A Post-Modern Christmas

by Stephen Masty

 

T’was the day after Christmas: a knock at my door

Came loudly and suddenly. I, from mid-snore,

Threw open the portal and found with chagrin

A white-bearded fatso all reeking of gin.

“I gave at the office,” I snapped with a frown

While I gave that old wino the quick up-and-down:

He’d presumably gargled his gin, and some beers,

On a bender begun on the night-shift at Sears.

“Good man, don’t you know me?” the poor fellow cried,

“It’s Yuletide and I should be welcome inside!

“Pray, pour me a toddy, an eggnog and more,

“For I’m Father Christmas!” he cried with a roar.

 

“Then where were you yesterday, buddy?” I sneered,

While the stumble-bum mumbled and pawed at his beard:

“Our stockings hang empty, no fire in the grate,

“And no presents - my ex took the kids out of state;

 “They were sobbing that Santa had stiffed them and so,

“The broad took my Buick and off did they go.

“So, if you’re Father Christmas and telling me true,

“Then, Bozo, you’ve got some explaining to do!”

The man staggered past me and slumped in my chair,

And gave me a miserable, woebegone stare

So tragic I poured him a bourbon-and-Coke:

His mittens stopped trembling as finally he spoke,

And I shall remember for many a day

How Saint Nicholas shuddered and said, “TSA.”

 

For up at the Pole he had loaded his sleigh

As the elves and his Missus cried ‘Up and away!’

While Dasher and Dancer pulled hard as you please,

Some guys dressed in black pulled out guns and cried “Freeze!”

“They handcuffed my reindeer,” he said with no pause,

“Then they donned rubber gloves and they groped Missus Claus,

“Then they de-pantsed an elf, a young fellow named Ray,

“And what they did to Ray I would rather not say,

“But ever since then he has talked in a squeak

“And I doubt the poor chap can sit down in a week.”

 

“Why?” I demanded. Again I asked, “Why?”

And a tear trickled down from the kindly man’s eye.

He said, “In a manner both callous and crude

“They wanted to photograph us in the nude!

“But they left their machine somewhere else, and then so had

“To manually squeeze every soft bit and gonad

“While probing those parts that my reindeer keep private,

“’Til Donner and Blitzen were ready to riot,

“’Til Comet was ready to vomit and Cupid

“Was roaring to gore them and, equally stupid,

“Dear Rudolph began to short-circuit his beezer

“To send umpteen amps up one uniformed geezer.”

 

“They stared at my beard and the cap on my head:

“Asked the cops, ‘are you Mozzlem?’” Saint Nicholas said:

“These gifts are for children,” I begged with a smile,

“Then they called me a pervert, a rank paedophile.

“They unloaded the presents straight off of my sleigh

“Then they handcuffed and hooded me, took me away.

“Just where are we going, I wanted to know,

“Afraid that it might have been Guantanamo:

“I got dumped in a Washington dumpster, you see,

“Having only this gin, which I got duty-free.”

 

So I made instant coffee and gave him a cup

And after a while Old Saint Nick sobered up;

Then I logged onto Skype and the sorry old gnome

Soon spoke to his wife at their cold arctic home:

“Of course I’m not flying back,” Santa Claus said,

“I’m walking! Have you got a hole in your head?
“American airspace is something to fear,

“So American kids get no presents next year,
“But if TSA calls you, then say I’m upset:

“Merry Christmas to most, but not them and not yet!’”

 

S. Masty lives in London and Afghanistan.

Wiki Leaks Expose Presidential Weakness

by Stephen Masty

(AFT wire/11.31.2010/0954) In the rush to sort through 250,000 US government documents recently disbursed through the Internet by the website WikiLeaks, security analysts are paying closest attention to the oldest document in the package which some pundits and American political leaders claim opens a former US President to charges of treason.

“It is a grave disappointment to see an American Head of State stoop to this level, clearly intending to strengthen America’s enemies around the world and give terrorists the upper hand over our brave troops,” writes columnist David Frum for the right-of-centre U. S. magazine National Review.

 Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives, has called for a Congressional investigation leading to formal charges. Fox TV managing editor, Brit Hume, referred to the former leader as “treasonous scum.”

The contentious document, a highly-classified State Department cable, was apparently written shortly after the former top official addressed close colleagues in a private meeting in Upstate New York, speaking shortly before the end of his second presidential term.

The unsigned cable reports that: “POTUS (acronym: the President Of The United States) stated that ‘The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort’ attempting to establish principles of equivalency and interdependency between USG and oil-producing enemy states.”

“The speaker then called for severe limits to US military might in order to: ‘avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty,” the document continued.

The comments, delivered by then-US President George Washington to a largely military or ex-military audience in 1796, “referred dismissively to the American Government as merely ‘an experiment,’” the document reported, “and he repudiates domestic American, democratic, political partisanship as leading ‘at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.’ So-called exaggerated security fears may lead to dictatorship, POTUS added.”

“If he was not dead already, this George Washington guy should be impeached, waterboarded and put on trial in secret military courts because that’s the American way,” said TSA director John Pistole, speaking to The Wall Street Journal.

The official cable charged the US leader with intentionally undermining American economic growth and government policies of Quantitative Easing by stating: “As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible.”

In response, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called the speaker, Mr. Washington, “bad, dangerous and unpatriotic.”

The cable concluded, “POTUS warns against diplomatic and military ‘foreign entanglements’ quoting. ‘the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible,’” which  the cable claimed “has severe, negative implications for expanding the State Department budget in Fiscal Year 1797.”

Found on the Web by Stephen Masty

With Both Barrels: The Opt Out Edition

Today is special, of course: it’s the Feast of St. Cecilia, patroness of music. It’s also the birthday of a good friend. Happy Birthday, Laura! You are truly an amazing witness to your community.




TSA
As readers of the TIC already know, the TSA is nasty, and it seems to be getting nastier by the moment. Here’s the latest statement from the TSA Head (so-called), John S. Pistole:

We welcome feedback and comments on the screening procedures from the traveling public, and we will work to make them as minimally invasive as possible while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve. We are constantly evaluating and adapting our security measures, and as we have said from the beginning, we are seeking to strike the right balance between privacy and security. In all such security programs, especially those that are applied nation-wide, there is a continual process of refinement and adjustment to ensure that best practices are applied and that feedback and comment from the traveling public is taken into account. This has always been viewed as an evolving program that will be adapted as conditions warrant, and we greatly appreciate the cooperation and understanding of the American people. We cannot forget that less than one year ago a suicide bomber with explosives in his underwear tried to bring down a plane over Detroit. The terrorists allegedly behind the thwarted cargo attempt last month are out there bragging about how they will strike again. We all wish we lived in a world where security procedures at airports weren't necessary but that just isn't the case.

If I remember correctly (and I do), a young Dutch professional stopped the terrorism attempt and the TSA missed it during screening. I trust the Dutch private citizens far more than I trust the TSA to protect my security.

The Walls Have Ears (and Hands, too)

By John Barnes

Like most people in the U.S., when President George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I didn't see many problems with it.  We had just watched in horror as terrorists flew planes into three buildings and killed thousands of people.  They came from within and turned fully-fueled commercial aircraft into missiles.  To borrow a phrase I grew to loathe in grad school, it was a paradigm shift.

So when a college friend called me and said he was a crew leader with the contractors travelling the country transforming airport screening to federal government operations, I thought, ok, this is a big change but it's for the better.  Surely our safety required bold new measures hitherto unimagined.   A bit frustrating, yes, but I didn't see it as a big deal.  I don't fly much, anyway.  I prefer to travel the country via open road and look forward to doing so until the feds and states completely cannibalize infrastructure funding to pay for social welfare programs (that process has already begun, by the way).

But full-body scans and patdowns have caused me to think about this issue with a new sense of frustration and concern about privacy and liberties.

Fellow Imaginative Conservatives Brittany Baldwin and Brad Birzer have stirred up a hornet's nest around the interwebs pointing out the problematic (to put it mildly) aspects of the TSA’s new body scanners and too-close-for-comfort patdowns.  Brad has gone so far as to call for the TSA’s abolition, and I think his case has merit.  At the very least, it’s time for a vigorous public debate on the various domestic “security” measures and surveillance apparati that have become regular, even if unseen, parts of our lives for many years now.  The fact that one congressional leader is calling for airports to ditch the TSA is encouraging.

TSA: The American Leviathan

By Brittany Baldwin

(written yesterday evening)

I am sitting in an airport. Everything about it is sterile, bureaucratic, and inhumane. Just moments ago, I got passed the beady-eyed TSA official as he glared at me and begrudgingly signed my boarding pass, only to notice a large glass box. It looked like something from a science fiction movie. If only, that would have been much easier to bear. Instead, as I am still disgusted and a bit befuddled by the fact that it is right in front of me, the women says, “mam, this way, step inside. Lift your hands up. Put your feet on the yellow spots.” There, in the middle of the airport, I feel as if I was being watched, watched by an omnipotent aura of government officials behind some desk, snickering at me. But, the horror of it all is that it was not just a feeling—it is a reality. I see some mysterious bar pass through the glass box and go back in to hiding as I was ushered out of that cold, slimy thing. As soon as I think I have escaped the terror, a large man says, mam, please wait here. He just looks at me, as if he feels sorry for me. I tried to tell myself, he’s just doing his job, it’s not his fault the government has forgotten the Constitution. After an awkward silence, I say, “This wasn’t here last time I traveled”, and he responds, “it’s all new.” Then, I hear a voice coming through his ear, and I watch as he gets that same woman who ushered me in and out of the box and has her come over to me. She says “mam, I am going to do a lower waist pat down.” A look of horror passes over my face, and I begin to shiver. As she touches me, my embarrassment and anger boils, I contemplate quoting the 4^th amendment, yet I simply rush to get my shoes and gather my belongings.

I have been stripped of all dignity, all humanity, and all property. What does the Constitution mean if any random person can be deprived of their rights in such a graphic way any time they have a business trip, family reunion, vacation, etc. planned. What has America come to if all sense of republicanism is lost. And, in this case, all of republicanism is lost, seeing as the first republican right is the right of property, and the right to defend that property. Yet, now, in an airport run by the government, all rights are neglected. How far will we let them go before that massive government force, antithetical to the Republican militia, invades our towns, our schools, and our homes. When will it stop?

Until the 20^th century, as immigrants sailed across the ocean, and approached America, they were struck by Lady Liberty—an embodiment of American freedom and opportunity. Now, every time an immigrant finally reaches land, he is scanned by the most monstrous machine. As I still quiver, I ask myself, and I ask you, can the republic be redeemed, or has it morphed into some Leviathan too powerful even for the passionate, young college student to reckon with?