joe in Mayberry, North Carolina. The method was devised in Mayberry because of horrific numbers of injured pussy cats whose legs and arms refused to mend properly after falling five or six or more stories from high buildings. It is often thought that cats who land on their feet are "ok", but research at the Katz Institute for "The Study Of Cats Falling Down And Going Boom" showed that these cats are often severely injured and need to have their tummy's rubbed and massive surgery on their legs.

For years many residents of Mayberry have thought that this could have helped Barney Fife in his attempt to grow a couple of inches in order to fulfill the new Civil Service requirements for height and weight. Aunt Bee could put the weight on him, but Fife had to resort to using old Asa's harness in order to stretch his neck and get that extra inch of height. This method would have been much better. And much less painful in the genecktasoinkt. But do you think he would listen? No, he just went on his merry way. Thank goodness Barney was able to pass the exam. But of course, as we all now know, he had to cheat a little.

In the study medics attached rods to the limbs and told the affected patients to eat pies and cakes until it came out of their ears and then shove corn cobs into a Coke machine to try and scoop up any loose change. This worked very well for shortening the fractured limb and rejoining the parts. But when a patient did the procedure the wrong way, it lengthened the joined ends, doctors discovered. Dr. Uncle Joe said that only pies and cakes, perhaps with a little pudding wrapped in a napkin would make whatever it was we were talking about work better than the old way.

Finally the doctor said to the patients to figure it out for themselves, and he left for a business trip to Picksley, where the radio said there was a nickel buffet filled with wonderful foods like cheese flavored radio shoes, time tested baloney pops, sugar muffins sprayed with grease from a tin can found outside Chubby Checker's pay toilet, oven mitt surprise, potato tube top butter licks and for dessert, a mixture of fried beef poison filled with love.

WE'RE AT WAR!

The president made it official again today, just in case you missed it when "Mission Accomplished" was announced two and a half years ago, THAT WE ARE AT WAR! Dammitt! The dammitt was mine.

D-Day was about 2 1/2 years after Pearl Harbor. Could you possibly imagine FDR announcing on 6/6/44 that "WE ARE AT WAR"! He would have seemed ridiculous. Our President rather seems to be on acid. Ridiculous would make him seem clownish. He is not.

At the core of George Bush is a man who sleeps the sleep of the innocent. He is not uncaring. He is, unfortunately, a boy, an immature boy, in a man's job. It would take a man, or some semblance thereof, to realize 21/2 years after the "end" of combat in Iraq, that to pump up the American people, now, with a "WE'RE AT WAR" bullshit scream is the terror of a boy who fears that he has done something terribly wrong, but is too panicky to try and figure a way out.

George forgot his homework today, and the dog ate it, is "we are at war people, and anyway the first two thousand are a gimme, right"? Yes, we are at war. And every day George "Brar Rabbitt" Bush ignores the Tar Baby that has ruined what good there was in him, and kills, now, about 50 fine young men and women each week.

Yeah, we're at war.

Joe

New Shower Curtain Goes Up Today!

Let's face it. I don't have a lot going in my life, so later today when I install my new shower curtain, I will live on that accomplishment for a week. Some people are multi-taskers. They can juggle a bunch of stuff into a day's life and still get the kids home from soccer practice, fry up a decent dinner for the husband, and then sexulate him once the kids are asleep (I hope to God. Please...Let's keep America beautiful). If I can plan to do one thing, I consider that a successful day. When I do the laundry, for example, I consider that the equivalent of writing a book.

Other than going to work this morning to deliver my paper route (I deliver them to hotels, one at a time to the doors of the guests...No naked ladies trying to get ice under cover of ice bucket yet, but I will keep you updated) I cleared the decks today to make time to put up the shower curtain. Not that the decks were super full, but I did want to check the mail and watch tv, and I'll probably find the time to do them, but as God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again. And I'll put that thing up today.

My old shower curtain has one good ring left to it, and thus when I shower there is a tendency to get some water on the floor. It is not my fault, and my white landlord can claim otherwise, but I stand on my rights that as long as the shower curtain is tethered in some way to the pole that it resides on, I'm in the clear.

But I wanted a new shower curtain anyhow, so I went to the dollar store, which has so many fine goods for just a dollar. I buy all of my pastes, creams, pufferies, male solutions and other items there that I felt certain that they would have some kind of shower curtain, even if it was made in Iraq. As is the norm when I go to the dollar store to buy a thing, I end up with several necessities to go along with my original purchase. So on this trip I went wild (I had a ten dollar bill!) and bought some shaving cream, ice cream sandwich (deluxe!) a finger nail clipper, a bag of Cheetos, an Ozzie And Harriet DVD, and a nice sized tube of tooth paste. I admit, I went wild! But how often does one have ten dollars, right there in the dollar store? I could have bought TEN things!

Then I remembered why I was there. I asked one of the pathos who work there (nice ones, but I'd say recently released or on work release) about my shower curtain. She said that the truck from Formosa was late that month and they were out of stock. Now I know you cannot drive here from Formosa, so I looked aside, and in soto voce I called her a liar. My lips were on the side at this time, so she did not see my utter contempt for her.

I left there with all my other good stuff very upset that I may have to pay full price for a shower curtain. I went to another store nearby that doesn't care what they charge for their goods, and saw a nice one with dolphins on it, for ten dollars. That was much more than I intended to pay, but if I didn't make a decision then and there, I would miss "Leave It To Beaver". And this I never do.

I cursed the checkout girl in a similar fashion to the dollar store cursing earlier, and took my shower curtain home. I also bought a new bath mat, and some towels. I think I should have done that in the dollar store.

I have my curtain. Updates as they happen (after I put it up, I will test it to make sure it holds the water in).


jp

Peter Jennings RIP

Peter Jennings could have been a leading man. He could have written books, or perhaps made a living as a "handsome man" trading on his looks, in whatever he career he chose. But he left high school in the 10th grade and pursued one of man's higher callings, journalism. And it was as the voice and face of ABC news for all these years, that we remember and mourn him today.

His mind was a swift one. Filing reports from throughout the world was his education. His first round as anchor of the ABC Evening News was at the age of 25. ABC News was even younger then he in those days, when the broadcast was 15 minutes long, and the network was often deemed fourth in a three way race.
But from the very beginning viewers saw past the good looks, elegant style, and natural delivery. He had those, plus the often overused word, but appropriate here, gravitas. He knew of what he spoke. Physicality will get you so far in the broadcast news business. It will not get you the respect that Peter Jennings had from his peers and from his viewers.

The television news landscape has changed greatly these past few years. Cable news, along with the internet has made the business quite unlike it was only 20 years ago. But class, and that word again, gravitas, are eternal. And Peter Jennings will be remembered for a long time as a gentleman broadcaster, who also "had the goods". He was above all a newsman who understood that the news was one of the most vital and serious aspects in the safeguarding of a free society.

RIP Peter Jennings



jp

But Not In My Name...Never!

On that placid day in Hiroshima sixty years ago, a few good men, working for the government of the United States, in the name of the American people, committed the worst act of terrorism ever known. That it happened during a war mitigates it little. It was an unprovoked, vivisection of a people to test the ultimate weapon, for which billions of dollars had been coughed up by our folks. Tens of thousands of poor, ignorant, subjugated AND innocent Japanese died at the hand of our government. We've taken the credit. Perhaps history will reorient itself and save us from our blithe disregard for what happened.

For generations now, those who were there, the soldiers, civilians, and historians alike have defended our action with the excuses that to invade Japan would have cost a million American men, or that Tokyo would have never surrendered or stupidest and worst of all; we had to do it to them before they could to us.

All of that may be true. What IS true is what occurred. And that was the deaths, in unimaginable horror, by our collective hand, of over a hundred thousand non-combatants. Perhaps only to test the weapon to see how well it worked. Or to test the will of the Soviets, and see if they understood who would be boss after the war.

There will be disagreement on this as long as we are allowed to disagree. Take a moment and ask yourself if the end of the war sooner, rather than later was worth all of these innocent lives? Whatever your opinion, it is a valid question.

And then say a prayer. For yourself.

Joe Postove

Hiroshima

• It was sixty years ago today
  Oh how I wish it were never,
  When we destroyed the city
  To save the world.
  
  The sky in Hiroshima
  Dark and then gone
  Raised up ash
  And left to the winds of war.
  
  The people there,
  Were surprised that another people
  Could carry the scythe of death so ably.
  We did.
  
  And we won.
  And danced away our guilt,
  Whirling like dervishes to cleanse ourselves.
  
  The people of Hiroshima look for answers.
  We cannot help them,
  For we know no questions.
  
  Joe Postove

No Child Left Behind...21 Killed In Iraq This Week!

We are approaching Vietnam levels of killed this week. At the height of that war we could get 200 or more butchered a week, so we're not quite there. But our terrorists are getting smarter and bolder and braver, and seem quite willing to wait us out. How long are we willing to wait?

Long enough for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and President Bush to at least get their stories straight on what we're doing there? Rummy was maneuvering last week to retitle the war as the "global struggle against violent extremism". This is an obvious attempt to not admit that we have lost the war and are fighting only long enough for a "decent interval" for the Iraqi partisans to lose their country to the "violent extremists" that we brought in in the first place.

My head is starting to hurt, and if you look closely at the mouth pieces for the administration, black liquidy streams of shit are starting to creep down from their ears. These killers of 20 or so fine young men every week are starting to leak. They are full.

Ah...but our Commander in Chief; the man who more than two years ago stood on board ship, in full getup, and declared "mission accomplished" stepped on Rumsfeld toes yesterday, as he insisted that we are still fully engaged in a "Global war against terrorism" or "Make no mistake about it, we are at war".

There is no truth in Washington. The suits have blown it big time, and as governments are wont to do, they have managed to make things so bad, and so so much worse.

Three little men from outer space knocked on my door last night, and asked directions to Mercury. I don't know how to get to Mercury from here, so I told them they could use my Google Map. We got to talking about the war (they have cable) and one asked me what my country hoped to achieve, at this point in Iraq. These were smart guys, who asked pointed questions. So I gave them a short, succinct answer.

We are one fucked up country.

Joe Postove

Clean Underwear Myth Shattered!

Mothers all over the world have lied to their children for years how that they must have clean underwear on, in case you're in an accident and are taken to the hospital. This is a myth. And now you can relax...appropriately that is. Even I don't want you to relax too much. I can't handle the world here!

Moms would have you believe that the first thing doctors do when a child is admitted to the hospital is check his underwear. Nurse: "Doctor, this boy has severe head damage and lacerations to the neck and big toe!" Doctor:" O.K. nurse, first check his underwear, then administer a 5 cc...Nurse: "Uh, doctor, this child has very low blood pressure and could die before we get him into surgery. Are you sure you want me to take the time to check his underwear? And what do you want me to look for?"

"I want you to look for shit! Or signs that he didn't clean himself adequately before having that car crash. Listen, nurse, I may be a doctor, but I am also a very clean man. And I refuse, on principle to fix him up with a good docterin' unless he has a clean ass. I'm an American, dammit. And I want my patients to have clean underwear and asses before I'll do any form of surgery."

Of course that's not the way it happens. A doctor will administer to anyone, even if he's wearing underwear that hasn't been washed in over a week. I think it's a law. So remember, don't worry too much about cleaning down there, unless you want to. If you are hurt in a car wreck, the doctor will fix you up fine.

I hope that puts an end to THAT myth!

jp

First Day Of August

This is not the first day of August. However, it is my first post to the blog for this month and thus deserves celebrations. Yee-haw.

I hope that makes you happy. I try not to get too excited these days, what with the war and the pay toilet scandal here in Norfolk.

The internet is a great place for folks like us to tell it like it is. To say what's on our minds, and fall asleep after eating half a gallon of ice cream. Yeah, I did that. They have this new Edie's brand ice cream that has only 70 calories per serving. 70 CALORIES PER SERVING! That's like an academy award coming out of your ass! Or teaching some women how to pee standing up, so that they won't have to wait so long for the ladies room at ball games and the Grand Opera. 70 calorie ice cream is a gift from God. God wants us to gobble down this great junk because he loves us, and knows how important sweet things are to us.

There are 14 servings in this bucket of 70 calorie ice cream, which means there are less than 1,000 calories in the whole can. So I ate just about all of it, and now I have a stomach ache. Ooooh...ahhhhh. "Mom, can I stay home from school today? My stomach really hurts. ohhh...ooohh!!!" She said get dressed and then lay down. "Then we'll see how you feel"

That was years ago, but I went to school. Once your Mother tells you to get dressed, and then see how you feel; you might as well stuff my fat body out the door and onto the bus, cause I'm going to school. Curse it all! Another "Art Linkletter's House Party" missed again. As for the ice cream it wasn't the tub of 70 calorie love that busted my gut. It was the 6 peanut butter sandwiches I kept in my pocket for emergencies. Like all good fat children.

My stomach hurts NOW! But I have to go to work and deliver my newspapers. My boss won't even let me lay down and see how I feel later.

joe