A certain radical political activist, familiar with my history of generalized distaste for Dumbo-Craps as well as Repug-Nicans, was bugging me about voting. “Well, are you,” she nagged – momentarily forgetting I’d thrown my lot in with the spiritually inclined Kerry-Wins-Visualization bunch – “or not?”
Ordinarily I’m of the school of thought whom you vote for should be as private as whom you sleep with – in my case, nobody on both counts – but I knew she meant well. And besides, she remembered what happened last time.
Last time, “Arnie Arcadia,” not his real name, came knocking on my front door like Paul Revere or the cavalry, to get out my vote. “If you don’t,” he waggled his finger at me, “Bush will probably win.”
And so, fueled by adrenaline as much as fear of the Boogey Man, I chuffed around the corner to the polls, and plighted my voting troth for Algore. Boy, what a successful experience in American civics that was – Bush-Wah and Co. heisted the election anyway.
Now I’m really steamed, recalling how the Michigan Republican Party – whine! whine! – recently dared to charge Michael Moore (yes, that Michael Moore) “illegally” tempted college students with underwear, ramen noodles, a clean dorm room, and a year’s supply of Tostitos in return for their promise to vote Democratic in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Ha! Sign me up and make mine LaPerla. You know, the luxe lingerie?
Why the big fuss? Lighten up, guys! Those aren’t bribes, they’re cheap gag prizes! Not like what Oprah pretended to do with her fake giveaway of those cars! LIFE, formerly a magazine, is now a reality TV show, and the name of the game is product placement.
The “Oprah Winfrey Show’s” auto intoxication ultimately proves there’s no such thing as a free car.
On the first day – Oprah’s fall TV season premiere – she surprised each member of her studio audience with a brand new car … 276 of them. Everyone rhapsodized about Oprah’s extraordinary generosity. Since each car’s worth up to $28,000 with options, this totals $7.8 million dollars or more, and it’s good, very good …
For her ratings.
On the second day, after we’re all sucked in, uh, amazed about how awe-inducingly generous Oprah must be to part with such a substantial chunk of her skillionaire fortune, the true story emerges, and it’s bad, very bad …
Can you spell a-p-p-a-l-l-i-n-g?
Turns out General Motors supposedly paid for the cars! Including, they claim, taxes and licensing fees! The whole thing’s a mega-promo for GM’s launch of a new Pontiac model – Oprah has something like 30 million devoted weekly viewers. Plus the rest of us who’re inundated with the attendant publicity. Such ingenuity manipulating the gullible minds of the masses!
A cynical gesture worthy of American politics.
On the third day, despite this betrayal of those folks who believe surreptitious product placement is akin to rape-by-media, some of us begin thinking almost involuntarily what we’d like Oprah to “buy” us for ourselves – such as complete all-expense-paid relocation to another country not taken in by such corporate greed-induced crapola …
Prague, for instance. So what if they only have one kind of toilet paper. I can cope.
Certainly those among us who grew up watching “The Millionaire” on television never stopped yearning for the sudden delivery of a fat million-dollar check, or, barring that, an adult-onset MacArthur “Genius” Award just as our money ran out.
But this is ridiculous.
Better Oprah should give Lynndie England a baby shower. You know, as in Lynndie’s Baby, an American horror story? And what better use for Martha Stewart’s prison term than crocheting a layette?
If ever a mother-to-be was biologically unfit to breed, it’s grinning “Leash Girl” Lynndie England, the prison-torture-dominatrix of Abu Ghraib, who just gave birth to a child reportedly conceived with way-warped prison guard/alleged humiliation-ringmaster Charles Graner. Imagine those genes! It’s not impossible they’ve engendered the next Rosemary’s Baby for the New Millennium.
Here’s a bipartisan issue both Dumbo-Craps and Repug-Nicans can rally around: Shouldn’t Lynndie England be the poster child for retroactive abortion? Uh, just kidding.
The thought of her as a new mother curdles my breakfast. Didn’t she use her share of government-issued condoms? Why would she of all people reproduce?
I know, I know. S-e-x? Uh, wait.Having something cute to dress up besides the pet ferret? Um, sorry. Building a better tomorrow for our communities, our country, and our world?
Promise: I’ll get it right one of these days.
